Praise Be!

I thought I'd start off by giving thanks to everyone involved in making the TeamFortress.TV ZOWIE Invitational #2 a great success. Straight out the gate I have to thank our sponsors, ZOWIE GEAR, for their continued support and fabulous prizes, I hope they can feel the genuine warmth and appreciation I have seen from the community.

Take a bow my fellow TFTV Staff and the TFTV community for hyping up and putting on an excellent event; enigma, huhy, Jon, Ducky, atmo and CommanderX all played integral roles on the factory floor.

Also I want to recognise the incredible generosity of serveme.tf and FakkelBrigade's Arie for providing us with servers fit to withstand a DDoS attack (no one even noticed!) and STV relays for all the games. I can't recommend their service enough.

Our friend in high places, Twitch John, for his godly promotion of the stream not just on the Twitch front page, but in the number one spot for an extended period. We even got a tweet from Twitch! Massive thanks for giving us a chance to reach new viewers, yet again.

Of course, there would be no game, spectacle or passion without the players and fans who devote their time to the game. Thanks for forgoing your Sunday rituals in favour of virtual murder. Sick bastards.

Final Standings

Now enough of that sickly sweet tone, I think I might vomit. Let me continue by saying that if you didn't want spoilers you shouldn't be reading the recap article; so don't sit there looking like I pissed in your cornflakes.

To those teams who managed to defend or overturn their seeding I extend a congratulatory handshake, whilst simultaneously pouring scorn on the rest who did not live up to the hype... especially you Ayo Gurl. We had some delightfully close games, with a handful of golden caps sprinkled throughout the tournament. If you want to see scores jump over to the bracket or check out the demos, logs and VODs down below.

To The Victor Go The Spoils

No doubt some of you unwashed hippies out there are telling yourselves that the real winner here was the competitive Team Fortress 2 scene. NO. The real winners here were Made In Germany. Pay attention. I know secretly you are all begging for me to reveal which mouse each of your new-found gaming idols went for, so that you might attempt to emulate their heroics by purchasing the one true mouse. Get your credit cards at the ready...

The popular choice was to be the ZOWIE FK with ThUn, kaidus, ipz and basH all unable to resist its charms. Unmoved by their colleagues, GeaR and smzi struck out on their own paths, opting for a ZOWIE EC2 eVo Black and a ZOWIE EC eVo CL, respectively.

Let us not forget our French-speaking friends in second place, Mais La Moule, who have each become the proud owner of a ZOWIE P-TF Speed; Mitsy, Nadir, KnOxXx, Captainhax, fl1p, and droso -- we salute you!

Viewership

Let me throw you a few figures, by way of comparison with the first TFTV ZOWIE Invitational, and we can all nod in knowing approval. Twitch tells us that we clocked up 17460 hours watched (up 35.65%), 166700 video plays (up 60.32%), 132240 unique viewers (up 54.52%) and a peak of 6063 concurrent viewers (up 76.76%) over the six hour course of our stream event. I don't really know what they mean either, but don't worry about that... quick look at this blue line.

Personally, I just loved the way our viewers embraced the ZOWIE adverts, with the stream chat erupting with ecstasy every time they were played, spewing jets of unbridled joy out in to the internet. Is it we who are lucky to have their sponsorship or they who fortunate to have such fanatics at their dispose? All I'm saying is that the prizes for the Invitational #3 will need to be forged in solid gold and tempered in the tears of our lord and saviour, Grant Vincent, to redress the balance.

Resources

One of great features of serveme.tf is that after your server booking has finished the STV demos are immediately available, nicely trimmed and zipped up ready to go. I've compiled them all into one archive, coming in and just under 150MB, which includes everything but the heavy fist fights. Yes, I have no soul. Steer your cursor in a south-westerly direction for the complete STV demo package.

Another thing you can expect from serveme.tf is automatic log uploads to logs.tf, and if you cast your gaze below you will find tabulated all the logs and YouTube VODs available for each fixture of the tournament. Just click the little icons to be whisked away to a magical land of statistics, commentary and moving pictures.

*UB Round 1*	Made In Germany	vs.	Fenneks eSports by SimRai.com
	Mais La Moule	vs.	Dotter
	The Last Resort	vs.	LEGO
	Evokate Gaming	vs.	Ayo Gurl Sugadaddy Hood Pussy Creepers
*LB Round 1*	Fenneks eSports by SimRai.com	vs.	Dotter
	The Last Resort	vs.	Ayo Gurl Sugadaddy Hood Pussy Creepers
*UB Round 2*	Made In Germany	vs.	Mais La Moule
	LEGO	vs.	Evokate Gaming
*LB Round 2*	LEGO	vs.	Fenneks eSports by SimRai.com
	Mais La Moule	vs.	The Last Resort
*UB Final*	Made In Germany	vs.	Evokate Gaming
*LB Round 3*	LEGO	vs.	Mais La Moule
*LB Final*	Evokate Gaming	vs.	Mais La Moule
*Grand Final*	Made In Germany	vs.	Mais La Moule

Feedback

TFTV would love to hear your feedback on the event, whether you were participating as a spectator or a competitor, or you totally missed the whole thing until now. What did you like? What could we have done better? Where do we go from here? Don't hold back. Unload your thoughts in the comments section below.

P.S. The European season is only starting and TeamFortress.TV is going to be all over it, so keep an eye on the events schedule and you won't miss a thing.