Hello again folks. We've arrived at the ever so exciting gravelpit this week, which is always loaded with surprises. We've added Ques to our line of writers and should now be writing articles on a weekly basis rather than biweekly, enjoy the rankings.

• ikpure
• coconut
• dingo
• pot
• slinky
• arctic joe

Thus far, the season has been pretty easy for undefated at rastlemnaia, and despite it being gravelpit week, I don't see any upsets in their near future. Last week they had two clean 5-0 wins on snakewater versus Tune Squad and SubLimE which were quick and painless. Their scouts had a great time with arctic joe going 28-5 against Tune Squad and slinky going 21-7 against SubLimE, both of them outscoring the medic. Joe and Slinky have been looking dominant all season, and it will be interesting to see if they elect to offclass or not on gravelpit. Unfortunately, neither of their opponents come close in the deathmatch department, and no amount of team work is going to matter if you can't hit your shots. Next week, undefated at rastlemnaia will most likely get paired up with 2 of the current undefeated teams which should hopefully make for some more interesting games than the ones we've been seeing.

• Danerdz
• blue
• Fearless
• Blackymonster
• kraka
• Noko

The Animus Victoria roster remains ever-shifting with elle being swapped out for Danerdz. Last week had two really contradictory results for Animus; in one game they played rather poorly and squeezed out a 5-4 comeback victory over Zaboomacrew, with the other match being a 5-0 shutout over The Flying Circus (formerly known as im sniping guys). Fearless appears to be the linchpin that keeps this team together - while the heals may be more balanced without him sitting around the combo all the time, their coordination seems to dissipate along with him. Despite the poor performance against zaboomacrew, I'm going to keep this team up at number 2 and assume they just played poorly due to having a backup roamer playing (Fearless is supposedly their maincaller, strangely enough).

• OMZ
• Jay
• Buckweet
• mASTER
• North^star
• Bape

After having been rolled by rastlemania in week two, Fried Green Tomatoes had to play against the Mad Boys in a nail-biter of a 5-4 without their starting pocket, and only barely managed to scrape away the win. Hyped at the beginning of the season, the team's scout pair of northstar and bape were expected to play quite well, and this has come to fruition. Both scouts have been making quite the impression, with their unprecedented aggression and substantial deathmatch talents proving to be more than a match for most open scouts. mASTER, the team's demoman, has also been stepping up his game, as he's been starting to roam less and play with the combo more often. Next week, they will be going up against Snakes on a Plane and Street Hoops eSports on cp_gravelpit, the former not presenting much of a challenge with the latter presenting itself as a possible upset if Street Hoops are able to keep bape and northstar in check.

• soggypancake
• aim
• hle
• eddeh
• Antwan
• vkr

After their close run-in with Fashion Police on process, Bueno have been sailing calm waters, breezing through week two and three. Their scouts, Antwan and vikr, have been continuing to impress - both sporting competent DM and movement. The team's demoman, Eddeh, known for putting out reliable damage, has impressed throughout his matches, and the team's medic, Soggypancakes, has been rapidly improving. All of this should lead to an incredibly entertaining match on gravelpit between Bueno and The Flying Circus. Their other match on gravelpit is against Crucific Recovery Team, which shouldn't pose much of a problem for them. Going into metalworks, the question will be whether or not Bueno can continue to hold their own when confronted with other top-seeded teams.

• braz
• peyton
• tophu
• crux
• ghostac
• djinn

Bubble Buddies had a less than impressive snakewater week, with a 5-3 win over Hot Cheetos and Takis and a 5-4 win over Making Bacon Pancakes. It's difficult to tell if those teams are better than expected or if Bubble Buddies are falling below expectations, but for now I'm going to go with the latter. Crux seems to be continuing to do well with impressive stats all around, so let's hope the rest of this team can step it up. They will be facing what should be their first semblance of a challenge in Dango Daikazoku on gravelpit this week, and both teams will be looking to prove themselves as top contenders in this match.

• drdonutman
• bsc
• Wowzers
• Zambler
• monkeysuit
• vortex

The team formerly known as Im Sniping Guys (with their third name change this season) had their collective shit handed to them against Animus Victoria on snakewater last week. This might be attributed to their recent roster change with Urban Shakedown being dropped for cephalopod enthusiast bsc on pocket who recently left his IM team. While I see bsc as an upgrade to the roster, I've noticed some chemistry issues from watching the one match where they've played with him. Whatever the issue is, hopefully they get it figured out in time to face Bretty Bueno 5 out of 5 this week on gravelpit. This match is going to be exciting as a showdown of former teammates between Monkey Suit and Antwan who will both want some bragging rights in mumble for the next few weeks. What does the future hold for The Flying Circus, though? Will Monkey try to cut his way to the top? Will bsc and zambler continue to be plagued by terrible Canadian internet? Only time will tell in the next few weeks as they will be playing some of their most challenging games all season after gravelpit.

