The Recap - EP11

by OnlyJoshinTV

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

Yes, we’re still new even after Episode 11. We’ll be NEW forever.

Just the Tip – The ANZ CS Podcast

You may have seen it on X/Twitter—DFrag now has its own CS2 podcast titled Just the Tip with Karath, Harper Tabb, Elfishguy and Pilski! The first episode recently premiered and you can find the entire episode here.

You can watch the gang discuss the past, the present and the future of the ANZ CS2 scene. I’m thankful that we’re having more people having a go rather than paying lip service or doing nothing.

There are too many opportunities to grow and cover the scene further that go missing because people only think of their own short-term impacts rather than the long-term impacts of the scene.

Catch the next episode of Just the Tip soon, you can watch it live via Twitch or wait until it goes live on YouTube!

Housebets enters the ANZ Scene

Bad News Kangaroos managed to keep this one a secret from everybody, announcing on August 9th that they have been signed by Housebets, a crypto betting agency/sportsbook/casino.

I was wondering when BNK were going to be picked up by an organisation as they were only going from strength to strength with new members apocdud and Omichella. Omi has been incredibly impressive in this week’s ESL Challenger League with an overall rating of 1.55 against one of their main rivals The Art of War.

ESL Challenger League Results

Tuesday 13^th August 2024

• FlyQuest 2-0 DXA (13-4, 13-5)
• KZG 2-0 Mantra Flow (13-4, 13-2)
• Rooster 1-1 Arcade (6-13, 13-3)
• Mindfreak 2-0 Vantage (13-11, 13-8)
• Housebets 2-0 The Art of War (13-8, 13-5)

Thursday 15^th August 2024

• KZG 1-1 Vantage (8-13, 16-13)

Featured Game – FlyQuest v DXA

FlyQuest  returned from Cologne for their first official league game against the local upstarts in DXA. FlyQuest didn’t really need to get out of second gear as they won both matches, 13-4 on Dust 2 and 13-5 on Vertigo.

One of the highlights in the series was not from FlyQuest but from DXA’s Zuko who completed an impressive 1v3 to win a round in Dust 2. Something to note: DXA won all 4 pistol rounds. I find that a bit odd given that FlyQuest had won two eco rounds with just USPs in Cologne. Maybe DXA knows something that BIG and The Mongolz don’t.

It was not unexpected that FlyQuest would be able to dismantle DXA with their eyes closed but it is good to see FlyQuest in the ECL action.

Featured Game – Housebets v The Art of War

The other surprising game was Housebets against The Art of War. After a disastrous exit at the ANZC Locals, The Art of War’s collapse in form continued with Housebets dominating viridian’s beleaguered squad.

Damyo (1.43 rating on Inferno) and Omichella (1.91 rating on Nuke) ran rampant over the Art of War who have never really recovered from their Bo3 loss to Arcade at the ANZC Locals Sydney Winter 2024.

The duo of Terryyy and BaN4na seemed well contained by Housebets and they could never really get going. Their combined average rating was roughly 1.00 across the entire series which is a far cry from their normal ratings of 1.11 for BaN4na and 1.40 for Terryyy in the previous months.

The Art of War really need to bounce back into form quickly as the ESL Atlanta Closed Qualifiers and the Perfect World Asia RMR Oceania Open Qualifiers are around the corner.

ESL Challenger Atlanta Closed Qualifiers

The ESL Challenger Atlanta Closed Qualifiers start this Wednesday with The Art of War taking on Housebets and Rooster taking on Mindfreak in the initial upper bracket rounds.

The closed qualifiers are going to be incredibly close with Rooster and Housebets having to re-constitute their firepower after losing key components such as nettik, HaZR and ADDICT to Talon.

Meanwhile, the upstarts in Mindfreak and The Art of War having been slowly gaining ground on Rooster and Housebets. I feel like this qualifier could go literally anywhere as all 4 teams have a shot at winning an opportunity to play overseas and experience different styles of CS2. I’m expecting for Housebets to qualify as I believe that Omichella has finally clicked with the roster.

Tune into the action at 3:30pm AEST on Wednesday August 21.

Perfect World Asia RMR Oceania Open Qualifiers

And just after the Atlanta Qualifiers finish, we have the Shanghai Major looming around the corner! The Oceania open qualifiers start on Friday at 4pm AEST which is a slight improvement compared to the earlier timeslot of 2pm AEST. I’d like to thank the ChallengerMode admins who advocated tirelessly to have this time changed.

The main attraction is that we’ll have the two new teams in Talon and Semper Fi participating in the Open Qualifiers. It is expected that Semper Fi and Talon would qualify. Perfect World have advised that it will be completely random seeding which may mean that Talon and Semper Fi could play each other in the Open Qualifier. 

I hope that this doesn’t happen and that they play a huge Bo3 in the Closed Qualifier instead! That would be a massive series for the scene overall!

That is all for the Recap—I can’t wait for the end of this week!