Editor's Note: The article was completed after the ETF2L playoffs begun.

This has been a season of exceptional TF2. We’ve finally witnessed the emergence of a team seemingly with the devotion necessary to challenge Se7en consistently and without the need of gimmicks, memes, or mad individual plays. We’ve seen a plucky group of highlander mains bring it to the veterans with a unique playstyle, spawning arguably the best medic pick of all time in the process. But we’ve finally arrived at the beginning of the finale, the ‘business end’ of the season at last: playoffs. The most high quality games are yet to come, as the top four teams (technically) of Europe come together to battle through the bracket and finish in first.

Format

The season will be concluded by a double elimination bracket, with any losing team given the chance to get another game before finally being dumped out like the failures they are. All matches are best of three's, apart from the grand finals, which is a best of five, but with a map advantage for the team that comes through from the upper bracket (meaning that they start with a 1-0 lead on maps). There will be a map veto system.

Maps

The maps will be the same seven as featured in the regular season:

• cp_badlands
• cp_granary_pro_rc4
• cp_gullywash_final1
• cp_process_final
• cp_reckoner_rc1
• cp_snakewater_final1
• koth_product_rc8

Teams

Se7en

• Scout: Puoskari
• Scout: Thalash
• Roamer: Drackk
• Pocket: kaptain
• Demoman: alle
• Medic: Raymon

Prediction: 1st

Se7en have looked, as in previous seasons, utterly unassailable, with a perfect fourteen map win streak in the regular season. They haven’t seemed to have experienced any stumbling blocks following the loss of star scout Starkie, and haven’t also displayed weakness. This is an all-fragging, all star lineup which promises to be the team to beat, and for these reasons it would be foolish to predict them to end up anywhere but first. A potential point for optimists is that nerdRage achieved two points against them on Gullywash, but they incredibly haven’t given up a single round to either Lowpander nor Arctic Foxes this season. It would be one thing for a team to beat them once, but twice is incomprehensible.

nerdRage

• Scout: blade
• Scout: Néo
• Roamer: Corbac
• Pocket: Médico
• Demoman: Namtac
• Medic: Ombrack

Prediction: 2nd

Coming into this season, not much was expected from the French squad (previously known as top5rocket), but the team now known as nerdRage have impressed by beating everyone bar the indomitable Se7en. This squad is clearly motivated and organised (reportedly a reason they were picked up), and could be a contender for seasons to come. I see this as perhaps a few months too early for these Frenchies to seriously challenge Se7en, but it’s certainly worth watching this space.

Arctic Foxes

• Scout: schocky
• Scout: Maros
• Roamer: dd5f
• Pocket: feeling
• Demoman: adamracek
• Medic: Raptor

Prediction: 3rd

Despite their impressive roster (including schocky, the most experienced premiership player this season by a large margin), Arctic Foxes have looked inferior to the two teams above them all season. They live and die at times by the performance of huge fragger and damage-doer feeling on pocket, but it’s surely time for schocky along with Maros from the recently folded ChampGG.K! to become dynamic, should they hope to make it beyond the third place they’ve been sitting around all season.

Lowpander

• Scout: Mr. Epic
• Scout: Grenjabob
• Roamer: Muuki
• Pocket: uubers
• Demoman: Hildreth
• Medic: Kissakala

Prediction: 4th

Having entered playoffs thanks to the demise of ChampGG.K!, Lowpander don’t really have much to lose, which they showed by narrowly losing to Se7en following an insane twenty-three frag game from veteran pocket uubers in a single round map. They have been an exciting team to watch all season, and we can all pray for is a Muuki telefrag to make their games that much more interesting. However, they do appear to lack the overall fragging necessary to beat any of their fellow playoff rivals.

The playoffs have already begun, so don’t waste any time in checking out the scheduled games on ETF2L's site and on our match ticker. All the games will be casted by us over at twitch.tv/teamfortresstv, so be sure to tune in and see the best teams in Europe duke it out!