poLANd.tf 2025 is one of the most stacked tournaments in years, with both online and LAN champions competing with those who would dethrone them. Let's take a look at who these competitors are, what they have to say for themselves, and find out how strong are their claims to the throne.
Witness Gaming EU
- Pocket Scout: toemas_
- Flank Scout: ixy
- Pocket: papi
- Roamer: hugo
- Demo: LUKASTANK
- Medic: auto
The reigning poLANd.tf champions return to Łódź, looking to continue their streak of LAN dominance. Whilst the competition that they will face this time is tougher than it was a year ago, they still enter the event as clear favourites based on their online results, a situation which they are very used to being in. Will Witness Gaming EU once again handle the weight of the targets on their backs, and retain the Polish crown?
TFTV: Season 49 wasn't as dominant as we expect from you, what happened?
papi: We are trash
TFTV: How have you been preparing for LAN?
papi: Scrimming tf2
TFTV: Is anything other than first place an option?
papi: 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th
TFTV: How are hugo and LUKASTANK fitting into the team?
papi: Hugo is great, Lukas is ehhhh
Venomcrest
- Pocket Scout: junnu
- Flank Scout: varnu
- Pocket: kn
- Roamer: tiram
- Demo: yak
- Medic: EoN
Formerly Pepis Pizza Party, the ÜBERFEST 2024 bronze medallists are looking for another podium finish in Poland. Offclassing, improvising, revelling in chaos, they come to Łódź with perhaps the most stable roster of all teams, unchanged in six months, and will be looking to show off the synergy they have built over that time: not only will they drag you into the deep dark jungle, yak and co have become experts at gorilla warfare.
TFTV: You're a famously chaotic team, is that mainly based on vibes or is it carefully structured?
yak: play and ahve fun. just have fun. always. and go to lan
TFTV: Is there a player you're particularly looking forward to facing?
yak: no i dont want to see anyone i want to sit in my room alone and go straight to my hotel and not interact with anyone i hate everyone except my team
TFTV: You have one of the longest consistent rosters at poLANd.tf 2025, how big an advantage does that give you?
yak: just 6 honest guys ahving fun so much fun. no assistance. all natty. no enhanced players. go to parkrun.
TheDogs
- Scout: $neaky
- Scout: wildpiggie
- Soldier: danny
- Soldier: Kosuke
- Demo: ympo
- Medic: Lucky
At first glance, TheDogs are not an obvious top team, but with experience in spades they may defy biology to become the dark horses of poLANd.tf 2025. They placed fourth at ÜBERFEST 2024 (albeit with changes) and under the alien workshop banner, they came from qualifiers to take 7-8th place at poLANd.tf 2024. There are even shades of i69’s SVIFT. On the face of it, they aren’t expected to make a deep playoffs run but it’s by no means impossible: this may be their strongest roster yet, and if a good group performance gets them a favourable playoffs seed they could easily take a Premiership team down.
#BIGBLOKELAN
- Scout: sail
- Scout: Jordy
- Soldier: bl0ke
- Soldier: Warped
- Demo: mak FP
- Medic: piggles
2025 got off on the wrong foot for #BIGBLOKELAN, as losses to sammakot and Garda Panteri meant that the Blokes failed to qualify for ETF2L Premiership Winter 2025 (S49). However, this team contains many LAN veterans, including five ÜBERFEST 2024 grand finalists, who all have a history of gaining massive LAN buffs. sail, on the other hand, is new to the top level scene and will be looking to prove himself on his offline debut.
Bloking Hazard
- Scout: BeaVerN
- Scout: triple
- Soldier: Matek
- Soldier: alba
- Demo: aidelos
- Medic: KO
Last year, Bloking Hazard barely made it to Poland as they scraped through the last round of qualifiers. This year, they barely dropped a round, let alone a map, finishing with a near-perfect 23-2 round difference. Online, they couldn’t quite make it into Division 1’s playoffs, but are now joined by triple and alba and will be hoping this fresh blood can make the difference. The Blokes deserve to make playoffs, though would have to punch well above their weight to make the Upper Bracket, and if they can bring their form from qualifiers then their opponents would do well to be wary.
curse of rah
- Scout: Aaron
- Scout: aless
- Soldier: Charon
- Soldier: Fnutek
- Demo: Domo
- Medic: maxi opossum
The final team to qualify for LAN, as the third-placed team in their group they had to go through the Last Chance qualifier where they dispatched Mr McVities in a one-sided stomping. Sadly, the eponymous curse then struck: Medic Rahmed and Demo happy were unable to attend LAN so are being replaced, respectively, by maxi opossum and reigning champion Domo. This is meteoric. Before, nobody would have blinked if curse of rah had been eliminated in last place. Now? Anything could happen.
/for fence
- Scout: Nevo
- Scout: Cuby
- Soldier: Brujman / SAKE
- Soldier: dmoule
- Demo: deli69
- Medic: mulaa
2024 ended on a fantastic high point for reigning Premiership champions /for fence, and this great momentum carried into the new year as they began their Season 49 campaign with a win against the legendary Witness Gaming EU. While this exact configuration of players is yet to play a LAN together, they have plenty of offline experience across the roster and if their online performance is anything to go by, they will be a force to be reckoned with in Poland.
TFTV: You can't be at LAN for Friday so SAKE is playing the group stage instead, will your individuals' ability be enough to make up for the loss of cohesion?
Brujman: Obviously we'll lose a lot of the cohesion we built these last 2 seasons, especially because i maincall, so its definitely not optimal. But from what i saw in the scrims they did with sake, they will probably be able to win against most of the teams we're supposed to beat with the full roster. Sake has the individual ability to handle good prem teams so it'll depend on the rest of the team to manage to keep a good structure without a maincaller.
TFTV: Which player are you most excited to face on LAN?
Brujman: I have already played against witness at last polan, but mandem had a much weaker roster. So i'd say i'm hyped to see how balder and his guys will do with their full roster, but i think the best games will be witness against us
TFTV: You've led /for fence for almost four years now, what does it mean to you that you're now one of the best teams in Europe?
Brujman: I'm very proud of what i've managed to do with /ff. I created this team back in div2 with the goal to win prem with a full french roster, knowing that we always had the individuals ability to do so, but never had a structure stable enough to overcome top teams. Now that I've accomplished this objective, the next one is obviously to play and win a lan. We've been trying to come to lan for a long time but the timing was always bad for us, so it'll be the first one for the team, sadly not in the best conditions, but i'm still very hyped for it
Additional contributions by Benpl.