Hello and welcome to a new and improved review into the antics of Australian Counter Strike over the past week.

Highlight Long live the shuffle

With the mid year Shuffle nearly complete, I feel very excited for the next few months. While one or two teams may fall due to their ego’s, the competitiveness of the scene is bound to increase, forcing others to improve and making us stronger on the world stage.

Local Play

ZEN Esports Network League Season 1 Finals

(Note: This is a very quick summary of games relating to the Australian Teams at the LAN. For a full rundown of the event, click here to read my round up of the finals.

The Aussie campaign started with Immunity facing off against 1.6 veterans MVP.PK (South Korea). A close map on Inferno saw iM just take out the HT lead (8-7) before the Koreans stepped up and took out the map 16-14. A good first half on Nuke gave the Koreans an 11-4 advantage that was just too much for the Aussies to catch as Immunity fell to MVP.PK 16-13 and lost the close series 2-0.

The next game up saw Dark Sided vs Recca Esports (Indonesia). The first map was Mirage, and in a polar opposite to the last series, Recca completely wiped DS off the face of the earth as they ran away with the map 16-2. A somewhat stronger performance from DS on Cache gave them a few rounds but it wasn’t enough as Recca finished off 16-8 and took the series 2-0.

With both teams knocked down into the Losers Bracket, it was a fight to the death as the loser of Team Immunity v Dark Sided would be the first team knocked out. A strong T side from iM on Nuke saw them take out their T side 11-4 before finishing off the map with a confidence boosting 16-7 win. Then on Cache, a complete role reversal saw DS obliterate most of iM’s confidences as they picked up the map 16-2 and levelled the series 1-1. With the decider on Overpass, a pistol round win from DS put them in a good position, but a 2nd round force from iM gave them all the momentum, as they reversed the positions once again and took out the map 16-2 and the series 2-1.

With Dark Sided knocked out, it was Immunity taking on MVP.PK once again for a spot in the grand final. With the first map on Inferno(again) most people were expecting a similar result to the first series. Those expectations went out the door as MVP’s aggression shut out iM as the Koreans picked up the first map 16-6. With MVP now only one map away from the final, iM needed to win on Nuke(the deja vu is strong). A 7-8 T half should have given them a good shot of winning the map but once again, MVP’s aggression gave Immunity little hope as they lost the map 16-11 and were knocked out of the finals with a 2-0 defeat.

CyberGamer Premier League Season 11

Chiefs vs Tainted Minds

The first map of the week saw the two teams playing on Cobblestone. After a good start from TM, Chiefs started to pull away when they took a 10-5 lead at the half. TM were able to get the score back to 11-11 before Chiefs were able to pull away once again to 14-11. TM stood defiant though as they regained the lead and forced an OT after Chiefs won the 30th round. Chiefs then fell away, only picking up a single round as Tainted Minds took out Cobble 19-16.

The teams then went to Overpass, were Chiefs took the lead and never looked back, as they wiped the floor 16-3 with Tainted Minds to leave the series 1-1.

Athletico vs Legacy

Athletico started off strong on Nuke, getting to 9-1 quickly before Legacy were able to find their footing and win the final five rounds of the half (9-6 HT). Ath started the second half in much the same way they did the first, winning the first few rounds and placing them in a good position to win just their 2nd map of the tournament. They wouldn’t win another round in the map though as deoxiDE, Lightstep and mattcd shut down the Ath defence and gave Legacy a comeback 16-13 victory.

Meanwhile on Overpass, Ath picked up their 3rd pistol of the series as they looked to build another dominant start. Unfortunately for them, Legacy had enough of losing the early game as they won a third round force (2-1) and never really looked back, picking up their CT half 10-5 and then the map 16-6 (series 2-0) after a powerful T side quickly brought proceedings to a end.

Greyhound vs Dark Sided

The first map in this delayed series (supposed to be played during the Asian minor) saw a closely fought battle on Overpass. Grayhound (ex-Immunity) had full control of the first half, taking it 11-4 on their CT side. Their control slipped away however as DS showed what they could do on their own CT side. However it was a mountain too high for them to climb as Grayhound picked up their second Overpass win over DS this week 16-13.

Cache then saw more of the same, as DS took the first half quite convincingly 10-5 on their CT side. The Deja vu got even stronger however as Grayhound started to comeback. But as this map was all but a carbon copy of the last map, the team who started on the CT side (DS in this case) held out just long enough to take out the map 16-12 and end the series 1-1 to end week in CGPL.

Dreamhack Masters Malmo Asian Closed Qualifer

In even more coincidences this week, both Grayhound and Dark Sided represent Australia’s hope in a International setting.

Grayhound’s first opponent was B.O.O.T-dream[S]cape (Singapore). Starting on Train, Grayhound seemed to have the early advantage, introducing the AUCS meta of winning the second round after losing pistol to dreamScape and holding onto the lead at halftime 8-7. Now you would think going onto the CT side on Train, you would have a good chance of winning the map. Normally you should, but the Singaporeans had other ideas, utterly demolishing Grayhound’s defences as they cruised to a 16-8 victory heading onto the second map.

Inferno should have given the Aussies hope of a decider, but it was more flashbacks to last Sunday as B.O.O.T-dream[S]cape did two better than MVP.PK, as they set fire to Grayhounds hopes and dreams of another International Tournament with a 16-4 crushing which closed their relatively easy 2-0 victory. dream[S]cape now face off against ViCi for a spot in the final.

Meanwhile for Dark Sided, their series against TheMongolz did not go well. Inferno saw another Aussie bloodbath as the Mongolians tore up DS’s defences with an 11-4 half on their T side before ending the map 16-5.

With their backs against the wall, DS turned up on Overpass. Knowing with another loss, Australia’s hope would come down to Dreamhack allowing VAC’d players to play in their tournaments and inviting Chiefs to the main comp, DS took a 9-6 lead at the half from their CT side. They became nearly unstoppable as they forced a decider with a 16-9 win.

The decider on Cache was a very close game. A tight first half saw DS only take a one round lead at the half (8-7) before TheMongolz started to pull away, eventually picking up the 16 required as they booked a date with TyLoo, with a 16-12 (2-1 series) win over Dark Sided.

WPGI Season 2

This week in WPGI, Yeah The Boys defeated Trident.fe 16-3, Athletico demolished Corvidae.fe 16-1 and Fusion Girls beat Control 16-8.

Local News

A lot of news comes out this week as the #oceshuffle started to reach its climax. This week started with dexter from Tainted Minds announcing that he would be leaving the playing squad.

But the big news this week came from Immunity, who have left their org to join start up Grayhound Gaming. prakM was also announced as their new 5th. We all wish the org and their players well.

Meanwhile from the Legacy camp, spiKez announced his departure from the Legacy org.

In more news from TM this week, liazz also announced his departure from the squad. His (and dexter’s) replacements are rumoured to be Kyoto and ap0c (of Winterfox fame).

On Friday, a new team was announced as Kings Esports Club came into existence. Their squad includes wizard, liazz, hatz, sico and emagine.

Thank you all for reading as always, and a big thanks to Nutterres for his editing work.

See you next week, bye for now.