I think you can just recreate your roster. Not sure if there is rules against that though.

On topic: It's awesome that invite players are willing to shell out some of their cash to hopefully give Open teams more of an incentive to play and win the division. I'm glad that an ESEA rep is finally talking to the community and taking this seriously. I want CEVO to succeed, but I think it needs time to grow while ESEA (hopefully) carries comp TF2 for at least a few more seasons.

Sandbagging rant: Why does ESEA still allow sandbagging? Neither team in the Open finals wanted to even be in Open but since both teams were newly formed they couldn't play in higher divs unless they hijacked a roster. Why is that policy still around? Couldn't the admins just use the personal ESEA pages of the players as a reference to their experience with the game? It's not like any of the players were on alt accounts. I know it's much more entertaining to whine and complain about it while publicly posting personal attacks on people that you may not like, but I think ESEA should have a move up policy for new teams that have higher than Open level players on it so this can't happen again.

I do have friends on both Quantum Flux and Budsquad but I do think the policy ruined the Open division for many up and coming teams last season. With that said, I genuinely believe that neither team wanted to stomp Open to get a paycheck. They wanted to play in ESEA with their rosters and they had no other options outside of Open. I don't understand the hostility towards the players but not the policy. It's understandable why certain people might not like some of the players on either team but the hate doesn't do anything besides breed more hate.

based mix^ to the rescue

Honestly if you start in a certain division and play two matches in it you should not be allowed to switch teams to a lower division mid season, only the same division or higher. If your team dies, better luck next season. Might incentivize people to get on teams that will live.

You guys are the best

Also, the sandbagging issue is a bit of a head-scratcher. I don't know if you need a talent committee or something but teams like the ones we saw in the open finals should have never been in the division in the first place.*

(*I'm volunteering to be payed money to sit on a talent committee and tell teams they can't play in open cause they 2 gud)

If we see sandbagging at the top, I'll just throw all open teams without main/invite players into a hat and randomly draw and give them money. Stop trying to steal my money, Danford.

Bloodsire you need to get your articles out on time prior to hiring from the talent committee!

jokes on you guys, the top 5 open teams are going to be eXclusively invite sandbaggers

I fully agree with this whole statement.

IMO, a team is all about finding people with common goals. Put those to practice and bam. Cohesive team. (Different topic though)

But like you hinted at, there should be some rules in place to prevent compulsive team hopping. Like you can only hop like max of 2x per full season. Or something like that... Not just the wait seven days to join a team. Which btw, there are ways around this. But it could land you some trouble if admins find out that you did it. 0.o Resulting in player bans and overturns of matches.

Guys really dont stop supporting ESEA, this game DO need an organisation like ESEA to stay healthy over the years. I do play in etf2l on a fairly high level (division 1) and all I can say is that,in europe, the competition is dead : epsi folded, broder folded,slowly all good players are leaving. On our division,2 team doesnt even practice anymore I mean wtf its supposed to be the place where you test yourself to see if you can jump to prem and no one really gives a shit. Our roster 3 season ago wouldnt even manage to get a map against any of the old division 1 teams. This isnt the way I wanted to be the best. I'd rather spend another 10 seasons fighting teams that try their hardest and then claim "I made it, I'm at the top" instead of being the best just because no one else care enough to play seriously a game they used to enjoy. Sure there are a lots of teams in lower divs but when they will go trought the divs they are gonna find out that there isnt nothing to play for. Competition is what keeps things fresh, I play this game because I enjoy it and I enjoy playing with my friends but this aint enough. At some point playing just for the sake of fun is not worth "wasting" 5 nights a weeks and winning a match vs a way weaker opponent wont give you the same feeling.
Esea might be the worst company ever but its offering you a challenge,a place where to actually try your best. Community league will slowly fade the competition away and with it youre gonna lose the will to play the game,just trust me on that

Sorry for my horrible english but I had to write down something before you throw away the possibility that makes the NA TF2 way more stimulating then EU TF2

as little as it matters, i will help any open team i have time for (which is a lot of time jesus i have no life) if they actually have 6 players that want to improve. competition is what keeps this old game alive in my heart :*) also i really want to see shitty sandbag teams lose

It's coming! One day, you'll see. Internship been taking most of my time :[

I know how to play in open, I was joking. I learned way more getting shit on in IM last season than any other time in my tf2 "career" so I'd rather not take a step back just for ducats.

apparently esea and cevo will both have issues with this :|

also, i'm willing to help a few teams out with demo reviews/game discussion/etc add me

We only need a couple more teams!! People should join and pay up!!!

Way to step it up.

stakes is high

While I personally dislike ESEA as a company, CEVO needs another season before we put all our eggs in their basket. As an open player from last season I have two suggestions that are more than just throwing money at the screen, because honestly the people playing in open aren't playing for money and an extra $60 isn't going to convince most people to play in ESEA and/over CEVO (or UGC) especially with ESEA's track record.

Suggestion #1: A dedicated writer for open who releases timely articles (interviews, team overviews) and power rankings. While last season (and seasons before that) did a pretty good job with power rankings (writers look like they at least looked at the marquee matches) there really weren't team write-ups outside of the sandbagging invite teams. Also, unless something has changed, ESEA isn't funding writers outside of Invite, so we are going to have to fund a writer if we want one. Trust me, seeing other people (especially if they are better than you) talk about your team or yourself is one of the best feelings as a lower division player and is something that UGC (and CEVO?) doesn't offer.

Suggestion #2: Weekly open casts of the match of the week (vary the teams). Simple in concept, but it seems that tf.tv has enough trouble finding people for invite casts. Personally, I'd argue that open casts do more for growing tf2 than invite casts, but that is another story. In my mind this is more or less a promise to teams that if they work hard then they have a good chance of 1000 people seeing their names in lights.

Bdonski is willing to review demos/mentor/anything etc. any open team that has the drive to improve and is open to criticism.

damn, watch out banny

Not to mention, didn't Powah sub for Enigma(?) in an important Via match a couple seasons ago? Way to shit on people that have saved your ass in the past. AND the sandbagging wasn't even the players' fault or choice, that blame needs to re-directed at ESEA.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhCefdGQqbs

big sexy bdonski

???

kamo ur doin that thing where u post about shit you have 0 understanding about again so i would advise u to refrain from doing it any further

i dont think ive ever said refrain outside of church

The important match where they were gonna go to LAN anyway

http://steamcommunity.com/id/Harbleu/

So I decided to add on here just how much I actually belong to Discario. I know it might seem like a joke but master really does own every aspect of me. He controls every part of my mind and body. I really only exist to serve him and am nothing more than property to him. He reminds me every day how stupid I am and makes sure I know I will never be anything more than a stupid slut. Master has been teaching me to count lately and I have recently been able to count to four. I try every day to prove to him that I can be smart but he just laughs at me and calls me an idiot. I guess he is right though, I can’t even do simple addition and even elementary schoolers are smarter than me. I really am nothing more than a dumb slut and really am useless. I am so lucky to have Discario as my master and know that I am just a toy for him to use for his own amusement. I dream every day about getting bred by master. I crave for him to fill me with his pups and make me his cum dumpster.

No idea who you are. Maybe if you try and win open, I'll recognize you.

burned

I'll put up the same offer as Plat and squid, any open team that finishes top 2 without the help of above open players will get $120 from me as well.