Easy cop pout: write Gangnam Style lyrics for all twenty of the forfeit wins.

:o(

You'll always be black to me.

tf2 drama increasing in last few days- keep it up

I think maybe all those IM players with invite experience will move up and fill in the gaps nicely.

I wonder where we'll be in a year for the next big insomnia event. It seems that a lot of the big Euro names stick around and if they make a team to beat Americans and Americans just stop playing, does that mean that they might win if we send people over the sea again?

just as things were starting to look up

It'll be good, Tf2 community is awesome, it's gonna be awesome to see clutch teams with maybe even combo's like lange and pure. It'll be good.
Lan will still be amazing as it are the 4 top teams who are still alive, no worries about that.

Gl hf.

are the top players just losing interest in tf2 in general, or what

so this is 2 seasons in a row sweater has killed (or at least tried) an invite team?

It took everything to raise 15k$ to send 2 amazing teams overseas..

If the info in this thread is right, mix^and LG are no more after this season... THe top 2 teams gone? And most of the lower teams are apparently giving up/dead too.

I'm not sure everyone will be that enthusiastic about throwing money to whatever ragtag teams are launched into invite just to fill spots.

weeble disapeared when he moved into his college dorm, a normal scenario where a "good kid" who never really experimented in high school realizes that mommy will never find out what he is doing in college, whether gets piss drunk, high, whatever.

This realization almost always spirals out of control, people lose their self control and just binge, because no one is telling them what to do, and they have the most freedom they've ever had in their life.

I've seen this phenomenon occur multiple times, it's also the reason most people bomb their first semester at school

so gg weeble

At the beginning of the season I was actually thinking of not allowing sweater into invite. This entire ordeal makes me think that some sort of "Invite Blacklist" would be a good idea. This wouldn't necessarily mean you're banned from invite for life, it would just make it much harder for certain individuals to get in. Ideally, players on the blacklist would have to make their way into invite through IM rather than a direct seed. This would force players to put in time and effort to get into invite rather than taking it as a given. The players will probably do well in IM which makes life much easier than a sub par invite season so it wouldn't really be a true test but I guess it'd be better than nothing. Playing 1 full season of invite would get you off the blacklist which means if you fuck up twice, you need to go through IM twice. This would act as a deterrent I'd assume but it may force players that give up as easily as these to quit rather than put in the time. Powah is a prime example of how to quit a team. He told his team his situation and gave them plenty of time. Leaving like that won't get you on a blacklist.

I'm curious what you guys think of this idea. Thoughts?

In case this is unclear to anyone - I don't believe eXtv will be running any more community fundraisers to put teams overseas. The time for that is past. It's up to teams to find sponsors if we're going to do that again.

Wouldn't blame them. Who is even left that will be around Invite next season? Spacewhales and No Need maybe?

At the moment, I don't think sponsors are what we should be worrying about. If there's anything we should be worrying about, it's somehow coming up with a way to actually keep teams together. When teams stick together and actually TRY to improve together and get somewhere together, then it's going to happen eventually. And when there are more teams sticking together, eventually there's going to be a lot more competition, and the game will be a lot more interesting for everyone. And once the game is a lot more interesting to everyone, maybe sponsors will then want to either come back or start sponsoring TF2 for the first time. This goes for all divisions. We don't need just invite sponsors to sponsor us, and we don't need just invite teams sticking together either.

From DJC's Invite predictions on ESEA: "If another team dies, these articles are going to get real ugly, guys."

guys maybe i can finally realize my dreams of going to lan

Instead, I suggest you replace all the dead invite teams with the top faring IM teams (that don't die) from this season.

This forces all players from those dead teams to either find their way on an upcoming team or go back through IM. Hijacking existing invite rosters is bullshit and bad for competitive TF2. Invite polls are also bullshit because it's a popularity contest and a waste of time.

i shoulda stayed on the ducks we coulda been the first 0-16 team to make LAN

Thanks for giving EU TF2 time to catch up again. Heroes.

IM is definitely going to be the league to watch now, with 10 teams vying for the final 8 spots in the playoffs. Going to be a fun few weeks

europe loses lan, the top division suddenly gets more competitive as players realize their scene is lacking

na wins lan, invite gets fucking disintegrated

funsies

One could question who really won i46 now... :P

the top 3 NA teams are still better than any euro team. and invite teams die every season and new ones form. nothing new. mustard is the karl pilkington of tf2 please disregard what he says

I don't think forcing teams to 'work their way from IM' will make less teams in invite die. Of the 3 teams that are currently dead, two of them played in invite last season. The reason the 3 teams died probably has a lot to do with them realizing they have no chance of making LAN so the motivation is no longer there.

Usually it'll start as one player, but it is hard to find a replacement for almost any class that isn't scout. If a demo or pocket from a team quits, there really isn't much talent out there to replace them with.

There is no correlation between how long a team has played before, and how long they'll continue to play once they get into invite. It's almost 100% based on performance.

Chess Club was voted in (coming from nowhere) and isn't dead; LG was voted in two seasons ago I think? (coming from IM) and they died mid season.

grillz #1

The only thing that could prevent team deaths would be not allowing people to roster hop as that causes team deaths and at the very least instability. People on a team with no chance of LAN hopping onto a better team that can make it.

I know at least one player on my team was being at least somewhat recruited by a team ranked higher than ours midseason, which could have caused issues with our team.
It also happened last season with kbk and lansky, and maybe with relic this season? idk the Pinball Wizard situation, so I'm probably far off on that.

we asked, relic talked to his team, they said it was kool

fixed it for you

What does common sense have to do with this?
None of the teams that died had a 'cancer' that was known for killing teams.

Pinball Wizards were stable over the entire offseason until Panic randomly left; they also played the season before.
Mighty Ducks have had the same core for multiple seasons as well.

Goin Heavy was full of a bunch of veterans. Sure you can say sweater, but he was never known to kill a team or leave mid season. He just made the mistake of kicking his whole team when he thought it was already dead last season.

As everyone knows, Weeble was probably one of the people in Invite most excited about going to LAN, then he randomly decides not to play. There is no predicting what will happen when you make a team.