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Australia’s first ever city-based esports competition got underway on Saturday at the Hoyts Gfinity Esports Arena in Sydney. But while many were expecting plenty of one-way traffic on day one, what actually transpired was two nail-biting encounters as well as a monumental upset.
In front of a virtually full house at the repurposed cinema, fans got a comprehensive rundown of the ins and outs of competitive CS:GO, before the action finally kicked off with the Brisbane Deceptors taking on the Melbourne Order.
Many expected the Order – an established esports unit – to make light work of their less experienced opponents, although analyst Kevin Zhu raised eyebrows by predicting a narrow Brisbane victory.
At first, he looked to be dead on the money.
Playing as the T-side on Inferno, the Deceptors recovered from an iffy start to go on a six-round hot streak and take a stunning 10-5 lead at the half.
Their aggressive play seemed to catch the Order off guard, who appeared caught in two minds as to their strategy in several rounds. Their decision to spend big after two rounds backfired too, with their economy just never allowing them to bring quite the right loadout.
But after the teams switched sides, the game was turned on its head.
Seven rounds straight to Melbourne – now playing on the T-side – saw them wrestle the ascendancy back in their favour, as they were able to run out 16-11 winners in the best-of-30.
Next up was the all-conquering Sydney Chiefs tackling the newly-created
Sydney Roar in what was predicted to be a bloodbath.
Chiefs’ flickz before the game “it’s ours to lose”, while Zhu modestly predicted a narrow Chiefs win.
In the end, it was a bloodbath – but in the underdogs favour.
The Roar came out all guns blazing, with some extremely aggressive play too much for the Chiefs to handle. There were some closer rounds too, but everything went the way of the boys in red as they shocked everyone by winning the first 11 rounds.
When the match was at 9-0, caster Geordie McAleer admitted he thought it’d be 9-0 in the other direction, while the social media reaction was one of similar amazement.
While the Chiefs were able to peg some rounds back before the half, the Roar quickly picked up three wins on the CT-side, with the 16-2 victory propelling them to the top of the Elite Series standings
Watch the Gfinity Elite Series LIVE on The Roar.
That brought us to the final match of the day, with Perth Ground Zero taking on Melbourne Avant in the most even match-up of the day.
Zhu, who was know 0-2 with his predictions for the day, gave the edge to Avant, with the Twitter fans also tipping the Melbourne side to get up.
The first half, with Ground Zero on the T-side, was a seesawing encounter at first. Perth claimed the first three rounds, only for Avant to square it at 3-3, before Ground Zero took six rounds in a row on route to a commanding 10-5 half-time lead.
We’d seen an identical lead let slip earlier in the day, and Melbourne were very keen to stick around.
But despite two separate three-round streaks, they couldn’t stop their opponents hitting the magic number in a tough, but thrilling, 16-12 loss.
Avant captain MoeycQ was humble after the match, saying Perth had been underestimated by the pundits.
“The core of the Ground Zero line-up’s been together for a while … they’re a strong team.
“I did expect it to be close, I just thought it’d swing in our favour, which it didn’t,” he said.
Looking ahead on the Elite Series schedule, and there are some juicy matchups awaiting us next Saturday.
Perth Ground Zero and Sydney Roar will be looking to maintain their hot starts to the season when they clash in the first game at 3:00pm (AEST), an all-Melbourne affair between Avant and Order takes place at 4:40pm, before the Brisbane Deceptors and Sydney Chiefs both look open their 2018 accounts in the day’s final clash at 6:20pm.
Note: Gfinity Australia is a joint venture with HT&E Events. The Roar is published by Conversant Media, which is owned by HT&E.