The history of Starcraft in Australia can trace it's roots to when Hogfather founded the AUS-1 FSGS private server in January 1999. The traces of the first Australian National Starcraft come from Aus-1. With a team in early 2002 Captained by Jules.
This early team featured some names recognisable even today in the SC2 scene.
The history of Teamaus.org started in late 2002, created by Oscillate and Freezer as a community portal for the Australian National Starcraft team. The site kept many an Aussie informed with all the latest scene news, replays and other various events. Effectively taking over from the once popular Aus-1 website. The original team was selected to represent Australia at the start of 2003.
The team scheduled two knockout tournaments, one on the West server, the other on the Aus-1 server. The top finishers then made their way to the elimination group stages, with the top inform players selected to the represent the team.
The team had its most successfull period during the Clanbase World Cup in 2004. The team came second out of a group of 8 nations in a round robin. Sweden, Poland, and Finland were some of the strong nations in our group. Australia then went on to the knockout stages, losing in the quarter finals to Canada. An extremely proud Australia finished the tournament in the top 8 teams.
After Freezer retired in May of 2005, Bman who had been running the Australian Clan League stepped in to fill the void. During this time Australia competed in several high profile tournaments with some very solid results. In both WGTour World Cups Australia finished at the top of their pool however both times fell in the quarter finals, the first time around to eventual Runners-Up Poland(3-2) and the second time around to eventual Winners Russia (4-1). Australia also competed in the WGTour run Galactic Conquest where it was eliminated by Germany(2-1) and the Hungarian tournament E-World War where it finished 6th.
It was also during this time that Australia notched its first and only tournament win to date when it won the ASEAN (Australia and South East Asian Nations) tournament. This tournament featured local heavy weights Malaysia and Vietnam as well as a very competitive Australia B, overshadowing the future inclusion of Australia in the SEA region with these nations in SC2. Australia finished first in the ladder stage but lost to Malaysia in the Major Semi-Final(3-2) they recovered from this loss by beating Vietnam in the Final(3-2). The Grand Final was played over a tense couple of hours where Australia pulled off an upset 3-2 victory. Bman lead both Australia A and Australia B for a combined 56 matches making him the longest serving leader to date. During these 56 matches the core lineup consisted of the 2005 Team Australia below.
Timeline of the Australian National BW Team
AUS-1 (2002)
TeamAus (2003)
Team Australia (2005)
Australian All-Stars (2010)
Jules (C)
Freezer (C)
Bman (C)
deL (C)
L!MP
L!MP
L!MP
GoD
Filthy
Filthy
Legionnaire
fadetowhite
Starhunter
LastScv
dAncerS
Legionnaire
Legionnaire
Legionnaire
Atlantis
Etude
RazoR
Paladin
Fragma
SenSei
[AKB2K]-Casanov
Artanis
Endi
TuDe
StarrBren
XianG
OrangeZg
Du5t
sMbK
HaLL
SH@RP
Gucman
[AKB2K]-aDrone
SenSei
ExistenT
Xephon
The Team Australia site teamaus.org went missing in action during 2009, which almost signalled the end for the once popular Aussie Starcraft Community.
Later in 2009 the Australian scene was disorganised and splintered. However, the existence of two websites ensured the continued existence of a SC:BW scene in Australia - the iccup.com competitive ladder and the teamliquid.net community. Through the former Australia deL began hosting small Australia and New Zealand friendly tournaments which saw turnouts ranging from 16 to 32 players. Teamaus.org came back into some activity with the injection of life into the BW scene down under and this had immediate positive results - most notably it was through teamaus.org that the Korean pro team WeMade FOX contacted deL and dAncerS to set up a meeting in Sydney with WeMade FOX's NaDa.
Activity only increased from late 2009 into early 2010 and eventuated into the State of Origin (SoO) competition run through teamliquid. This event was hugely popular amongst the few BW fans still remaining and even encouraged some, such as Legionnaire, out of retirement. It also uncovered new stars of Australia SC:BW such as fadetowhite and NrG.GoD-. While no official Australian team was formed after this activity, Australians did compete as a State All-Star team as part of a showmatch with Team Evil Geniuses after the SoO event. Australia went on to win the event convincingly 4-1 despite being seen as the underdogs.
