Week 5

By which time it seems no one is giving the slightest fuck about playing officials on time/staying in teams.

Conveniently, overall this gives me more stuff to write about.

Competitive TF2 News from this week

i49 Qualifier

• In a positive bid to get more decent EU teams to attend the already world spanning TF2 tournament at i49, Multiplay admin Tapley has setup an online qualifier with a set of free tickets going to the team who takes 1st place. And before you starting moaning about a free-pass for Epsilon nuh-uh - this tournament will be restricted to teams outside Premiership at the moment so it's time to look to those wrestling at the top of Division 1 with the names Furbo Pandas and Reverto being the ones that spring to mind. Still, in all honesty I think it's likely that a team like Furbo Pandas will attend LAN either way. If this tournament can receive the attention it deserves what I really want to see is some of top teamless players come together/drag others out of retirement to use this tickets as justification to make it LAN where they otherwise wouldn't and show how easy it is to beat the Americans/Aussies. Currently the dates for this tournament are going to be from July 2nd - 9th and covering the tournament 'officially' when it finally comes about will be your favourite ensemble of the TF.TV crew. If you keep an eye on the ETF2L thread/TF.TV newspage then I'm sure any relevant information will make itself present.

Changing Rosters Errywhere

• Half way though the season seems an apt time for lots of changes to take place or maybe it was the Darn incident that made people realise they could also kick the people on their teams they didn't like… Following the now aged story of Darn leaving the finnish team, Tumpelol joining their ETF2L led to the pretty easy conclusion that he'd be the replacement. However now it seems Tumpelol has changed his mind in order to pursue (what Rake effectively described to me as) a life favouring booze and women. Rake himself previously having said that Tumpe had been the obvious choice as the only finnish pocket soldier of that level available to fill slot, implying now they will probably have to go the way of ex-100% russian team Last Man Standing, and branch out into Europe. Also in Premiership, Exon has left Revoluzion la metagame half through being kicked and half leaving himself. As I understand it Exon was unable to play for the next few weeks and so team leader Spin wanted to start playing with/get practiced with someone else as soon as possible whereas Exon had still wanted to keep playing for a while and things got bitchy. For the moment it looks like Mark will fill in Exon's spot having merced for them in their official against Last Man Standing where they comfortably won. What follows is potentially the most volatile chat log ever to have been published, read into it what you will:

17:33 - RLM Spin: yo
17:33 - pLine Exon: fuck you.
17:33 - RLM Spin: hmm
17:33 - pLine Exon: that's all
17:33 - RLM Spin: ?

• In Division 1, title hopefuls Reverto have effectively lost Stark from their roster as both a pocket soldier and main caller due to internet issues after moving house and having not played yesterday it's unsure who his long or even short term replacement will be. Several teams in Division 1 have put up recruitment posts in the hope of trying to bring in new players; after losing WAR several weeks back, Trick 17 are still on the look out for a scout. Also looking are the former Optimum team sparkLe Motion who, similar to Reverto, are on the hunt for a pocket soldier. This will be the second new player for them to bring in this week, after evokje having half left/half been kicked in an extreme case of quad, where after missing games due to League of Legends matches he's now going to be playing League instead of TF2 in general… lol. Coming into replace him with be medic sparkLe who last competed with Gubbins in the Chinese Mafia Prem team a few seasons back. It also looks like r0cky was kicked from the team, initially meaning they needed a scout however Gubbins has now switched to scout leaving the aforementioned gap of a pocket soldier. It's likely Gubbins will feel more comfortable in this role, however as I'd guess he'd have been maincalling, their overall teamplay might suffer despite their flank having significantly strengthened. To conclude my news from this week, we have a biographical poem of Stark written by Furbo Pandas Sideshow following Stark's discovered inability to play (apparently the syllable arrangement works if you read it in a northern accent):

Four hundred ping is really really aids
Why can't my ISP just sort its shit?
Can't hit my shots but that is not a change
The worst part is that I feel like a tit
When Rising gets more points than me I think
That I'll get kicked and they'll get someone good
But something that will always tickle me pink:
When I don't call the team is in the mud
E-thug jumps round and plays well under par
And BaR can't dodge; he drops three times per round
So to be blunt, recap - TL;DR
This is something that I have quickly found:
That every time my internet is dumb,
We fucking lose some points to Optimum.

