The Melbourne Esports Open had plenty of fantastic blockbusters played across Rod Laver Arena and Margaret Court, but one event on Sunday spoke volumes about the future of League of Legends in Australia – the High School Eleague finals.

Donning their representative school uniforms and taking to the Rift, Roxburgh College and Melbourne High duked it out for the title of Victoria’s best esports academy, with the South Yarra-based school taking home the honours in a 2-1 spectacle.

It was a “once in a lifetime experience” according to George ‘99.5 ATAR’ Xu, and a testament to the foundation Oceanic esports is now being built upon.

“I don’t want to have this be our only experience, but it definitely was a once in a lifetime experience for us all,” he said.

“No one wants to have a boring life, and this was so much fun for all of us so we think we’ll look back on this with a smile.

“It was fantastic overall, being on stage it felt funny because normally we’re watching in and then we were looking out from the stage. The cheers [from the crowd] and our friends and families being there were such a massive confidence booster as well.”

Xu – who drew the most attention across the weekend with his school-based Summoner name and the choice to wear his formal attire from the evening before – said the whole squad was pleased with their undefeated season and final victory.

“We came in feeling quite confident, but when we won the first game we kind of got a bit lax and that showed in the second game that we dropped,” he explained.

“It took a bit for us to reset our mindset in the third game, we were saying that it was a best of one instead of anything more than that and we had to keep that mentality. We reset and went again.”

Dong ‘Liquidsandwich’ Ye agreed with Xu’s comment, and said he was “pleased” they showed up in their first best of three in front of a live crowd.

“First time playing on a stage in front of a live audience, we all had fun because we won, but regardless of the outcome we will cherish the experience,”
Dong ‘Liquidsandwich’ Ye

“A lot of us will move on to other things now and look towards the HSC because a lot of us may not have a career in esports, but it was amazing to get to experience all of this and get a taste of what it might be like.”

While the entire Roxburgh College and Melbourne High rosters may not look the same coming into 2019, the HSEL is here to stay, with grassroots developments now key to the scene.

As well as giving esports-minded students a chance to represent their school as they progress through the system, the program is also built around ‘mindfulness’ and ‘interpersonal skills’, and will continue to grow in coming years.

Eleague tournaments are currently being run in South Australia, Victoria, Western Australia, Northern Territory and Tasmania. Registers for your school are available at hseleague.gg.

The High School League finals are this weekend. Find out more here.

Photos courtesy of Winston “Guardian” Tjahjadi

On Sunday, September 2nd, fifty of Oceania’s best Pokémon Video game players brushed off their 3DS’ and brought their party of six Pokémon to the Melbourne Park Function Centre. With the 2018 Pokémon World Championships having just concluded, the MEO Pokémon Video Game Special Event was the first opportunity for players to earn championship points for this season.

“Including a Pokémon VG Special Event within one of the most glorified esports event in Oceania, means a lot to the community,” said Nash Hawnt, Pokémon VG competitor and owner of Justice Esports. “And it further highlights to me that the Pokémon VG is starting to become recognized as an esport. Panda Global and my own org have picked it up as a minor, and other orgs have expressed interest in the game. It is a community-based game, so you can develop quite a following if you invest in the scene.”

At Pokémon VG tournaments, players are split in to three age divisions – Junior (ages 10 and under); Senior (ages 11 to 14); and Masters division (ages 15 plus). They compete in a Swiss-style tournament against players in their division, with a top 8 single elimination cut to determine the winner. Every player brings six Pokémon to the tournament, choosing four to bring into battle once they see their opponent’s team. Winning a battle relies on the player’s ability to craft a strong team, and predict their opponent’s next move.

Compared to other esports, the prize pool offered at the biggest Pokémon events, is quite small. However, the best players in their regions are rewarded with travel stipends and the opportunity to compete internationally.

Take, for example, the MEO winner of the Pokémon VG Junior division, Meg Reimann. At only 8 years old, her passport has more stamps than most adults. She began her Pokémon VG journey at a Regional event in Brisbane in 2016, and has since travelled around Australia, to New Zealand, the UK, Brazil, and the USA on three occasions- all thanks to her success in the Pokémon video game. Meg now has her sights set on the next International Championship – Sao Paulo, Brazil in November.

