Tag: bam

BAM 2022 is Just One Month Away!

There’s a very special atmosphere around the Australian FGC this month – an excitement nobody has felt for several long, major-less years. The twelfth-ever Battle Arena Melbourne finally has a scheduled date and venue, and the biggest international esports tournament on the national calendar is now open for player registration!

Taking place at Melbourne Exhibition Centre from May 13th to May 15th, BAM is a celebration of everything happening in fighting games, right in the heart of the city’s renowned CBD. It’s also the heart of the CouchWarriors League tournament circuit, offering a huge injection of ranking points alongside other prizes and competitions. Attracting champions both domestic and international across a huge range of games, this is the pinnacle of competition for every player (and spectator!) in OCE.

 

BAM11 crowd popoff

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CouchWarriors League Recap – May 2021

The fires of competition have burned more brightly than ever before across the CouchWarriors League, as we count down the days before the long-awaited BAM12 major. The month of May set a new all-time record for most ranking points on offer, impacting the race across all five CWL games.

In the past, the league rankings have often been dominated by a handful of regional champions who can reliably scoop their local tournament every time – but 2021 is looking different. Not only have we seen a few instances of top players traveling interstate to play spoiler for one event, but almost every game and region is seeing a more even spread of winners as the months roll on. It’s been the perfect way to foreshadow the inevitable clash for bragging rights we’ll see at BAM.

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BAM12 Registration Roundup!

Get hype! The biggest AusFGC news of the year is the biggest AusFGC event of the year: BAM 2021.

Battle Arena Melbourne is making its comeback in 2021. Held from July 9th-11th, #BAM12 will feature the peak of competitive play for fighting games across Australia as part of the CouchWarriors League, as well as a rare chance for our top talent to battle world-class opposition. Expanding the gaming on offer, alongside BAM will be ITZ Gaming PC LAN (more on that below)!

BAM’s status as Australia’s top Major on the official circuits brings together players and broadcasters from all sorts of games, and CouchWarriors are going in even harder on that big-tent ethos with this year’s event. Whether you count yourself among the hardcore competitors, niche game specialists, casual fans, artists, cosplayers, or game developers, #BAM12 has something to offer.

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BAM Returns July 9th to 11th at MCEC!

That’s right. BAM is coming back on July 9th to 11th, 2021 at Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.

The FGC’s biggest national event will be returning with the hype, community and competition we all love.  This year BAM will be colocated with ITZ LAN, a 1,000 seat BYOC PC LAN. Making this “ITZ BAM” even bigger for the gaming community.

Stay tuned for Registration info and more news and updates!

#BAMThrowback – Remembering Our Best Moments

2020 was meant to be an incredible year for our FGC, and specifically for Battle Arena Melbourne. BAM12 had an impressive list of World Tour tournaments to draw top internationals, great sponsors, the CouchWarriors League finale and increasing momentum from years of successful “big BAMs” at the MEC, ready to break all records and make news worldwide. The event is only postponed, not cancelled, so we can still look forward to our annual calendar highlight. But it’s painful to be set back after so much hard work, by a force well outside anybody’s control.

With the originally planned event dates coming and going last weekend, it would have been easy to get sucked into further disappointment. Instead, CouchWarriors took the chance to launch the #BAMThrowback hashtag, asking our community to throw up their best memories and photos from years of BAM past.

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COVID-19 Update and Online Tournament Schedule

It has been a tough month or two for any community that relies on live events – our FGC included. Those following our social media accounts will know that the realities of the coronavirus pandemic have forced CouchWarriors to make a number of changes to our 2020 plans, including postponing tournaments or moving them online. To ensure an easy reference for our community over the next few months, we’re collecting those announcements in one place.

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CouchWarriors and Twitch extend esports partnership with 2018-19 Fighting Game Ranking Season: BAM Path to EVO

CouchWarriors and Twitch extend esports partnership with 2018-19 Fighting Game Ranking Season: BAM Path to EVO

 

  • Inclusive Esports Ranking season and league ladder for events across ANZ every month.
  • Each event live stream will feature on Twitch TV’s front page.
  • Earn points to set ANZ FGC esports players on a path to Australian championships at BAM
  • Top ANZ BAM players awarded flights, accom for EVO World Championships in Las Vegas!

