With the last of the regular season matches played out, I can happily announce that for the majority of ETF2L, the season is over and we can venture outside of our basements...if we dare. However for the Premiership we have the small matter of the ETF2L playoffs, which for the first time ever could see the team placing joint 4th/5th winning the title. Epsilon had another unbeaten season, their 3rd in a row in regular season (having not dropped a point in the regular season since Season 12), their closest competitors Broder managed to edge out Zaibatsu in second place, whilst All Tied Up, SOLAR and Revoluzion le metagame all tied on the same points, which would have resulted in a three playoff had All Tied Up not dropped from the playoffs after the loss of their leader Kaidus to Zaibatsu. Fighting it out at the bottom of Prem this season was Last Man Standing and 90 Fov eSports, both teams managed to take points off eachother and All Tied Up but LMS managed to get a crucial 4-2 win over SOLAR and avoid the automatic relegation spot, however they still have to face off against Furbo Pandas in the relegation playoff, but it's okay we will just choke.

Final League Standings #

Premiership

• 1) Epsilon eSports (Won 14, Drawn 0, Lost 0, Points 42)
• 2) Broder (Won 12, Drawn 0, Lost 2, Points 36)
• 3) Zaibatsu (Won 10, Drawn 0, Lost 4, Points 30)
• 4/5/6th) SOLAR (Won 4, Drawn 1, Lost 9, Points 14)
• 4/5/6th) Revoluzion la metagame (Won 4, Drawn 2, Lost 8, Points 14) [Deducted 1 point]
• 4/5/6th) All Tied Up (Won 4, Drawn 1, Lost 9, Points 14) [Dropped from Playoffs]
• 7) Last Man Standing (Won 3, Drawn 1, Lost 10, Points 10)
• 8) 90 Fov eSports (Won 2, Drawn 1, Lost 11, Points 7)

So it is obvious who the firm favourites are to take the playoffs this season, 14 map wins, 9 rounds lost all season and one of their worst performances being a 4-2 map win over 90 Fov eSports, now when you're the sort of team that is disappointed they didn't 5-0 every match, the thought of actually losing seems as unlikely as Mike missing an airshot. The all-star roster possessing the crazy calling combo of the vocal Numlocked and French mastermind Knoxx, the powerful German scout duo of Stefen and basH likely to tear things up in the Nations Cup together alongside their roaming con-padre GeaR, though the real staple of the team this season seems to be the performances of the aforementioned Mike on pocket soldier, consistently outperforming every other Soldier in Europe and every Flak 88 made during the War.

It isn't necessarily a foregone conclusion that Epsilon will be winning their 4th ETF2L crown in a row, even though their place in he Grand Final is confirmed. They will face the winner of what is very likely to be another Broder vs Zaibatsu classic, both teams having been fighting over that 2nd spot most of the season, the two played out an absolute cracker in the ESA Cup being a tense 3 map contest with Broder edging out the former Crack Clan unit. A further 2 map loss in the regular ETF2L season prompted Zaibatsu leader and caller Ipz to drop pipe-machine Brego for the proven top level gamer Kaidus on Demoman, who's departure from All Tied Up marked the end of their playoff venture for the season as their lynchpin Demoman moves on to a top 3 outfit. This change does give Zaibatsu the possibility to turn their fortunes around and beat Broder in the playoff match and maybe see the team pick it up against Epsilon after taking a smashing in the regular season, losing 3-0 on Viaduct and 5-0 on Badlands. For Broder they have come closer than anyone in recent seasons to beating Epsilon, a 5-4 loss on Granary in week 3 proceeded a close ETF2L Grand Final from last season, where they took a map off the champions and made Epsilon work for their title, although they ended up well beaten in the ESA Cup final, there is still a good possibility for either Broder or Zaibatsu to cause an upset, especially since Epsilon won't play the final for nearly a month, so their practise schedule may well step down for a while.