For a country in a region with a relatively small player base, Australia has enjoyed a disproportionate amount of success at international tournaments. Last year, Australians won the North American International championships in all three divisions, with Nick Kan (winner of the senior division at the MEO) going on to win the 2017 World Championships.

So how do you become a successful VGC player?

“The transition from casual to competitive player is not as difficult as you would think,” says Nash, who coaches junior division players in the US and EU, as well as Australian Max ‘OrangeOcelot’ Howard (a junior division player who is on the content creation team for esports organization, Tainted Minds).

“I would encourage players to watch some of the content from Aaron ‘Cybertron’ Zheng, and watch some of the videos from the world championships. What led me to become so passionate about the game was Sejun Park and his Pachirisu from the 2014 World Championships. Having fun, practicing, and being passionate about the game are all very important.”

If you want to get involved in the competitive Pokémon video game scene, use the Pokémon tournament locator, check out the PokeAus Facebook group, or contact your local hobby store.

Photos courtesy of Melbourne Esports Open/ESL Australia

The Dire Wolves have cemented themselves as one of the greatest Oceanic League of Legends teams in the competition’s short history, levelling the Chiefs’ championship record with a 3-1 victory in the OPL Grand Final.

Played in front of a cheering crowd divided down the middle in their support for the old kings of the region and the new, the Dire Wolves’ Split 2 triumph was the culmination of one of the Melbourne Esports Open.

The final win also stretches the Wolves’ historic best-of streak to 26 undefeated series, an “awesome achievement” for everyone involved in the team according to organisation founder Nathan “Rippii” Mott.

“We had roster changes throughout that streak but we’ve managed to keep it up, it’s just the Dire Wolves touch,” Rippii told Snowball Esports in the final post-match interviews. “It’s an awesome achievement and it’s great to look back on.”

“Obviously you can’t win forever, but we’re just focused on Worlds now especially having so much disappointment from last time.”

Rippii, who travelled with the Wolves to China for the 2017 World Championship only to see a second day collapse punt the Oceanic representatives out of Play-Ins, said he “never wants to feel that way again”.

“I don’t want that feeling, I want to make it to groups for Oceania and there’s a lot of pressure on us to perform and achieve highly,” he said.

Although international achievements are still a question mark around the four-time OPL champions, their domestic success has been an exclamation mark in recent years.

Under lights on Rod Laver Arena, they proved it once more, opening with a bloody contest that culminated in a Baron Nashor secure apiece but Dire Wolves winning out in the end.

An early lead for the eventual champions saw them take control of the map, but the Chiefs weren’t going down without a fight in the opening game, forcing team fight after team fight that nearly brought them back into the contest.

While the first outing didn’t go the Chiefs way, a similar style saw a late fight around the Baron pit fall in their favour, levelling out the series and guaranteeing at least four bouts for the Melbourne crowd.

Game three fell back into the hands of the Dire Wolves, after a mid lane fight saw them sweep through four to put them onto match point in the decider.

From there, an oddball choice of Vayne for k1ng was met with question marks from the thousands in Rod Laver, the analysts and the fans, but Dire Wolves’ marksman proved them all wrong as he guided the defending champions back to their throne.

It’s proof for Rippii, and the rest of the organisation, that they can stand head and shoulders above the rest of the OPL for now, even the former dynasty of the Chiefs.

“We are tied with four each with the Chiefs, but I want to beat that next split and beat them, it would mean a lot to overtake them,” Rippii said. “I think the way everything has happened has felt so good it almost feels scripted.”

“There’s been so much that has gone into the split, and the wins, and we want to push ourselves even further to give everyone a performance to be proud of in Korea.”

Rippii also praised the fans that had turned out at Melbourne Park to support their team, and admitted he was happy “our fans were louder than the Chiefs” considering that’s “all [he] wanted”.

The champions’ support, Andy “Cupcake” van der Vyver, also pointed out the fans after the match, thanking everyone that had turned out at the live event or tuned in from home.

“I want to thank every fan, Dire Wolves, Chiefs, OPL and esports, you make this all possible and you bring the hype,” he said. “It’s not an event without you guys.”

