For a long time we’ve considered the possibility of hosting our own Halo tournament and through the generosity of the community and in partnership with ForgeHub, we’re able to finally announce our very first event: the Fiesta Frenzy Tournament! Taking inspiration from the competitive aspects of Halo and the hectic nature of Super Fiesta, we’re giving Halo 5: Guardians a send out like no other in a tournament never considered.

This is part of a larger event with ForgeHub where the Forge community has created maps specifically for this tournament. If you’ve been following us or ForgeHub on social media lately, you may have already caught glimpses of some of the maps entered into the Forge contest that will be played on. Once judging is complete, the top picks will be sprinkled into the tournament bracket along with developer maps. We’re excited to partner with ForgeHub on their last Forge contest before Halo Infinite arrives in December. With the results of the Forge contest expected in the first week in November, we’re happy to announce our tournament dates:

• Saturday, November 13th, 2021: Noon EST (9AM PST, 5PM GMT)
• Sunday, November 14th, 2021: 1PM EST (10AM PST, 6PM GMT)

In typical competitive Halo fashion, we are putting together an HCS-style bracket with Super Fiesta game modes of Slayer, Capture the Flag, Strongholds and Oddball with some slight tweaks we’ve made to balance out the increased amount of power weapons and optimize scoring along with game time. We thoroughly tested these game modes and think they’ll provide a good balance, at least as much as we can muster given we’re dealing with Super Fiesta weapons. Notably, the following settings have changed:

• Pod Fiesta Slayer: No changes
• Pod Fiesta Oddball: Carrier shield Percentage 120%
• Pod Fiesta Strongholds: Scoring frequency 5 seconds; Score to win 75
• Pod Fiesta 3 Flag: Carrier shield Percentage 120%
• Pod Fiesta 5 Flag: Carrier shield Percentage 120%

We’ve also partnered with Europa Halo and Halo Création to bring their Arbiter production tournament tools to our stream! For those who don’t know, Arbiter is a powerful, community-built tool that brings tournament management capabilities and bracket display on stream to a very functional and easy-to-use interface. We’re excited to use this tool and see how it enhances viewership for this one-of-a-kind event. If you want to get a glimpse of what Arbiter can do, check out this Twitter post.

Now for the juicy details you’re probably wanting to hear, the tournament prize pot. With the generosity of the Podtacular community through Twitch subscriptions, Patreon patrons and donations, we are able to offer a $2000 prize pool coinciding with the $2000 ForgeHub contest for a total of $4000 for the Fiesta Frenzy partnership! The prize pool breaks down as follows:

• 1st place team: $1000
• 2nd place team: $650
• 3rd place team: $350

Sign ups are available now and close November 6th at 9PM EDT or when the maximum 32 teams have registered. Learn more about the tournament rules and sign up for the tournament here.