The Die Hard core conceded their crowns as Kings of Brisbane for a single event back in Spring, with the squad back to their winning ways following a 2-1 (16-4, 9-16, 16-4) win over Blingus at BrisVegas Summer last weekend.
It was thought inconceivable that Jayden “foggers” Graham could be the one to secure the Die Hard their rightful crown, but the 22-year-old did just that.
Foggers topped the server in the three-mapper (52-38, 1.37 rating), with tournament MVP Hugh “HUGHMUNGUS” Anderson (56-44, 1.34 rating) and James “chief” Jago (56-37, 1.29 rating) joining Foggers in the 50 Club.
Jy “end[R]” Supple (50-51, 1.08) did his best to keep pace with Die Hard’s trio, but ultimately he and Blingus fell short in the final — their first following back-to-back semi-final appearances at the iconic Brisbane event.
The win is chief’s second in a row following his appearance for The AirBNB Incident at BrisVegas Spring.
Sources close to Snowball Esports indicated that chief was approached by the Die Hard core following their loss to chief’s AirBNB Incident, with the star rifler joining the squad ahead of this past weekend’s Summer tournament.
Die Hard made it look easy on Saturday morning, clearing the group stage without loss, but fell 16-13 to Blingus in the quarter-finals in the evening.
They palmed off The AirBNB Champs 2-0 (16-10, 16-12) in a Spring final rematch in elimination, before swiftly dispatching of Easy Riders in the lower bracket final.
Blingus took a map to get going on Championship Sunday, with the warmed-up Die Hard team blitzing through Inferno 16-4 and threatening an early boilover.
But the Spring semi-finalists bit back on Mirage with an impressive 16-9, forcing Overpass.
It would be Blingus’ ultimate demise, however, coming at the hands of the Foggers/HUGHMUNGUS duo who combined for 47 kills in the decider to take home a $2,500 AUD prize.
In all, BrisVegas Summer proved a major success, and wonderfully capped off a banger four-event year for organiser Daniel “mavrick” Lang and his team at DFrag.
“Our aim was to bring the tier one experience to the grassroots — the suburbs of esports, basically — and I can say without a doubt it was a qualified success,” said Mavrick.
A crew of over twenty staff helped bring BrisVegas to life — the largest in the history of the event.
“It’s the most amount of effort I’ve seen the team put in and the resulting product showed. Expect this to be the bar going forward.”
Mavrick has already confirmed BrisVegas’ return for 2023, including CS:GO and Rocket League, as well as a larger prize pool for both titles.
Probe takes out maiden BrisVegas StarCraft title
He entered as tournament favourite, but Sean “Probe” Kempen was tested on his way to the trophy in the first BrisVegas x AusCraft StarCraft 2 event.
Probe dropped a series in the best-of-three round robin to fellow Protoss Jack “Pezz” Perry, with the two, alongside Zerg player Lachlan “Oreo” Passenger, finishing 4-1 in the group stage.
Oreo would fall in the lower bracket playoffs to Christopher “Chappy” Chapman in a Zerg mirror match, while Probe sent Pezz into elimination in the upper bracket final.
Pezz wouldn’t make a third rematch, however, with the tournament’s sole Terran in Craig “Azure” MacKechnie instead taking on Probe in the best-of-seven grand final.
Probe would prove far too strong for the Terran, with a one-match advantage quickly turned into a 4-0 final sweep.
“It was a weird and wonky series for a final, but very happy to pull it through,” said Probe.
“At these kind of events I tend to drop one in the group stage, but getting back into the upper bracket and getting the rematch over Pezz was important.”
After a successful end to 2022, including titles at ESL ANZ Champs & BrisVegas, as well as an appearance at IEM Katowice, Probe is stepping away from competitive SC2.
“My message to everyone at home — there’s probably going to be more of these community events, and it’s important that everyone signs up and gets involved. Thanks heaps to the organisers for getting this off the ground,” he finished.
The tournament is the first offline StarCraft 2 community event since AusCraft’s inception and maiden competition back in 2020, where Joseph “Future” Stanish took down Miguel “Vindicta” Marmolejo in an all-international final.
It is also the first time BrisVegas has featured StarCraft 2, with producer Harry “Strategiza” Altmann extremely pleased with the outcome of the event.
“There was a great community feel to BrisVegas as a whole,” he said.
“A lot of the players know each other, so it’s a great feeling to get StarCraft back on LAN for the first time in years at such a level.”
“StarCraft proved a great addition to BrisVegas and it was awesome to see those involved with both CS:GO and SC2 mingle and celebrate each others’ successes.”
