A wise man (useoftoaster) once said: "Every time I hear the word 'invite' used to describe a player I mentally replace it with 'really good'".

Think about how it would sound if you were whining about one of their players being really good and that being unfair. Ridiculous, right?

Kraka, zalfy, and eulogy are doing really well and they have invite/im experience. Indust, rekuso, cprice, etc. are doing just as well and have never been past open. Good players are good players, chillax. Last season, br0nze lambert and dumbbrain shat on open and they're way less experienced.

Besides, division tends to mean a lot more for the skill level of teams than it does for the skill level of players. An IM team might have some guys ready for invite, some fit for im, and even some that belong in open. But, their team as a whole is clearly IM level. Half the players who jump a division do just as well in the higher div as they did in the lower one, and a lot of washed up ex-invite players do pretty shitty in im (or even open if they're kaytee)

The relief after winning that match :0

Now to play indust and crunchy bunch...

Very well said :D

and still no one is talking about how ex-invite scout Okas has carried zaboomacrew to a 3-4 record since he joined. (1 win was a ffw)

I think what you meant to say was no one is talking about how zaboomacrew gets wrecked whenever they play a mid-high open team. (1 was a ffw)

lots of what should be good matches tonight.

do da dishes vs wu-tang financial
tbh i really want radium & crew to win this. after getting denied playoffs last season and such an epic comeback this season it would be a shame if they got knocked out now.

tune gang vs new faith church gaming
NFCG is really strong. cprice and clorg holding the combo side of this down, while kev and crypt on the flank are nothing to underestimate either. they should be all but clinching their playoff spot tonight.

rent-a-homies vs astronerds
recent losses by the astronerds will lead me to believe that extracrispy & friends will take this one without too many problems, but at the same time eulogy is a great demo and mackey is mackey. GL to both teams tonight!

hanky panky vs crunchy bunch
hanky panky confuses the fuck out of me. i see them play really tight one day and then really sloppy the next day, but maybe thats just during scrims or whatever. i know that when they're on it, they are a hard team to play against. collide and fan put out good damage along with support from MPB and embryo. the crunchy bunch are looking pretty great right now compared to the beginning of the season. rekuso has a ton of presence with his bud bosh right behind him doing a lot of work. peyote is an experienced medic who really shouldn't make too many mistakes, and rex is a beast. i can't wait to watch this match even though it really only is going to have an influence on seeds and a bit of what we can expect to see during playoffs.

pre-game callers vs trans-autistic railroad
upon playing 4L last night on badlands, i would think this team will put up a good fight against conductor and breloom but it might not be enough. pre-game callers are a solid team all around with pine beetle on demo as well as jordan and jakyle making strong showings on scout, but i gotta give this one to my boy conductor. GL to both teams, should be a good match.

I love both Extreme Negro Lovers and WuTang Financial. Heartbreak either way tonight.

london can u pls do power rankings for next season

sakura, shootist and I had actually started writing "match highlights" the first week of open with the intent of continuing them throughout the season but after breloom and conductor came out with their power rankings, I decided it might be a little bit of open coverage overkill. also, we started really focusing on scrimming with our teams and stuff when the season started and lost the drive to continue to do that kind of thing, which i imagine is the same thing that happened with breloom and conductor, whose articles i really enjoyed.

while i criticize a lot of what deathanchor does in his power rankings, i don't envy him the job. its tough to write for a division with ~60 teams with an influx of new and old players of varying skill level and keep everyone happy. it also appears to me that he is doing a lot of this on his own, whereas i have a lot of people that i talk about in regards to these kind of things all the time, and scrim a lot of the teams that are talked about. so i dunno. do power rankings? maybe. i think it'd be more fun to do them with a couple people rather than just do them alone.

shrug, tonight is going to be fun, and next week is going to be the mid-open bubble bloodbath.

In the past I think my team could take this one pretty easily, but after some cuts, quits, and random backup players, Wu-Tang probably has the upper hand in this match. Could still be good to watch.

Do Da Dishes vs. WuTang Financial

I think this is one of the most even matchups so far in Open. From the Scouts, to roamer, to Medic, fights will flip across either way. The match will probably come down to pocket and Demo performance. If Tooth can provide consistent damage while keeping his deaths low, it'll give Waffle more than enough room to make Radium and co.'s day miserable. Zigzter's creative flank play will be something to watch, along with trusty Crossfire. Do Da Dishes to come away with it in the end, 5-3.

http://play.esea.net/index.php?s=stats&d=match&id=3187720

Had all 6 starters and 2 subs in mumble. Underhanded as fuck. ty.

