Its really interesting to see how this will play out, because iM have been so secluded in the aus scene, dominating everything and everyone they may not have got the competition to get to the level of top EU-NA teams.

I seriously hope they can hold their own and reach a respectable spot! Good luck with this week practises!

They may have been secluded, but Yuki did prove capable as scout in Invite. This was also on very high ping.

Hopefully the boot camp will get them up to speed and we will see iM display their true potential at i49!

I was aware Yuki played invite this season (was it his first Invite season?) but I didn't have deep knowledge on that so I dont know how he did, however he does seem the most capable of iM, having been top demo and soldier before in australia.

I'm genuinely curious as to how this will end. It's such a isolated scene (yet so good in quality). There's a lot of analogies that explain what I want to say exactly but none comes to mind now.

Yeah I'm most interested to see iM, have no idea how they'll stack up. I know we're all hoping for them to be another top team to compete for the title but it's possible they're just a level below HRG/Epsilon/broder/Infused.

only a week until its all over, really looking forward to getting there in a few days

HRG to suck because they forgot how to use uber, scrubs.

Yuki is a pocket main. Basically he did a few demo reviews for downpour when he was in IM, (Division, not team) and then when they moved up to invite they had a scout spot open up. Downpour asked if yuki wanted to come play in invite and he did. So he was also on an offclass. And yes, it was his first invite season.

From ozfortress, aporia talking about the PC issues

All hail BoneS

Hey, just letting everyone know that Chad (https://twitter.com/Chadman70) will be casting all our 21CEST games this week, which consists of broder on Monday, and Team Immunity on Tuesday and Wednesday. Make sure you watch @ http://www.twitch.tv/teamepsilon

Should be good but expecting an Epsi win though maybe closer than usual

Wooooooooo Epsi vs iM is one of the two matches I've been looking forward to since this LAN was announced, so a wee preview is making me nerdgasm, so hopefully the aussie boys make a good showing of themselves so that I retain hope for my other desire, iM vs HRG

Any intense game recently with Aussies? Might be able to cast a match w/eXtine (post produced @ eXtv) this week as pre-i49 hype. Need STV demo...

If Chad is the guy I'm thinking about then hell yeah! Will be tuning in!

The guy is amazing, and despite not being exactly an expert on tf2 as it was obvious, he made it very entertaining and was also really kind and fun to hear. Would love to have him casting for a few of our tf2 orgs.

boneS stream

??p????uoq/?????????????//:d???

I tried to write the URL in Australian but it didn't really work

Have the seedings for i49 been released yet?

Not yet. The plan is to have the top 8 teams in a single group to determine their seedings, and then have the lower teams in groups to fight it out for the knockout spots. This keeps the games fair and not having to see random pub team v HRG in the groups

Ladies and gentlemen.

i49's biggest storyline. I will be playing TF2.

I want random pub team vs HRG happening!

http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/img-thing?.out=jpg&size=l&tid=63610549

I'm not sure, but presumably this top 8 group should consist of iM, Broder, infs, Epsilon, pLine, HRG, SOLAR and Furbo Pandas.

EDIT: If I were to rank these teams 1-8 it'd probably look like
1. HRG (Because of i46 I can't justify putting epsi here)
2. Epsilon
3. Broder
4. infs
5. iM
6. pLine
7. Pandas
8. SOLAR

So I know you americans and a lot of newer guys won't know this story.

i39. April 2010. Dignitas is at the peak of their virtually contested reign as the best team in Europe. It's the group stages on Friday morning and the brackets go up.

CantFitMyN vs Dignitas.

Now for those of you who've never heard of CantFitMyN, let me link their team page. This team played 4 consecutive seasons of ETF2L with the same 6 players and never won a single round. Great people, regular i-series attendees and really nice, but playing the game was not their strong point.

Dignitas played each round with more and more off classers, with them finally winning the 5th round at 20 mins in with 2 people afk getting food and 2 engineers.

Everyone had a good laugh.

It's going to be tough for the admins thats for sure, there are quite a few decent top div1/low prem teams that want those last 2 spots (the top 6 is set imo).

But elem v, solar, furbo, did i stutter and some mix teams all play at that level and have had good results against each other. Some teams have to use mercs as their full lineups can't attend but I still think it will be a super tough decision for Tapley and the boys.

HRG are probably favorites, but this year's Epsilon has only 2 players (3 if you count Knoxxx who went to medic from soldier) playing that played last year. They also have been keening it up hard. So I wouldn't make any guesses about Epsilon's performance based on last year.

I put SOLAR and Pandas down just because of their results in ETF2L. Judging by pcw results SOLAR should defnitely not be included considering they haven't really pcw'd. But either way there'll be 2 great matches in Round 1 of knockout stages; d?s vs pandas and solar vs elem v perhaps.

I think pandas will be weakened without furbo and zoob, but I am biased obviously. They are missing both their carry players after all :D

if we're being biased I think there's a good chance saints beat all teams outside of top 6 and they haven't even been mentioned.

saints noobas

Shits reaching fever pitch. Would love to see a VTV vs TFTV match one of the nights :))

Might as well make it a Whose Line is it Anyway Match.

Welcome to i49 where the teams are all made up and the scores dont matter

thunder stealer