The Recap - 2025 EP02

Written by Joshua "OnlyJoshin" Warmington

Welcome to The Recap, the content series covering Counter-Strike in the ANZ region with a touch of global action here and there. The Recap covers our region, from ESEA Open, ECL, and global events, to local LAN and online tournaments hosted here at home.

IEM Melbourne 2025 is coming: Have you booked?

The secret is out! ESL is heading back to Australia with IEM Melbourne set for April.

The world's best teams are coming to us with the top six playing in front of a live crowd at the Rod Laver Arena. A total of $1 million ($300k to players, $700k to orgs) will be up for grabs as well as important VCS points!

Tickets are on sale this Thursday and judging by the response from fans you'll need to get in quick! More details can be found here.

The bad news: FlyQuest withdraw from ECL

As noted in our recent article, FlyQuest has withdrawn from the ECL in pursuit of their tier one aspirations. FlyQuest president and chief gaming officer PapaSmithy cited similar reasons to M80, who stepped away from the North America’s ECL to focus on tier one events and protect their Valve Ranking System (VRS) points from upsets.

FlyQuest’s withdrawal will be a blow to the local scene who may have limited scrims and officials against them.

The good news: FlyQuest snaps their Brazilian Hoodoo at the BLAST Bounty

FlyQuest has defeated MIBR in a 2-0 at the BLAST Bounty which was the first official match for their new Romanian AWPer regali. Regali’s presence was felt in both maps with a 1.26 rating across the series, completely stifling MIBR’s AWPer saffee from having any impact on the series.

FlyQuest  selected Spirit in the next stage of the BLAST Bounty (not by choice as they were last to pick), but they were handily slaughtered by donk. Donk recorded a 2.30 rating across the entire series with 141 ADR which buried FlyQuest. FlyQuest only recorded four rounds across the entire series. FlyQuest will have to lick their wounds and prepare for their next tournament at IEM Katowice in 29th January 2025

Fellow countryman jks at Team Liquid finished at the same position as FlyQuest with a 2-0 victory over 9Pandas. They fell to a stunning reverse sweep by HEROIC who had formed a new team after Falcons took their core; sjuush was recruited by NIP, while Nertz was picked up by Liquid.

Semper Fi impress at eXTREMESLAND 2024

SemperFi, the lone Australian representative at eXTREMESLAND made it to the playoffs but were eliminated by Savage’s former team of JiJieHao in the quarter-finals 2-0. I felt that SemperFi really should have won Inferno with their huge lead but their CT side lacked heavily.

SemperFi’s journey to the playoffs was a gritty affair with 2-1 series victories over Oni Clan and IHC. Their series against IHC deserves praise with their brave comeback to tie the scores at 12-12 after being 12-10 down on a force buy.

Their grit and resilience in the overtime shone through and this is likely what broke IHC. The Latvian duo of Keen and shadiy were immense with a rating of 1.13 and 1.08 over the series.

ESEA Open Season 52 and ECL Season 51 commences

ESEA Open kicked off its season earlier this week with 63 teams registered. Previously, FACEIT ANZ staff member Mosswi mentioned that if the league reached 70 teams that they may consider an intermediate division.

There hasn’t been any notable games in the ESEA Open as the first few games of the season are usually teams on the cusp of ECL glory beating on lower amateur teams. We do expect brojay and co, Canon Event, Trident and McPork to be in the top eight after 10 games.

Underground ESC has replaced FlyQuest in ECL after their withdrawal. Underground ESC has picked up Omichella after Housebets picked up pz as a dedicated AWPer.

The ECL season starts with a triple header start on January 22, 23, and 28. The main stream will feature Rooster vs. Mindfreak (Jan. 22) and Talon vs. Justice tomorrow (Jan. 23).

After a long summer break, Counter-Strike is finally back, baby! Stay tuned to more from us at DFRAG!