Korea started off like any trip arriving and getting scammed. Unaware young and not knowing we eventually made it to the hotel after a 70,000 Won taxi, and the hotel was awesome. If only the beds weren't made from cement it would've been amazing. The showers had[b] body massages[/b], the toilets [b]clean your asses[/b] (not ours unfortunately) and the atmosphere was set from the moment we arrived, this tournament was mega.


We had the first day to ourselves and being true nerds we found ourselves a decent pc cafe to relax at and announce we made it in 1 piece. From the first moment we arrived there was the rush of every guest arriving trying to make it on time, with freak accidents occurring such as the cs 1.6's flight being cancelled. But eventually, all of Australia made it in 1 piece.


We had the honour of meeting the top players from almost every well recognized team in LoL right now. Most were friendly, some were not, but we got to have a chat say hi and eventually, compete. As the second day had started we got to witness an amazing opening ceremony featuring dancing with swords and the works. The video's were awesome, performances were awesome, and it was overall a real psych up for our matches! Unfortunately we had no matches til day 2 and went and practiced for majority of the second day. Headed out for dinner had a nice chat with all the Aussie boys minus CS 1.6, who were probably still asleep due to those flight issues arriving the day of competing.



Our competing day started off relatively smooth, no kinks, no issues. Just the coin toss and straight into it.
Game 1: Aus v Italy.

After winning the coin toss we were a bunch of nervous kids awaiting our first ever match in international waters, first ever time with 15 ping, first ever time on a tournament server. We made our full rune pages, mastery pages, and skin choices ;D and we were ready to compete, winning the coin toss gave us first pick and we got graves with the said pick.
(I don't remember bans)
The team comps were: [b]Graves, Sona, Udyr, Irelia, Leblanc vs. Karthus, Janna, Trynd, Tristana, Gangplank

Relatively basic starts with no invade, led to bottom raping their lane, top raping their lane, and mid raping their lane taking control from the get go. Bot taking first blood from an udyr gank followed up shortly by leblanc killing karthus in lane. We pushed onto the first dragon, they attempted to stop us and then a quadra kill from leblanc scored us a solid lead securing the dragon and an ace. From there the Italy game went like clockwork, kills pushes, assets, everything in our favour and we pushed to victory within 26 minutes of the first games start.


Next we pushed off this game into versing CDE. This was our match of the day as CDE had just beatem CLG and went straight into us. After winning the toss again and getting first pick, we picked up Kassadin in the mid lane and [u]the team comps went as follows[/u]: [b]Kass, Ren, Corki, Janna, Rammus[/b] vs. [b]Karthus, Yorick, Lee Sin, Alistar Tristana[/b]

CDE invaded early in this game with the power of lee sin and alistar pushed us out of blue buff, some silly errors and mistakes led to an unnoticed 3 man gank top lane for the first blood on renekton, missing the first blood on Alistar by the skin of his teeth. CDE put yorick in mid lane to handle the kassadin whilst karthus remained top to verse Renekton, already a first blood ahead. Bot lane took to the advantage putting corki at 4-1 against xspecial and Chauster dominating the lane, all the while dales frustration got the better of him in top lane, pushing into lee sin ganks consistently and winding up 0-3.

Mid was very stale as yorick and kass were both farming with no resolve or ganking opportunity, as we took to blue, they took to drag, karthus forced kassadins hand unto killing him as the distraction while they freely took the dragon. And by this point the karthus being 5-1, an entire item ahead of the Kassadin, they pushed the game out securing all assets and winning the game. An unfortunate end to such a promising start shows we still have what it takes to beat top teams. and unfortunately fell short in doing so. Final score 8-16.


Game 3 took place after a large wait and we unfortunately and in all honesty played terrible, and should not have played at the level we did. It felt like a lack of caring for this particular game which was indeed do or die. Either way and under any circumstances we got beaten very very heavily by CLG. Outpicked for the most part, outplayed for majority of it. We came into game 3 with the necessity to win, and the teams were:

Galio, Udyr, Janna, Corki, Fizz vs.Skarner, Ryze, Maokai, Soraka, Vayne

Very strong team switched lanes repeatedly ensuring that skarner versed galio and ryze had the fizz. shutting down fizz hard, and preventing the galio from assisting other lanes. Jiji carried this game to another level nailing everything he did. Sure we had technical issues, but it was done with very high class and execution that should be commended. The noise levels were unbearably high for our headsets/microphones, (not our best pair for sponsor reasons) and forced some teamwork errors every now and then, but for the most part out played, final score: lots to not much.


