That's right ladies and gentlemen, there are more people that contribute to each ETF2L season than just the players. It's now time for us to acknowledge their work and offer thanks as well as the occasion to give us their vision of the current european Team Fortress 2 scene.

The godfather

Our first guest is an individual that is rarely on the spotlights. It's time to welcome someone who doesn't play actively anymore but holds a key role in ETF2L's functioning, the head admin himself, Sonny Black!

Q : Hello and welcome Sonny. As the oldest active staff member, are you happy with the evolution of ETF2L throughout the years?

Sonny Black: Hey, thanks for having me. I am definitely satisfied with how everything developed throughout the years ever since I became a part of the staff. A lot could have been better, but a lot could have definitely been worse as well. So I am fairly happy with how everything went.

Q : Could you explain what your work is about and what day to day tasks you have to run through?

Sonny Black: As a Head Admin I am more or less responsible for everything. For one I take care of ETF2L's finances, I am in contact with the sponsors and Valve, while also looking for new sponsors and support with the help of Gentleman Jon. Those are the bigger tasks, which are basically my job alone. The job also includes preparing the seasons, drafting a schedule for the whole year, making the provisional divisions, deciding new maps and unlocks and many more tasks, which are no day to day business.
None of these tasks are usually things that are done only by me though. For a lot of decisions the opinion of the whole staff or the staff relevant to the topic are taken into consideration, but in the end I am often the one making the final decision, for example changing toward the swiss system or recruiting a new trial admin.
Additionally I also do whatever there is to do, basic League Admin work, setting Default Dates, verifying matches and demos, participating in solving Match Conflicts, providing support in IRC and so on.
But I cut down on these tasks quite a bit and started to delegate a lot of them or even purposely leave them for someone else. There was a time when I thought the job would only be done right if I did it. And I ended up running whole seasons basically on my own. But with the additional tasks as a Head Admin and more commitments in real life, doing all that isnt really a viable option anymore.

Q : After listening to the people and bringing back the original cpgranary, what made you change your mind and introduce the new cpgranary_pro instead?

Sonny Black: My impression, and I know I am not alone with that, was that a lot of people voted without knowing what granarypro had to offer. The poll results and the reactions after we announced the poll results indicated that as well. Therefore we decided to go with granarypro over the orginal one.

Q : What is the current stance of ETF2L regarding unlocks? Do you plan on allowing more of them in the future?

Sonny Black: Over the past couple of seasons, maybe even years, we gradually allowed more and more items. And I think we will continue to follow that path. Allowing more unlocks is definitely something that can and probably will happen, in an attempt to go from a whitelist to a blacklist. Meaning we will not have a list of items that are allowed, but instead we will have a list of items that are not, as long as the items are not drastically changing the game and the following unpredictable consequences of that.

The superstar

Thank you Sonny, I'm sure the public now knows a bit more on what running a league is about! Oh, but I hear we have another guest coming on the stage, but who is this? The spotlight reflecting from his forehead makes it hard to see! I recognize him as he comes closer, it's our caster of the season, Admirable!

Sick reflections

Q : Come have a seat, Admirable. As I said, you have been recently re-elected caster of the season. I lost count of the times you got this award...

Admirable: Shame on you buddy, i got it 7 times! But my proudest moment is winning highlander medic of the season despite not even making it to the playoffs, proving definitively that these polls are just popularity contests :D

Q : Do you think we will see good matches this season? Which team(s) or player(s) are you looking forward to in particular?

Admirable: The spectating public is fickle and so am I. After seeing the Premiership Qualifiers I am all about that Wonderland dream; Graba's speech at the end of the cast moved me. So I will be rooting for those guys to cause some upsets in the division. I expect to see a lot of rolls from Reason and Tigers, but I think everyone else is beatable!

Q : Who is your favourite caster? And no, you can't pick yourself.

Admirable: I think I am a good generalist caster, so I tend to enjoy those who really excel at particular aspects (and also I can steal little bits and pieces from them). I think in terms of being able to articulate analysis in an engaging way you can't look past kaidus (who was my vote for caster of the season) and I also really enjoyed IPZIE in the past. Across the pond I think Marxist is doing a great job in that field; a true successor to Sigma, "the mad scientist of TF2". Another thing I personally admire in casters is professionalism, so at the minute you have Gecks who is just incredibly slick and probably the best play-by-play caster in the game; you can really tell he puts a lot of effort in to his craft. In the past, I think I picked up on a lot of that stuff from ThePledge and that motivated me to take time to prepare and consider what I wanted to say. Then you have like Arx and Beta who have the best chemistry... Heck man, how am I supposed to choose!? My all-time favourites though, probably cbear, djc, bloodsire, Lange and leogeo2. I've got a crush on those American boys. They got passion for the scene and I think that is what people respond to.

