Hello, apologize in advance for all who feel TLTR.

I want to address the situation of playoffs this season in IM and OPEN. Before I continue, let me say that I have no personal stake in this at all. My team was not affected in any way, I have no friends on other teams that were involved nor am I some TFTV forum troll who goes around bashing ESEA and the admins for fun.

I am bringing this up because I care about TF2 and this community. I have too much personal experience with TF communities and how they fall apart. I will not be going into many boring details about my past but suffice to say that I have been part of every major TF league at the highest levels since day 1 back in 1998. I experienced the TF community deteriorate and then recover as a player and admin several times spanning many leagues and years. [u]I can say without a doubt that ESEA has, by far, the worst LEAGUE-PLAYER communication I have yet experienced.[/u] This fact is even worse because ESEA is a pay-to-play league. In the past, our leagues were far larger, but we played and ran our leagues without any money or LAN finals involved. It was about pride in your teams and the love of the game simply because we cared.

[b]To the admins directly (Killing and/or any other active/invisible admin)[/b]

If you don't care about TF2 anymore [b]----[/b] PLEASE quit being our admin or find a replacement
If you can't invest enough time or effort [b]----[/b] PLEASE quit being our admin or find a replacement
If you can't communicate with us at least once every 2 weeks about the status of our league [b]----[/b] PLEASE quit being our admin or find a replacement
If you feel that being a TF2 admin is a "chore" for you. I can accept that. [b]----[/b] PLEASE quit being our admin or find a replacement
Admins have more responsibility than simply showing up to generate buzz for sign-up league fees 1 week before the start of the season.

[b][size=14]Now on to my main point[/size][/b]

It is my understanding that the IM division will only have 4 teams advancing to the playoffs. That is totally absurd when you actually look at these teams. I fail to understand the logic or reason why this decision has been made. You are awarding 16 OPEN teams with playoff opportunities and that is fantastic, please don't change a thing. On the other hand, you are penalizing 4 IM teams for staying active and fighting for the goal of playoffs. So far, ESEA has said nothing about this situation publicly that I have seen. There is no way the league can blame "forfeit wins" as a reason for this decision and I will explain.

[b]Let us look at only the top 8 teams in IM right now and some facts:[/b]

128 Total Matches
20 Total Forfeit Wins (15%)

That means, for the top 8 IM teams, 85% of the matches were played and 15% were forfeit wins. Of these 20 forfeits, almost every Top 8 team shared wins over the exact same 2 dead teams (BUDSQUAD and WELOVEANIME). That means the forfeits had no real impact on the IM division at all.
Since when is 15% forfeit wins a failed division? 85% matches played looks pretty nice to me. [b]All 8 teams need to be in the playoffs for IM. Why only 4? Explain?[/b]

One last IM factoid, are Revenge of the Yomies really being kicked out of playoffs for having a successful season? This team went 11-5 with only 1 FFW. Lets look a little more. YOMIES has 67 "Rounds For" in IM this season coming in a close 2nd overall. Is that because they have only 1 FFW, of course, but that does not explain why they also have the 2nd best cap differential in the IM division. (32 - only Blockback tops them) The reason? They played very well. Why penalize this team?

Lastly, can anyone find another 11-5 team that did not make playoffs in ESEA history? I did a pretty long search today and could not find another example, I may possibly be wrong but I did not see one. I have no friends on YOMIES, but WTF these guys need to be in the playoffs just as much as 2,3 and 4 seeds. THE TOP 8 IM TEAMS NEED TO BE IN PLAYOFFS.

[b]Lets now look at the OPEN division and compare some facts:[/b]

Starting with the top 8 ONLY
128 Total Matches
28 Total Forfeit Wins (22%)

Math - 22% is higher than 15%. If IM got cut down to 4 playoff teams because of 15% Forfeit Wins, then what does 22% Forfeit Wins get you? I'll tell you!

OPEN got an additional 8 teams for the playoff bracket. Stats for all 16 OPEN teams combined:
256 Total Matches
50 Total Forfeit Wins (20%)

Math - 20% is still higher than 15%. Now please don't get me wrong. I want all 16 OPEN teams to play in the playoffs. My problem is that I see no logic at all in the decision for IM.

As a final example, I can not accept that the admin/s did any type of investigation at all before making a decision. No offense to the #16 OPEN team - NOT UP TO VAR but this team has 6 forfeit wins. More than half of their record (10-6) was earned against dead teams. They have only 4 actual wins but they are getting a shot at playoffs. Compare that to REVENGE OF THE YOMIES situation and you can see how completely absurd this ruling looks.

[b]The purpose of playoffs is to see who really is the best team in the division. If you can show-up as a team in a playoff setting, you deserve everything you earn. Teams 5 thru 8 in IM deserve that chance.[/b]

I have no idea if any ESEA rep will respond at all and attempt to drop some knowledge on me. I really don't even know how the community will respond to this post but I felt like saying it anyway. I did not send this privately to ESEA because the lack of community interaction is already at a terrible level. ESEA needs to be more active in the community and be heard publicly every once in a while. If you do reply, please don't act like your hands are tied and can't change anything. Playoffs have not started, and adding 4 more teams to a bracket does not sounds difficult.