Well, well, well I was only gone a few weeks and I could not help but to pry my eyes over life in UGC without the loving care and guidance of myself, the father of Highlander. Of course I could see it was struggling, emotionally and physically without my presence so for one time only my children, I will preview this Summer's UGC Season 10 and look at this summer's rosters and teams to beat in Platinum, because no other element is really worth writing about, I can buy Gold from a dodgy Turkish guy in a flat cap hat, why would I need to look at it? Anyway here are some of my precious thoughts, I have barely any insight at all in any of the teams so if you'd like to correct me, do so because looking in from the outside is good fun, but not as fun as being inside.

Looking at the maps, the UGC Admins have done their best to stop the spreading of STD's by latexing all of the shit maps in what they describe as “Summer Fun Maps”, my understanding is both teams need to agree to play one of the “Summer Fun Maps”, otherwise they will have to play a default map. Since the “Summer Fun Maps” include domc****zone and cpstandinaroundallthetimecappingandnotdoinganythingfunrc1, you can expect that most teams in platinum are conscious of their sexual health and do not want to play these “Summer Fun Maps” so we will sadly not see any kothnucleus....AHAHA.

Teams are ranked by order of how I think they will place come season end:

Menace To Society #

mTs have had 2 seasons of trying to win a shiny Platinum UGC medal and both times fell short, coming 2nd and 3rd but this time with the competition level decreasing and mTs' roster looking significantly better than anyone else’s, it is hard to say that anyone will defeat them unless Harbleu has another match of turning his back on Pulse, or mTs get drunk and elect to play a dreadful map and decide not to put themselves through the torment of practising it again. Their roster shuffles have seen Squid replace Ukm on scout, Panic switch from Heavy (a class where he sometimes looked like a lost child in a supermarket on) to his main class. Ghetto Afterthought carry Sweater's medical insurance bounced, meaning a move over to mTs to replace Xalox on the Demoman class. Quality Control's Pretzel, tipped to be the upcoming Heavy weapons guy since the demise of other people mental enough to main Heavy has joined the roster to join the rest of last's seasons team. It is a squad that looks like it has picked up good replacements and sorted out one of their biggest issues in the combo, the Hoovy.

Baby Punching Marathon #

Last season's runners up return as pre-season favourites, OOPS, sorry I mean "favorite". Their lineup seems to be the same, with no-one leaving....OOPS, sorry I meant to say that the 'world's best spy' Pulse, aka the Canadian creeper, left the team to reform his last summer season team, The Asylum - a big OOPS for BPM as they somehow have to replace the irreplaceable on Spy, backoop spy for -ts- last season, Acooma aka “the man who lived in Stabby's shadow” has joined the team and may well be the main Spah. Another OOPS for the team is Kapow, their Demoman last season leaving the roster leaving them with Fatcrapper or Puff as potential replacements, a downgrade if you ask me. Though one big name you can't say OOPS about joining is Ruwin, their second -ts- backoop joining I assume to become a BPM backoop, though I am told he is their main Demoman for the season, so perhaps not the big OOPS at all, seeing TF2's most dangerous sexual predator hand out a whole new meaning to the word 'rape' on the most overpowered class could be something...interesting to see.
   

Bonus Points #

Bonus ARE BACK! Yeah, finally we know who our 3rd placed medallists will be before the season starts as they look for their third successive third place (well I don't include last Summer's season simply because...c****zone). The return of Bonus sees some old names come back including Hei on the Spy (haha it rhymes), Hugh Laurie on the Sniper and Collide on Demoman. Now with all due respect to Collide – He's not the best...well not in the same class as some other Demo's out there, even The_Overlord can present himself as better than him on Demo, but you know people improve over time, it is hard to believe that I too was once that bad on Demo, then again I did have 180 ping and was probably playing Team Fortress 2D. The rest of the team looks a lot better though, with Satan coming in from Blunderful, TF2 couple Sheep and Overseer joining to pick up the rockets and medi gun – by the way did you ever notice how quiet Sheep is? I bet I know who wears the pants in that relationship – along with the return to the roster by cusideabelincoln, the man with the strangest name in the game on engineer and Arthur on Heavy. There is no shame in coming third, better than fourth ey' Snakekryptonite?

