The Chiefs eSports Club have an interesting history in the CS:GO landscape. Since their first dive into the game, the organisation has announced the signing of 4 5-man lineups and had 23 different players represent them at LAN. The Chiefs seem to finally have found some consistency with their current squad, who, as of this article’s publication, are finding some great online form, but the organisation’s CS history has been erratic and precarious.
Check out The History of Chiefs Esports in CSGO Part One here.
The Untapped Potential – Lightstep, dexter, BURNRUOk, tucks/zewsy, CHRiSOAOW/topguN
Coming in to replace the outgoing PeetyG and zewsy, who left in December of 2015, BURNRUOk of Trident and dexter of SYF were 2 rising stars of the Oceanic scene in their respective roles. And with Australian Counter-Strike still in a state of flux, it looked like Chiefs would pick up where they left off and continue as the 2nd best in the region, with Renegades recently leaving for North America.
Unfortunately, this lineup would never be seen playing as a 5-man core in any notable events. The first Asia Minor was announced to take place at IEM Taipei, and due to Valve’s ruling, Tyler “tucks” Reilly was unable to play in the qualifiers with a previous VAC ban haunting his account. zewsy would step into his shoes for the event, and proved to be just as handy as he was a month ago. With a convincing dispatch of Alpha Sydney in the semi-final and a strong 2-1 win over Immunity in the final, Chiefs were able to qualify for their first overseas event, becoming just the fourth Oceanic team to do so, and, in many eyes, usurped the top spot in the scene.
Unfortunately, on top of tucks having to miss the event, CHRiSOAOW was not able to get a visa to attend the event, being a Scottish native and not Australian citizen at the time. As a substitute, Chiefs sought out the services of the internationally-experience Vox Eminor legend Azad “topguN” Orami, who hadn’t competed regularly since leaving Vox in March of 2015. Now with just 3 players from their regular lineup, Chiefs weren’t going into the tournament very favoured, with teams like MVP.Karnal and CyberZen in their group. Surprisingly and by the skin of their teeth, however, the side pulled through, with a 16-14 win against MVP.Karnal, a 4-16 loss to CyberZen and a 16-9 win against Risky Gaming. Facing The MongolZ in the semi final, who shockingly dismantled Renegades in their group stage match and would go on to win the tournament, the Chiefs did well to take a map, but eventually fell 2-1.
IEM Taipei featured a ragtag Chiefs lineup
Soon after the event, despite a decent result with 2 stand-ins and the potential to be the best team in the region, Michael “Lightstep” Hall would leave the team to join Legacy, a super-team in the works, while tucks was kicked, likely due to his VAC ban preventing the team from participating in Valve events.
The Odd Mix – BURNRUOk, CHRiSOAOW, deStiny, Mung0/dexter/NikkeZ/MoeycQ
Spotted on the CyberGamer forums in mid-February 2016, The Chiefs had brought in 1.6 legend deStiny and former-SYF young gun Mung0 to fill the gaps in the team, as well as gazR, considered inseparable from deStiny, as the team’s coach.
This lineup got off to a great start, flawlessly qualifying for the CyberGamer Premier League Autumn 2016 LAN finals, taking place in April, by finding wins over Incept, Alpha Sydney, Exile 5 and Legacy, a super-team that included the likes of ofnu, Lightstep, Havoc, topguN and ap0c. At the LAN itself, Chiefs looked a tad shaky, falling to Trident in the group stage, but picked themselves back up to take second seed in the group. Against Corvidae in the semis, Chiefs looked strong. dexter, not previously renowned as an AWPer, picked up the role in this new lineup and played quite well, backed up by strong Mung0 and deStiny performances. Legacy, however, proved to be stronger, despite using busta in place of topguN, taking the grand final 2-1.
A small rivalry was formed between this Chiefs outfit and Legacy, with the two teams facing each other yet again in the Cologne Asia Minor qualifiers just a few days later. The result would not change, however, with Legacy taking another 2-1 victory to advance to the final against Immunity. The Chiefs’ next event was the strangely-formatted ESL ANZ Championships Season 1. This tournament would see 7 open weekend-spanning cups, with points being given to teams based on their placing in each. At the end of the 7 weeks of action, The Chiefs, now using Nikhil “NikkeZ” Victor in place of Mung0, had to win 2 BO3s, against 1028 and Nuovo, to qualify for the LAN Finals, and they did so with ease.