Just to clear this up, we had 8 people in mumble who could play in the server. One kept having internet issues so we had gotten a sub and he was updating the client. Then as he was updating, our medic crashes due to a client issue. This is when bape types in team reportffw. We try and hurry a 5th into a server, but he isn't able to join fast enough and the ffw goes through. We ask them to play and obviously, being that they wanted to do underhanded shit and are afraid to play us they turn us down. GG good luck in playoffs, then you can show your true skill.

http://pastebin.com/B1q3d6rV

That's not exactly the story.

While I wasn't entirely thrilled with my team's decision (bape wanted to ffw right away, I told everyone to calm down and give you guys 5 minutes), you waited until 20 minutes after the match time to try and get a sub in. Then you said he wasn't even paid, so we had to wait even longer. I'm all for playing matches, but it would be nice if you had a backup ready to go at 10 minutes after the match time, not 25.

Either way, I was looking forward to the match, we practiced hard all week for it. Kind of a crappy way to make playoffs if you ask me.

Me too.

http://play.esea.net/index.php?s=stats&d=match&id=3187723
gg open, cya another season. maybe.

If I can intervene at least know that synchro and mangoes more than anyone else wanted to play the game

synchro tying to ffw his way back into another 0-16 IM season

I only made it to 5 this time, that wasn't nearly enough.

You could do a podcast type thing where you just get some people together who know the division and talk about it on stream. That would be a bit easier than writing it out week after week, and potentially more fun. Just a thought.

wow i didn't even get mentioned i must be terrible. also we're hit or miss because we had roster issues in the past weeks having to move mpb from roamer to scout and dashner to roamer and our main medic is now back.

"[ESEA] A forfeit win will be reported in one minute. All players from the team reporting the forfeit must remain in the server and ready or it will be canceled."

could have always typed .notready if you really wanted to play it

It's pretty annoying when teams pull shit like that, but what can you really expect when all that open money is on the line. But really, this season teams have been a nightmare to schedule and play games. Between client drops, not having enough servers, teams forcing to play on valentines day, and teams saying they can only play one day and one time a week this has been a pretty shitty season.

While the games have been fun and pretty even matched, I wish people would actually attempt a bit harder to PLAY the game they pay for then trying to get cheap wins

Heading into the final week:

1. There are 29 teams that could mathematically win Open. Furthermore, all of these 29 teams can also earn promotion to IM for S14.

2. Only 6 of 16 playoff seeds have been officially sealed at 11-3 or better. That leaves us with 10 remaining places "up for grabs".

3. The four teams at 10-4 must win either one match or a bunch of rounds to ensure safety. All four should advance to the postseason - although by winning their matches they will be eliminating a few of the 9-5 teams in the race.

4. Making the playoffs if you're one of the 23 teams between 8-6 and 10-4 will have more to do with your draw in the schedule than your exact skill.

5. All of the 8-6 teams will need two wins + help in order to make it. The amount of help needed will vary between miniscule and enormous, depending on existing RF and H2H records.

6. About 60% or more of all Open matches will have playoff implications. I've never seen a season where so many games mean so much.

7. 23 teams are fighting for 10 spots - the "playoffs" for all intents and purposes begins NOW.

Tuesday's Primer (with importance factor between 1-10):

MATCH OF THE WEEK

Randy and Chums (9-5) vs. open is hard/RUSH (9-5)

Match rating: 9/10. Consider this: After starting 9-0 and having the #1 overall ranking, a loss here for what used to be RUSH will push them in what could wind up being a premature elimination game against Basics Octopus Emporium. Things are even more desperate for Randy and Chums, since they're going to face the 11-3 Playground Tactics in the final game of the season. Neither team is in any kind of form to speak of - which means this could turn into a desperate, scrappy affair. This is actually a great game to cast in my opinion as you're going to see playoff-level TF2 one week early. Both sides have buckets of experience relative to 80% of Open - so therefore I cannot give a "crunch time" edge either way. I'm going to say that Randy and Chums are a marginal favorite pre-match since I'm not exactly sure what lineup the former RUSH squad will decide to use. Randy and Chums, on the other hand, have found a standing six and SHOULD look more cohesive as result. This is hugely important on cp_granary in which team discipline is often more important than individual playmaking.

If RUSH were 100% focused into this game (and only they themselves can answer this), then I would take them in a second since I think they've got a small talent advantage. Unfortunately I'm not sold enough on either their focus (which is hard to gauge) or who they're starting (which isn't stable as it used to be - that IS verifiable) to overlook a disciplined kraka AND an invite-proven player at the controls (blackymonster on medic).

