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This past weekend saw the beginning of season 2 of the Gfinity Elite Series Australia. This competition sees some of the best teams in CS: GO, Street Fighter, and Rocket League go head to head live at the HOYTS Gfinity Esports Arena in Sydney.
Now, typically and especially lately Melbourne has started to make a claim to becoming the esports capital of the country. Not only did we have the Esports Open and the large showing at PAX but also Melbourne teams have shown themselves to be very strong and showed their dominance all throughout the games, faltering only in the Rocket League competitions which came as a bit of an upset.
During season 1 of the Gfinity Elite Series, the two top spots in the competition were taken out by Melbourne teams Order and Avant gaming. This isn’t to say the victory wasn’t hard fought as these wins didn’t totally sweep the competition but it’s fair to say coming into this many probably expected top showings from the Victorian teams.
The first of the matches saw last seasons winners Order taken out by the Sydney Roar in a decisive 3-1 match. We didn’t really get to see much from this team in their last season as it seemed all they could really do was lose. This time around it looks as though we have a whole new Roar, which isn’t far from the truth with many from Tainted Minds put on loan for the team along with some new acquisitions.
Tainted Minds recently took out first place in the Throwdown Rocket League Oceanic Competition so there’s no question that adding these new members to the Roar’s roster has given this team some real teeth, even if we haven’t really seen them play yet.
As for the other new acquisitions who actually played both Alex Decka (Decka) and Aiden Hendry (Delusion) are new to the team and proved their worth immediately. Both picked up quick goals at the beginning of the match and continuing to do good work throughout the games, on both offence and defence handing their team the overall win.
The next match couldn’t have been more different giving us the closest game of the day with two evenly matched teams. Sydney Chiefs vs Perth Ground Zeroes took it to a full five matches and even took the game out to overtime before deciding the winner. In the end, the Chiefs pulled victory away from Ground Zero.
The closeness of this matchup was quite surprising. Though both of these teams have shown themselves to have similar numbers, placing third and fourth in last season’s competitions their previous fights haven’t been this close. When they faced off in week three the Chief’s held a 3-0 victory over Ground Zero’s head.
More recently this team also took out second place during the Throwdown tournament so for Ground Zero to hold their own against them so well is impressive, even if they couldn’t overcome Chief’s iron defence in the final round.
It’s clear both of those teams will be ones to watch in the coming matches and as a Western Australian by birth, it’s nice to see such an impressive fight by this Perth team.
The final match of the day played out similarly to the first in a sort of poetic mirror. The Brisbane Deceptors put the previous second place winners Melbourne Avant on the back foot by taking the second 3-1 victory of the day.
Members of the Brisbane Deceptors esports team. (Photo: Gfinity Australia)
Deceptors are another team that comes with an almost entirely fresh roster and amongst that was the veteran player Jake Edwards (Jake) who adds a lot of experience to the team. It was in part the commentators were expecting this 3-1 win despite the track record behind Avant.
Jake’s usefulness was immediately proven when he blocked one of the first goal attempts from Avant and then dribbled straight to the goal for a near miss, which was followed up beautifully by fellow newcomer Steve Berrospi (SSteve) to secure the goal.
It definitely felt like a game where Deceptors were able to set their own pace and Avant had to play to the other team’s style. Misty was playing his first match for Avant during this game and was clearly trying to prove his skills. Many times he seemed to be one of the few players to touch the ball and ended up helping to set up their only goal which was knocked in by teammate Michael Eason (Bango).
The main takeaway from this weekend of Rocket League is that what we knew about these teams doesn’t necessarily mean much. Many of them playing have taken on so many new players that they could almost be called entirely different rosters.
In a game where only three members are on the field at one time even swapping a few players can make such a difference to the play styles and abilities of an overall team. It seems apt for a game as fast-paced as Rocket League to have an equally quickly shifting team base.