DreamHack Melbourne Recap

In addition to our regular slate of ranking CouchWarriors League tournaments, September featured some of our biggest annual events all packed into one month. But the most intense experience was to be on the floor at the inaugural Dreamhack Melbourne, where 189 CWL competitors did battle in the middle of Rod Laver Arena!

The CouchWarriors Stage area was dead centre of Rod Laver Arena.

Amid the thunderous noise from a gamut of different esports tournaments, we crowned Dreamhack champions for Street Fighter V, DNF Duel, Smash Ultimate and Guilty Gear: Strive. The weekend was capped off with a Tekken World Tour Prime Dojo tournament, which also doubled as a CWL ranking event in its own right. Stakes were high, with a $1000 prize pool on offer for each game, and the arena atmosphere made for a truly unique tournament.

 

 

DNF Duel

Street Fighter phenomenon ROF showed up to Dreamhack early and almost stole the show in DNF, rocking some deadly fundamentals and the enormous damage-per-hit of Lost Warrior. It was up to Agent Numbers to put a stop to this rampage, but only after a dramatic reverse sweep bracket reset courtesy of his Swift Master counterpick.

RESULTS

    1. Agent17805
    2. R!OT|ROF
    3. Imp
    4. Larciel
    5. Corrinth
  1. Tito_Ed
  2. HFWD|GLPhoenix
  3. eveAZN

 

Guilty Gear: Strive

Guilty Gear almost continued our weekend of upsets, resets and runbacks, as 2021 CWL co-champion Tito_Ed came roaring through losers’ bracket to take the first set of Grand Finals off BlitzkrieG. But even after besting several other Nagoriyuki’s en route, this last samurai proved too strong for Tito_Ed’s Ram. BlitzkrieG took a convincing 3-1 win in this latest chapter of their rivalry to pad his CWL points lead!

 

Street Fighter V

This game turned out to be a dual attraction for the Dreamhack crowd, with a state crews battle of “Victoria vs. The World” playing out first and then the actual top 8 itself. This time ROF was in his element, but it took him two tries to overcome the fierce Zeku play of Schenkhan. Nevertheless, ROF battled back through Losers and managed to win the Grand Final in our second reset of the weekend.

 

RESULTS

  • The World def. Vic All-Stars in State Crews!
  1. R!OT|ROF
  2. Schenkhan
  3. Somniac
  4. R!OT|Reno
  5. AwildLLAMA
  6. FREESER
  7. Rupps
  8. Philip Wong

 

Smash Ultimate

 

With some of the usual suspects away at international events, the Smash Ultimate event looked like a massive opportunity to get ahead on CWL points. MOD|Extra looked to be in fearsome form, slicing through the losers side of the bracket – but then a controller DC cost him a crucial elimination game against Dura.

Meanwhile Winners Side was dominated by Kanga|BrickEnthusiast (aka Ghost), putting a figurative and literal wall between opponents and Dreamhack glory. CE|Heaven was able to finally make a little headway against the dreaded Steve with a clever Ryu gameplan, but couldn’t string together multiple games under the diamond-making pressure.

 

 

RESULTS

  1.  Kanga|BrickEnthusiast
  2.  CE|Heaven
  3.  Dura
  4.  MOD|Extra
  5.  Beet
  6.  Johto
  7.  CE|Xav
  8.  EL

 

Tekken 7

With the additional weight of a Tekken World Tour Prime Dojo event behind it, Tekken was always going to headline the Dreamhack weekend. Already one of our most hotly contested and competitive CouchWarriors League races, the extra prestige and prizes on offer plus the atmosphere of Rod Laver Arena made sure we had an electric top 8 to close the show.

We had big names from multiple states, including BAM champion FAM|The Hangman Kid, defending CWL champion Subject, and Cheese League bigshots Cheapies and Bobby. But they all had to reckon with a massive challenge from Tin Lu, playing as BFG|500mgTrenPerWeek; he charged into top 4, avenged his earlier 0-2 loss to Bobby, and booked a tense grand finals set with AMS|Yagami.

 

For the 3rd set in a row, the fighters were deadlocked going into a crucial 5th game. But Lu ran out of juice just short of the finish line, and Yagami was able to clutch out the tournament win without a reset.

 

 

RESULTS

  1.  AMS|Yagami
  2.  BFG|500mgTrenPerWeek
  3.  Bobby
  4.  Subject
  5.  FAM|The Hangman Kid
  6.  Cheapies
  7.  GRU|Stuckles
  8.  6 weetbix

The Tekken 7 top 8 assemble for battle at the finale of Dreamhack Melbourne.

All told, the inaugural Dreamhack Melbourne was a huge weekend for the FGC. Well done to our winners, and good luck to the rest of the CouchWarriors League leaderboards trying to catch up to them down the home stretch this October!

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