The best from Aussie and Kiwi Esports this week!
It was a huge week in esports, as The Overwatch League kicked off. It was a promising start, with good viewer numbers and some exciting play. Hopefully we see a few more team compositions as Stage 1 continues. Elsewhere Aussie team Mindfreak qualified for the Rainbow Six Invitational, Order won the Wesg Apac Regionals and some homegrown PUBG competition produced some exciting results.
Be sure to head over and check out the rest of the esports hub! Remember you can email tips to me [email protected] or you can just click to send me an email. If you want, you can tweet suggestions at me as well, my twitter is down the bottom of this article.
Overwatch – The Overwatch League
There’s only one Aussie playing in the Overwatch League — Custa is a support on the Dallas Fuel, and he played a big role in keeping the Texan team in the running against the LA Valiants. The Valiants vs the Fuel was extremely close — the first two rounds were a non-stop back-and-forth — but LA eventually won. Dallas will probably keep someone on the point next time, as they allowed SoOn to back-cap (sneak in and capture in the backlines) the payload on Numbani after an otherwise clutch save.
You can see Custa in action below, locking in the tied game on Horizon because everybody loves a draw. Despite some close games Dallas are off to an inauspicious start to the season at 0-2 thanks to losses to both LA and Seoul.
Rainbow Six – APAC Six Invitational Qualifiers
The Rainbow Six Invitational APAC qualifiers took place out at the ESL Sydney Studios this weekend, and Aussie sluggers Mindfreak beat out their opponents to secure a spot at the Canadian tournament. They defeated Singapore’s Team Cryptik early on, scored revenge on South Korea’s Mantis FPS in the second round and then faced Cryptik again in the Grand Finals — which they won (which you already know because I spoiled it in the introductory paragraph). Watch Acez secure the Ace against Mantis below.
PUBG – Ground Zero PUBG Open
There have been some fantastic PUBG tournaments occurring in OCE over the holiday break, and the Ground Zero PUBG Open was definitely one of them. The best players in Australia and New Zealand collided for some Last Man Standing action, and there were definitely some clutch moments in the mix as the competition continued. Watch Nick101, team captain of Lucky7Gaming, pull off the unlikely 1v3 against Team Immunity to send shoutcaster Stabbies nuts. Lucky7Gaming went on to win the tournament, too, thanks in no small part to this well-earned chicken dinner.
CSGO – WESG 2017 APAC Regionals
The WESG Apac Regionals took place in the Fangyuan Sports Center in China over the weekend, and Order (formerly Kings GC) managed to defeat all comers to earn a spot at the World Finals and $40,000USD. With two subs sitting in for them — Chiefs player malta and Grayhound Gaming’s BURNRUOk — they had almost all the answers as they trampled their competition. The only hitch — they lost to MVP PK in the Group Stages, and they had to play the South Korean team again in the Finals. The Aussie team had warmed up by then, however, winning the best of 3 finals in two games. Watch an absolutely crazy sequence below that sees a double kill and a very quick eco round go ORDER’s way.
Hit us up in the comments or on twitter if you think I missed any of the best highlights! Here’s hoping Dallas can turn it around in the next week of competition!
Joab Gilroy is an Australian-based freelancer that specialises in competitive online games and chicken dinner acquisition. You can tweet at him here.