The Phillipines had visa issues and didn't show. Placing us at 2-2 overall for the event, a ratio i find to be acceptable. People may bitch we were placed in the group of death and it was unfair for us. I see it as the group where the most can be learned. And I feel as though that's what we did. After some analysis of the games it will make our game play much smoother with some new and improved tactics. I look forward to showing these Americans just who Australia is and why they should be worried to verse us in tournaments.

From there it was relaxation time, took in the sights, the women, the bars, the K-Pop was everywhere and it's safe to say we all fell in love with it, especially live. Korea was fun, exciting and worthwhile going to.

We gave it our all in every match and would hope to not disappoint the community we work so hard for to grow and improve every day.

Cheers, SQL TtRusty.

Our LoL team have their first match going live in just under an hour against Team Redbyte (Italy) this is the first round of their group stages.

The full tournament schedule can be found here: http://www.wcg.com/renew/tournament/2011/tm_match_list_2011.asp?gID=G110715106&d_time=1209

For live updates visit our facebook page
http://www.facebook.com/SEQUENTIALGaming

We wish the boys the best of luck!!!

Sequential gaming is embarking onto the battlefields of Newerth, picking up a new HoN squad formerly known as Exile5. The team has qualified for the upcoming RCG Nationals in Sydney, and are currently participating in international competition via the Its Gosu and HoNPortal.org events. The team has seen a rapid rise through the ranks of both Australian and international competititon, finishing in a wildcard second place in both the Tt eSports HoN Net Cafe Challenge and the AC Ryan HoN Pro League. The newly named Sequential HoN division is:

- Tom "FiveS" Taylor (c)
- Tim "Tripzz" Brooks
- Ben "xt_unknown" Hubbard
- Lawson "Skillshotz" Ries
- Matt "minortotemzz" Brimson
- James "invertednz" Farrier
- Patrick "LoRDo" Gordon (Manager)

Speaking about the move, captain Tom "FiveS" Taylor had this to say:

"We are very excited to be able to represent an organisation with as much history and reputation as Sequential. Obviously our move from Exile5 was a difficult one, and we thank them for the hospitality shown to us during our tenure with them. Our move to Sequential provides a new drive for us as a team, and we will be sure to deliver a string of impressive results in upcoming competitions."

We wish the team the best of luck and are very happy to have them on board!

www.sql-gaming.com
www.facebook.com/SEQUENTIALGaming

With Modern Warfare 3 to hit the shelves within a few hours, it has also come time to announce the newest addition to the Sequential organisation. After some intense talks with team manager Sean "phntem" Kramer, it became clear that their objectives as a team synced with our organisations goals. Starting off with a 4v4 team for Cybergamer and ACL online and LAN events.

The team consists of:
Tyson "FluenZa" Hinton
Jayden "Necrotix" Stent
Daniel "Envious" Sivircic
Sean "phntem" Kramer

You will see them firstly at ACL Melbourne Regionals on November 26th. The team is planning to attend a majority of the circuit events also.

This is what Necrotix had to say about the partnership.
"I am highly pleased to be associated with such a strong and respected organision such as Sequential Gaming. I am also very pleased with the strong team of veterans we have assembled heading into the new game of Modern Warfare 3, we have high hopes and expectations for our team leading well into the future with our new home Sequential Gaming"

Together with the 4v4/LAN team xbox manager phntem is gauging interest for a 5v5 Search and Destroy team to take the leagues. To express interest chuck phntem a private message on cybergamer. The current lineup is Tyson "FluenZa" Hinton, Daniel "Envious" Sivircic and Sean "phntem" Kramer.

Sequential Gaming are very pleased to announce that we are making the move into the Team Fortress 2 scene. The team formerly known as Team Rewound will now be proudly representing Sequential Gaming.

The lineup will consist of:
• Jameh
• Grey
• Prime
• Amril
• Bdh
• Mikeeeh
• Meersy

These guys have done an amazing job so far in their TF2 careers with some very noteable achievements:

• CFL1 - 1st
• Csm2 – 1st
• SoO - 1st
• owl2 - 2nd
• c4c - 2nd
• owl3 - 2nd
• owl4 - 2nd
• ozfc2 - 2nd
• owl5 - 2nd
• c4c2 - 3nd
• CF - 2nd
• FSi - 4th
• owl - 6th

Sequential Gaming are very excited to be able to acquire such a great team and look forward to watching them continue to succeed.