About matchmaking and other things

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

Admirable: Yeah I'm really excited to see what comes from it, but mostly I was just pleased to learn that Valve have similar aspirations to the people who have been sailing the USS Competitive through this long seven year night. They see competitive play as the end game and they want to take a serious stab at rebalancing unlocks - two things that will all but eliminate the barriers between casual and competitive play in the long run. I hope the stream integration comes out sooner rather than later, because the power of twitch.tv is immense when it comes to spreading the competitive gospel. I got to give a big shoutout to Lange for starting the letter in the first place and thesupremecommander for running with it. For months we agonised over the content and phrasing of what we wanted to say to Valve, with several rewrites and changes of direction, but it was worth it.

Sonny Black: I am not quite sure what to think about it to be honest. On the one hand I am happy that it is finally happening, although cautious because there are still a lot of things we do not know yet and have the potential to be a big mess. On the other hand, disregarding everyone hyping it, I think it simply may be a little bit too late. Games like Dota 2 and CS:GO had match making from the get go. TF2 is (maybe) getting it after 8 years past it's release. I wish for it to be successful, to for example counteract the dropping numbers in season signups. But at the same time I am skeptical, but that is just me.

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

Admirable: I embrace it with open arms! Whatever Valve decide, the competitive community can continue to play the various game modes they love so there is nothing to fear. Ideally though we would want to move towards a making matchmaking and competition play as similar as possible. I have personally gone on a long journey from being a dyed-in-the-wool vanilla advocate and ETF2L boycotter to proposing more and more unlocks be added to the game... mostly because I don't compete as often anymore and I enjoy seeing people suffer. I love highlander and I think it's detractors are oblivious to the depth and complexity of top level play, but the restriction of one of each class and the eighteen player requirement mean it might get the short shrift when it comes to matchmaking, initially at least. Even shit matchmaking would be better than no matchmaking.

Sonny Black: If they decide to go with a different format like 4v4 I do not think we would just drop highlander and/or 6s. We would probably offer it additionally at first. I doubt it will be a different format, but with Valve you never know. Apart from that it is hard to tell if there will be things we will adapt from it, since we do not know what or how it will be like yet. Another important point was raised by I think it was b4nny in the Fully Charged episode regarding the visit at Valve and matchmaking. He said the leagues do not necessarily have to adapt everything matchmaking will do (if I remember correctly). Especially when it comes to items. Valve's interest is to gather information on items and how to improve them. The leagues interest is to have items in their seasons which are for example not game breaking in one or the other way. So match makingmight even serve for as a testing ground for what will be used in the leagues in the future. Similar to how it is in matchmaking and competitive Dota 2. A lot of the heroes are only allowed for public play, if necessary they are nerfed or buffed and then they make it into competitve play.

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

Admirable: I like to say that "no one ever really retires", but it isn't true. We have lost legions of legends over our long competitive history, too many to name, but each generation has produced new stars and the overall trend has been of increased individual skill. Notice I choose my words very carefully, because I do think the standard of teams is directly related to the standard of leaders in the scene. Great teams require great leaders, so I actually mourn the loss of a Byte more than the loss of a Mike. I think the overall level of the Premiership is clearly lessened this season, but the influx of new teams and new faces to the top division boasts a bright future for the game as long as they have the right attitude like my boy Graba!

Sonny Black: For the past seasons the Premier Division was always divided. There are usually 3 or 4 strong teams of which one or maybe 2 are favored to win and the rest to make playoffs. Then there's 2 or 3 teams who will most likely stay in Prem, not making playoffs, but also not getting relegated and 2 or 3 teams who will fight for their lives. I've been following competitive TF2 since Season 4 I think. I would have to check to see when the last time was that that was not true. This season it is a little different. There's 3 teams probably making playoffs and the rest are a really unpredictable bunch. The retiring players surely left a gap, but that gap will always be filled. We will only be able to tell after the season if those teams filled that gap adequately or if a drop in the overall skill really happened. It might be a little early to judge that now.

Q : Do you plan to attend i55?

Admirable: Right now I really can't confirm if I will be there or not. I am going to be Best Man for my friends wedding in October and his stag party is currently tentatively scheduled for the same weekend as Insomnia 55. Since I am organising it perhaps I have room to manoeuvre, but the Bank Holiday weekend is probably best for everyone else involved so it seems likely that I will have to sacrifice attending LAN. It wouldn't be the first LAN I've dodged 8)

Sonny Black: I will go if I have the time to. I went to i52 without a team simply for the event itself and the people. Would be the same this year. But this year is different, because I might be in Canada at the time for my semester abroad.

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

Admirable: Shoutout to wltrs, Boss Pizza and the coolclan family. I'd like to offer my eternal love and respect to anyone and everyone who contributed to the Team Fortress scene in the past, present and future.

Sonny Black: As always shoutouts to IPZIE, SVMZI and Mirelin. Also a shoutout to our sponsors Tt eSPORTS, Thermaltake and PUREPINGS. And a special shoutout to everyone involved in the competitive TF2 community, all the community projects and sites, the admins, but also everyone playing.

Well thanks everyone, this wraps up the great pre-season 21 interview! To see how the competitors perform, enjoy good casts and see your fantasy team evolve, make sure to tune in each week to Teamfortress.TV!