Update: Apparently due to the lack of Stark, Reverto have resigned themselves to not PCWing and only playing officials, time to ignore everything I say in the rest of the article about them competing with Furbo Pandas…

Update #2 (people leaving teams faster than I can write): It looks Origo has left or been moreso kicked from Decerto and they are currently trialling scouts, my/others' thinking is that some of Reverto squad now left hanging might be looking to make the move - watch this space!

Last week's interviewees

As usual, here are the identities of my Week 4 article's albeit depleted to a total of 2 Mystery Gamers: Giving the Prem insight, Mystery Gamer #1 was Crack Clan scout smzi and giving the Division 1 was Karnage eSports medic turned soldier Dendocror.

Results from last week (and a couple from Week 1)

• Crack Clan vs. SOLAR (Result: Granary (6-1) Process (6-1) )
• Epsilon eSports vs. Revoluzion la metagame (Result: Granary (5-0) Process (6-1) )
• broder vs. 90° Fov (vinland) (unplayed)
• Skidmark Central vs. Last Man Standing (unplayed)

In a seeming pursuit of a consistency reputation similar to that of teams in Division 1, only half of last week's Premiership games were played and they were both pretty clear wins anyway. Epsilon and Crack Clan won both of their maps by a win difference of 5 despite dropping a few rounds along the way. It's hard to give credit to the lesser teams (i.e. Solar and Revoluzion) even for managing a few points as it's not always likely that teams like Epsilon or Crack Clan will stay focused to secure the 5-0.

• Furbo Pandas vs. Karnage eSports (Result: Granary (5-0) Process (4-2) )
• Optimum eSports vs. Team Reverto (Result: Granary (4-5) (GOLDEN CAP) Process (0-4) )
• Trick17 Black vs. Decerto.Ozone (unplayed)
• d-d-Did I Stutter vs. myRevenge e.v. (Rainbow Queens) (unplayed)

As with Premiership, but more of a usual affair in this case, only half of the Division 1 games were played this week. Furbo Pandas vs Karnage eSports went predictably in the way of Furbo Pandas, where after dropping a couple of rounds on Granary they convincingly won Process 5-0. Furbo Pandas' title contenders featured in the other game of last week in Optimum eSports vs. Reverto. Similarly to Furbo Pandas, Reverto were the more dominant team overall but they were much weaker on Granary than Process where they only just managed to pull of the win in a golden cap. HOWEVER, due to ETF2L somewhat retarded points system, despite having won both maps, Reverto are now a point down on their rivals Furbo Pandas. This means that if the rest of the season plays out as it should, i.e. Reverto and Furbo Pandas beat everyone else, after having drawn with the each other at the start of the season, Furbo Pandas will take the division by a grand margin of one point. Solutions to this stupid situation? Read on:

• Playoffs - This season, the title for Division 1 is looking quite close and while previous season experiences would make it seem like a pointless idea, this season carries a strong justification for playoff at the top of Division 1. Looking at the results so far, it's a very close run contest between Furbo Pandas and Reverto, who drew with each other at the start of the season and who have both won all their games since. Waiting in the wings behind them are Decerto, who while having not showed quite the same dominance as the aforementioned, have the quality to do so and whose main issue just seems consistency really. While I couldn't really justify a 4-team playoff as with the Premiership (not that you can in Premiership at the moment anyway), a 3 or even 2 team playoff would add a lot more to the season and now and in the future would give teams contesting for the top spot scope to have a bad game and not just have to give up the chance to challenge for a title. At the moment, the question of who will win Premiership is a lot easier to answer with conviction than the same for Division 1.