The boys will be playing in the grand final of OWL6 against Team Immunity, stayed tuned for the date!

EB Expo 2011 was truly a sight to be seen, the people, the massiveness of the event itself and the overall atmosphere really just allowed us to realize how real everything is, and how big a deal it will be if we were to come out on top and win this event. From three months back when I had just an idea of putting a team together with WCG as just a dream for us, an unattainable goal, to beating the best in Australia and qualifying for worlds in Korea has truly been a remarkable journey, and one that is just beginning to say the least!

The organization of the event itself had left much to be desired with last minute flights and accommodation for all teams, SQL having none as we are ‘local’ so team mates were bunking at each other’s houses just to make it to the event at all! Unfortunately shirts not arriving by mail in time so we looked like odd ones out wearing casual while everybody else had matching team shirts! Aside from all organizational flaws it was an amazing two days, amazing experience and three of the most intense games we have ever played as a team.

All games in the finals were Single Elimination Best of One’s, definitely not what we expected and some may say unfair for the losing teams, but none the less this added to the intensity of the entire thing, it was A-Game or NO game.
Round 1 in the finals saw us against team inertia, allowed in from Sydney as a team that placed third when ArcMSI disbanded, they were most definitely having the odds against them, and this proved true when we pulled together exceptionally to demolish them in a game under 30 minutes, having been on top from the start and without looking back we gained an exceptional gold lead and just rushed their base, killing them and everything they had winning convincingly.

After a promising first game we were placed against team LoLA, a well renowned LoL team and a team we knew absolutely nothing about, so we were naturally worried as to what we will expect or what will happen from the get go. But as we started the game with everything on the line, we played a game like no other, everybody doing their job flawlessly. Our game was so rock solid that they could find no way to break through our defence, offense, or map control.

We slowly but surely assured our victory, acquiring dragons, kills, and towers to the point where we could easily team fight without question, initiating under their base towers without worry and steamrolling our way through the rest of game two, cementing our birth into the grand final.
The grand final, the match who decided who was going to Korea, who was to verse the top international teams from around the world. It was a very intense game from start to finish. In short:

First game picks
Fray - Udyr, Ryze, rumble, Cait, Rammus

SQL - Akali, GP, Cassiopeia, Trist, Sona

Game began with no invades, about 6-7 minutes in domo on udyr attempted to counter jungle estonian on GP at top double golems, which for some reason domo flashed for GP, gp ate oranges and flashed out to top lane, Akali came over and was an easy first blood.

From there on and with Akali with first blood, blue buff and 6 minute gunblade, obbie on rumble was struggling hard, with Akali killing him another 1-2 times under his tower. Bottom lane got an early kill on cait, which gave them a slight advantage. From there on, SQL had entire map control with a fed Akali being a real terror. Fray really couldn't do much about it, so as SQL went to baron around 32 minute mark, ryze and cait pushed bottom lane second turret, in which Akali had tped back and 1 v 2’d both of them like a boss. As the game went on SQL continued to push killing all 3 inhibitors, then got a second baron which then dale never fails on Akali picked up an official penta kill, ending the game.

Game one to SQL.

Second game:
Fray - irelia, tristana, leesin, cait, malphite.

SQL - Renek, kennen, nocturne, sona, kog.

The second game started in the favour of Fray, being a very aggressive team taking to the bottom lane of SQL was easy work for them having ap tristana to burst and run in 1 swift motion, they took early dragon control and continued their attempts at ganking securing a minor lead over SQL. The countless gank attempts began to punish them as rusty continued to push mid lane securing an early tower. Bot lane began to push back into its strength with kog maw proving to become a lot to handle for Fray. Most skirmishes turned into SQL’s favour, gaining small positive kill tradeoffs around 2-3 to SQL and 1-2 to fray, SQL always having one more.

AP tristana had some mean burst, catching sona out numerous times, but with noc and renek jumping straight onto the carries, and kennen just holding tristana down and protecting the kog maw, there wasn’t much fray could of done. A few mistakes towards the end by SQL could have cost the game, a push to bottom lane was heavily countered by fray, but they were not in the position to really bring back the game.
From there, winning the game became clockwork, with the excitement kicking in everybody was screaming at every positive outcome to every event in the game. Spectators were on the edge of their seats watching our every move as we upset the #1 team in Australia.
SQL- 2 Defeat Fray- 0

MVP goes to Dale Never Fails for his stellar akali performance.

