Texas A&M Esports announced open tryouts Feb. 5-6 for a new Halo Infinite team, just in time to enter the Ultimate Gaming Championship, or UGC, Spring League.
Kory Caballero, an environmental design sophomore who leads A&M’s Halo team, said he has been trying to organize a UGC competition for some time. Caballero goes by gamertag “Mika7036.” The Aggies will compete against 100 universities from across the U.S. and Canada at the UGC tournament for the cash grand prize of $4,000. The UGC competition will open on Feb. 8.
Tryouts for Team Halo are restricted to full-time A&M students. The two-day tryout will be Saturday and Sunday; registrants will be sent a link for the competition. To register for tryouts, visit the TAMU Halo discord at https://discord.gg/JSuSxmmt. On Monday, Feb. 7, the Esports team roster will be announced on the TAMU Halo Discord server based on review of competition footage.
Caballero said he is considering streaming the tryouts along with live commentary, but the streaming link has not been released yet.
This is the first year of Aggies playing Halo competitively, Caballero said. It will be a learning year for the Aggies, and Caballero said he hopes to lead the team for a few more years.
UGC released the announcement of the Spring League earlier this year, which immediately caught Caballero’s attention since he said he views the company as very reputable on a global level.
According to the UGC official rulebook, the platform for the UGC tournament will be held over PC and Xbox. Broadcasting will be held on a streaming service that is yet to be released to the public. The regular season will consist of seven-week regular-season night games, where each division will host eight teams. A&M will face opposing teams in its division twice before playoffs begin. Each division will be randomly selected with other universities. The top qualifying teams from each division will enter the playoffs.
Playoffs will be held in a double-elimination tournament bracket, capped by a final championship on April 16 at 2 p.m.
The Halo Infinite tournament will be held in battles of best-of-five games and will be played within four modes: Slayer, Strongholds, Capture the Flag and Oddball.
The 10-week session tournament is slated to begin at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 8. Broadcasting for the tournament kicks off at 7 p.m. and will last until 9 p.m. on Tuesday.
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