Let me prephase this that I think that the ban seems absurd, both from a constitency angle and even according to the rules themeselves.

I'm going to however agree with gemm in that I find "kys" to be something that is extremely mean to say to someone, and that to me is way above "normal" banter/trashtalk. After seeing the numerous responses on this thread where people described this word as "shit-talk vernacular " and generally that worse things get said all the time, I understand that this seems to be a cultural thing, as playing in EU it is something I encountered very rarely.

I have no doubts that some people managed to dissociate the word from its meaning. But the raucous defense of it (and other things who are also imo pretty bad) as a part of "trash-talking", which is apparently a normal part of video gaming, irks me. I'm sure that for 99% of people who play comp; the best memories made by playing stem from friendships, bonds made when playing. And that just because this form of trashtalk is socially accepted right now does not mean that it should be, and that we'd all gain more, as a group from trying to be a bit nicer.

Personally disagree here, bagel has a lot of back-and-forth like you said, which greatly helps someone sneaking by. Once someone is behind, they have the gigantic lobby at their disposal, with 2 medium packs and 3 exits all close to one another. To be fair I tend to really dislike koth in general, so i think we happen to have really clashing opinions, and the chaos will probably be toned down after people get used to the map. However, I think it's going to take more than one season for everyone to be more used to the map and for me it won't be fun before that so I can't say I would want it right now.

I'm going to be a bit blunt here, but I really disliked playing this map as a soldier. I'm pretty bad at koth, and my team lost quarter-finals on it so I'm obviously biased but there is very little that i found good. I'll start with the good. You can do a bunch of cool jumps over the cap, Sniper is not insanely powerful but can still play an interesting role.

Things I disliked :
- The general arrangement of the mid makes demo really good at spamming, and I thought the locations of the packs was awkward at best.
-The overall layout of the map means that while you can go behind mid-fight, people will see you and can in most cases easily chase you down. Going behind doesn't even grant good flanking abilities because unless you come from bats (which is pretty visible) you don't gain high ground/can't conceal yourself until you're close enough.
-The huts and the houses currently barely factor into the fights. Huts are too big and their ceiling is too low so you can't reliably flank in them and house is not great for flanking as explained above but I assume you can retreat through it at least.
-Roof control is arguably too important. This is my weakest point here, I felt like I spent a large portion of the game just battling over roof instead of getting to do the cool jumps but I can also understand that it might be my poor gamesense more than the map and would be curious to see if others feel the same.

Overall, I think currently clearcut is like a less interesting coalplant. I would like to still thank you for the work you've done, and wish you the best

From what I've seen the ease of flanking through either house and the really big lobby tend to turn this map into a DM fest really fast, and that also makes playing the point quite hard since you can be surprise attacked from kinda everywhere and the size of the central turbine doesn't help. It looks really dope, and I love the general theme you're going for but I don't seen myself enjoying playing this map until it becomes a bit less hectic.

Ok first of all I quite like the B13 changes and the general aesthetic is pretty cool as well.

Generally, my opinion of the map is that it's promising, but still needs some improvements before its on the level of the maps played in ETF2L currently. The two main issues for me are that mid is too small and last is kind of awkward :

-Mid is just too cramped. Right now every midfight I've seen is just an instant DM fest because both soldiers can high jump into the enemy team pretty much unopposed. You can't use flanking routes because by the time you've completed the flank the mid is over, you can't rotate because the mid is too small to do so and your med will die a lot even if you win the mid. Another issue that I did not see so far but could rise is that holding mid looks really simple as every entrance are a stone's throw from each other.

-Last is too segmented ? Not sure if this is the correct word but basically last is divided in really distinct areas with big walls in between them (especially the really thick white wall that's over the point), which makes it harder to apply pressure from one part of the last to another and so a lot of close fights end up with teams on opposite sides of the same wall, spamming. It also greatly limit sentries. Moving the point a bit forward (and maybe slowing down the cap time to make it fair) would be an interesting idea, as teams would be able to play and defend it from more angles than the awkward staredown we have right now.

That said, i think the map has a pretty good flow to it (mid's really small size actually helps that tbf) and second is really really good. You can do plenty of stuff on it, both Fountain and the flank near the truck are useful, its fun to push into, its fun to push out of last, I wouldnt change anything on that.

Regardless of my actual opinion on the need for the medic to be slower, I do think the plugin ought to be tested in an official setting like a preseason cup. Even if TF2 was played for like 9 years before the buff to med speed happened, we now have been playing with it for multiple years as well, and such a change to the flow of the game, in my opinion, should not be handwaved because the game once used to be like that. It would also allow zoomers (like myself) who only started playing after this change to see for ourselves since we can't rely on memories.

I also really agree with this point regarding gunboats buff, really don't see why its needed.

Copenhagen 2020 being cancelled.

Ive already posted general advice in here, but a very specific tip that helped me out a lot is :

Find out what's the best warmup for you

For a long time I used to either play DM/MGE or jump maps until right before a game, thinking that if I can get some positive momentum going into the scrims it'll carry over. And while it did happen sometimes, most of the time I would just start being frustrated at myself, thinking "If I can't do it when there are no stakes, how am I supposed to do it". So now 1 hour before the scrim, I stop playing TF2 and I try to get in a good mental state; I go for a walk, I shower, I play single player games, I go eat with my family instead of being a gremlin who comes in 5 minutes before scrim time and snatches soup before retreating to his dark corner...

And that's what I do, I definitely know people who suck ass for the first map if they are not warmed up. Point is, there isnt a single warming up method, just do what feels right for you.

-Learn to not be defensive when your mistakes are called out
-Mindless DM grinding is not really efficient time-wise, and there are many ways to improve
-If playing for a team feels right, you should probably join them instead of trialing for 4 more teams
-Play the class that seems the most fun to you instead of making excuses as to why you cannot play it
-Take breaks from the game when you don't feel good

If Denmark does not close its borders by the time LAN comes, it would be nice if we used this post (or another one) to list whp will still be there, that way we still get to meet people.

Also I did not buy cancellation insurance either, but seeing as it is bit of an uncommon scenario, I've seen people saying that you can try to at least call customer support to get a cancellation. Depends on the airline though I'd assume.

What I'm holping for right now is for the event to be rescheduled, so if that happen maybe customer service would just offer us new flights instead of a refund since I assume that would be easier for them (disclaimer, I know nothing about planes)

Say hi to JWB, our latest hire who will surely be more punctual than the rest of us !

I actually agree with Luke here, if you factor in the impact of a play, a single frag on a demo that was probably going to crater, on a last push that was very likely already won, in what looks like to be a mix is not something that would qualify as an impact play. It is an absurdly cool shot however so I think number 4 fits it well.

Also Luke has been saying often that very few plays from high-level games end up being sent to him (and most of them are found by Beater). I am assuming that a lack of really clutch clips from non-gimmick classes is born out of a lack of submissions rather than deliberate avoidance in the selection process, and by looking at the frag clips thread you can see that there are plenty of nuts moments each month that could very easily end on the podium.

Luke has expressed many times his ranking method and has been (I think) pretty consistent with it, so I think that while I understand the frustration shown here, I think we should respect his formula.

I would like to thank YeeHaw publicly for being really cool with the numerous delays that happened.
I made a collage of the delays as well

https://i.imgur.com/9O9YGG9.png

stay tuned for the next article of this kind, where papi will talk about leading and stuff

generally people on tftv don't like pub highlights. Don't think you did anything wrong, its just a tough crowd.

Other writers dunk on me because I got a press pass at i65 so they are jealous of my status as the only real writer.