Elsewhere I have barely mentioned the 3-way tie between SOLAR, All Tied Up and Revolzion la metagame as quite simply, none of them stand a chance of getting through the top 3 this season. All Tied Up have given up since Kaidus left them for Zaibatsu and dropped, leaving SOLAR and RLM to battle it out for 4th spot and a place in the playoffs to face Zaibatsu. For SOLAR, (now known as Sorry QNX) it has been an impressive achievement for them to make it to joint 4th, but losing their Medic Vanilla may be the difference between the two sides, I've never seen a Medic carry a team like Vanilla has for SOLAR this season, but it looks like he has left (I am not sure if he was dropped or left by mutual agreements) and the team have been seen practising with former idk? medic, LilCeder. For RLM, their lineup has been different for a lot of matches, having gone through great names of the past in Wltrs, Quad, Haunter (someone once alluded to me RLM is the team where legendary TF2 players come to die). Lately, American legend Harbleu plus the old Decerto combo of Snyppis and Spin have been playing most of the practise matches, alongside Mark on Demoman and Flippy on scout. French roamer Tek and Danish pistol machine Quad have showed up rather inconsistently for them, so your guess is as good as mine on who will play. I feel they may be kicking themselves in the teeth over their point deduction for collecting 3 minor warnings for unplayed/late matches this season because if they didn't have it, they wouldn't have to play SOLAR tomorrow, Sunday 7th July at 21 CEST.

Division One

• 1) Reverto (Won 7, Drawn 1, Lost 4, Points 23)
• 2) Furbo Pandas (Won 7, Drawn 1, Lost 4, Points 23)
• 3) d-d-Did I stutter? (Won 7, Drawn 1, Lost 4, Points 22)
• 4) SparkLe Motion (Won 6, Drawn 2, Lost 4, Points 21)
• 5) Decerto.Ozone (Won 6, Drawn 0, Lost 6, Points 18)
• 6) My Revenge e.V (Won 6, Drawn 0, Lost 6, Points 18)
• 7) Trick17 Black (Won 0, Drawn 1, Lost 11, Points 1)
• 8) Karnage eSports [DROPPED]

On Thursday evening Reverto confirmed their Premiership spot for next season by defeating Furbo Pandas aka "Team Chokers" in a comfortable tiebreaker playoff win over two maps. For Stark and the boys it does bring some fresh talent into Prem including Aephage who's impressive stats in the playoff match give their team a lot to look out for. For Reverto, it ends a strange season where they have switched around their Demoman twice, seen their founding member Alba leave the roster and managed to drop for two days then undrop and play out the season. For Furbo Pandas, well renaming the team to Team Chokers says it all really after starting the season the strongest side, we managed a 0-0 draw against bottom side Trick17 on Process before missing out on 3 opportunities to guarantee ourselves promotion by failing to win a single point, which would have seen Furbo Pandas through. So what remains is the Premiership Relegation playoff between Last Man Standing and Furbo Pandas, the smart money is to see us choke again making it the 4th Premiership playoff we've failed to win (#Zoob forever 2nd).

We're not the only side to be kicking themselves in the teeth, the bad form of the top two sides towards the end of the season allowed 3rd and 4th placed d-d-Did I stutter? and SparkLe Motion to catch up and even take 2 maps off the teams above, but unfortunately for them they both fell short by 1 and 2 points of glory. It does give both teams hope for the next season, if they stick around that is. For Decerto and My Revenge, joint 5th and 6th place will seem rather disappointing, despite good starts to the season, especially for Decerto who at one stage looked good for a top 2 finish, sadly for them they fell apart towards the end and couldn't take the opportunities they were given. Finally at the point, the lonely Trick17 Black will look back at their Division One campaign as forgettable, although their one and only point did end up deciding the league, a 0-0 draw in regular time against Furbo Pandas still goes down as the most abysmal TF2 match I ever played between two sides that just didn't want to win.

A big congratulations to Hovercrabs and The MIPC Organization for winning their respective divisions in Division 2, we look forward to seeing them both in Division One next league campaign.

Playoff Fixtures

Premiership Relegation Playoff - Last Man Standing vs Furbo Pandas - Unconfirmed, deadline July 27th

Tiebreaker for 4th/5th: Revoluzion le metagame vs SOLAR - Being played on Sunday July 7th @ 21.15 CEST.

Playoff 1: SOLAR or Revoluzion la metagame vs Zaibatsu - Played between July 8th-13th.

Playoff 2: Winner of Playoff 1 vs broder - Played between July 14th-20th.

Playoff Grand Final: Winner of Playoff 2 vs Epsilon eSports by Fragnet Networks - Played between July 21st and July 27th.