Western Australia always provided a good showing in cs events locally and nationally, the scene however small always managed to produce good competetion and there was a real sense of community through 04-08. Teams like 23, DNA, MERGE, farmerz, TPM, PRG all having there shots on a national level was the peak for this state, we always had atleast one team over east representing us.

In 2008 the WACS community fell apart, the final nail in the coffin in my opinion was the departure of long time owner/manager of DNALAN (www.dnalan.com) Sean aka DiRTyHaRRy, who basicly fed the community with use of his lancafe and his personal support in TeamDNA, along side his efforts in helping at nationals all over the country had been a major asset to not only WA but the whole country. After this some of the top tier players moved on to bigger and better things, stv/snyper/ferg/xsiv all competeing in divisions of Team Immunity and spunj competeing in the Australian franchise of CGS.

Since the start of 2009 Western Australian gaming scene has been dead albiet the source community, the 1.6 scene became something that was more or less just a memory of the "good times". The accouncement of the AINC.wa qualfiers have jump started the community as players are coming out of the woodwork to compete for the autoberth to Melbourne later on this year. The playing field is the most even it's been in years, with the likes of DNAlan and MERGE no longer around, every single team competeing has a good chance at taking out 1st place and we hope to see this as the start of a new era in Western Australia as a turning point from almost nothing.

I took some time to sitdown with one of WA's finest, Fishballs from OnlineKids to shed some light on past and present in WA.

Firstly, for those who do not know you already please introduce yourself.

Hello my name is David Randles aka fishballz, I've been playing cs now for about four years professionally.

What is your background in CS1.6, WA and nationwide?

Well I got introduced to CS through my brother DnaLAN VisioN when I was in year 6, but I didn't get a computer until year 9 for "studies" :P I started playing some online scrims and made my first LAN team firstblood. After that disbanded I started playing for a team called TPM where we practiced hard and were determed to win. I improved quite some bit over this period and that basically turned into the team I'm playing for now.

In WA I don't do too much just try to keen some people up and run a few LAN compititions when the opportunity arises. As for nationwide? Lol I do nothing :D

The WACS Scene has been albiet dead, what do you think was the reason for its downfall?

To be honest I just think there wasn't enough injection of young/new players, and the few that did spring out of the ground got their heads chopped off by the higher tier of the community, not naming any names :P

Also Dirty Harry deciding not to support E-Sports anymore was a big, big loss for WA

So you believe teams like DNALan/Merge were a contributing factor to lack of progression in WA?

No Comment.

The announcement of AINC.wa quals has stirred many players back into the game, do you think this is a fresh start for WA?

I really do hope so, I'm trying to get as many people back as I can even if they are not playing in this qualifier, so that the scene can get kicking again. We play a few WA pugs a night with new players and old players, and hopefully going to be running local LAN compititions once a month at GamersChoice Joondalup. PS. #walanners for all you WA 1.6 cats looking to play competative CS.

This event we've seen the help from the source community, do you think 1.6 and css communities should work together?

Yeah why not, the source community in WA have done a great job in my opinion with online leagues,LAN comps and even their own community website & ventrilo for any who wish to use it, I'm really glad that AHi has taken it into his own hands to help out fellow gamers that share the same passion as he does. Also I'd just like to thank all the source players/teams that are making an effort to fill numbers at this qualifier just to support the WA1.6 scene.

Your team, OnlineKids, are probably favourites to take out #1 spot at AINC.wa qualifiers - How do you think you would fair nationally?

To be honest I dont even know if we are going to win this qualifier, our original lineup was rdz, notion, tsn anh and myself. tsn went inactive due to studies and anh quit competative CS so it's a really big blow to me and the team as me and rdz have been playing with tsn and anh since march 08. We have now picked up reno and xs1v and if we do win the qualifier we would obviously prac very hard and try our best on the day to put WA back on the map.

Let's rap this up with something trivial, favourite moment in WACS history?

30bombing MERGE @ eswc.lcc in perth

Thanks for sitting down with me and goodluck at your qualifiers, any shoutouts?

No, thank you for shedding some light onto the WA scene, I'd just like to thank those that have supported us YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE:) and to the #AGZ team, Skud, LJ CREW, kazeywazey and of course the [t]

The AINC.wa qualifiers are on the 31st of MAY, held at GamersChoice in Joondalup, we hope to bring you coverage and live updates of the event here at dicevip.com!