(GotFrag) - The top Halo 3 teams in MLG’s Toronto tournament were tangled in a love triangle complicated enough for daytime talk shows. First, Final Boss dropped Walshy from its roster. Walshy joined up with Instinct, while Final Boss picked up Neighbor, a top scorer who previously played for Str8 Rippin. Str8 Rippin replaced Neighbor with Snipedown and went on to beat out both Instinct and Final Boss.

David “Walshy” Walsh, at 24 years old, is the league’s oldest pro and the center of all this drama. Going in to the Toronto tournament, he said he felt like a guinea pig for the league. “Everyone wants to know: what’s the year that’s your prime?” he said. Indeed, there was speculation about whether Walshy still had the skills to play competitively. He was going to need to prove himself to those critics, his former teammates, and to himself.

Walshy was eager to play against Final Boss. He acknowledged that there were still some hard feelings. After all, he’d played with the team for four years and had been less than thrilled to leave. His main concern about facing his old teammates, though, was that he might be too emotional. Spectators expected just that, and there was debate in the crowd over whether Walshy would choke under the pressure. But he practiced hard in the weeks between Orlando and Toronto. “Even when I was eating, I was watching videos of the games,” he said.

Meshing with his new team involved more than just playing together, although Instinct did practice regularly before Toronto. It also meant getting to know each other, hanging out, and learning to work together. To help build a team bond, the guys saw Tropic Thunder together before the tournament, and shared a hotel room in Toronto. All that time spent together helps keep the players on the same page. “We come here to play for this weekend together. I feel like being together is everything,” Walshy said.

While it was obvious that Walshy’s emotions were running high, he wasn’t the only one with big hopes for the weekend. Instinct had the overwhelming support of fans and fellow gamers in all of its matches. Even Str8 Rippin player Tsquared said he’d prefer to face Instinct in the finals rather than Final Boss. That was partly because Str8 had a 3-1 lead on Instinct versus a 3-2 lead against Final Boss, but he also noted that his team was better friends with Instinct.

That sportsmanship between the two teams was clearly visible to anyone watching their two main stage matches. The players laughed and talked casually with each other between rounds. Both teams wanted first place, but they also both wanted to take down Final Boss.

As expected, Neighbor led his new team in frags throughout the tournament and made life hard for his opponents. Still, that wasn’t quite enough to take Final Boss to the top this time. On the other hand, Walshy didn’t always lead his team in kills, but the four had great success in objective-based games like Capture the Flag and King of the Hill. Walshy gives credit to his new teammates for that, saying they’re more willing to sit down and work on strategies together than his Final Boss teammates were.

After Instinct and Final Boss were both kicked to the losers’ bracket by Str8 Rippin, the time came for the two teams to face off and decide who would go to the final round. The crowd was intense, but Walshy’s face didn’t betray his emotions. As Instinct’s players gave each other high fives and pats on the back, they looked like old friends, or at least a tight-knit team on a mission. As the round started, some in the crowd murmured that Walshy’s play wasn’t up to par, but he got focused quickly, and the crowed positively roared when he scored in Capture the Flag. It would be a close match, with Final Boss winning Team Slayer and Instinct winning Capture the Flag and King of the Hill. But in the final round of Oddball, Instinct utterly embarrassed Final Boss, with a score of 80 to 250. Walshy jumped up from his seat and held his arms up in victory. With one match still to go, he’d already gotten the redemption he had come for.

When asked on stage how he felt about beating his old teammates, Walshy couldn’t stop from gloating just a little. “It was like taking candy from a baby,” he said.

The final match was between Instinct and Str8 Rippin, and the crowd was pumped for Instinct to win. Fellow pro players started chants for Walshy and his teammates, including the slightly ridiculous sounding “Roy’s our boy,” and “Soviet is a beast.” There were also calls of “Walshy for president.” Nonetheless, it was a tight match, and Str8 Rippin pulled ahead at the end to take first place. “I am somewhat disappointed because I know we definitely could’ve taken first,” Walshy said. “I think we just overlooked Str8 a little at first.”

In the end, Instinct didn’t take first, but no one was going to sniff at their hard-earned second place finish, and Walshy had a chance to prove that this old pro isn’t going away any time soon.


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