• Change to the points system - Okay so at the moment, teams play 2 maps a week against 1 opponent. Whoever wins each map gets 3 points and whoever loses gets 0 points, with the possibility of any draws being eliminated by having a Golden Cap (which, for those who don't know, involves 10 extra minutes being played after time has finished and the scores are level where the first team to take a round wins and if none have come in the 10 minutes then whoever holds middle wins). Having Golden Caps themselves is another thing up for debate and opinions on them are pretty split - a discussion for another time. Either way, if you win two maps you get 6 points right? No. If a game ends in a Golden Cap both teams get a point and whoever wins the Golden Cap gets an extra point meaning instead of a 3-0 we have a 2-1. While some may argue this a very fair way to do things, it takes away from the idea of having either a win, a draw or a loss. I'm particularly bitchy because when I look at match results and see a team has won I also need to check each scoreline and where there's a 1 round difference check whether it's a Golden Cap (not sure why I've been capitalising this but heyho). People may just criticise me here for just picking faults and not giving a solution but then people would just argue for and against the solutions rather appreciate the actual current fault at hand. Generally however, you could have 3 points for a win (i.e one team wins both maps), 1 point for a draw (each team wins a map) and 0 for a loss - popularised by the sport of Football and not the hardest thing to follow… Or, give the team who wins a GC 3 points instead of 2, that way the winners get the 3 points but the losers get a point for reaching a draw after 30 minutes (comparable I guess to a Rugby team getting a point besides the result if they manage a certain number of tries during a game). Basically this situation has been bitched about for a while but this season is something that really stands out as needing a rule changing. In Division 1 at the end of the season (if the Top 2 teams continue to beat who they should) Furbo Pandas and Reverto will have the same number of wins, the same number of loses and have drawn against each other however Reverto will have 1 less point because one of their wins has been a Golden Cap. Discuss.

The maps for Week 4 of Season 15 will be cpprocessrc3 and kothproviaduct_rc3

Current Premiership Standings

1. Epsilon eSports (Played 4 Won 4)
2. Crack Clan (Played 4 Won 4)
3. broder (Played 3 Won 2 Lost 1
4. Revoluzion la Metagame (Played 4 Won 1 Drawn 1 Lost 2)
5. SOLAR (Played 4 Drawn 2 Lost 2)
6. Skidmark Cental (Played 3 Drawn 2 Lost 1)
7. 90° Fov (Played 3 Drawn 1 Lost 2)
8. LMS (Played 3 Lost 3)

Epsilon eSports vs. Skidmark Central

• Epsilon eSports: KnOxXx, numlocked, Mike, Gear, schocky, basH
• Skidmark Central: skeej, kaidus, flisko, Daleth, kiler4funN, Greg

Wednesday 5th May 21:15 CEST
Casted by Pledge + Admirable with Warden streaming.

My thoughts: At the start of the season this match would be Top 4 hype but now… yeah… The Epsilon matches previews were always going to be the least eventful and after having finished against closest rivals broder with a 5-1 win on the 2nd map in the official; it's unlikely anyone will come close before the playoffs at the end of the season with Crack Clan being the only ones who might give them a good game. Skidmark Central seem to be dropping in skill level with considerable difficulty at the moment after having played against Division 1 Furbo Pandas yesterday expecting a good game but instead completely rolling them. This game will mostly likely be a roll.

Mystery Gamer #1 (Prediction: 5-0 Process 3-0 Viaduct):

"I don't see Skidmark having any chance against the #1 team in Europe at the moment. I expect Epsilon to roll over them on Process and just show their dominance. Epsilon has the strongest lineup in eu, and combined with the best coordination and tactics there is no stopping them. Perhaps kaidus might get some lucky picks on process, but other than that i expect schocky & basH in combination with mge Mike to clear up."

Mystery Gamer #2 (Prediction: - Process - Viaduct):

COMING SOON (PROBABLY)

SOLAR GOLIATH vs. 90° Fov (vinland)

• SOLAR: vanilla, lalli, qnx, Hycz, maidu, cor
• 90° Fov: jose, suqper, unconfirmed, Salmon, Rake, delzic

Thuesday 6th May 21:00 CEST (guessing the time based on Solar's history)
Casted by Pledge + 1 with Jon streaming.

