The domain briefly went down but renewing was cheap so it's still alive for now. You might get a dead domain page for a day or so page depending on when your local dns servers update

Anyone want to check when ESEA ran an EU div?

The official line

I would assume that "front page" includes the match ticker

#boycotttwitch #freebren

But then Epsilon's spirits might have been crushed and the people's champions could have overcome the unfeeling juggernaut of dream crushing TF2 gods. Our chance to witness a Nordic Prometheus stolen by the degenerate EU rules.

Although seriously if it had been played under different rules then it's reasonable to expect we might have seen different play. Nobody tries to go 3 or 4 rounds down but changing things more urgently could have happened on Epsilon's side. It's all speculation.

Don't be ridiculous, none of our i58 heroes would ever cheat. Remember that it was held in Britain, the world capital of fair play and sportsmanship. Hacks simply cease to work on our fair isle.

Well, updating the client with very short notice is a legit way to break some hacks...

The main problem with ESEA rules is that changing sides is completely pointless. It's simply a hangover from CS where changing sides actually matters and ESEA presumably couldn't be bothered to customise their rules for TF2 to something appropriate. Differences between the sides of maps are miniscule and no justification at all. The fact that you need a custom plugin to enforce this is the final straw ruling it out for everybody else. The opportunity to review the team's strategy is welcome, but there must be other ways of doing that.

Other than that the NA ruleset is fine, a first to x rounds ruleset is decent, but it would be nice to add something so that the winning margin must be 2 clear rounds, so that back and forth games that are very close don't end 5-4 while there's still plenty of play. 30 minute map time limit is more practical for a large lan too.

Kos had 60 kritzes

Memories of Byte trying to control Forsak3n, Klar and Droso come flooding back

If you adjust for heals received and look at some other bits I think muma was the most effective demo with spudd and paulsen very close in performance but that's partly down to how teams played

Is it going to ruin anybody's TF2 experience if this dies? The domain is up for renewal soon and I'm not sure if it's worth renewing, activity has been pretty patchy for a while.

i58 Pixel trophies are now on the site for the winners

1st place: snapp e-sports by jorski
2nd place: Agricultural Gods With Fiats by shounic
3rd place: Teamboat Bestteam by tftv's own Dreamboat (also winning the caster pool by a decisive margin)

All those who backed the Aussies early thrived, never believe bootcamp

And a final thanks to Beater without whom there would have been no fantasy game, the real mvp.

I'm not sure, I think more elements that allow for seesaw effects that promote pushing but are sufficiently skill based would work to prevent the problem. The problem is a lot of unlocks or elements that allow it (like random crits, picking up mediguns, etc) are nothing to do with skill, and given how few one shot kills there are in the game you end up with sniper battles which are just another stalemate.

The wider variety of ultimates in Overwatch may have been a design response to this specific problem in TF2. The banners are the kind of thing that might be useful in this area but they're also kind of free to charge up - just spam a choke and you're charged. It would be nice to have some more synergies in TF2 that can produce swings based on coordination and skill.

High stakes games have always been like this.

Anything that incentivises pushing almost always does the reverse for the defenders. Shortening the capture clock, decay capped points, designing maps differently so you can push "downhill" from mid, they all stop defenders wanting to push back which might shorten stalemates but it would make the short ones more common.