The Asylum #

The Asylum aka a9 are a team I know very well from last summer season where I rang for them a lot and first laid eyes on the beautiful, mysterious, exceptionally attractive and talented gamer girl that was Pulse. Of course Pulse was so quiet, I later realised he was a dude and CrazyErika was the female with the hot Canadian accent. But for the best Spy in the world, joining his original team for the summer gives the spy fanboys another few months to witness his magic at work. Elsewhere The Asylum was the starting point of Ginyu Force champion, tm4 who switches onto Heavy, carrying his gleaming Polk signed minigun and UGC Platinum Gold medal, rumours have it he sold it for $2 to pay off his employer debts. As mentioned CrazyErika is the Pyro, quite an underrated player along with ex -ts- Engineer, Sigafoo who is one of the best Engineer's in the league and Phaze, another underrated sniper who has been known to click on heads for lower platinum sides as his teammates walk into walls and drop uber. Completing the roster is Misskay on Medic, Bot_tay on Scout (Who?) and reaL on Soldier (who?). My favourite though is Messiah, a 6's Demomen who “gave up 6's to play HL”, so I will from now on refer to him as “Mustardoverlord MKII” although I think he still plays 6's as the community clown.

DEATH FORCE 9 #

DEATHFORCE 9 FORMED BEFORE LAST SEASON EVEN ENDED, IT IS LIKE NEARLY 2 MONTHS LATER AND THEY'RE STILL GOING. THEY HAVE A NAME THAT SHOUTS OUT, HEY WE'RE HERE, WE'RE NERDS, GET USED TO US. FORMED FROM THE MYSTERIOUS MIND OF STEVEC, AND HIS PARTNER IN CRIME, REMEDY, D9 HAVE A STRANGE WARP OF PLAYERS, LOOKING ALMOST LIKE THE FIRST EVER MID/TOP PLATINUM JERKLECIRC TEAM IN HIGHLANDER HISTORY. THEIR ROSTER INCLUDES STREAMING SENSATION MANGACHU, UGC SEX OFFENDER LOOPS, SPY SUPERSTAR AND INTERNATIONAL SEX SYMBOL, STABBY STABBY ALONG WITH HIS TEAM FROM THE SYNDICATE, FATHOM ON PYRO. FOX ON SNIPER PROBABLY,** CTRL+ MUFFIN** PROBABLY ON DEMOMAN ALTHOUGH HE WILL HAVE TO COMPETE WITH DifferentColoUrs WITH UKM FROM MENACE TO SOCIETY, FINNDY FROM GHETTO AFTERTHOUGHT, INDUST+ LIKELY TO TAKE OVER MEDICING AS LOOPS IS SHIT AND A GUY CALLED “HOT DOG DELIVERED”. ALL POWER, ALL GLORY TO DEATH FORCE 9, YOU WOULD BE A FOOL TO STAND IN THEIR WAY, THOUGH IF YOU DO YOU WILL PROBABLY BEAT THEM AS THEY LOOK MORE LIKE A PUG TEAM THAN AN ACTUAL TEAM IF YOU ASK ME.

Here Lies | Peperoni and Chease #

This season's award for the worst named team goes to these guys, but a sneak at their roster and well I see enough ability in there for them to finish respectively. You got Huey Lewis, the champion Pyro from Ginyu force, well....half champion as Pudding Cup had to finish off the job whilst Huey was Euro Trucking having intimate conversations with his stream viewers. Ex-Ginyu Force players Frank West, Foster, Paradox and Downpour join the crew alongside him. Okay this isn't a team with the Ginyu superstars like Duwatna, Sheep and Max but they have good players, no more than the second Highlander couple of Red and Radio, both rather accomplished as Medics and Demoman (probably due to the constant hours of kritzkreig + demo combos on lobbies which seems to be the TF2 dating world's equivalent of Paris). A couple of established backups like Gankmeister and Revels on the team, along with some names with something to prove in Platinum such as YumOJ who played Gold on the famous +fwd team (team which Moose was on that didn't get dropped because of UGC Admin politics, circa Mustardoverlord) and Rachcsa who I hope isn't their starter medic because she is the worst one I ever pugged with, and I pugged with ElenaMorning as Medic. And of course nobody can forget GoldenBrownBear aka GBB, the extra spark that will make this team shine through the dark times and take a respectable 6th place....I dunno what I am saying really, if I looked at logs they probably beat every team in scrims.

