Late on the finish and with no stylistic flair, power rankings are out...so go there.

I have 2 other articles planned for the week. Also, if you want to put together some content, I'd be open to taking an additional contributor or so.

Still, Mustard? I thought it was in good taste not to blindly blame Odb leaving on your personality, I thought "nah, that would be a cheap shot". Ok, what part of that is a failure? He is picked up by your team, he played for your guys, and he is an upgrade in comparison to Odb. I don't think I even implied it was permanent. I don't assume any player on your teams is permanent, Ex clearly is either a Saint or doesn't know any better. Also, Hellbent is a better pocket than you.

Article is out about the recent roster changes for Gorillion Dollars and Syops TF2. I have also added in the Kill Zill class switches.

I'm trying to get some demos to watch for important games, I look forward to looking at C&C vs. Kill Zill and giving Kill Zill the possible johns of making such drastic changes so recently. I'll put together some write-ups for significant games.

Do it

One final clarification, when I did the individual rankings for for Demoman, Pocket, and Roamer I didn't put a lot of stake of teamwork. The reason behind that particular decision was the fact that this is a pre-season ranking. It is entirely too hard to project how two random people over the internet will gel.

I tried to do so a little bit more with scouts and pocket/medic, but unless there was continuity that was just as hard. For scouts I tried to weigh how they played with past teams and the role they played along with DM and what I perceived to be their level of game-sense and decision making. But unless I had comms and extensive interviews with past teammates I can't be 100% accurate.

But justifying myself at this point is going nowhere. No amount of reason will convince you of anything, I can at least assure you my image of players as people had no bearing on their rating.

Be honest Mustard, are you just being a baby because you didn't make the pocket list again. Because that is how it started each time, with you believing you deserved it somehow.

I have literally put every factor you have come up with into my rankings for both the team and individual. Would it soothe you if I went player to player and explained in explicit painful detail. Frankly the fact that you think I haphazardly threw these together is more insulting than anything.

You are right. Butttt, I did try to take teamwork into consideration when I did the TEAM rankings. And also the pocket/medic rankings. Not so much the "top 5", which is pretty much why it is completely useless aside from getting people talking about something.

I would've ranked your team higher because of defined, unified calling (a statement I put in the team ranking) but from what I saw Bird Noises had very good focus in fights and Six Guys Off had a similar level of calling with marginally better players overall.

That is the incredibly hard part. Some people are better in scrims than matches, some people will troll in a scrim or if it is late at night just won't try as hard. Scrims are hard to make the power rankings out of. Even matches make it difficult with the amount of issues with ESEA servers in terms of ping, some people getting a lot of loss, teams playing without a starter because of some other random shenanigan. It's why I wanted to wait a week before the next batch so I can get a good view of about 4 matches

In addition, the schedule for the first 4 matches are astonishingly varied. #1 and #2 are playing this week (clear match of the week btw). Most teams play 1 High IM team, 1 Low IM team, and 1 mid IM team. It will give me a better sense of the current hierarchy.

Also what Air said.

In terms of judging certain players from this. Stats by themselves aren't enough. If a pocket gets a ton of heals you got to look at a few things: are the ubers mosty solos, is the pocket doing all the uber building, is the flank getting picked a lot, does the demoman get aggressive a lot or do they sit back. It's not easy. Numbers never lie, but they don't tell the whole story.

Also, because this is recurring I do rate experience highly but mostly on Demoman and Medic (medic even more so). I can recognize when a player is playing far beyond their seasons. Yomps was ridiculous, Silkthread was ridiculous, players can come out of nowhere. I'm not blind.

If anything, it's a testament to how low I rate Sen. This isn't a definitive all time list. People can and will move. I will say however, it completely served its purpose.

Oh golly gee mustard, you got him for one ESEA match. One game does not make a trend. Did you forget when you played with the guy? Tank mustard as he walks face first in strat? Also you picked the single most soldier focused map in the game, if it was a viaduct match you'd have me dead to rights. But even he did switch styles, he did it for a extra season up on ole Deathy. A soldier who, don't get me wrong, I think is incredible and WILL jump up the list as the season goes on

As for Yeeegz + Stochast1c being better than Botmode + Sen, the only experience Botmode has on scout in esea is a single open season where he wavered from pretty good to incredibly mediocre. Coincidentally he was playing with Jarret, Farns, and Kig on their main classes. A Pocket/Medic combo I rated #1 before Six Guys Off made class switches. To be frank, I have a low opinion of Sen gamesense wise. He has great DM but he makes bonehead mistakes all over the place.

Yeeegz is better than both combined.

On the opposite side, I have a very high opinion of KTB's skills as a pocket. The fact that Deathy and KTB are playing basically the same style of pocket (as I went over in my Syops preview), but KTB has been doing it a few seasons prior and so has the experience edge is why they are higher.

Legitimately my bad on the "t" in Jarrett's name, I'll fix that now. In the absence of Kig + Farns, Trip and Saam win

well considering I alluded to these rankings in my pre-season rundown, it was meant to put into a list what I put into words earlier. Suppose I should've posted the list at the same time.

I'm going to be perfectly honest about the "Botmode switching to scout thing", you guys post so much inane retarded shit in regards to roster switches that I can't believe it until I see it in a match or something. I remember the "juice" of Blues playing pocket for Exultance, or "Muma" playing for Gorillion Dollars. At the time you guys posted that change I checked the logs and H5 was playing scout. I give your particular group of posters no credibility until you stop posting troll switches.

Because I alluded to some mysterious top 5 for each class, I decided to put one together

I'm waiting to see who Gorillion Dollars picks up on demo in place if Odb. Because of the ESEA mix-up, I don't think I'll be able to detail how their match became a 5-4 on Granary