Week of Monday, May 27, 2013

[b]Casted Matches[/b]
The Mad Men vs Classic Mixup (ESEA-Invite)
Top Guns vs Solace eSports TF2 (ESEA-Invite)
Vector Gaming vs Classic Mixup (ESEA-Invite)
Revoluzion la metagame vs Epsilon eSports (ETF2l-PREM)
Crack Clan vs SOLAR GOLIATH (ETF2L-PREM)
The Runway 5 vs Apocalypse Gaming (ESEA-Invite)
Apocalypse Gaming vs High Rollers Gaming TF2 (ESEA-Invite)

++++++++

[b]ESEA-Invite Season 14 Week 2
map: cp_process_rc3 [/b]

[b]Weekly Recap[/b]
The first week of Invite is usually like every other week, some amazing games, and any number of 5-0s, or 5-1s between the top invite teams, and the bottom invite teams. The real difference between the first week and every other week is that the games in this week can be lost, and a team that loses that first, second, or third game can still come out on top of the division, but people still want to watch some good games. Apocalypse Gaming and The Runway 5 had an must-see game for a rather quick upset, but there was one problem. STV lag. This lag also caused TeamFortress.tv to opt out of casting the next game between High Rollers Gaming and Apocalypse Gaming. This caused a forum thread to be made on teamfortress.tv and eventually ESEA's forums, where ESEA's Shooter replied: "I will send this to the right people, thanks." Hopefully, this season will not be a repeat of the beginning of last season in a horrible series of errors causing viewership to stumble.
Earlier on in the week, a painkiller showmatch to be played in Taiwan was announced between Fatal1ty and Relic with a prize pool of 10,000 USD. Relic has obviously switched over to practicing painkiller, but may I say: "Painkiller? loooooooooooooooooooooooooool." With Relic currently practicing for the event, Grape formerly from Royalty has become the roamer for Top Guns, but since the showmatch will be played soon on June 6, 2013, it is likely that Relic will return to play as Top Guns roamer. Royalty has also sent another one of their members to invite in who is now Mix^ Mason. Mason, despite having a rather large forum thread about how he is a horrible person and invite is for the nice people, he dodged and positioned himself out of all bad expectations and performed well in Classic Mixup's match against The Mad Men. The switch was caused by Mesr, who would have been the medic in matches and LAN, having commitments in his personal life not allowing him to play. Solace eSports TF2 also finally rounded out their roster picking up Chimpfeet on medic and Giffy on scout. Although I cannot comment on Chimpfeet, Giffy played for ukm's team in previous seasons and performed well, he will easily meld into invite and play for Solace well enough to earn rounds. Vector also rounded out their roster hole caused by Ninjanick by picking up foster, who despite quitting TF2, plays medic at an invite level. The final roster change of the week involves HRG picking up Classic Mixup's Ruwin on backup, and actually that is all it involves.
Most of the teams in invite have performed as expected. The obvious low, high, and mid tier of invite still exists and the teams expected to be in those tiers were this week. The expectable last place finisher of ROOT PLUS SIX is currently last in the stadings, but if Vector loses their next match 5-0, they will take the spot. The tri hards currently sit on their throne of first place, losing only one round this week and no team can challenge until cp_badlands is played. There was an upset in the game between The Runway 5 and Apocalypse gaming, with r5. coming out on top. The game between The Mad Men and Classic Mixup was also closer than many expected, going to a golden cap round, while Cyzer, Cbear, and Slin predicted 5-2, 5-1, and 5-3. The Runway 5, Solace eSports TF2, ROOT PLUS SIX, and The Mad Men made strong entrances into invite, making it look like another season of no 0-16 is coming for the Invite division of ESEA.