nerdRage are back with another potentially championship roster, with the chance to roll their way through Premiership.

nerdRage didn’t waste any time picking up a svift new roster for this season. After a season break away from the organisation, Josh and moralexei (formerly counou) return with their new roster. Last season this roster managed to go all the way to the Grand Finals, but fell at the final hurdle as Ascent.EU picked up another title. However, this season Ascent.EU aren’t making an appearance, leaving nerdRage as one of the favourites to win this season. But with 14 different teams gunning for a spot in Premiership this season, the competition looks strong and more alive than ever.

Last season this roster played under the SVIFT banner, but didn’t start the season that way. Originally adysky and ever_x were the team's soldiers, but were swapped out for nubbi and Josh. The change turned out to be a good decision for the team: making it all the way to the finish line after changing roster mid-season is no easy feat. And now nerdRage have had even more time to practice and get their roster together to prepare for the next season.

nerdRage have had some practice in the off-season, winning the ETF2L preseason Cup and also coming second in the second Locked & Loaded tournament. With some healthy prize money under their belt now, they're looking to clean ETF2L out and put Aoshi in the homeless shelter.

We sat down with seeds, the medic of nerdRage, to ask some questions about the up-coming season and recent results:

TEAMFORTRESS.TV: Ascent was probably your biggest competition for the up-coming season. Now that they’ve decided not to play, who do you think has the most potential to take a stand against you?

Faint definitely, they're a strong team who have been around for a while. We managed to win-diff them in playoffs but I think it will be closer this season

TEAMFORTRESS.TV: Speaking of the cup, you looked really strong throughout the entirety of the Locked & Loaded #2 cup, but you couldn’t manage to defeat 4 Frenchies at the end of the tournament. Is there anything in particular that went wrong that you feel the team can improve upon?

It never helps playing without your full roster, even though mystt was an incredibly good replacement at the end of the day he wasn't morales of alexei and it made things more difficult, but the other team also played incredibly well and it was very enjoyable. I think we just need to work on adapting primarily, I think the best skill you can have as a top team is to be able to adapt when your enemy starts out playing you.

In a close game like that at the top level there will always be mistakes made and it's about fixing them in the instant, which I don't think we managed to do. Up until now we have had fairly straightforward wins in scrims and I think this was important to show us that there are players better than us and that a win isn't always guaranteed. Unfortunately that's kind of been the story of my tf2 history where I get to a final and then underperform.

TEAMFORTRESS.TV: Was there a particular reason to play the Grand Finals of the cup with mystt instead of moralexei?

He couldn't play all of today until the grand final and some of Saturday and we thought it would be better to have a consistent roster.

TEAMFORTRESS.TV: The Locked & Loaded #2 Cup decided to have a Bo5 Grand Finals, whereas ETF2L has their standard Bo3. As both a player and ETF2L admin do you think a Bo5 finals is on the table for ETF2L? It’s always welcomed by twitch viewers who get more exciting gameplay, but surely it's incredibly tiring to play?

It would need to be requested by players in Premiership and argued for. Personally, I think bo5 is very bad for cups as it is a massive time sink, but I didn't mind it in this cup as the games were very well paced. In previous cups we were playing all day for two days and it caused a lot of burnout.

TEAMFORTRESS.TV: Josh and moralexei have already won an ETF2L title under the nerdRage banner, how do you feel about your chances to repeat that result?

I feel pretty confident, I think my team will carry me to victory.

TEAMFORTRESS.TV: With moralexei and gazy on your team I’d assume you’re thrilled Medic attach speed is back for this season. As a player, how did you feel about playing with the plugin last season? Are you happy the plugin is gone?

I liked the plugin a lot because I felt it added an extra layer of difficulty to my specific class. However, I am glad it's back because I think overall it was negative to the game, because it slowed things down a lot. Medics were punished more but it resulted in more passive playstyles overall.

TEAMFORTRESS.TV: Finally, after dropping 3 rounds to me and Aelkyr in the cup playoffs, when do you think we’re going Prem?

tonight. i'm moving you up.

On that note, nerdRage are here to make a splash in Premiership and gun for another title to put on their wall. Catch all the action throughout the season (including me and aelkyr getting farmed) at teamfortress.tv's twitch channel.

nerdRage are here to make Prem #FeelTheRage:

• Scout: moralexei
• Scout: Gazy
• Roamer: nubbi
• Pocket: Josh
• Demoman: Nas boii
• Medic: seeds