The spotlight this weekend belongs to competitive Halo 5 as pros descend on California for sci-fi carnage.
While OpTic remain the kings of Microsoft’s first-person shooter, their dominance looks as fragile as ever in the face of rising contenders on all sides. Elsewhere in esports, the best Smash players have two long days ahead of them while Hearthstone’s greatest minds work on their tans and Shaman combos under palm trees in the Caribbean-hosted Winter Championship.
Below you’ll find where and when you can catch all the weekend’s biggest events in competitive gaming. Let us know what you’ll be watching in the comments or if you think there’s something we might have missed.
Halo 5
The Halo 5 World Championship comes to a head this weekend with the best teams in the world facing off for $1,000,000 in prize money. While OpTic Gaming looks to defend its title from last year, other teams, like Liquid and Luminosity will do try to stop that from happening.
Matches resume today with the semifinals at 1:00PM EDT and will run through 10:00PM EDT tonight with the grand finals schedule for 5:30PM EDT Sunday evening. You can watch most of the matches in the stream embedded below, with games on the second stage available here.
League of Legends
Regular play in League of Legends continues today with the conclusion of the spring season’s ninth week. Play will wrap up in Europe first with Team Vitality vs. H2K at 11:00AM EDT, followed by Giants vs. Fnatic at 2:00PM EDT.
Action kicks off in North America with Immortals vs. Counter Logic Gaming and Team Liquid vs. Team Solo Mid both at 3:00PM EDT today, meaning it’s pretty good odds that Liquid won’t escape the relegation zone for yet another weekend.
Overnight, South Korea will see games at 4:00AM and 7:00AM EDT with Afreeca Freecs playing Longzhu Gaming in the first of those. Meanwhile, in China, Royal Never Give Up will look to maintain its position at the top of Group A with a match against Vici Gaming at 6:00AM EDT tomorrow morning.
You can find all of the matches streaming live on each region’s respective channel (NA, EU, China, Korea).
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
The Esport Championship Series 3 returns with a vengeance this weekend featuring semifinals today at 2:00PM EDT pitting Europe’s VirtusPro against Space Soldiers and Fnatic against North, while on this side of the pond Complexity plays Renegades at 7:00PM EDT followed by Team SoloMid vs. Bee’s Money Crew on Sunday.
The games will be streamed live on YouTube right here.
Hearthstone
The moment Hearthstone fans have been waiting for is finally here as the 2017 HTC Winter Championship gets underway in the Bahamas. Come to see the young reigning champ Pavel stare existentially off into the ocean and stay for potential upsets as Blizzard’s collectible card game works through some ongoing growing pains.
Games began today earlier this morning and will go through 8:00PM EDT this evening, while the lead-up to the grand finals kicks off on Sunday at noon. You can watch everything live here.
Overwatch
The Carbon Series returns this weekend to close out its finals. A round-robin phase has left the semifinals seeded with Immortals vs. Complexity Gaming in the first leg, followed by LG Evil vs. Renegades in the second. The matches begin today at 6:00PM EDT, with the grand finals slated for Sunday at 8:15PM EDT.
Those matches, including the third-place consolation bout, will be streamed live here.
Smash Bros.
We have a full weekend of Smash ahead of us with both Full Bloom 3 celebrating the beginning of spring across Melee featuring Hungrybox, Mang0, Leffen and the rest, and 2GG’s Civil War tournament for Smash 4 showcasing ZeRo, Ally, Larry Lurr and others.
You can watch the matches for Civil War here, with Singles play going all day starting at 1:00PM EDT while Top 8 is scheduled for tomorrow at 5:00PM EDT, followed by the Civil War main attraction at 9:00PM EDT.
Meanwhile Full Bloom will be streamed here, with the Melee bracket kicking off at 6:00PM EDT tonight.
Street Fighter V
The Game Over Tournament is the next stop on the Capcom Pro Tour this weekend as players gather in the Dominican Republic to increase their rank.. Pool play resumes at 6:40PM EDT today, followed by Top 8 play beginning Sunday at 6:15PM EDT.
You can stream the tournament live here.
Rocket League
North America gets started today at 3:00PM EDT with Genesis vs. Atelier while Denial Esports and Selfless Gaming will wrap things up at 6:20PM EDT. In Europe on Sunday it’s Team Secrecy vs. The Leftovers at 12:00PM EDT, bookended by Mock-It Esports and Cow Nose later in the afternoon at 3:20PM EDT.
Those games will all be streamed live here.
Smite
Things kick off this weekend in the world of Smite as LGE face Obey at 1:00PM EDT today, with more matches following into the evening, while on Sunday play resumes at the same time with Noble vs. Soar.You can watch those matches here.
Vainglory
On the third week of its spring season, The action begins at 12:00PM EDT today with Fnatic vs. G2 Esports in Europe followed by Immortals vs. Hammers Esports in Nort America at 4:30PM EDT. A full schedule for the entire season is available here.
You can watch all of the games live right here.