"Sigma, a legendary TF2 theory-crafter and very much like a talented version of Slin"

the more i read the better it gets

Nitpicking but you might want to refer to "the meta" as its full name "metagame" more often, would help with the flow/tone

Otherwise good job

really cool read, more of these would be really fun too

maybe you might wanna link some demos/casts of modern TF2 games for your second section, but other than that it looked

COOL

Unless I missed a part, I think one big change you're missing is that the capture time got cut in half in an update right after s6 LAN. If I remember right, 1x on the point used to be 24 seconds, and then got changed to 12 seconds. Eveb with quite a few bodies on point, it still took a very long time for a team to capture prior to the update. Because of this, I think "old Viaduct" should be considered s5 to s6.

This changed entirely how Viaduct was played, because back on Pandemic / blight-fanom, our strategy was to keep TLR and I in house. Justin ran sniper and everyone played mostly passive, maybe except ww going in to annoy the other team. Justin did a fantastic job at constantly rotating sniper spots to pick people off, too. Once the other team started to throw a ton of bodies on the point to start the ridiculously slow cap, then TLR and I would walk out of house and uber onto the point. Our entire team would collapse on them while Justin continued to snipe people.

In s5, we tried to make this work and did an okay job of it, but we were still a new team. In s6, I had no doubt in my mind that we were the best team in the world at it. I think that's because Ruwin was also incredible at roaming around as scout and getting important kills, along with Orzo just being a ridiculously solid Demo. I always felt like we played the map to near perfection in s6.

In s7, not only did we have a lot of roster changes, but we couldn't play Viaduct the same anymore after the changes. Staying in house was no longer a good idea, because you wouldn't get to the point in time if they threw a bunch of bodies onto point. You *might* get there in time, but it would be 95% capped, which isn't really worth it at that point. It's probably better to let them cap it, fight, and if you die, you get quicker respawns. But ideally, you need to play closer to point to stop them from getting a bunch of cap time.

None of this was an issue prior to s7, because by the time you would exit house to uber onto point, the point might have been capped somewhere around 25-50%, which wasn't a big deal. Also, running 24/7 sniper wasn't nearly as good as it was before, and playing more aggressively (such as forward holding) tended to be more rewarding.

Thank you so much for the feedback TheFragile, that's exactly what I was looking for. The selection of VODs and demos I have for the pre-S8 period is really limited and I knew I was missing a lot. I'll definitely expand the article to incorporate your insight and the other suggestions that have been posted here.

If anyone knows of pre-S8 demos that can still be watched, I'd really appreciate a DL link. I've been trying to watch old videos on youtube, but apparently no one recorded and uploaded full game commentary until a little later.

I know Harb posted some POV demos from like s6 - there may be some viaduct floating around in there (the demos still work, in so far as they're viewable, they're just not entirely correct lol).

The S8 blight v x6 demo link doesn't work :S

Thanks for the tip. They don't have to be Viaduct specifically, I'm looking into Badlands next because I figured there's a wealth of resources for it.

I've replaced it with a dropbox link. Let me know if that doesn't work either.

It would be awesome if you included a VOD of IM on Viaduct b/c honestly that's the biggest meta shift in the past year or so because scout -> sniper and then pocket -> scout is a pretty interesting class composition.

Although most teams banned Via at i52 and I don't think Cyberleague VODs ever got posted, so I'm not sure where you would find a good example. Anyway good article.

no need for names / mad men ran powah sniper and rr scout in s12

https://mega.co.nz/#!cgV3CTqJ!gvX00S6rAH6G-K885c7nr1v18ZIYSMCebZF0TGyaO7M

god bless you beater

I spent a good while looking through my demos to find a game on Via between iM and a top level team, I wanted to expand on that too.

Perfect, didn't think to look back to S12. I seem to remember a casted match of nNn on Viaduct, I'll try to find some and update that section of the guide.

ur forgetting about the ooviaduct piss rifle catastrophe

It's there.

some interesting points by fragile, i didnt even realize cap time was slower on original viaduct

article was good, more shit like this would be nice

That was an interesting read, good job

Yop very good , I learnt something new :)