Tournament:Australian Smash Circuit
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The Australian Smash Circuit is a dedicated, highly-dispersed and well-traveled smash community. The majority of smashers are predominantly located in the large cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, and the Gold Coast.
Some of its well known resident smashers include Bringer of Death, CAOTIC, Shaz, and Kupo
Previous major tournaments
- July 8th-10th, 2016: UQ Smash Final Destination 2016, Brisbane, Queensland
- August 28th-30th, 2015: DI Another Day, Perth, Western Australia
- May 23rd-24th, 2015, 2015: Battle Arena Melbourne 7, Melbourne, Victoria
- May 22nd 2015, 2015: Project Melbourne, Perth, Western Australia
- August 29th-31st, 2014: Shadowloo Showdown V, Melbourne, Victoria
- December 8th, 2007: Comrades of the Kaydash, Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, Queensland
- January 26th-27th, 2008: Reloaded Festival 08, Wayville, Adelaide, South Australia
- March 21st-7 April, 2008 TBA: Rambo, Dallas, Melbourne, Victoria
- July 2007: S3 Cubed, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, Sydney, New South Wales
- June 9th, 2007: Comrades 2, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Melbourne, Victoria
- January 27th, 2007: Comrades of the Anfology, Lower Plenty, Melbourne, Victoria
- July 1st, 2006: OHN5, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, Sydney, New South Wales
- December 10th, 2005: SEAT2, Moorabbin, Melbourne, Victoria
- September 30th, 2005: SEAT, Moorabbin, Melbourne, Victoria
- February 14th, 2005: @M, University of Melbourne, Carlton, Melbourne, Victoria
- April, 2004: Eastern Invasion, Cannington, Perth, Western Australia
History
Perth and the beginning (2002-2004)
Driven by the thirst for greater levels of competition, Australian smashers have looked beyond the scope of their local friends - this search has led many to Smashboards, an online forum where players communicate with each other to establish gatherings in their region. For a couple of years after SSBM's PAL release, there was no solid concentration of players to construct a proper competitive tournament, with only a mere handful of players spread over all capital cities of Australia. However, by 2004 two distinct and tight-knit communities emerged in Perth and Melbourne. The Perth community at this point was viewed as the largest. Strengthen by their newly-found and existing friendships, they took the initiative to set up Australia's first tournament attended by players from multiple states, inviting Melbourne's "core four," Shaz, Kupo, Cella and SabreAnt to its city for some serious smash. The attendance of a humble 12 marked the start of a consolidation of communities in several other regions.
The dominance of Melbourne (2005)
2005 could be seen as the year that Melbourne really took off and established itself as a competitive 'Smash Central' for Australia - most if not all traveled Smashers have visited the city at some point for one of its tournaments. Its growth owes much to Nintendo's 'SuperChallenge Series,' held in late 2004, that drew several hundred gamers to compete in new release GameCube games in cinema locations throughout Melbourne. Many of Victoria's players have a connection back to the SuperChallenge. After Melbourne's original crew of 4 visited Perth, they returned determined to host Australia's next national, with an added bonus. They planned and carried out amongst themselves a sponsorship plan to bring the most popular and (then) most highly skilled player, Captain Jack. Shaz and new SuperChallenge recruit CAOTIC spearheaded efforts to coordinate the event dubbed @M in early 2005. It was a marked success with interstate representation from three other states.
The success of @M and its advantageous position in the East Coast eventually saw Melbourne commit to more major tournaments with the creation of the SEAT series. These tournaments were originally intended to strengthen the local community, but due to organizational rigor and promotion, saw further interstate participation. During 2005, Shaz and Kupo made international ventures to the USA and Japan for an insight into international Smash culture. CAOTIC left for California in December and Bringer of Death took a trip to Sweden shortly afterwards.
The rise of Sydney and Queensland (2006-2007)
Both originally quiet in Smash activity, Southern Queensland got its break in 2006 after 2 crews solidified through various tournaments directed by the Brisbane TECH Team and the Gold Coast Ward. Intense inter-city rivalries created by these two crews have allowed them to make up for lost time in skill and experience, which helped them to contend quite favorably for high placings in Comrades of the Anfology, in January 2007. Similar enthusiasm was met with the Sydney Smash community which began to take off in 2007. A series of tournaments hosted by New South Wales ambassador Jaz and C0d3M0nk3y spearheaded Sydney's late growth and their talents were highlighted in Comrades 2, which featured a plethora of Smashers from the Oceanic region and Ken as a special guest to Australia. Both communities in Sydney and Southern Queensland are now very active with a smasher base in comparable size to Melbourne's active community and they are both set to continue their growth in skill and numbers.
The legacy of Adelaide (2002-2007)
Starting soon after the launch ofSSBM, an Adelaide University gaming club held weekly Smash tournaments known as “AV Connection” which was later shortened to AVcon. With the introduction of their convention they added Smash to the roster of tournaments. Over the years, AVcon's attendance finally peeked in 2005 with over 110 players but slowly dropped to around 80 in 2006 and 40 in 2007. AVcon had their Smash tournament sponsored by Nintendo in 2005 and EVAC (the club's modern name) still runs Smash tournaments weekly at Adelaide University.
In mid 2004 Naked_gamer was pushing a Adelaide LAN (Adelaide_LPCs) to include consoles into PC LAN. Launching in late 2004 was Adelaides first console LAN not aimed at Xboxes. The tournament was heavily promoted on a few Australian forums and brought in 15-30 players on average, the competition was early dominated by 2SXC, with other challengers such as Oliver, Suhayb, and Haku.
In 2006 Naked_gamer split ways with LPC, creating SoLan which ran for 8 months, until he discontinued the series because of venue problems and issues. SoLan introduced doubles matches into the mix.
In the final days of SoLan, LPC decided to relaunch its former rival with new administrator Ax, but poor turnout resulted in its demise. When SoLan finally died, Jamage took over at LPC and then went on to administrate Reloaded Festival 08's Smash tournament on behalf of LPC. Around this time LPC had a boom in new players and crews. New tournaments included crew battles and novelty battles using Resident Evil 4 chainsaw controllers and DK Bongos.
The future
After Comrades 2, CAOTIC decided to take a break from hosting national tournaments in favor of traveling to other interstate cities. Brisbane is due for its first national (hosted by Syke) in December 2007 and Adelaide (hosted by AVcon) in January 2008. The effect Super Smash Bros. Brawl will have on the existing communities is uncertain, however, it is anticipated the social and off-line aspect of the competitive culture will strengthen.
