The Recap - EP25

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.

The ANZC x DFrag Spark Cup

It was an anti-climatic end to the ANZC x DFrag Sparks Cup with Rooster taking home the trophy due to a forfeit win over FarmMergeValley. I’m getting conflicting stories on both sides on what the issues are, but I’d prefer a game being played than a forfeit.

The good news is that 23 teams signed up for effectively an ESEA Cash Cup-style event with double elimination and Bo3s for the lower bracket, consolidation and grand finals.

The previous ESEA Cash Cups rarely got over six to eight teams and were mostly PUG teams instead of big names like Mindfreak, Housebets, Vantage, and Rooster.

There was also a dedicated broadcast from Vantage with Onipotence, Monitor303 and Hoackz. Eddie “viri” Azzi was also casting a few games as well. I did join in for a half at like 3am in the morning after returning from a DreamHack Sweden afterparty though!

It is great to see that we can deliver a quality broadcast for these events despite having a heavy drought on delta ticks. I hope these tournaments will be a monthly thing heading into the future.

ESL Impact Season 6 Finals

Vivienne "BiBiAhn" Quach was back in action with FlyQuest Red in Stockholm, but the result was still the same as FlyQuest RED was eliminated short of the playoffs.

The beloved FlyQuest RED squad has been struggling at the recent Impact tournaments. They haven’t even won a series at a Finals for three consecutive tournaments.

They did have a close series against NAVI Javelins who were runners up at previous events but ultimately fell short. It was a bit frustrating on the final map of Dust 2 as FlyQuest RED was up 6-3 but managed just one round in the second half. BiBiAhn finished the event with a 1.10 rating.

It is another disappointing event for FlyQuest RED and it adds salt to the wounds following their relegation from ESEA Advanced.

The event hosted a lot of Australian talent and spectators with myself, Aussie Antics, Ash (Aisling), Mac, Lucy, Kerrie, and Ben Lodge present. The Dreamhack Stockholm organisers and spectators were surprised with the number of Aussies at this event.

However, I dispute that Ben "BensLodge" Green actually exists because he took a photo of me but didn’t say hi to me. He could be a figment of my imagination.

The Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024

The Major begins on November 30 and all the teams are eagerly awaiting the next Valve Regional Standings to see who will make it to the Elimination Stage and who’ll play through the Opening Stage. FlyQuest has returned to China to practice against the top teams in the world.

The Aussie boys will open their major campaign against Complexity on Nov. 30 at 3pm AEDT.

We’ll have a lot of co-streams for FlyQuest’s campaign to either glory, failure or just f*****g everyone’s PickEms (again).

We’re all looking forward to how FlyQuest performs —I’m personally expecting them to make it to the elimination stage.

That’s all for this week!