 

 

Thursday, 27th September – CouchWarriors and Twitch TV have announced BAM Path To EVO, a qualifying path for ANZ fighting game esports players across multiple local and upcoming online events.  The series, featured front page of #1 gaming streaming platform Twitch TV, starts as of this month. Points earned will be tallied on a combined league ladder, leading to the national championships at BAM (Battle Arena Melbourne). From there, champions in three games will go on to EVO World Championships in 2019.  

 

This new phase of the esports partnership will support ongoing events across the ANZ fighting game community. Players at monthly CouchWarriors, Ozhadou and Standing Fierce events around the region will be able to earn points to see who is performing best at local tournaments, while event streams feature on the front page of live streaming platform, Twitch.TV  

 

Players in Street Fighter V, Tekken 7, and Super Smash Bros 4 WiiU will each earn points tallied on a shared leaderboard at BAMPathToEVO.com.au, and the top scorers will receive travel and a qualifier opportunity at BAM11 in May, 2019.  The top ANZ player at BAM in each game, will once again travel to Las Vegas, USA, to participate in the EVO World Championships!

 

The first phase of the partnership began in May at Australia’s largest Fighting game major, BAM. Three champions then played for Australia at EVO. Now, the pathway is now open to more players around Australia and New Zealand, starting this month.

 

National Ladder and Community Partners

The centralised ladder has launched on BAMPathToEVO.com.au and will grow in features as event results roll in. For more information on the ranking points system, visit https://www.couchwarriors.org/bam-path-to-evo-with-twitch/

 

The first three states to join the series with their regular events will be in Victoria and Queensland through CouchWarriors, Sydney through Ozhadou, and New Zealand through Standing Fierce.

 

Next events and where to watch

 

Each regional points champion will be provided travel and entry into BAM11!

 

Online tournaments each month

In addition to the local community events, further points are available for participants in one online tournament each month per game.  More details of each tournament and how to sign up will be shared on couchwarriors.org/bam-path-to-evo-with-twitch/  and BAMPathToEVO.com.au very soon.

 

Events for everyone

Players in other fighting games will still earn local ranking points. So if you love playing more than SFV, Tekken and Smash 4, players are always encouraged to build their local scenes by playing all games they would like to learn or compete in.

 

To find out more about each fighting game community in ANZ, visit:

 

CouchWarriors: www.couchwarriors.org

Ozhadou: www.ozhadou.net

Standing Fierce: www.standingfierce.com

 

How to join as a partner event or sponsor the series: [email protected]

 

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About Twitch

Twitch is the leading social video service and community for gamers where tens of millions of people come together each day from all over the globe to interact around live and on-demand content. This includes watching, talking, and chatting about video games and esports, as well as traditional sports, anime, music, the creative arts, and other shared interests. Twitch also runs TwitchCon, the annual convention for celebrating the Twitch community. For more information about Twitch, visit our Press Center, Twitter feed (#Twitch), and Blog.

 

 

About CouchWarriors

CouchWarriors, established 2006, is an expert in gaming tournaments and esports events.  A community run not for profit with over 10 years experience, grown from the vibrant fighting game community.

Hosts of Battle Arena Melbourne (BAM), Australia’s largest open entry esports tournament event. CouchWarriors offer casual and grassroots events, scaling to tournaments at the national level.  Both beginner to expert players have room with our inclusive approach, from a professionally minded tournament team.

CouchWarriors also offers commercial events services from tournament organisation and administration, live streaming, event management and staffing. CouchWarriors have supported events including Melbourne Esports Open, Madman Anime Festival and PAX Australia.

For more information

www.couchwarriors.org

www.facebook.com/couchwarriors | www.twitter.com/couchwarriors

 

Contact

Press [email protected] | General [email protected]

BAM10 Survey – Your Feedback!

This year CouchWarriors celebrated its 10th year of Battle Arena Melbourne with BAM10.

Our biggest event yet, attracting over 2000 attendees, BAM continues to grow and improve year on year. As part of the event this year we sought feedback from our attendees to get a better sense of what we are doing well and where we can improve.