Well done to both teams, Alot of players and teams had no hope for SQL, but the underdogs took the trophy at the end of the day which is all that matters!

Shoutouts to scream for the third game write-up, MF, cC and all those who competed for the fun times that will not be forgotten. Also a big thanks to SQL and Tt eSPORTS.
We will do SQL and Australian gaming proud in Korea in December!

The SQL LoL team has had a big day at the EB Games Expo / WCG National Final. The boys started off strong defeating inertia in a single elimination bracket. Next up they had Team LoLa, where the guys held strong and eliminated them 1-0 which sent them into the grand final.

The number one see Frenetic Array had a bye first round and met Mindfreak in the semis, beating them 1-0 and knocking them out of the race for the title.

It comes down to Sequential Gaming Vs Frenetic Array to see who will be representing Australia at WCG to be played tomorrow. We wish the guys the best of luck and hope they can come away with an upset win!

Sequential Gaming is entering the LoL scene by bringing on the side formerly known as HyM. HyM qualified for the WCG event at the EB games expo after taking out the QLD Qualifiers. The team has gone from strength to strength even though they are relatively new in the LoL scene. The is made up of,

• Zack ‘RustyBallBags’ Pye (c)
• James ‘Denian’ Goddard
• Henry ‘Estonian Power’ Vinkmann
• Dale ‘Dale never fails’ Roy
• Thomas ‘Gindenwo’ Erben
• Robert ‘Surrell’ Russell
Rusty commented on the move “We are very excited to be making the move to Sequential. We felt the move to Sequential came at the right time for us as we grow as a team, SQL will help us reach our full potential.”
Here at SQL we look forward to working with the team well into the future and wish them the best of luck at the EB Games Expo!

This is my first post with Sequential! I'm Klassic and I'm SQL's new content manager. Very glad to be a part of this fantastic organisation and I hope to contribute mainly though keeping gaming news flowing on the website! Hooray!

-----------------------

League of Legends followers will be excited to see a new champion, Xerath, as well as some new skins for Caitlyn and Brand.



-----------------------

Australia on the world scale? As we all know, Australia is a large competitive platform for a lot of games, and some smaller competitive games are getting some coverage, and our Australian players are being featured! CommunityFortress, a US website that promotes competitive Team Fortress 2, featured Nano from the Australian team Dial / Up in their August video! Check it out!



-----------------------

CyberGamer has officially wrapped up its first season of StarCraft 2, in both 1 v 1 and 2 v 2 formats. Season 2 is looking good with some new admins.

At the same time, CG's second Black Ops season is up and running now with a chosen ProMod (thanks Koil you amazing boy). With over 100 active teams registered in the ladder, we're finally starting to see some action, with Frenetic Array once again the favorites for this season.

-----------------------

That's all from me today, will be keeping you updated!

Blake got the chance to have a chat to Mick Jenkins founder 4Seasons Gaming, home of Quake and the driving force behind the quake scene in Australia here is what he had to say.


SQL.Tt blaKe: Firstly Mick could you give us a small introduction of yourself and your involvement in the Quake community?

Mick05: Well my name is Michael Jenkins (23), lived in Adelaide my whole life, finished a double degree at University: Bach of Comp Science and Multimedia Arts. My involvement in the Quake community is pretty large when you compare to other communities I suppose. I run the games community website and help with tournament production.

SQL.Tt blaKe: With no financial benefit to yourself, what drives you to provide a home for the Australian quake players?

Mick05: Although there isn't really any financial benefit I can say the work itself does come with other types of appreciation. As for what drives me, I just enjoy watching new faces come into the game and interact with the old faces. The community setup was a challenge I had always wanted to take on since when I started playing computer games. The haters drive me a bit as well.

SQL.Tt blaKe: As many people are aware, you are the driving force in the Australian quake scene. Would you be able to run us through any current or future Quake Live tournaments that you have planned or that are in the making?

Mick05: A lot of the current community are on top of me for a LAN tournament. I have run a couple through-out my years some standalone and some combined with other organisations. The direct problem with this recent lust is the location, makes it hard for me to organise a standalone BYOC held in another State.

So I will have to start branching out to setup this. I would like it to be both team and duel orientated. As for overseas competitions, my eyes are pretty set on DreamHack Winter in Sweden. Although I can't really tell you what is going to be happening until they further announce the competition details.