My thoughts: I've no idea how vinland thought of their new name… Anyway this is the game I'm most looking forward to this week, before Darn left I would've said 90° Fov had the edge but still without a solid lineup Solar are more than capable of taking one or both maps away from them. Of all the people on the 90° Fov team I rate Rake the highest and I think Solar's weakness so far has definitely been their scouts above their soldiers. If maidu and cor can manage to keep tabs on their finnish counterparts for the whole game then I think Hycz and even more so qnx will be more than capable of giving them an edge. As a prediction I'll go for one map each as Viaduct is always a bit random when it comes to results.

Mystery Gamer #1 (Prediction: 6-1 Process 3-0 Viaduct):

"Solar's soldiers are very good and especially on maps such as Process and Viaduct you will see sick play from Hycz & qnx. Im expecting qnx to take down Vinland's demo every single mid on process. There might be some interesting plays from one of the scouts on sniper on viaduct, but other than that Solar should have no problem beating them."

Mystery Gamer #2 (Prediction: who needs predictions with that level of detail?)

"Mighty Darn kicks in in to the server while mighty Solar and vinland are playing their official! Oh my god, he is joining for vinland as a 7th player, oh my god, he says something in finnish, he kicks his sub, holy jesus fuck. He is doing airshot, DOUBLE AIRSHOT, WOW, FUCK MY LIFE, ROCKET IS FLYING IN TO THE DARN, SCATTERS FLYING IN TO THE DARN, STICKIES FLYING IN DARN, PIPES, UBERSAW, NEEDLES, HOLY JESUS CHRIST, DARN DIES, DARN IS RAGEQUITING, OH MY GOD, IS THAT IT AGAIN? DARN?"

broder vs. Revoluzion la metagame

• broder: Mirelin, ryb, Zebbosai, jukebox, bybben, cookye
• Revoluzion la Metagame: Spin, Mark, Haunter, tek, Flippy, quad

My thoughts: Revoluzion has been improving at an impressive rate all season though whether they elevated themselves up to the level of play broder maintain is something I currently doubt. Despite Mark probably being overall a less capable demoman than Exon, I've heard he fits well in the team and if you look at broder, ryb is hardly a carry but definitely worthy of his place. broder will take this, but if Revoluzion can fight their way into the playoffs and somehow past Crack Clan, a rematch between these two by the end of the season could be a hell of a lot closer.

Mystery Gamer #1 (Prediction: 5-0 Process 3-0 Viaduct):

"The scandinavian super team showed a noticeable performance on Granary vs Epsilon winning 4 rounds. RLM has only won one game yet against LMS and drawn against Solar. Broder is gonna roll over LMS every mid, however, RLM's scouts Flippy & quad might put up a decent fight against cookye and bybben, but I don't see this affecting the result as a whole."

Mystery Gamer #2 (Prediction: - Process - Viaduct):

COMING SOON (PROBABLY)

Crack Clan vs. Last Man Standing

• Crack Clan: 2nuts, Brego, Ipz, T-mac, TviQ, smzi
• Last Man Standing: Whiteglow, Mightyme, Forsak3n, unconfirmed, reko, sickless

Tuesday 4th June 21:15 CEST Casted by Pledge + ilike2spin with Lexs streaming.

My thoughts: Still lacking a full roster, this LMS team will be easy picking for Crack Clan, who have yet to show what they can really do this season having won all their games so far but still with Epsilon and broder to play #darkhorse. LMS possess the ability to take a few rounds, but without a solid lineup it's hard to attribute them the coordination to hold Crack Clan off for a whole 30 minutes. Process will probably end up as a win difference 5 but I'd be surprised if LMS could get themselves a few rounds. Running Kritz on Viaduct can be really successful if done well and the russians are masters of that, however Crack Clan will definitely know it's coming and it's hard to imagine they'll get caught too often. TviQ will also snipe, and ruin everyone's day.

