Well speaking to him the other day he had a bad flu, he croaked like the wicked witch of the west so it's not surprise he doesn't feel up to casting for 3 hours.

What the world really needs to hear is TF2 people drunk singing popular songs. TF2 karoake contest, winner gets to keep their lungs.

I just want attention, any sort, plz give it to me.

Apparently Ads is trying his heart out to write for ESEA EU.

DJC CASTING???

YAY

Scrims mean a lot less, if you can do the business in the matches when the pressures on, that is when I will notice you.

BPM didn't seem very good on 5CP but maybe they're really good on PL, who knows?

That is why it isn't called a "pre-season" game but a "Playoff" game. The difference between the terms is that one is meaningless and one means something. For a man who wrote such a good article I am surprised you can't cypher the difference between two obvious words.

It has been done, successfully for 3 seasons now in Europe, but yeah the manner of thinking in UGC is really backward in terms of teams preferring to compete versus worse players opposed to the best.

I will bring back my Hot or Not list and correct this great injustice.

Seriously this is the best write-up I've read about UGC, thanks for doing it Soap. Interesting how Paragon is rated over Max! Maybe scrims have shown different stats but Max has been destroying UGC + the world consistently for the past 6 months, surely this makes him the man to watch?

Best write up I have read for a while, well done.

Yeah I did mean Steam ID, not IP, I am not an expert on this but server admins/owners can trace the IP I am sure, but not through rcon?

Type "Status" in console, get his ID, contact server admins + league admins if you're worried he is cheating in leagues.

The Syndicate - Season 9, Pre-season
Ginyu Force - Season 9, Pre-season

Ginyu Force forfeited that and they didn't face any of the other higher seeds until week 5, we faced mTs in week 3 then BPM in week 4. All the teams that won their pre-season games faced better teams, it had a bearing. I am not saying Ginyu purposely set out to do this, just the way the admins set it up was incorrect.

Ironing out rosters - Fair enough comment, but if it's a playoff week you still have the same amount of time to do it in the form of practising, if you're in a playoff then you may be less prepared but if you apply to be in a playoff then you should be ready to play it and have been practising for a while anyway.

Giving Admins a clear picture how good these teams are - Isn't that the point of the Regular season? The point of the entire season?

Banned but also here you will get more intelligent debate and you don't have much debate here as it is.

I don't play in UGC other than backing up and I am banned on their forums but I have a fundamental problem with UGC and their pre-season week isn't the map they pick, it's the fact they insist on having a pre-season. It is meaningless and it's existence is down only to "test" maps out, although much shittier and underdeveloped maps are thrown in the regular season anyway.

2 Problems I have found in UGC that are constantly repeating themselves every season.

1) Pre-season and playing in it, last Spring my team played Ginyu force, we elected to scrim Lakeside than play a terrible custom map that won't be used in the games that matter. Essentially a pre-season game is just a scrim, with no incentive to play, in fact you have more incentive to lose the match as it affects who you face early in the season, now you would rather play as many of the weaker teams than face a top side early on, that is my experience of it.

2) Divisional placements are a hot topic of dispute, it seems my experience of how you are determined your placement, especially as a new team is through judging your individual players previous experiences, which is of course no indication of how they will perform as in the past players who played "invite" or "Platinum" could have been playing this level at a time when skill level was less developed or they could have been in a particular role for their team although not a contributing factor to the reason their team was so good (A polite way of saying they were carried). The other way teams seem to be decided on their skill level is through whims of admins, often from their OWN scrimming experiences rather than the individual team.

Alternative

Instead of a pre-season match, why not do either a one-off playoff week for teams who want to play in either Platinum, Gold, Silver, Steel, Iron, Cotton, Helium, Californium league...etc. Give teams an opportunity to play for their place, if you're a long time team who are "High Gold", let them playoff vs a Low Platinum team. The only issue I can see with this is a lot of teams form with the intent to not play the highest level, some generally do want to sandbag lower opposition, but if you put them in a playoff and they don't play (or they play and they don't try) then you're well in your right to now allow them to participate where they ask to go.

When it comes to judging a teams' skill, you need to look at how they perform as a team and their is no better way of judging skill than teams playing high pressure playoff matches. Get rid of Pre-season, get some playoffs and get some meaningful games beforehand. It makes for good viewing, early season excitement and rewards teams who are serious.

To be fair Soap all you have to do is hammer your keyboard with your fist several times then left click your mouse randomly until you find the "submit" button and you will produce a piece of analytical data and punditry vastly superior to that of Will's Plat Stats.