Players to watch: kraka, reimu

THREE GAMES YOU MIGHT WANT TO KEEP TRACK ON[/b]

The Crunchy Bunch (12-2) vs. gettin cozy (11-3)

Match Rating: 5/10. If I'm Bosh, I'd light a fire under my team's ass right about now. With 1-2 of the 10-4 teams being capable of reaching 12-4, the last thing I'd want is for my seeding to fall below 4 or 5 - a straightforward first-round game (and subsequent IM promotion). They were off-form and unfocused in their most recent loss, and it will be key for them to shake it off now and head into the playoffs taking two wins on granary. There is adequate talent to appear in an Open final - but the focus needs to key in now before any further complacency sets in.

There should be only one favorite in this match, but any match vs. gettin cozy is NOT a charity. The one thing that I like about getting cozy is that they're not resting on any sort of crutch - they'll be able to run a standard, balanced holding strategy against Bosh's outfit without having to stretch people out of formation to compensate for a clear disadvantage at any position. This is HUGE on 2-holds/yard-holds on granary.

Big Radium.

Not Bad for Offclassing (8-6) vs. Point and Click (6-8)

Match Rating: 4/10. This is a do-or-die game for the heavily-reformed NBO squad. I do, however, feel that they'll take of business here. Ska and Paddie have IM experience, and should be able to maintain control against a developing Point and Click outfit. About two weeks ago, NBO were a sloppy mess that did not have any good linking play between combo side and flank side. It appears that since those scrims a few weeks back that they've come together quite nicely against mid-open teams when the rounds counted. There are ways you can attack this NBO side and take rounds - but I don't know if Point and Click has the DM to punish a few key mistakes that NBO likes to make. Point and Click does have tactical nous, however - and to call them a dumb low-open team would actually be a mistake as they play remarkably well together despite tremendous levels of inexperience. I think that there are a few tricks in the bag for Point and Click, and that they'll steal a couple of rounds here. This Point and Click team plays about one stage above their actual skill level when it comes to positioning and timing of pushes (especially on stock 5-cp maps). Unfortunately, I think that going for the full-on upset would be one street too far.

I hope that most of Point and Click can stay together. There is real promise on that team going forward, and I wonder if they see it...

There are players on NBO that Point and Click cannot account for - and that's their downfall here. They shouldn't take a loss here with too much of a frown, as they've gone out and competed admirably all season long. That's all you can reasonably ask for with so many new players.

Foobar (8-6) vs. Embercore Gaming (6-8)

Match Rating: 6/10. It's a great sign to see that Embercore are sticking it out - if I were a sponsor I'd be impressed considering how rare it is to see non-playoff open teams TRY to keep things together (although changes always happen). I think that their record is a BIT misleading. They have real talent at soldier right now (Cole and Screwball), paired with a sound mid-open Demo in Dakrah. Sometimes I feel that their soldiers try to do too much, and that causes issues in the flank which is often out-of-time with the combo-side pushes. They also tend to DM a little too much even though they've got some disturbingly good fraggers in their soldier pair. Foobar are the smarter team here, but I wonder how much good that will do if Cole and Screwball reach their potential and start wrecking at mid (which they can most certainly do against another mid-open squad in Foobar). The big question will be if Embercore can play with a cool head - as I think that they have some very nice matchups to take advantage of IF they can. That's a huge "if" for this team, though - and that's why they have eight losses (their talent is NOT the issue here). Furthermore, how will Foobar handle urgency considering how green they are around the ears?

Anything could happen in regards to the psychological state of either team in this late-season rubbermatch. I would NOT be surprised if one team is just "there" come Tuesday night and just pummels the the other - even though this looks like a 5-4 affair on paper.

Edit: I keep making stupid errors. I need to proofread.

It's sad to see people not making an effort to play a good game. Most teams have been very good with us as we've been more than accommodating to other teams over the years. I haven't had too many try to force us to play short or grab a ffw over us. That's gotta really suck to be on the receiving end. How do you feel good about that kind of win?

nice write-up radium!! really enjoyable to read!

The same shit happened to me on Viaduct. Except I didn't whine and bitch about it on the forums. Also don't cry about playing on Valentines Day and stuff like that when you show up anyway.

It's not like I wanted to, they were unable to change the date at all. I ended up asking my wife if she was cool with that, which to my surprise she was. At the end of the day, you pay money to play the game, not to FFW or force teams to a bad day and/or time.

PS- we did plan to FFL that match