SQL.Tt blaKe: With QuakeLive being dropped by Intel Extreme Masters organisers how do you feel the games current competitive scene stands internationally?

Mick05: Eh. I mean after travelling to the IEM the only fun I found from the competition was the hype that came from it. The tournament wasn't really all that Quake focused more Money focused. A lot of people, or trolls, would like to harp on about the games death because of this but I hardly doubt one tournament can hold up a game like people suggest.

We are all still playing it now, DreamHack is doing a great job keeping the game going but even if DreamHack were to drop the game I could still foresee something new springing a long. As far as I am aware the European scene is starting to build from the Amateur level which is good to see, it's basically what I did when I started. After the amateurs get good enough the pro's will come back to play.

SQL.Tt blaKe: Due to quake being such a hard game to master and new faces rarely seen in the major tournaments do you see this as a major factor in it being replaced by League of Legends at IEM?

Mick05: Haha, really good question. One that I haven't really had to answer before but I have thought about from time to time. Well I suppose I will put the question to anybody reading this, when a team or teams dominate a game or a tournament for an extra-long time does this mean the game or tournament dies? I have played inside a community where I have seen a couple of teams dominate the scene and then people lose interest etc.

But I think there were more underlying problems that made the game or said community come to an end. We are humans, and as humans we have a competitive nature. I suppose it's only a matter of time before the older guys get too old or tired of the game leaving room for new faces or younger players to take over. Nothing lasts forever, games or reigns. So in saying this, no I just think LoL is a new game and has a very large player base.

SQL.Tt blaKe: You mentioned DreamHack earlier and with it (Dreamhack Winter)being the next major tournament is there any chance that Australia will once again be represented internationally?

Mick05 says: There has been some discussion revolving around this competition and whether or not it will be team based rather than duel based. I have already put my point to the event organisers and tournament personnel that it is highly unlikely we will be traveling to the event were they to only run a team tournament. If in the case they do run both duel and team, then there is a very high chance we will fly some players over. Who or how many, I cannot give you this answer because I do not know it myself.

SQL.Tt blaKe: We have seen the likes of dandaking, zlr and ventz compete overseas with mixed results. How do you think these guys compare to the top international players and are there any up and coming Aussies that could potentially compete overseas?

Mick05: In all honesty Dan has been the only one to really impact the scene. IEM was tough for him and he played with what was given and made it work. With enough practice he could really hit a close quarter’s finish. Ventz and Zealor had their taste of international competition and as far as I know they are both ready to get straight back into it. I believe they both need perhaps a bit longer boot camping or practicing before an event over there to really be able to learn the European playing styles.

As for up and coming there are a few guys whom with enough practice could take it overseas, at least for the experience. Fraze has obviously shown the most potential outside those three, and he is very interested to travel to DreamHack but unsure if he would risk embarrassing himself in the duel competition. At least with DreamHack you can practice even if you are not playing in the competition, which is I think what he would like to do. Once again it depends on the tournament format, players invited, player limit etc.

SQL.Tt blaKe: From Sequential Gaming we would like to thank you for spending some time talking to us and to wrap things up, some might not know that you yourself are in fact a fairly decent quaker. How's your game traveling at the moment?
Mick 05: Best in AU!
Thanks for the interview guys!

Sequential Gaming is proud to be returning to the battlefield in 2011. After hibernating for the winter the final quarter of the year brings forth some much anticipated titles and as such some awesome new ventures. Former Fray front-runner Glock is jumping on board as one of SQL's Head Managers and brings with him an exciting Battlefield 3 lineup to push forward Sequential Gaming into again being one of Australia's top gaming organisations.

The line-up consists of old and new Battlefield players

Emilio 'Glock' Escobar (c)
Blake 'Blake' Thomas
Jordan'Daft' Mower
Daniel 'reZ' Eastway
Adam 'cookie' Cook
James 'Precise' King
Tom 'Vevix' McNiven
Kieran 'paK' Jess
Djoshua 'Spawkr' Vic
Nicholas 'Rekktify' James
Pablo 'Matador' Alcorta
Phil 'Akuma' Alcorta
Adam 'Savage' Kotek
Scott 'Chief' Nolan

The team is looking forward to competing at the top tier of Battlefield 3. We are ready for the challenges ahead and are looking to them with high hopes and ambitions.