The Recap - 2025 EP04

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.

DFRAG Invitational Open Qualifiers: Semper Fi survives scare

The open qualifiers for our very own DFRAG Invitational had many a twist and turn, with heavy favourites SemperFi impacted heavily. The Aussie-Latvian squad was forced to look for two emergency substitutes as both SaVage and vision were unable to play as they were in Japan.

SemperFi had to forfeit their opening game which meant they would need to make a massive lower bracket run. Fortunately, KraxyT and w0mbat were available at short notice to help begin the run.

Other than SemperFi, other ECL teams in Underground ESC and JFT Esports stepped up in the competition and were also expected to qualify. However, Underground fell into the lower bracket and were gobbled up by the rampant SemperFi.

SemperFi, JFT, and the relatively unknown BBBMBCBS team made it through to the open qualifiers. The BBBMBCBS roster does have some familiar faces such as Muffin and DirtyAmerican who were mainstays in the ESEA Premier previously.

For the purposes of seeding, JFT took the no. six seed, Semper Fi took the no. seven seed and BBBMBCBS took the no. eight seed.

The opening matchups for the closed qualifier this weekend are:

• Housebets vs. BBBMBCBS
• DXA vs. Semper Fi
• Mantra vs. Vantage
• KZG vs. JFT

The top four teams will qualify to the main event and the closed qualifiers are all double elimination and Bo3s.

The closed qualifiers will be live on DFRAG TV and DFRAG TV B.

A Feast of Tournaments: Euro Pro League

The European Pro League has hosted an unranked tournament in the Oceania region with teams receiving notice five days before the event. Vantage, Rooster, Housebets, KZG, Semper Fi, Mindfreak, Underground, and the Art of War were all invited.

The groups were

• Group A
  • Vantage
  • Rooster
  • Housebets
  • KZG
• Group B
  • SemperFi
  • Mindfreak
  • Underground
  • The Art of War

The focus was on SemperFi, the clear favourites for the tournament, and they wasted no time in qualifying with a straight 2-0.

The key upset in the tournament was Vantage taking down Rooster 2-1 with new player swerzieN from Eternal Fire Academy. The main player under the spotlight was Drox who went 1.37 rating across all maps.

BLAST Rising Asia Spring 2025

While European Pro League was going on, the closed qualifiers for BLAST Rising Spring in Lisbon, Portugal started. With four spots up for grabs and six Australian teams, you would expect two Aussies to make it through at least, right?

Well, three of them (DXA, Semper Fi and Rooster) were put together in Group D, with Housebets left stranded alone in a group with Fated Rise, JiJiehao and Rare Atom. Mindfreak was in Group B with Chinggis and Eruption, and The Art of War were with Gods Reign, UR and Shika.

The first elimination rounds were a nightmare with four Australian teams knocked out in the lower bracket (DXA, Mindfreak, Housebets and The Art of War).

DXA is a relatively new team overall and was bundled out by Rooster. Mindfreak was rattled by their initial defeat against Reason. They managed to claw back a map against Chinggis but the Mongolian squad was always going to be too strong for them.

Housebets had no hope. You’re playing against two of the best Chinese teams and the best Middle East team? In the immortal words of Chappell Roan, “GOOD LUCK, BABE!”

The Art of War is going through a turbulent time where a consistent squad was hard to maintain, and thus, their early exit was expected.

Rooster took on Just Swing in Group D with a Rooster win confirming at least one Aussie team would make it to the next stage. TjP rose to the occasion with a 1.11 rating across three maps. It looked bleak early on as Rooster lost their map pick of Nuke in a gruelling 16-13 overtime.

However, with guts and grit, they snatched away Dust 2 13-9. They went on to win Inferno with an epic denial of a plant on the 24th round of Inferno by Sliimey to book a date with SemperFi.

It was a duel of fates as SemperFi took on Rooster once again but this time with all the chips on the line. The winner made it to the BLAST Rising Asia event while the loser went home.

Both teams trade map picks with a rather uninteresting scoreline (13-5 on both maps) but Rooster came out with the cleaner set of heels on Nuke.

A fateful Tec-9 A rush completely flattened SemperFi in the 18th round giving Rooster an unassailable 11-7 lead.

This rattled SemperFi’s economy, and they hopelessly watched Rooster decimate their remaining force buys to book their spot into the BLAST Rising Asia Spring 2025 tournament.

This has been a crazy fortnight given that I was looking to having a few days off.

However, we won’t be—PGL Bucharest is having their open qualifiers with the first one starting on Feb. 14! There are four qualifiers with the second starting on the Feb. 16, third on Feb. 20 and the last one on Feb. 22!