http://play.esea.net/teams/76972

to the top

http://play.esea.net/teams/72846

to finish last in open

wrong thread how did i even do that

there's some pretty fucking good new teams this season

Yup! And theyre nice guys

BUDSQUAD????? Will this be the streamer dream team laser beams was meant to be?

http://play.esea.net/teams/77166

joe on scout's gonna be good

I'm really excited for this season, because I think there are a LOT of close teams that will have really good matches at the top.

Do you know what the rest of the roster is going to be like?

Probably
scouts:JOE and sherman_gluck
soldiers: invizible(pocket) and romeo_love(roamer)
demo: doctorcameltoe
medic: tommy_pound

Wouldn't this team be moved up because of their skill level?

cant get moved up to IM (unless the new main division makes that possible), all teams have to go through open > IM > invite (once again, main division might alter this a bit)

while i think it might be a little early to tell who is going to be good and who is going to be shit, i've heard some rumors about people making open rosters that are going to shake up the division.

i'm ready for the return of clorg.

Joe and sherman gluck were both on Fragophilia so they can just use that roster to play in IM.

they both left that roster...

I look forward to seeing returning teams. I don't look forward to seeing dumb rosters. Hopefully we find out what will be happening with Main and IM soon enough.

http://play.esea.net/teams/59733

This season is going to set a record for number of invite players playing open.

EDIT: Which is a great thing considering how open is supposed to be easier to break into now for new players

legitimately, it seems pretty silly to me. I'm sure I'll come off as whining or whatever, and that's fine, but it's frustrating to build a team over the course of a couple seasons, and finally have a chance to be in the top tier of open, and teams like the budteam, mesr's team, etc. come in and are immediately going to be right there. And in terms of their straight level of play, they likely belong at the top of open, but it really takes away a lot of the incentive to build a team from the group up.

I get that the rules are that teams have to have a season in open before moving up, but with the new move to main, why not move every open playoff team + these 3-4 'offclass' teams to IM to play with the current low/mid IM teams that were left behind from last season? Having scrimmed a pretty good number of the current open playoff teams, plus some of the current low-IM teams and some of the new offclass teams, they're all pretty close in terms of skill level*. That'd help flesh out the new IM and still allow Main to be populated with 8-12 teams who are close to equal. This upcoming season is a pretty unique opportunity to start all four divisions on the right path for continued success rather than the lopsided messes that we currently have in open especially.

*yes I know that scrims are not the most accurate representation of skill level, given that teams scrim to try out strats and not to win, but you can still get a pretty good sense of DM and coordination from them.

welcome to the game

I'm right there with you owl, this is going to be my team's third season in open and if we get knocked out by invite players it would be very frustrating.

of course ESEA would make you play and pay for 3 seasons before your team can actually play invite. I think the option of making a new team directly to IM should be a thing now that Main is here.

...and make moving up into IM even easier than it already is.

you can skip im if you win open. or at least you could in 1.6

i don't get why you cant just get better and beat people who aren't unstoppable forces just because they played in a higher division

most of these teams are offclassing as well

deal w/ it

If your team can't play in IM then you shouldn't sign up for it. If someone does well then have fun getting you ass beat and wasting your money.

srsly br0pen

things didn't work out with lonely hearts and I. best of luck to them though. they are going to be very good.

the last time one of these so called sandbag teams actually moneyed in open was dtp and chill to good in season 11 and the only other time a sandbag team won was season 9 with teambad v2. The only other "sandbag" teams that moneyed was king's crew also in season 9. these four teams were also all onclassing. new teams are going to get bodied basically no matter what unless they're filled with experienced players and if your team has been together for 3+ seasons and are still struggling to break into the top tier of open, then you've probably hit your plateau as a team

Teams shouldn't be afraid of competition. Otherwise you just stay bad, and get moved up to IM anyway. And then those same bad IM teams eventually get to the top of IM, and the not as bad IM teams get moved up. This is because everyone eventually quits invite outside of the teams that have either banny, platinum, or some mix of the bro mumble.

TL/DR; no one new will win invite till banny and platinum quit...HEH