“Special thanks to the Wolves fans, seeing the shirts and hearing the cheers really is uplifting, we’re all so focused on the plan and what we’re going to do next and you look over and here chants and it just puts smiles on our faces.”

The Dire Wolves now begin their preparation for the Play In stages of the World Championship, to be hosted in Seoul from October 1.

Watch the full interview with Dire Wolves Founder/CEO Nathan “Rippii” Mott & support Andy “Cupcake” van der Vyver below.

Live from #MEO2018 – interview with @DWRippii & @CupcakeOCE of @DireWolves https://t.co/CScZyWh9PD

— Snowball Esports (@snowballesports) September 2, 2018

Tainted Minds entered into the eXTREMESLAND AUNZ Qualifier final on form after toppling hotly-favoured ORDER 2-1 in the Semi Finals.

Despite some individual heroics from ofnu and INS, they were unfortunately felled by The Chiefs 2-0 and their coach Fergus “Ferg” Stephenson was gracious enough to have a chat with me after the match.

I’m being joined by the coach of Tainted Minds, Ferg, who just got knocked out in the Grand Finals of the eXTREMESLAND Qualifier. So Ferg, we’ll start yesterday where you guys took a pretty massive victory over ORDER 2-1.

Ferg: Look, I mean we were pretty stoked to get the win. With ORDER it’s a rivalry these days. We never know what sort of result is going to come out. They adapt quite well to our game style and yesterday we found a lot of weaknesses per se that we were able to exploit over and over and that allowed us to get the clinch of the series.

It was a really commanding – obviously outside of Cache – we were pretty comfortable on both Dust 2 and Nuke. We managed to get to 15 before they hit double digits on both maps. That’s just how it goes when we play ORDER – there’ll be series that we play where they batter us and there’ll be series where we batter them. It just seems to be the trend. So we just came out the better outfit yesterday.

Heading on to today with the Grand Final. What were you expecting from The Chiefs?

Ferg: Oh, we were expecting a random game style…well not so much “random”, I mean more a semi-structured “free” style of play. Really sort of aggressive and not letting us adapt – that’s Mike’s (apoc) call style, so he really kept us tangled in that respect. We couldn’t counter them based on the last round – we really had to take into account how much ground they were covering in certain areas.

They just exploited us and we couldn’t contain them. Especially on Inferno. On Mirage it was the same struggle, especially the CT half. We just couldn’t see areas that we could bolster the numbers, because as soon as we bolstered the numbers they’d just jump on the other side of the map. They had a really good read on us and our setups so it was very difficult on our CT sides.

I think on Mirage as well we ended up losing the CT half 9-6 or something so it was a pretty tough task. They played it really well with a stand-in and they should be commended for that side of things. I think IyeN really stood up, it’s not like he went ballistic and took over the game, but he played his role which made it really tough for us.

Let’s talk about pistol rounds. On the pistol rounds it did seem like The Chiefs had the advantage. With a stand-in they were going very aggressive and it worked very well for them against you guys?

Ferg: I told the boys after the third pistol round…fourth, sorry. It was the T pistol side of Mirage. We just need to lock in a pistol – we haven’t won one yet. They played their anti-ecos really well, I think there was one force-buy we won on Inferno. Other than that, they closed out their anti-ecos really well and that’s obviously one of the hardest tasks in CS:GO, to convert your anti-ecos.

Honestly, hats off to them. They played outstanding, and as you mentioned the pistol side of things is an important of the game, it’s not 100% necessary, if you can split 50-50 on a series you can usually come out on top if you’re a really strong team but if you’re losing 100% of your pistols in a series you’re making it one of the toughest tasks for yourselves.

Unfortunately we couldn’t convert any pistols and if it was the case that we could have gotten one on Mirage, maybe it would have been different. We could have finished the game in regulation time and not gone to overtime.

And just on that round 28, that Molotov, how did you feel after that?

Ferg: (chuckling) There was a lot of head-shaking going on behind the screen. It’s unfortunate – it’s just one of those things that the game hasn’t fixed. I think it happens in Banana (on Inferno) as well if you Molotov the halfwall at the bottom of banana it will burn someone on the top.