Mystery Gamer #1 (Prediction: 7-2 Process 3-0 Viaduct):

"Crack Clan is a very keen and strong team. Especially on process i expect Brego to put out a lot of damage which will be followed up by Ipz and two scouts Tviq and smzi. Right now LMS is not on top of their game and I certainly do not think they have the power to stop CC. Perhaps a few lucky kritz killstreaks will win them a round or two, but other than that CC will win. For Viaduct LMS need to figure out how to counter Tviq if he picks up the sniper rifle, else it's gonna be a fast 3-0.

Mystery Gamer #2 (Prediction: as before…)

"Forsak3n once again having 0 points for whole map. Mighty ippz encouraging his team with his mellifluous and beautiful voice, amazing Sonny Black as always covering crack clan and warning LMS for inappropriate nicknames after the official. Total ownage of LMS by crack clan, oh my god, that's what I see"

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Current Division 1 Standings:

1. Furbo Pandas (Played 4 Won 3 Drawn 1)
2. Team Reverto (Played 3 Won 2 Drawn 1) (1 Golden Cap Win)
3. Karnage eSports (Played 4 Won 2 Lost 2)
4. Decerto Ozone (Played 3 Won 2 Drawn 1)
5. Rainbow Queens (Played 3 Won 1 Drawn 1 Lost 1)
6. Optimum eSports (Played 3 Won 1 Drawn 1 Lost 1) (1 Golden Cap Loss)
7. d-d-Did I Stutter (Played 2 Won 1 Drawn 1 Lost 2)
8. Trick17 Black (Played 3 Lost 3)

myRevenge e.V. (Rainbow Queens) vs. Team Reverto

• myRevenge e.V.: AnimaL, Spary, Old Grandma, Shrike, msh, ReveraL
• Team Reverto: BaR, Maffi, Stark, Rising, Alba, e-thug

My thoughts: I'm slightly more forgiving of Rainbow Queens having changed their name having acquired themselves sponsors. This is probably the best matchup of this week, a golden cap against Optimum means Reverto are a point down on Furbo Pandas and so really need to win this in order to stay in contention. Win this they should though as myRevenge's recent performances have been pretty below what they can achieve in my opinion. Reverto are going to be lacking massively without Stark but Rising's Mike-esque damage outputs on roamer and ethug's cleanup ability with see them through both maps in an albeit messy fashion.

Mystery Gamer #3 (Prediction: 2-5 Process 0-3 Viaduct):

"Reverto are outdming myRevenge on every position and their teamplay and coordination is much better, myRevenege are still a newish team they so will have to step it up massively. On Viaduct i doubt they'll have a chance as Reverto are just too strong on dm and you can't outsmart teams as easily at all on KOTH maps."

Mystery Gamer #4 (Prediction: 1-6 Process 1-3 Viaduct):

"Reverto are on a good streak and should present a decent challenge to myR although Spary has been playing better and could pose a threat. Alba's bodyshots won't help much on viaduct although it's better than msh on a good day."

sparkLe Motion vs. Decerto.Ozone

• sparkLe Motion: sparkLe, phy, WOODY, unconfirmed, konr, Gubbins
• Decerto. Ozone: Turbomonkey, huhy, arc, KillAri, Origo, gf18

My thoughts: Putting Gubbins on scout will make the SM flank much stronger however I think losing him on pocket as main caller will be much more detrimental (ultimately things would be ideal if it was a team of Gubbinses). Either I way I think Decerto will be more than capable of taking both maps, the threat of Gubbins on scout will be handled by Origo and gf_18 who have played together all season and I'm sure have shared many a croissant going through their demos. SM may get a few rounds on Process but Decerto will win overall and as long as they have practiced focusing snipers on Viaduct then they'll be fine, otherwise Gubbins will fuck them pretty hard.

Mystery Gamer #3 (Prediction: 2-6 Process 1-3 Viaduct):

"Decerto are gonna win against optimum (sparkLe Motion) on both maps. Why? Decerto are one of the top teams in the div and should be able to take 2 wins due to their superior dm and coordination, if they take Gubbins out of the game then Decerto wins. (With Gubbins switching to scout) the flank for sparkLe Motion will now definitely be stronger but if they cant get a decent pocket in i think this will rather weaken them for now cause Gubbins was calling afaik."

