This weekend’s DFRAG Invitational was a bit of a swansong for Will “yourwombat” Allchin and Housebets, but should it be their final event together, they certainly went out with a bang.
Housebets cleared their group stage with wins over Mindfreak and ex-TALON, the latter of which secured an early grand final spot on Saturday. Yourwombat and the crew ran out of gas on Sunday, however, falling to Rooster and SemperFi.
“I think we were pretty confident we'd make it to the final day,” yourwombat said to DFRAG, adding Housebets were surprised they’d land the 2-1 win over ex-TALON given how stacked the group was.
“After the first day, I think we just had so much confidence that we were playing well that no matter who we played, even though we knew it was going to be a close game—every single game we play is really competitive.”
Housebets returned to Australia after a short stint in Stockholm for ESL Pro League Season 21. They picked up the spot after FlyQuest took out ESL Challenger Atlanta, netting OCE the slot at the big event. Unfortunately, Housebets struggled against their higher-ranked opponents, managing just 22 rounds in their three Bo3s.
Yourwombat explains they didn’t have the support for anything like solid preparation or a bootcamp like peers Mindfreak, and that they were confident heading into every game regardless.
“I don't think there's a Counter-Strike player that doesn't feel confident going into any match. I think you'll just never succeed if you’re not. That obviously didn't help on the scoreboard,” he laughed.
“I think the European teams are just so much better at disrupting and gaining momentum, they're just super sharp. Unfortunately we couldn't put them down. I think if we were able to win a couple pistol rounds or a couple rifle rounds over there, we could start building confidence. We didn't, and we got wiped.”
Between EPL and now the exit at DFRAG, the chances that Housebets will make the all-important MRQ for the Austin Major are becoming slim. Should they slip out of the running, yourwombat foresees a few changes for the roster—notably, him.
“If we're not in the MRQ, I'm not sure what pz, apocdud, and damyo will do,” he said. “I'm studying for a masters so I was just like, if we make the MRQ, I'm playing. If we don't, then I'll just focus on my studies."
He also let slip that in-game leader Toby “BRACE” Barnes is looking at shifting into ex-TALON as their new captain. Whether that comes before the MRQ or not isn’t yet certain.
“It's kind of like the last LAN together [at DFRAG] unless we make the major. It would be very nice, but yeah, we'll see.”
At the very least, if this is the end for yourwombat (for now), he’s a lot happier with where the OCE scene is compared to its health around COVID. A vital factor going forward is the continued growth of relationship between Oceania and Asia in CS.
Yourwombat spent time at both the biggest orgs Down Under and with teams inter-region, most notably with Enigma Gaming at the Skyesports Masters in 2023. He believes true growth for both regions comes with more interconnectedness—something we’ve seen quite a bit of this year so far.
“I think it's really good to see and it'd be really cool to start seeing more practice and more competitions in the region between both the OCE and Asian teams, and not just us being isolationists,” yourwombat said.
“Pre-COVID there are a lot of events where we could go to China or go wherever in Asia to go and play LAN and we actually felt like we were a region where it was the other teams that were able to compete in these smaller events.
“I think now that it's coming back when Australian teams and Asian teams are getting an opportunity to compete with each other again, we're becoming more of a region again, and it's really cool to see.”
As for inter-regional growth, yourwombat acknowledges it has improved but there’s only so much that’s possible in Oceania alone, an upper ceiling to a team’s ability to compete.
“I think it's hard not to be a little bit pessimistic if you're just going to be able to practice in Australia because we don't have that many people,” he said. “We don't have that much investment compared to overseas.”
“Even when I was in India, every single team was getting paid even though the quality of players was a lot lower. Here, it's more just people's passion project.”
.@yourwombat clutches out the 1v2 🥶 pic.twitter.com/zaMYuEYPAR
— dfragtv (@dfragtv) March 23, 2025
The contrast couldn’t be greater than yourwombat’s EPL experience, where the team in their limited practice time could still line up scrims at any time of the day.
“I don't really see how we can catch up without more money and more people going full time. When we're in Europe, you can book scrims every hour of every day. All the time you can play, deathmatch is always full, retakes are always full. In Australia, servers die after a certain amount of time and before 5pm, everything's empty, you can't get scrims before a certain time… you just can't practice as much as you can overseas. It's just not possible.”
Yourwombat’s solution: Adjust how OCE teams learn and focus on adaptability in the mid round. “I think the way Australian teams can have an edge is just being super sharp and coming with super cool game plans. It's unrealistic to expect our players to perform as well as the Euros in broken down rounds where you're not running a script.”
Yourwombat and Housebets head home from the DFRAG Invitational in fourth spot, while the remaining teams battle for the title on Sunday, March 23.