It happened to BURNRUOK at Van (on Mirage) as well. He saw the molly land at the bottom of Van and he moved a little out to the right at the top of Van and he cops the molly for two ticks and that’s the end of him.

Thanks for talking to us here at Snowball.

Ferg: Thanks very much.

While this loss will sting for Tainted Minds, they will need to get back on the horse pretty quickly as they have Animal Squad next on the docket on the 5th of September. We spoke to Ferg very shortly after the finals, and to have such specific recollection with barely any time to gather his thoughts was super impressive.

TM fans can be confident that the brain behind The Brains will have his team back in fighting shape quickly with his attention to detail. Follow Ferg and Tainted Minds on Twitter.

The Chiefs entered the eXTREMESLAND AUNZ Qualifier with our own Luke Harris wondering if they had what it took to take home the trophy, and walked away with all of the chocolates.

A pair of 2-0 victories on the Margaret Court Arena over Legacy and Tainted Minds saw the boys in blue deliver a commanding victory in front of their fans and I caught up with Tyler “Tucks” Reilly after their grand final win over TM.

I’m here with one of the victorious Chiefs players from the eXTREMESLAND MEO finals, Tucks. And well, how are you feeling?

Tucks: Feeling pretty good. Obviously coming off a win is nice. Especially with a last minute sub who we didn’t get to practice with at all. Felt like we played really good. It’s on LAN, we always feel good there, our communication’s good, our calls were good. It’s good to get the job done.

We’ll start off with last weekend where let’s face it, there were a few predictions that you’d make it to LAN but only just. How did you guys deal with that? Especially from…certain organisations?

*I chuckled, Tucks gave a wry smile.*

Tucks: Yeah so we felt like we got a bit shafted there. I felt like results showed that we were as good as or better than ORDER, beating them the last three Best-of-3’s we played them in. And then for TM we’d beaten them the last time we played them in the IEM qualifiers. It was a close one, so that’s fair enough you could predict them over us. But you know, we knew we were better than both these teams, we knew we could beat them and we just had to come out and show it, which we did. We’ve been putting in a lot of practice lately and it’s been paying off, so yeah. We’ve been clicking and getting the results.

Just before we get to this week’s games how do you think IyeN integrated with the team, especially being a last minute replacement?

Tucks: He was actually really good, surprisingly. Well, not surprisingly because he’s a good player but he hasn’t really played at a high level like we are right now…

…Because, and sorry to interrupt but his last high level event was Gfinity?

Tucks: I guess, but then that was a complete sub team. He came in really well and he knew a lot of ‘nades which is really helpful for us. He did his role really well, he was very confident in making plays. He just fit perfectly so it was really good and we appreciate IyeN coming to sub for us.

Definitely. Confident play can pop-up in many ways, not necessarily on the scoreboard. We’ll look at yesterday’s game against Legacy. It was pretty dominant on Mirage to start off.

Tucks: Mirage we’re really confident on. With Sam (flickz), it’s good to have him there but we also felt really confident with just how we played the map. Especially on CT side, the core four of us felt really confident. So we knew we’d probably take that. And every round sort of went our way, they didn’t really put up too much of a fight which is what we expected.

We’ll now move on to today’s game. We’ll start off on Inferno where you guys got off to a blistering start getting the first five out of six rounds?

Tucks: I guess Inferno we were much less confident on. Sam plays a pretty crucial role on Inferno for us being the B-Site Anchor which is a hard place to hold and also being the banana player. That’s also a really hard area – knowing what to do and how to integrate back with the team. So we didn’t know how that would go but IyeN did really well getting picks eveywhere and our CT side was quite good as well, getting the first few rounds. We sort of slipped at the end, but we played TM on Inferno in the closed qualifiers and they just owned us on it so it was a good result for us.

And we’ll move on to Mirage where it was a tighter affair but again you guys started nicely getting the first few rounds, and another pistol.

Tucks: I think that’s actually a good point – a pretty strong thing for us this LAN was our pistol rounds. Online our pistol rounds were quite inconsistent, we’re not the best pistol team. But on LAN we’re much stronger and more confident and we got both pistols. It says a lot for TM that they were able to bring it all the way back losing both pistols. But yeah, that definitely helped us secure the win. It was really back-and-forth. They sort of abused IyeN being inexperienced on our team at the A site and our team not getting the trades there.

