I think I need to clarify something. This would not be forced pug or captain's mode. Players can make a pug team if they'd like or get their 6 player team to enter. I was referring to playing AGAINST stronger players, not with. With that said, if you'd like to play with better players, you'll have to approach them yourselves and ask them to play with you in one of the tournaments.

DAMNIT CJ

I'm not sure how many people follow the fighting scene but they used to run a tournament at the FGTV house every friday night. They called it Fraud Free Fridays and each friday, a bunch of norcal players would gather at the fgtv house to play a casual tournament. I put it friday since hardly any teams play then but I suppose saturday could work as well but I don't think there'd be as many teams. I was thinking of porting this idea to TF2 and was just wondering how many people would be interested in playing.

It would take place every friday night, probably at 9est (everything is up for discussion but I think this time allows the tournament to end at a reasonable hour). It would single elimination and then with a bo3 grand finals. I think this would be great for tf2 for the following reasons:

-First off, you don't need to play on your ESEA team. You're more than welcome to make a pug team of friends to compete in the tournament for a fun friday night. As I said, it's casual so it's really meant for enjoyment (prize stuff later in the post).

-Open teams only play open teams all season long. This allows teams to see how they rank outside of their conference. I would expect half of the teams to be pug teams and half to be real teams so they'll definitely be good competition all around. It also allows for teams that want more experience in actual matches to get some.

-This becomes a really easy in for extremely new players to get their feet wet in a competitive but fun environment.

-Provides nice filler content for the week. It's possible that top invite pug teams would face off against each other in the grand finals. I would probably do a half seeded bracket in order to get the fairest brackets.

I don't think this idea necessarily needs prizes in order to be a success but it would obviously benefit from some. The way the Fraud Free Friday's prizing worked was that they would have a raffle where viewers to buy tickets to the raffle. In this case, I guess raffle would be hats or whatever. The more that's donated, the more that's on the line so it gets more and more interesting as the night goes on. In the end, all the money from the raffle is given to top 2 and then raffle is done at the end of the night. There's a couple other ideas I have for prizes but I think this is the most interesting.

Rule and map set would be ESEA. First to 5 or 30 minutes (i.e. only 1 half). Ideally 16-32 teams per night which I would expect to take ~ 3-4 hours. Open to everyone and anyone, this would be a chance to spread the 6v6 gospel. I could use a volunteer or two but I can't see this being that hard since I've been admining for 3+ years. In sc2, casters follow teams or just cast their favorite MU. In actuality, only 1 caster is needed but more than that would be welcome.

Anyways, just post below if you would be interested in participating in one of these. It'll allow me to estimate how many teams it would get and if it would be worth my time. Also, sugestions, opinions.....etc.

Only problem I see right now with my idea would be servers. I'm not sure if I can expect an average of 1 server per team. I'd assume newer level teams wouldn't have a server which would mean I'd need servers donated for the night. If you have a different solution or idea, also post below.

nogrammarcheck420yolo

Congratz to 6cuties for winning

http://i.imgur.com/ZInmyGE.jpg

Yes it will be rc4. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5181650/koth_pro_viaduct_rc4.bsp

Going to be using g7. http://fastdl.colonslash.eu/maps/cp_snakewater_g7.bsp.bz2

Sorry I have to make a thread just for this.

You gotta wonder how far someone can put their foot in their own mouth at this point

All this thread has done is encourage me to use an alt because it seems fun as fuck.

They're probably the least balanced. Viaduct is extremely scout favoured and mge would be extremely soldier favoured.

Reg closes monday!!!

Why such shit maps? <.<

How is the map decided?

After a long application process, I'm ready to unveil the new ESEA news team. In my mind, I have assembled the all star team of writers and I'm sure there will be endless amounts of great articles throughout the season. Without further ado:

Invite - Bloodsire
Main - Conductor
IM - Sakura
Open - London Calling
Feature Writers - Ques and Fog

We've already had our first meetings and everyone is very excited to get to work. This season, we'd like to promote discussion on the ESEA news forums. Make sure to post in the comments, writers will be actively reading and responding to them. Tell them what you think! The first article from our new squad will be out in a couple of days.

Looking forward to a great new season!

Loose Cannon will not be banned.