Ahh, that time of the year again ... The May weather has arrived, students pretend to study for their exams and ETF2L starts another season of European TF2 madness... This time I've been chosen to be the one to tell you about the upcoming season, but since I'm a lazy cat I figured out it would be much easier to let others fill the article for me. So behold as the first part of the great ETF2L Season 21 interview begins!

The contenders

They are the new age gladiators, and they represent the favourite teams of season 21, please welcome the first three team captains :

HYS, from The Last Resort,

*Serotone*	*HYS*	*ShaDowBurn*	*AMS*	*NiCO*	*Herr_P*

Zebbosai, from Tony's Tigers,

*Bulle*	*ryb*	*Zebbosai*	*Tek*	*Flippy*	*Stark*

and Skeej, from Reason Gaming!

*Skeej*	*kaidus*	*kaptain*	*zoob*	*wltrs*	*Hafficool*

Q : Hello! I'm pleased to meet you at the dawn of premiership season 21! How do you feel about your current team and team mates?

HYS: Hey, likewise. I am not entirely sure how to answer that as we have had a somewhat disruptive start to our preparations. That being said, they are a very nice bunch of guys and we are having fun.

Zebbosai: Hello, I feel pretty good about my team we just got to figure out who is going to play what and then start practicing so we can win this season :)

Skeej: Well, hi to you too! Well, what can I say? [R]eason is awesome. I don't think my team mates need much introduction. Being the only top prem team that stayed intact since last season has created some expecations. Lately our team has been having its ups and downs, but nothing out of the ordinary for a team that has been together for longer than a season. If we keep playing consistently we can definitely live up to the expectations.

Q : What do you think about this season's map pool? In your opinion, is it good to let the community decide on the maps through polls?

HYS: Personally I think they could remove a map then constantly switching the last map in and out, season on season, to test new maps. I think voting is perfectly fine. It could also be the time to reduce the number of maps in the pool.

Zebbosai: I don't really have a problem letting the community decide on maps. The problem i had with it this time is that we had a poll, the community voted for what they wanted but then the admins ignored that and picked another map.

Skeej: It's a community league, so the community should have some kind of say. I like the concept of running a base mapset and then having one or two slots for undecided maps to be voted on by the public (not just prem). These votes should be happening earlier than usual though, so keen teams have proper time get acquainted to these maps. Personally I'm looking forward to play granarypro. I was never a fan of logjam. Viaductpro is ok I guess; it's a good spectator maps (lots of MLG moments) but the sniper bias gets kinda silly at times. The rest of the maps are all fine (sunshine could still use some work tough)

Q : Can you make a guess on the final rank order for this prem season?

HYS: 1st reason, 2nd tigers then I'm really not sure...

Zebbosai: 1st tigers 2nd reason 3rd TLR 4th 4-25 5th Wonderland 6th fnx 7th dogs 8th Lego.

Skeej: Hard to say. TLR (as usual) seem to be the dark horse here. I don't think anyone will doubt which 3 teams will reach playoffs. In the past, Hys' TLR lineups seemed to always improve in a consistent way over the course of a season, so they could be a real contender by the time the playoffs come. Zizi has the clear superstar lineup, but they seem to be missing a common mindset, not being decided on their playstyle. If they can settle their internal differences on who plays what and how to play, and play in a consistent fashion, they'd probably be the most dangerous team out there. Nothing we shouldn't be able to handle tough.

Q : On a more personal note, what made you start playing Team Fortress 2, and how was your journey to the heights of premiership division?

HYS: I used to play Counter Strike: Source with numlocked, and he moved to TF2. I didn't join for a while later, but that's what brought my attention to it. Afterwards I formed my own teams and had a bit of luck I guess. From a team perspective it has been a lot of fun.

Zebbosai: I started playing this game because I used to play CS:S with jukebox and lillceder, jukebox was into this game at the time so we tried it out and kept on going i guess.

Skeej: I wasn't as much of a multiplayer gamer when I bought The Orange Box, which I bought mainly for Half-Life 2 and Portal, but I found myself putting more time into TF2 than the other games. It wasn't too long until I stumbled onto the more "tryhard" pub servers, but at that point didn't really feel super comfortable with any of the classes. I joined somewhere after the scout update I think, and felt like I was "behind" compared to other players. I wanted to make myself more useful so I started playing medic a lot. I then stumbled onto the amazing Dutch Gathering of Tweakers TF2-community, who introduced me to 6s. Without having any real competitive experience I started playing nightly doublemixes, who were organised at that time by the notorious Demsii. They were just doublemixes, but the fact that there were always a bunch of higher level players involved allowed me learn about the intricacies of competitive TF2 in an accelerated way.
After starting with a very brief experience in division 4, I created my own team which was able to qualify for division 3. I kept this team running for 3 seasons, both as leader and main caller, climbing up one division every season. After that I teamed up with the tryhard division of rEJ with whom I played my first season in prem, which ended up being quite a rough ride. Playing in one of kaidus' teams in season 15 was a far better experience, but results were ultimately disapointing. It did learn me enough to be confident to take the initiative and organise/captain my own team again, which I did with Fenneks eSports. Running that team for 3 seasons, playing together with some awesome personalities, and ending its last season by finishing 3rd in prem was really cool. My best TF2 memories probably come from this period. As gf18 put it (I think it was caught on stream): "Fucking gg".
So after a season of something different (playing roamer for one season in division 1), I'm here, with the TF2 beasts that form [R]eason, about to start our second season.