And just before we move on to the future. Round 28. That Molotov on A site. How did you feel about that? Especially because it tied it up at 14-all.

Tucks: Yeah, it was pretty disappointing. Especially because I killed him as well. I don’t even know how he got it out. I think he just right clicked it off the balcony. It was really sad. I thought we had that. But, I mean, oh well, what can you do?

You guys were able to get eventually get the win, which was a great thing for you and this will be your first international event with The Chiefs since WEGL last year?

Tucks: This is exciting for us to go to Shanghai. It’s definitely an event we think we can win. Sort of a stepping stone – our goal is to compete tier 1 internationally and be able to place high and win at those events. So this is a good stepping stone for us.

And finally, how will you be prepping for eXTREMESLAND Asian finals? Because there’s gonna be a lot of good teams there, especially how they’ve been playing recently. For example your TyLoo’s and your B.O.O.T-dream[S]cape’s.

Tucks: I’m not sure if TyLoo are playing yet, but I’m pretty sure BOOT are and they’re a strong team. Probably a team like Flash Gaming will play it as well. We’ll have to look into them a fair bit because we haven’t really played Asian teams with this roster apart from IEM Sydney a little bit. We’ll just be sort of day-to-day still, if we get a bootcamp over there it’ll be nice but we’ll see how the time goes. But yeah, it’ll just be day-to-day normal stuff that we do to try to improve our game and that’s it.

Well, with that Tucks, thank you very much, congratulations on your win.

Tucks: Thanks mate, appreciate it!

The Chiefs were once a dominant force in AUNZ Counter-Strike. After a brief time tussling with the remainder of the top 4, they’ve now announced to the region that they’re out to reclaim their crown with strong performances over ORDER and Tainted Minds.

We look forward to seeing them at the eXTREMESLAND finals, but if you want to catch Tucks and the boys sooner, they’re scheduled to play SYF in the ESL ANZ Championship on Wednesday the 5th of September. Follow The Chiefs Esports Club on Twitter for all the details.

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The Chiefs have proven themselves as a team to be reckoned with today, as they take the top spot at this weekend’s eXTREMESLAND ANZ Regional Finals from the Melbourne Esports Open.

Chiefs, who were the top seed coming in through the qualifiers, managed to defeat Tainted Minds with a 2-0 score line in the best-of-three grand final match.

The boys in blue were forced to use a stand-in for the event, with Iyengaran ‘IyeN’ Raju, replacing the absent Sam ‘flickz’ Jones, throughout the finals stages.

Chiefs were able to make light work on Tainted Minds’ map pick of Inferno, taking the first map victory with a score of 16-7.

However, it was on Chiefs’ map pick of Mirage in which they started to become slightly shaky, sacrificing a large lead and allowing Tainted Minds to bring the match to overtime.

Unfortunately for Tainted Minds, it wasn’t meant to be, as they could not find a foothold in overtime – thus falling to a 0-2 defeat and allowing Chiefs to take the victory.

Both Legacy and ORDER were also competitors at the event, but were knocked out in the previous stage, with Chiefs securing the 2-0 knockout over Legacy, and ORDER falling short to Tainted Minds with a score of 1-2.

With this win under their belt, The Chiefs have secured a ticket to the eXTREMESLAND Asia 2018 grand finals towards the end of next month.

This will prove to be The Chiefs’ first international tournament that they have qualified for – barring the IeSF World Championships (To be held in November this year) – since IEM Sydney 2018 in May of this year.

It is here that they will face off against some of the best talent in the Asia-Pacific region, with international talent such as MVP PK already qualified for the event.

A prize pool of $100,000 USD is up for grabs, with the first-place team taking home just under half this total at $40,000.

At last year’s event, it was the now-defunct Kings Gaming Club who represented Australia on this stage, placing third out of sixteen teams.

eXTREMESLAND Zowie Asia CS:GO 2018 will be once again held in Shanghai, and runs from Thursday, October 18, through to Sunday, October 21.

Will Chiefs be crowned kings of Asia? Be sure to get behind Australia, as well as follow Snowball Esports on Twitter for all your independent oceanic esports news coverage.