why the fuck would you watch that

unless you're a roamer bombing the med, then 90% of health left = fucking destroyed

RED TAPE RECORDER

that's apple juice, not apple sauce

i admit sometimes i put on mantreads and then go afk in endif

ryan's just doing it to annoy sal. they've played on the same team several times

shotgun in directs
holding w into people in directs
mantreads in direct

dont to it travis its a ploy to get a shirt

all of it

Additionally, I have super shitty power rankings from polling open captains. Out of 8 voters*, I got these rankings (If I haven't spoken to you, you either were offline or weren't on my list, add me and I'll update this accordingly)

1. Playground Tactics (43)
2. Indust we trust (33)
3. trans-autistic railroad (28)
4. basic's octopus emporium (26)
5. theRUSH (21)
5. Roctenao (21)
7. LAZER BRYANS (12)
8. Tonight's Entertainment (11)
8. BIG BOYS (11)

also getting votes: hanky panky (8), Boshton bashers (6), the baddies (4), Astronerds (4), Reign of Terror (3), Team Echelon (3), SteveCGamesA (3)

*1 voter didn't rank teams, so I just spread the points out. Terrible methodology, fire me please.

Finally, in the future, I plan on dragging conductor into doing this weekly or biweekly (probably the latter) with the teams being written about decided by the voters.

Indust we trust

Preseason scrims show that this team isn't to be taken lightly after cutting the paper mache link of dopewolf from their otherwise strong iron chain of a team. Their demo .k.L. and scout mumbo in particular have consistently good dm. Replacing dopewolf this season is billuster, making the move from soldier to scout. Darkstar has been picked up as their new pocket, and while he may have no previous experience in esea it doesn't seem to be holding him back. Good continuity and strong chemisty makes indust we trust a powerful early season contender. The question going into the latter half of S13 will be if they can keep up with the newer and more DM heavy teams as they build chemistry and "catch up".

LAZER BRYANS

LAZER BRYANS has several players from the S12 incarnation of treason, with benefit, swedes, and sinner bringing their demo, roamer, and pocket services respectively. On scout are yodogz and khorma, two very solid players, with yodogz performing very well in IM last season, and while khorma hasn't really played since S11, he has strong DM. The strength of their flank play should push them past a lot of teams in open, but against the other top teams, it remains to be seen how their combo has improved after a rather lackluster 8-8 outing last season.

Playground Tactics

This will be Playground Tactics' second round in open, and they should have a stronger showing this time around. The team has had a number of roster mixups from last season, with their medic typhus moving to roamer and london calling and insom of server depopulation squad being picked up to fill in the medic and scout gaps. This will be insom's first season playing scout, having previously played demoman for SDS, but his scout dm isn't something to be taken lightly. Sonnnn, preston, and Rikachu are the three players from S12 who are returning on the same classes this season. They all have strong DM at their respective positions and should be an anchor during the transition into the new roster.

theRUSH tf2

The players of Rush have loads of previous experience and it should show in their play. The scouts and the demo of this team are something to watch out for. Freddy should be among the best demos in open this season, dropping down a division after accumulating experience in IM. The scouts, Testify and Reimu have both had long breaks froms starting for a team in TF2, but they have plenty of experience under their belts and strong DM. Rush's soldiers are bombdigiti and nixnyte. Nixnyte played medic in IM last season and is making a return to his old class, while bombdigiti played soldier in open last season. The team should do well if the soldiers can support the work getting done by their scouts and demo.

Tonight's Entertainment

Tonights Entertainment is another team in open this season with a lot of players who have im experience, with dflame in particular having played in IM playoffs last season. Bwat bwat bwat and bot_tay also bring some im experience, both having played their respective classes in im before. The team's combo, Stratovarius and Bopper, are both playing new classes this season, which I would expect to stem some problems early on in the season. Finishing out the roster is stoperr. Stoperr does a lot of damage for the team, but his style of play takes a lot of heals. They need to balance the heals given to STOPPER so Bopper isn't left in the cold. If Stratovarius can find a good balance between the two, they will be a dangerous team, with heavy damage from STOPPER backed up by smart aggression from dflame and bot_tay.

Roctenao probably should be somewhere up here, but conductor and I both have no idea about their team. Though from their S12 performance, they appear to be a strong S13 contender. Bonus points to anyone who can point out who wrote what.

about various open teams. the order is very specific.

Astronerds

The one thing everyone thinks about when astronerds is mentioned is "oh bullshit, why is mackey allowed to play in open". I think this does a disservice to the other members of the team, especially with mackey playing scout. eulogy is a very strong demo, as shown by his short lived debut on tim lays pipe before roster issues did them in. ricr, mackey's scout partner, is looking to follow up a hot and cold S12 which seems to have gotten derailed in the second half. The soldiers WILDFIRE and Neko-tan are question marks as neither have any previous ESEA experience, but in preseason scrims, they seem to be performing as well as they need to.

basic's octopus emporium

Basic's Octopus Emproium features several players with IM experience, with bsc, tooth, reemix, and slipz all having played in IM. Joining them are dana_scully from Community Clown College of 16-0 regular season fame and mastodon of poop-on-me-in-dm fame. However, every one of these octopus enthusiasts, other than bsc and dana_scully, are offclassing and it shows. Their timing and positioning aren't quite right yet, and they lack a strong shutdown demo that many of the other top open teams have with reemix having made the switch from scout to demo very recently. However, they have the potential to be a very strong open team and I would look for them to make a run in the latter half of the season.

BIG BOYS

Big Boys features a lot of very experienced players, with all of them having multiple seasons under their belts. The strongest part of this team is the demo and combo, with pt and hooli putting out heavy damage for moolkey and bio to capitalize on. The team should utilize their jump map extraordinaire Walka to get their combo's ubers in cleanly. When points get stalled, they will need to be careful not to have their flank pushed in as Walka tries to make plays.

Boshton Bashers

Boshton Bashers is mostly a collective of players who made open playoffs on different teams last season. Their demo, rex, does a lot of the team's damage and plays very aggressively to accomplish this. Linkuser and WalterWhite man the scout positions and both bring solid dm to the table. Playing the soldier positions are peyote and bosh, who are both new to the class. Peyote is making the move from medic to pocket this season, with bosh transitioning from scout to roamer. Peyote's medic experience should allow him to direct the combo well, but whether he has the dm to keep high open scouts from killing his medic is yet to be seen. This team's success will largely depend on whether they are able to keep the heal heavy rex alive and play around his damage.

Hanky Panky

Hanky panky is another open team featuring several players who played in IM last season, with collide and hugh_laurie dropping down after a rough season with barely not open. On pocket is fanofangels who last season really made a leap in his soldier play and is probably looking to make another jump and compete with the mid IM pockets. masterpainb, their roamer has been around for quite some time, mostly playing medic, but has popped up on fragging classes every now and then, helping gank and the meisters make the IM cut in S12. The real question mark is their second scout embryo, who I've never actually seen play so I can't comment.

hey man, ydsc is more than esea-free champions

yeah, plz ban killing/kalkin dey be dodging

bill is playing scout
eulogy is playing demo
foregin is playing med, titan and dunce aren't playing for bad boys this season