• OmnisEvrae
• Panda
• SocialistFish
• Hippo
• Nate Rivers
• Gravegun

Pandamonium has continued to do well, with one sided 5-0 and 5-1 victories on snakewater. There isn't really a lot to say about them at this point, and there probably won't be until they stop getting scheduled against mid open teams.

• Screwball
• Sneakypolarbear
• testify
• DifferentColors
• sinval
• dango

Dango Daikazoku has been making quite a few roster switch-ups over the past few weeks. They've picked up both Testify and DifferentColours on roamer and demo respectively, who both came from Animus Victoria funnily enough. This has led to their lackluster success thus far, having to play one of their matches with three ringers, which resulted in an extremely close 4-3 victory. Following all of these roster changes, they've been working hard at rebuilding lost chemistry between players, and have been performing well in scrims, edging out some IM teams. Sinval, the team's other scout, has been performing consistently well, along with the team's combo. In their first gravelpit match, Dango will be facing off against nut up or shut up, which shouldn't prove much of a challenge. Later on in the week however, they will be forced to play against Bubble Buddies. Screwah's play should be able to shine through on this medic-centric map and create an advantage for Dango. Whether this will translate to a win will show whether or not Dango has done a good enough job of assimilating their new recruits.

• creep
• Tiger
• Fastfire
• litany
• ninjitsu
• kingrab

Get wrecked only played one snakewater match with the other being a ffw, but they played one of their badlands matches a week later so I'm going to discuss that. The scores of these two games were rather contradictory with a 5-2 win over pascal and the vibrators and a 5-4 loss to big hams. The main difference between these games was the absence of Tiger in the latter, but I'm not even sure if this team has a starting roster sorted out at the moment. Romeo love has rejoined and he played in the match against big hams, but he wasn't quite able to pull a win for them. Their gravelpit matches are against two teams that don't exactly look intimidating, so here's hoping they can iron out any roster issues they have.

• Lydiaxa
• drduke
• lamb
• dan
• GrieVe
• jerr0

A new addition to the Top 10, we kings now has built a reputation for being the most patient team in Open, playing an ultra passive style that is a departure from the current meta of dry pushing on small advantages which we see in higher levels of play. It certainly makes for boring games to watch, but the strategy seems to work for them as they are keen to exploit the mistakes their opponents make after parking the bus. While this is obviously a viable strategy, we'll see how well their passive play style works out for them on gravelpit against Lobby All Stars. I expect we kings now to have very few hiccups, but with gravelpit you never know what could happen. Looking past gravelpit, the next 4 weeks will be a proving ground for we kings now, as they will most likely be playing hyper aggressive teams like Bubble Buddies and undefated at rastlemnaia for their metalworks matches.

• Zaboomacrew
• angry autists
• The Fashion Police
• Never Stop Greeting
• The Anzaldua Peckers

• braz
• peyton
• tophu
• crux
• ghostac
• djinn

• Screwball
• Sneakypolarbear
• testify
• DifferentColors
• sinval
• dango

Both of these teams will be facing their first obstacle of the season in this match. They've also both been putting on rather incositent performances, ranging from solid scrims against im teams to matches where they drop more rounds than they ought to against mid open teams. This game could likely go either way, especially on gravelpit. That being said, Bubble Buddies has a much better demoman in crux, whose im experience is sure to shine through here. If Dango can pull off some quirky offclass plays then they might be able to reel in a win, but I'm going to give the win to Bubble Buddies 2-1.

It's gravelpit week, folks! While there shouldn't be too many upsets this week, you never know what wacky shenanigans will play out. Last week we saw some exciting matches and close games with Animus Victoria taking a 5-4 win over Zamboomacrew and then turning around with a 5-0 victory over Im sniping guys (now The Flying Circus). Bubble Buddies and Fried Green Tomatoes also had some surprisingly close games against what most people consider mid-Open teams, but they were able to maintain their records for the time being. The rankings are settling into some semblance of stability as we cross the halfway mark for the season, with some of the most exciting matches of the season coming up in the next few weeks. With only 4 weeks left, the dreaded mid-Open bubble is already forming, and after metalworks week some of our top teams will have already nearly secured their playoff spot. Good luck to everyone during this surely trying and frustrating week!