HCS Raleigh pools announced: Cloud9 and Acend headline group of death

Jordan Marney

Jordan Marney

HCS has announced the groups for its pool play portion of HCS Raleigh.

After months of anticipation, competitive Halo is back with HCS Raleigh. The best teams from around the world will be competing in Halo Infinite's first LAN of the season. There were sixteen teams who stood out among the rest and have earned themselves a seed in the tournaments pool play. Overnight HCS revealed how the groups shaped out for Raleigh's pool play, here is how the groups look:

<em>HCS Raleigh Groups. Image courtesy of HCS via Twitter</em>
HCS Raleigh Groups. Image courtesy of HCS via Twitter
  • A: OpTic Gaming, Pioneers, Bing Chilling and The Chiefs
  • B: FaZe, G2 Esports, Navi and Divine Mind
  • C: EUnited, Quadrant, Oxygen Esports and The Boys
  • D: Cloud9, Acend, Xset and Spacestation Gaming

NA vs EU out the gates in Pool D

While every pool looks strong, the pool that stands out the most as the "group of death" is pool D. Cloud9 taking on Acend is going to be a fantastic spectacle. While C9 did not look at their best over the last couple of weeks, they are still one of the kings of Halo and being back on LAN should reignite the spark.

The Cartel roster that has dominated the EMEA scene has been picked up by the organization that recently won VCT Champions, Acend. Acend (Cartel) has dominated, winning every tournament they have entered in thus far. Going up against North American competition might be the fuel they need to take their game to another level.

Filling up the last two seeds in pool D is Xset and Spacestation Gaming. While they are big underdogs when it comes to taking on C9 and Acend, fans should expect them to make this pool competitive.

Stay tuned to esportsgg for the latest Halo news and updates.