The Germans have returned for another season of ETF2L, but this time with a new shiny profile picture and name.

After being brutally murdered last season by 6ix, wer das liest ist doof didn’t manage to complete Season 35 of ETF2L and dropped out of the season: a definite low point for the historic roster. However, we love a good underdog story at teamfortress.tv, and this may be the rebirth and kickstart the roster needs, with Faint Gaming returning to TF2 by sponsoring the team.

Happy to announce our return into @ETF2L for season 36 Voxtec Gazy Rising Fischkopf @MattyTsang @bobertolit27 show them some love! #ETF2L #TF2 #EU #FaintGaming pic.twitter.com/lGZAXpTWkc

— Faint Gaming (@FaintNetwork) June 5, 2020

The Germans have struggled for traction throughout recent seasons, switching old players across classes and constantly bringing new blood in and out, and this season is no different. In fact, only Rising and voxi (prior to The Great Poachening) have remained on their respective classes. Gazy returns to scout from a brief hiatus on soldier and fischkopf returns to the starting roster of the team.

Now, onto the new blood: MATTYAZN joins the team as Demo. He previously played with Rakuzan in Season 33, winning Division 1 with the roster who eventually made the move up into Premiership (although without their champion Demo). MATTYAZN left the roster before the team could make their debut in Premiership, so he will be making his debut alongside the more experienced Germans.

Speaking of experience, who the fuck is Bobby? A relatively inexperienced player with only 17 matches played (post ETF2L near-death), in spite of his inexperience on ETF2L he’s made a name for himself pugging in Europe on Pugchamp. The new player has a lot to prove alongside his fellow Premiership newcomer MATTYAZN, although MATTYAZN has already solidified his Premiership potential with his past Division 1 results with Rakuzan.

We asked fischkopf and voxi of Faint Gaming how exactly they ended up picking up Bobby for the up-coming season:

fischkopf: who dafuq is that ?

voxi: We found out about Bobby through Pugchamp and since we wanted to go full german he was a great fit. Despite his lack of experience he adapted very fast to prem level tf2. He is also very mechanically talented and keen which is always nice. So far it has been a great pleasure playing with him and I think he has the potential to become a top 4 med.

We continued our conversation with voxi, asking about the team's re-brand and potential changes to the team.

TEAMFORTRESS.TV: After how the last season ended for you guys, is this new re-brand a way of rejuvenating the team?

voxi: We welcomed the re-brand with open arms, especially since we were looking for a name change anyways. It definitely pushed our motivation playing under Faint Gaming, but sadly exam time is coming up in Germany so we can't commit more than 2-3 days a week to tf2, even though I'd love to. So in general it won't make a big difference since we already are pretty keen and try to use the time we do play to improve as efficiently as possible.

TEAMFORTRESS.TV: Is anything being changed up when it comes to the mentality of the team this time?

voxi: When it comes to our team mentality I think we are in a good spot right now. Personally I am very happy to play in a relatively calm and untoxic enviornment again. It has been fun playing with this lineup so far, even when loosing, so we probably won't change much.

Faint Gaming return to the "eSport" with new blood in tow:

• Scout: Gazy
• Scout: voxi
• Soldier: Fischkopf
• Soldier: Rising
• Demoman: MATTYAZN
• Medic: Bobby