About matchmaking and other things

Q : What do you think about Valve's matchmaking announcement?

HYS: It's clearly good for the game, but I think a lot will depend on the formats they put into it. I would be disappointed if they did not integrate 6v6. I also hope it's not too late.

Zebbosai: I havent really put any thought into it I will just see what happens.

Skeej: Obviously it's a good thing for competitive TF2, but also TF2 in general. I don't have any specific thoughts about it. I think any form of matchmaking is better than no matchmaking. Valve have proven to the competitive community that they still listen, so even if the first iteration of matchmaking barely connects to how competitive TF2 is actually played, that won't mean it can't get better in the future. On a related note: I've always been a proponent of a globally unified ruleset, and I think achieving such a thing could massively help in having Valve shape matchmaking more closely to how we play competitive TF2.

Zebbosai : "What the heck are these questions??"

Q : Are you afraid it will change the current rules or formats?

HYS: Not particularly because I think you will still be able to play in leagues just like ETF2L.

Zebbosai: I havent really put any thought into it I will just see what happens.

Skeej: So this question takes the opposite perspective of what I said above. Instead of trying to get Valve to fit matchmaking more towards 6s rulesets, why don't we ourselves change? Well, if Valve's matchmaking ruleset and format will prove to be something that "works", then I wouldn't mind sacrificing some traditions, and manning up and accepting change, for the benefit of competitive TF2 as a whole. If the community ends up gravitating towards whatever TF2 matchmaking will be, then it seems logical for a competitive organisation to cater to that audience. If Valve's matchmaking will end up being radically different from 6s or HL, then perhaps there could be room for having leagues running a third competitive game mode.

Q : Season 20 saw a lot of players retire (again). How strong do you think is the impact this has on the premiership level?

HYS: I think the format remains similar, 3-4 strong teams and 1 or 2 weaker teams but everyone has a chance, the skill gap is not as big as it once was.

Zebbosai: I don't really think it has any impact we have been here before where people leave and we will be there again so I'm not really bothered.

Skeej: In previous seasons I'd usually tell people not to worry just because of some big names leaving the scene. Some big names are overrated, and some of the new blood is way better than the general audience thinks. I think the skill level has stayed roughly the same over many seasons, with arguably individual skill slightly reducing overall, not because everybody is getting worse, but because of the amount of "outliers", the players that just seem to pull off impeccable plays all the time, seems to be reducing. But the risk of nostalgia bias is big here. On the other hand, contrary to what pessimists say, the meta has been continously evolving (if only slightly), having teams playing in a much more assertive way. Exploiting the tiniest of advantages and capitalizing on little team mistakes have become more and more important each season.
Obviously there is still the usual skillgap between high and low prem, but it's always been there. What's missing this season though, is the usual clear fourth contender. Last season we had the Frenchies for instance. So this season's prem might be slightly lower skilled in comparison to the last few seasons. People are saying the bottom of prem is worse than usual, but I haven't seen those teams play enough to judge.

Q : Do you plan to attend i55?

HYS: Yes, we do.

Zebbosai: Yes.

Skeej: Already got my ticket! I really regretted not attending i52. Not gonna make the same mistake again! Obviously the goal is to go with [R]eason, but that depends on others I guess. I'll be there no matter what, it's just too much fun to miss out on.

Q : Any last words or shoutouts for the euphoric crowd?

HYS: Special thanks to TLR for their continued support of the game and please support and follow TLR via my stream http://www.twitch.tv/TLR_HYS.

Zebbosai: Shoutout to knutsson lillceder and jukebox.

Skeej: Typing up that story about my TF2 history sure brought up some memories. Time to do some proper shout outs instead of the usual general or singular person shout outs!

Shoutouts to everyone I played together in a team with! Shoutout to all the Dutch players! Shoutout to Nmx and everyone else from the old GoT community. Shoutout to dauk, Landazar, kos, stewie, erratic, and Impuls. Shoutout to Arie, Exfane, Qun and demsii. Shoutout to wolve, Septique, Brego, and Quik. Shoutout to the post-GoT Dutch community, MightyMe, Vlijm, Kkaltuu, Snoozer, Akasazh, and those other scrubs! Shoutout to poop and the other decertoboys. Shoutout to Hycz, maidu, Lalli, cor, qnx and vanilla. Shoutout to the Fenneks crew: gf18, KillAri, wltrs, Salmon, ryb, and people from previous lineups: delzic, kr4tos, sheepy, Klar, Suqp3r, sickless. Shoutout to everyone I went to LAN with, especially Thy and droso! Shoutout to everyone who at one point played in my dumb legolas highlander team. Obvious shoutouts to the [R]eason boys! Shoutout to the people in Fair Enough, playing with you guys makes playing HL actually fun! Shoutout to everyone who puts effort in this game and community outside of simply playing it. Admins, website builders, casters, news writers, and everyone else behind the scenes. You guys are amazing.

Thank you, this surely has been and insightful read for our beloved readers! Stay tuned for the next part after this short commercial break!