We've finally broken into the latter part of the season, and this week we set sail for Granary. There's not much to say, last week went about as expected and as such the rankings haven't changed all too much. Enjoy the read.

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

Rastlemania continues to look as dominant as ever after coming off of 2 decisive wins on metalworks, and odds are things won't be changing any time soon with their next matches being against Bubble Buddies and Yoshis Island. Crux and company may surmount to a speedbump in the race to open glory, but Yoshis Island is most likely going to get completely rolled over. The question still remains whether any of the open teams can shape up enough to actually contest rastlemania. There are definitely some other rosters out there with players who scale up individually, but the teamplay just isn't there yet.

• Danerdz
• blue
• Warped
• Blackymonster
• kraka
• Noko

Last week Animus Victoria had a closer game against the Anzaldua Peckers than the score indicates with a 3-1 hour long victory, and we were robbed of what could have been a good game against Fried Green Tomatoes with Bape being unable to play. When will Animus decide on who to start? The question hardly seems to matter just with the amount of talent on the roster, but if anything this could be the factor that means an unfortunate loss in the next few weeks. This week they will play Making Bacon Pancakes and Lzuruha Pandamonium, neither of which should be too much trouble if the right people show up for Animus. However, not only would a loss here be a little embarrassing, it could open the door to another team usurping their number two spot in the power rankings.

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

Fried Green Tomatoes has been looking about as strong as one would expect them to, having actually already secured a 10-2 record as of the time of this writing. Tomatoes did lose 5-1 to Animus Victoria, but it was in the absence of half of their star scout duo. Metalworks also featured the debut of their new pocket soldier, tshirts. Tshirts has been floating around the scene for a while now, and he probably won't have too many issues meshing into the team. Assuming that they don't run into any more roster issues down the road, Fried Green Tomatoes should be able to easily secure a good seed for playoffs.

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

Although they only won one of their matches on metalworks week, Dango has actually made leaps and bounds. They slaughtered Yoshi's Island in a brutal 5-0, another team with a solid standing, and managed to take 2 rounds off of rastlemania, the only undefeated team and the obvious favorite for winning open. The only real threat to them at this point, besides rastlemania, is themselves. With ducky warming the bench less and less as he's constantly on the field and starters going mia left and right during critical times, Dango needs to fix their internal issues before playoffs. Next week will be a relaxing break, playing against both we kings now and Bueno. Bueno will prove the more difficult of the two match-ups, but even so I believe it will go down in Dango's favor. The strong combo employed by Dango will be too much to handle on this pocket-centric map.

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

Having played only one of their metalworks matches, Bueno are going to have a rough week ahead of them. Luckily they won't be going up against any of the top 3, but that doesn't mean their next matches won't be easy. Finishing up their metalworks matches, they will be playing we kings now, a team who got an incredibly easy early schedule. I expect Bueno to take this with ease, even though they lost their only other metalworks match 5-0. Having to play rastlemania usually results in such a score, and anything other than that is considered impressive. Moving into granary is where Bueno will begin to hit roadblocks: the scouts and demo are the core of the team, with weaker soldiers not pulling their weight. This will come into the spotlight in the soldier-centric map that granary is. Facing them will be Bubble Buddies and Dango, both strong open contenders. I expect the weaker soldiers to lose Bueno these matches, but even so they should be close affairs.

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

Having lost 3 matches in the past two weeks, Circus will have easy sailing for the next two weeks. Seeded against less-skilled teams, granary and gullywash should be much easier for them than had they won their previous matches. Next week they will be playing against Your Move, and 4 my bes ienternt friends, the latter of which is the result of a drunken name-change from the original hot cheetos and takis. The first of these will not be a problem whatsoever for the Flying Circus, but expect internet friends to take at least a round or two, as the combo for the circus has been looking unstable recently. If Bsc and donut can step it up, expect to see a 5-0 in both games.

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

Bubble Buddies has yet again put on a disappointing performance. While they may have won both matches, they only barely managed to squeeze out a 4-3 win over Yoshis Island. I'm not sure if this is indicative of Yoshis Island being better than assumed or if Bubble Buddies has continued to underperform, but I'm getting a feeling that it's the latter. Crux has continued to put up great numbers, and this team will likely do much better if the rest of them can step up. Bubble Buddies has matches against Rastlemania and Bretty Bueno this week. They're going to lose the match against rastlemania, but the game against Bretty Bueno could be a close one.

• Dart
• June
• Hellbent
• kwazi
• Let it Riot
• Bigwill

June and his little band of misfits have been creeping up the standings slowly but surely as they go into granary week with only two losses. They will pick up a forfeit win from the now dead team wahoo captain and face a shaky looking Zaboomacrew who may or may not be dead. If this is the case, Never Stop Greeting will have a hard time making up the rounds when it comes down to seeding for playoffs. Since their matches haven't really been much to speak of, their scrims have been looking pretty solid. Taking rounds off of IM teams and beating most of the high open teams in scrims, I expect that when push comes to shove Never Stop Greeting will hold their own against the top of open and keep a healthy distance from the mid-open bubble.

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

We kings now has only played one of their metalworks matches so far, against Bubble Buddies, and to say the least they fell flat. Their passivity works in that it frequently gives them a straight advantage to push on, but they then often just don't accomplish anything with their pushes and find themselves stuck in a perpetual game of leapfrog. While this may not necessarily be a bad thing (we see it happen a lot in this level of play), they just don't appear to have the dm ability to win most of the post uber fights. We kings now is up against Dango and Yoshis Island this week. They will likely lose to Dango, and Yoshis Island could very well be an upset that sees this team dropping from the top 10.

• Caboose
• Billuster
• Pickles
• Painshocka
• Nevdawg
• EverLast

While the team formerly known as Rice Guys Finish Last have had some rough matches lately, it certainly is too early to count them out. The biggest change we've seen in recent weeks is the pickup of Bill in place of their former pocket asianriceguy. While Bill has great DM and could really get some work done with his ubers, it's fairly obvious that there isn't a voice of discretion that made him such a power house last season on Indust we Trust. Despite there being some communication issues between the combo and the rest of the team, the Peckers played well with Bill, Shocka, and Nev putting up great numbers. Unfortunately, TF2 is not a numbers game, and some crucial ubers were dropped where they should have been popped, and in some instances the flank was bleeding a little too heavily. The boys will need to really step up their game if they want to keep their spot in the top 10 or even make playoffs this season.

• Yoshis Island
• Lzuruha Pandamonium
• Get Wrecked
• Street Hoops eSports
• 4 my bes ienternt frends

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

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

This week's motw is between another two teams with relatively similar records so far. Bubble Buddies and Bretty Bueno are colliding on granary, and the result is actually difficult to call. Both of these teams have weak soldiers compared to the rest of the top ten, and on granary it's going to end up coming down to whose combo performs better. Granary isn't really a map where Crux will be able to exert as much control over fights as he usually does, but he still remains a very strong asset for the soapy compatriots. Bubble Buddies does have a much longer history playing together, and Bretty Bueno supposedly hasn't been scrimming very much, so I'm gonna give the victory to Bubble Buddies 5-3.

As the season is coming to a close, the noose of the mid-open bubble draws ever tighter. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like nothing less than a 12-4 record is going to be able to clinch a spot for playoffs with any team that will finish 11-5 will need to pray they have enough rounds for to snag the last two or three spots in the top 16. This means that the bubble is slightly smaller than last season, but with so many teams with similar records that the competition is going to be vicious and nobody should be breathing easy quite yet. Every round counts if you want to secure your spot, and the teams that slack now will find themselves crying at the end of the season if they aren't careful.