This years event featured the best of Australian and international talent in the fighting game community and there was no lack of entertainment. Matches were electric, with spectators on the edge of their seats, holding their breath as players battled right down to the last inch of health before triumphing. Besides the usual tournaments we also had our first appearance of Nintendo hosting both Splatoon 2 and Pokken tournaments and the PC LAN area that hosted its own tournaments.

 

Let’s take a look at the survey!

 

A little about our community

 

The attendees of BAM10 are all kinds of ages with our attendees being mostly between the ages of 14-30. Most of the respondents were male (96%) but our female community is growing with female respondents competing in events across BAM10 including Street Fighter, Smash Bros. 4, Splatoon 2 and Dragon Ball FighterZ.

Most of our attendees had attended a BAM event in the past (60%) but we had a lot of first timers attend this years BAM. Of those who had attended previously, most people had attended more than two events.

Our tournaments

78.5% of responses were competitors with most people competing in Tekken, Dragon Ball FighterZ and Street Fighter. It was a big job for some our TO’s this year with so many different games being run at BAM10. CouchWarriors has been working hard to ensure tournament bracket updates are timely and easy for people to access. Our community’s feedback showed that this really came through with 89% satisfied with the running of brackets, 84% satisfied with bracket updates and 81% satisfied with the equipment provided.

There were shout outs to our TO’s for doing an amazing job as well as a request for more TO’s to help with some of the larger tournaments to reduce stress if possible.

BAM10 overall

BAM10 was a massive hit with our community with 93% definitely coming back next year  and 94% recommending BAM to their friends. When asked overall how satisfied people were with the event, there were no dissatisfied results which 96% being satisfied with BAM.

This is an excellent result for Australia’s biggest Fighting Game Tournament and is proof of how our hard work, dedication and devotion to BAM is seen and experienced by our attendees.

We’d like to thank everyone who completed the survey for their feedback. There was a lot of amazing ideas and we are looking forward to bringing them to life next year at BAM11!

 

Thanks to Jodie “Eevee” Langford for producing the survey and compiling this article

Gfinity Elite Series SFV Players at Battle Arena Melbourne 10.

The upcoming GFINITY Elite Series will feature a large selection of Street Fighter V players from the community. With BAM10 as the major fighting game event in the calendar year just finished, it’s a great opportunity to look at how these players finished up. How will this latest ranking of the top SFV players in the country play out when the teams face off at Elite Series in the coming weeks?  Their placement at BAM10 will be a good gauge!

The Chiefs main Squad

At the moment, it looks like Chiefs are in the box seat, with the only two Australian players to make top 8 against fierce local and international competition both in that team. In fact, Somniac, as top placer via tiebreak with Bksama, won a trip to Vegas as our EVO representative.

Watch the winning moment: https://clips.twitch.tv/BlazingSmoothLapwingPJSalt

However, a few close calls in pools and previous tournaments suggests some upsets from the likes of ROF and TravisStyles are certainly possible.

Check out all of the players and their teams that came to BAM 10.

See the full BAM10 results list here (Photos and videos linked)

7thSomniacSydney Chiefs
7thBksamaSydney Chiefs
9thTravis StylesMelbourne Order
9thROFMelbourne Order
13thRumoursOfGhostsMelb Avant Gaming
13thZGSydney Chiefs
17thGhostChipsBrisbane Deceptors
17thZedMelbourne Order
17thBugMelbourne Order
17thFREEZASydney Roar
25thCamzaceBrisbane Deceptors
25thRuppsPerth Ground Zero
25thCaesuraPerth Ground Zero
25thBurnoutFighterMelbourne Order
25thCadzow_Sydney Roar
25thDaleSydney Roar
25thPahndaSydney Chiefs
33rdRobbieSla. Brisbane Deceptors
33rdSpaceGhostMelb Avant Gaming
33rdSyoPerth Ground Zero
33rdFalcoSydney Chiefs
49thAwildLLAMAMelb Avant Gaming
49thMiMMelbourne Order
65thStaticzPerth Ground Zero
65thSchenkhanPerth Ground Zero
97thAcrylicSaintSydney Roar
97thBao SpecialBrisbane Deceptors

 

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