Mystery Gamer #4 (Prediction: 4-5 Process (GC) 3-2 Viaduct):

"With the switchup in sparkLe Motion, the superior scout pairing of Gubbins and konr, not to mention their terrorising sniping skills will tear apart Decerto unless huhy manages to go astronomical."

d-d-Did I Stutter vs. Karnage eSports

• d-d-Did I Stutter: Fenrir, Funkadelic, Linus, wolve, Buttnose, Permzilla
• Karnage eSports: unconfirmed , unconfirmed, wpminnows, Dendocror, kimberly, ghent

My thoughts: Following their roster crisis of last week, as predicted Karnage haven't yet played their game from last week, though did end up playing their delayed game from Week 2 (which I really couldn't be bothered to write about). That game was against sparkLe Motion which they surprisingly won having played I think with Zylaen and Koala, accompanied by Dendocror and ghent both really stepping up to play their new classes. Despite this, I'll be backing DIS to win this, who deserved better results this season than they've achieved so far. Buttnose I think is the one that needs to step up, but appreciably it's going to be hard with the weight of carrying Permzilla #banterwithperm. I think a draw with both teams taking a map is a justified scoreline, DIS to take Process and Karnage to take Viaduct.

Mystery Gamer #3 (Prediction: 4-3 Process 3-2 Viaduct):

"DIS are a very solid team but knowing kes they'll give them a very though fight with their sheer dm cause thats really all kes can rely on atm. For viaduct its pretty much the same although DIS is gonna take it because they have better organisation. If i knew what format Viaduct is played with i could give a prediction, i am just gonna go with a 1 round win for kes. i mean DIS lol! DIS is gonna win."

Mystery Gamer #4 (Prediction: 0-5 Process 0-3 Viaduct):

"With all of the changes to their lineup, Karnage's only real backbone is their scouts. Everything else seems to be on and off. With that being said, DIS just look awful and I won't be surprised if they get rolled by ghent and kimberly alone."

Trick17 Black vs. Furbo Pandas

• Trick17 Black: Kamari, kr4tos, slate, WalKer, RazorsEdge, _*unconfirmed*
• Furbo Pandas: shifty, Hildreth, zooob, Sideshow, rock, furbo

My thoughts: Furbo Pandas are en-route to take Division 1 and Trick17 are going to be the least of their worries. Trick17 have unfortunately managed to lose every game thus far this season as well as WAR on scout. However as mentioned at the start of this article they have a recruitment post up looking for a replacement, and I admire their ambition to continue and improve where a lot of teams would've folded by this point. Sadly for them this is probably the worst possible team against which they could be trying to get their first points of the season and I think things will probably just end up a 5-0 3-0 wipe. Sideshow might kill himself a few times trying to do sick jumps but Furbo will outdamage both demos so it's fine.

Mystery Gamer #3 (Prediction: 1-6 Process 1-3 Viaduct):

"Furbo Pandas should take this one with relative ease, reason being that Trick17 still need a second scout and Furbo Pandas' scouts are a solid duo, Furbo as a pocket scout is going huge and zooob is a monster so i doubt Trick17 will be able to touch the combo at all. On Viaduct, Trick17 will have to rely on well timed bombs and forces to maybe get a round of Furbo Pandas.

Mystery Gamer #4 (Prediction: 0-200 Process 0-6000 Viaduct):

"Trick17 have lost all their good players, they even lost to $^^ (sparkLE Motion), no faith in them whatsoever. THEY EVEN LOST TO $^^."

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Sadly (or not, depending on your perspective) this will be the last of these articles I write as I have uni exams next week and can't really spare the time. For the following weeks if someone wants to write an this article feel free to get in contact with me or another member of TF.TV staff or if someone is writing something similar/not on this site then firstly why not, this is the best TF2 content site but secondly let me know anyway and I'll try and do a summary and link from TF.TV.

It's been an incredible journey of about 5 weeks, I will miss all of you… joking fuck this shitty unpaid series

Cheers