There’s nothing better in Counter-Strike than competing at a LAN in front of your home audience, and for Aussie squad Bad News Kangaroos, opportunities are few and far between—which made last weekend’s ESL Challenger Melbourne clash with ESL Pro League Season 19 in Malta all the more painful.
But, despite the pain of missing their home tournament, captain Toby “BRACE” Barnes would give up every single Aussie LAN opportunity if it meant more time playing against the best teams in Europe. “Finding out we were missing DreamHack was pretty gutting, it’s one of the biggest things we look forward to playing all year,” BRACE said to Dot Esports.
BRACE pulled on the purple and white for Vertex in front of a packed Rod Laver Arena back in 2023 and said he lamented missing the Aussie crowd this year, but it’s a sacrifice worth making as his team—now orgless under the BNK moniker—take on the world’s best at Pro League.
“This is a massive opportunity for us, we can’t pass up any European events where we get this much practice,” BRACE said. The in-game leader stated that, like their peers at FlyQuest, the top OCE teams needed to make it to events like EPL for the EU practice, and that their absence serves the Aussie scene well in that the next generation of talent get their shot on-stage.
“Even just playing an actual LAN is such a big goal for all the Australian players who are scrimming every night, putting in the hours and actually qualifying for the event,” BRACE said. “I’m glad these guys got that chance.”
BRACE believes the break-up of the “franchised” leagues hosted by the likes of BLAST and ESL for 2025 means the next wave of Aussie CS2 talent will get their chances to make these big tournaments overseas—so long as those opportunities remain available to the scene. “There’s going to be events where FlyQuest is overseas and us, Rooster, and other teams have that chance to grab the second spot.”
BNK, then Vertex, was last spotted in Europe for the CCT Season One online finals in early December 2023. Since then, the squad split from their organization and has been going it alone since the new year kicked off. BRACE said he and the boys had been forced into some major lifestyle changes to pursue their CS2 dream. “[Vertex owner] Jamie gave us an insane opportunity to play full-time for so long and it’s something I’ll never take for granted,” BRACE said.
“It’s definitely more challenging without [an org]; obviously, there’s not as much time we can put in, we have to be more efficient and smarter about how we use our time. Most of us are working a bit and playing; before, Jamie gave us the chance to commit fully to the game or perhaps to study as well, but now everyone needs to include work as well.”
It’s a massive setback for the squad that, in the absence of Grayhound (now FlyQuest), was constantly in the hunt for the top spot at home and is bolstered by years of experience. Not helping their cause was the relatively quiet start to 2024 for the team with just a few qualifiers, the local ESL Challenger League, and a LAN opportunity in India for the Skyesports Grand Slam keeping them active.
In that time, all focus has been on integrating new fifth Damon “damyo” Portelli—brother to FlyQuest’s vexite. BRACE revealed the 22-year-old rifler, who had previous stints at Antic Esports and VexX, was settling into the BNK system well and was impressed with his initiative. “For a lot of players, they’ll get a bit discouraged if something doesn’t work but Damon will keep on talking and finding solutions,” BRACE said. “We are trying to give him as many positions where he can have an impact vocally.”
Opening against MOUZ on day one of EPL was always going to be a tall task for BNK, and while the Aussies nabbed a map win against ENCE, the brutal 0-13 Mirage and series loss means they face elimination today. Regardless of their performance against FURIA, BRACE isn’t going home empty-handed.
“There’s some massive teams in this group and it’s going to be an uphill battle to be successful,” he said. “In terms of how the meta has shifted and takeaways from how teams have been playing and talking, I’ve learned a lot recently from what we’ve played.”
Bad News Kangaroos fight for their ESL Pro League season 19 lives against FURIA on May 3 at 9:30am CT.