Background: WarCraft III The Frozen Throne
The strong WarCraft III scene in Australia was also a heavy influence on the state of Australian StarCraft II, especially in beta where the ex-WC3 players dominated the tournaments. While the first WCG involved Reign of Chaos, which was won by Raggy, the scene never really exploded until the addition of the expansion pack The Frozen Throne (TFT). While there were no Nation War tournaments in which Australia competed as a team, the all-Australian team Australia United was the nucleus of TFT activity Down Under. Team AU competed in the major clan events of the time and over it's life boasted nearly every notable Australian WC3 player. For a brief time the clan also merged with legendary BW clan Templars of Twilight (ToT).
Outside of this team there were several noteworthy Australian performances in WC3. The player almost synonymous with Australian StarCraft II, mOOnGLaDe, was WCG TFT champion in 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2008 only dropping 2005 to Sydney-based rival PhiLBoT, an Undead player and former Mousesports member.
StarCraft II Beta
While SC:BW in mid-2010 was essentially dead again, it was for a much more positive reason - the release of StarCraft 2. The activity seen in the leadup to the game's release acted as a catalyst for SC2 in Australia. The game hit the ground running in the competitive scene, with several tournaments featuring $200+ prizepools running during beta for Australian players only, before the game was even officially released. These tournaments continued to grow with some multiple-thousand dollar events taking the spotlight and unveiling some truly world-class Australian talent with players such as Filthy, deth, mOOnGLaDe, pinder and Azz.
Australian SC2 Beta Tournaments
TransTasman SC2 Championship 1
TransTasman SC2 Championship 2
Mar Sara Trials
Australian SC2 Showcase
It is worth noting that most notable players during beta came from WarCraft III or TA/SoO BW participants, as the older BW players had mostly moved on from gaming. This saw players like mOOnGLaDe, Filthy, Paz and Mez - all part of the core of WC3 in Australia - dominate early beta tournaments along with Terror Australis members deth and pinder, and State of Origin participant Azz. Another familiar name stemming from WC3 was that of HaNdFisH, who helped administrate the TransTasman tournaments with deL.
StarCraft II Wings of Liberty
The Australian team was revived in StarCraft 2 for two showmatches hosted on teamliquid by deL, resulting in a surprise loss to New Zealand and a win over tough opponents Singapore. SC2SEA then ran a Nation War event and Australia took revenge over New Zealand in the last round robin stage to claim #1 spot after being undefeated all season. This stands as the team's greatest achievement in SC2 to date. In addition to a strong online scene intertwined with both the SEA and NA servers, Australia has a strong offline/LAN scene with several large events.
Online WoL Tournaments
Offline SC2 Tournaments
Offline SC2 Tournaments (contd...)
KOTH Australasia
CyberGamer Live Ladder
WCG
WD PSI Storm 2010
Xin Gaming Tournament 1
Eastowood COMON LAN 2
Southern Cross Series
Xin Gaming Tournament 2
MC LAN
KOTH Australia
Cydus LAN
NRG Hardcore Gamer LAN
CityHunter LAN 1
Xin Gaming Tournament 3
CityHunter LAN 2
Xin Gaming Tournament 4
CityHunter Charity LAN
Xin Gaming Tournament 5
Eastwood COMON LAN 1
Xin Gaming Tournament 6
Arena LAN Adelaide 1
Arena LAN Adelaide 2
Australia continues to hold representation in the international scene as FXOpen e-Sports own mOOnGLaDe competed in two Code A qualifiers for the GSL, the 2011 GSL World Championship as well as securing an amazing 4th place in the IEM Season V - World Championship. Other notable players on professional or sponsored teams competing in world-class events include VT Gaming's Azz and Filthy from FXOpen e-Sports.
Whoa, never realized Philbot was aussie He was one of my favorite UD players in the world, along with Madfrog and Crafty. For those who don't know, he is the equivalent of sc2 Catz, but on the UD side. Most insane strategies I've never imagined, like altar on T2 with double tavern buy. Gotta have balls of steel to try this against an orc of Grubby's caliber.
Even the smallest donations help keep sc2sea running! All donations go towards helping our site run including our monthly server hosting fees and sc2sea sponsored community tournaments we host. Find out more here.