Blunderful #

The Mid-plat cats are back but for the first time in a while losing one of their star names as Satan flunked the team to look for greater things (A third placed finish with Bonus), being most likely replaced by Digresser on Pyro. We still have the rest of the roster, Useoftoaster aka the Amazing Atomizer Acrobat on Scoot, with Squid the second most charming Brit in the NA scene on Hoovy, PenguinNinja still looking like a lost child holding a medi-gun and Noko going loco on Spy. I have a soft spot for bfl' for their longevity for sticking together and hanging in mid-platinum for so long, some of their players like Useoftoaster, Noko and Napalm could be playing in a top team, this is the first time in 7 seasons one of their big names has left the roster, so could this be the beginning of the end? NEVER BFL WILL LIVE ON FOREVER.

2 Feet #

A team of Invite/IM players off-classing and not taking Highlander seriously? Seen this before...mid table. Too boring to even comment on their team since I have not the foggiest of what class they will play, how well they know the HL meta game, how good they are at the respective maps and if they even turn up at all. They will still do better than some though...

Walk...or We Walk

Last season they were Chain Reaction, this season they're Walk...or we Walk. I thought they were quite decent, just lacking a core in teamwork/dm, but definitely mid plat material and able, in my opinion to cause an upset especially since the world's best sniper Max! and his lover Mike! have reunited their as Sniper and Scout, the two being inseparable like a priest and his alter boy. With Columbianmrg on Spy spamming the most amusing binds ever created and more than your fair share of pug tryhards, like huhny, Spamfest and Skyrolla who will forever live in my hearts as nobodies who serve the purpose of existing so that I can be better than them. Still, I think they will do well, they lost misskay on Medic and picked up a person named Crespi, no idea how good this person is or if it will affect anything, but Seabass and Hein won Platinum so I am sure they will be fine.

The Last Bosses

A team that did remarkably well in Gold, turning their season around from JJK level Engineering to JJK level sniping in a matter of weeks, they have earned a promotion to the big league. They got some TF2 bad boys like Keith Stone, he don't give a fuck I am told, he's a rebel that no girl can tame, men want to be him (before they realise they should want to be me) and girls want him to be in them, Keith "The Rolling" Stone is the soldier to be wary of. Crow is their Engineer, he talks a lot, I dunno if he is good but if you play Engineer you probably are bad at everything else, sorry Crow. It looks like another team with a carry Sniper and Spy if you ask me, I mean jump4r is the nicest guy in the world on Scout, for his mentoring charms but I know little else except their Medic KoolB making a huge amount of basic errors involving counting ubers and bad positioning, I think they may struggle a bit especially with their combo.

Super Dumptrucks

Looking at this roster it seems like every low platinum reject and Gold player who thought they were too good for Polk's Awful Team but not good enough for a team less awful than Blunderful have come together to form their own team, to be dumped upon by most of the league. Unless they try really, really...hard. I mean I can see a guy from Super Saiyan Swagger on their roster, that is old school man.

Bottom Anorexics

This team managed to roll Gold last season and were rewarded with a place in Platinum, the system works, finally something done by the UGC Admin team is rational, hail Infinite. But looking at Top Gluttons (I refuse to refer to their new name on the grounds it is completely retarded, the smarter people out there will get the joke with their name...HA-FUCKING-HA) and their team description reads: “Top Gluttons offlcass team”. So despite the fact their team, whilst onlcassing is pretty talented, with great co-ordination and teamwork, having glimpsed at them offlcassing in pugs, I can't really see them doing anything. Unless of course Erika goes Engineer or something that can't harm their team and Pussy Cocaine is banned from speaking.

Heating Up

This team came somewhere mid-Gold last season, now I don't pretend to know anything about them but....they must have added some decent players or something to justify being put in Plat. Only name I really know is Mamboulay, who I have always thought is underrated as a Medic and he watches my stream so he obviously learned how to play from me, therefore he is good...won't stop his team coming last though.

TMP WATCH

TMP is currently off-classing as Soldier in Silver, whilst some question The Master Pyro's motives, I for one deny rumours that TMP was spotted in a threeway whipping session with an unidentified Man and Women...okay the man may have been me.