With Winterfox looming in the distance, dexter ended up leaving Chiefs before the LAN. This meant that Mung0 was brought back into the lineup and the side was without their main AWPer and In-Game Leader. Thus, not much was expected of the team going into the event. Chiefs started strong with a 2-0 win over Exile 5, but ultimately fell to Parallax and Atheltico to claim 3rd. The last we’d see of this Chiefs lineup was their ESEA Season 22 Open campaign, with Mohammed “MoeycQ” Tizani playing for the out-again Mung0. Fighting for a spot at the ESEA Global Premier Challenge, the team picked up a finals berth through a 2-1 win over Avant Garde, before losing 2-0 to, ironically, Team ASDF, who would sign with Chiefs soon after.
With dexter gone, AWPing duties fell to Cal “BURNRUOk” Henderson
The Best To Date – Lightstep, tucks, INS, malta, aliStair
Team ASDF was a mix team formed in mid-2016 during the ESL ANZ Championship Group Stage. Lightstep, now gone from the Legacy experiment, was playing week-to-week to a handful of players. Settling with former teammate tucks, Incept’s malta and INS and aliStair of Corvidae fame, Team ASDF competed together in ESEA Open Season 22 and the playoffs of the ESL ANZ Championship. It was their qualification for the ESEA Global Premier Challenge in Katowice, and the crumbling of the former Chiefs team, which saw ASDF sign with the organisation.
Lightstep and tucks returned to Chiefs with 3 rising stars
It would be a slow start for the team under their new brand, however. Pitted in a group in Katowice against Echo Fox, ALTERNATE aTTaX and a crippled ENCE, Chiefs went out in last place. Despite the close loss to Echo Fox on Nuke and a disappointing struggle against ENCE, using the retired natu, on Cache, aliStair and tucks displayed great promise, hyping viewers up for their return to the Australian scene.
The Chiefs, over the September-October period, were seen in various online tournaments, including the EB Expo Sydney qualifiers, the ASUS ROG Masters qualifiers and the ESL ANZ Championships Season 2 group stage. A flawless run in the ASUS ROG event would see the side qualify for their second international event in 2 months, while a 3rd placing in the ESL ANZ Champs allowed the Chiefs to attend their first big domestic tournament. At the ESL Finals, Chiefs dispatched of Parallax and progressed to a BO5 grand final against Athletico, Australia’s in-form team. A close 16-14 loss on Mirage and a dominant 16-16 win on Cache would be the best we’d see out of Chiefs though, going down 16-6 on both Nuke and Train and dropping the series.
More international disappointment from Chiefs would come at the ASUS ROG Masters in Kuala Lumpur. The team started out with a loss to Singapore’s second best team Leapfrog in the group stage, but picked themselves back up to beat TaiwanZ and progress to the quarter finals. UAE’s Risky Gaming were their next opponent, who Chiefs matched handily on paper. The scoreboard, however, told otherwise, with a relatively close 2-0 victory going the way of Risky, sending Chiefs packing earlier than expected yet again.
The Chiefs starting picking up in their online matches, climbing to a top 4 finish in the ESEA Season 23 Premier finals, going down to rivals and eventual winners Athletico. A few days later, in the DreamHack Masters Las Vegas qualifiers, Chiefs, with IyeN and sK standing in for tucks and INS, were able to get revenge and advanced to the final with a 2-0 win over Athletico. Against Winterfox, who had returned to Australia for the event, the team managed to steal the win 2-1, with a nail-biting overtime finish on Mirage, securing their spot in the Greater Asian Qualifier. They ended up not playing in this event, with schedule problems and having to either travel to Asia or play with 150+ latency.
This current Chiefs lineup, who have been the longest squad of 5 with the organisation to date, are now setting their sights on claiming the ZEN League, CyberGamer Season 10 and ESEA Premier Season 24, all of which they are topping the ladders in. With recent changes to the cores of teams like Tainted Minds and Avant Garde, Chiefs are looking like they might finally take the top spot in the scene.
Thanks to Steph Leung (@TheJellyBellyy) for providing the photos.