https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1d04Q4XO30

change it to YOUR ESEA GRAND FINALS CHAMPION and that's it

100% sure

I've played with and against the players you're talking about and your reasoning for their ranking is literally just the opposite of a b4nny sub. You probably have to rank b4nny as the best considering he has the most wins and unfortunately reality is all that matters. That being said, I also couldn't be 100% sure of whether he is better or worse than platinum in an alternate universe where platinum is 17 years old, even with my knowledge of the game and experience playing all of these players in matches that matter at LAN.

There is most definitely not for sure a "subset" of "actual individual skill" comprised of players better than b4nny. There could be, but even if there were, the amount would be negligible, to the point where spectating them for 4 years does not and will never give you enough context to substantiate any of these claims.

as the top tier of invite tf2 smash players carter and i will pave the way to tf2's success

I think it's more an issue that teams just can't strike maps and are at the discretion of ESEA's map choices

best of luck to whichever team is better at metalworks and sunshine

you might want to see a doctor if doing a few dozen rocket jumps gives you a headache

with matchmaking's implementation, valve can actually direct the game. the players who used to play only pubs might be able to find 6v6 fun, because it's actually accessible to them, and they're not forced onto one class the entire time. the essence of 6v6 isn't a class-restricted game mode that "takes the fun out of tf2" or "purposely alienates classes." you can choose any class you want to play as long as it falls under the total class limit. it just so happens that the best classes for a tug-of-war oriented game mode are the classes that move the fastest and have the most potential. this isn't to say spy, engineer, heavy, pyro, etc are not useful, as they are being utilized more and more often as people find niche situations to exploit their strengths.

one thing that could help is a radar, so you can more easily anticipate engagements (I talked about this with sideshow in the interview to a deeper level), like you can with counter-strike. aside from that, most of the groundwork has already been done. if you follow overwatch at all, you can already see the struggle for good commentating. the hud isn't good, there's no minimap, casters don't know on which aspect to concentrate, etc. there's even a confusion on how the game should be played.

i'd wager most people who commented in this thread want the game to grow, so there's no reason to forsake the game's potential success for edgy posts that inevitably are -fragged anyway. you might as well put some faith in the game and show some positivity now, when it matters most

why no mention of Radio?

this is the one i was looking for :) very poignant moment in that show

still pretty different, dude. google doesn't have an internet culture in the way valve does. valve is a video game company. esports in general are pretty lighthearted on the professionalism end. valve themselves aren't as classically business-like as google or facebook. i agree that it is pretty out of nowhere and that's why everyone is pretty confused. i have a feeling it doesn't have entirely to do with something you saw on stream. regardless, if google or facebook came out of the woodwork and called an employee an ass (not even just a hired talent), it would be extremely out of character as they don't have video game events being broadcast on twitch tv with millions of people posting dongers and rude copypasta for 8 hours at a time. the entire culture behind each business is staggeringly different, and that's including the fanbase. people posting on r/google are not going to be the same people posting on r/dota2.

probably getting downfragged because "stupid dota nonsense" is a ridiculous phrase, as it's the video game that has given valve most of its recent success and it places almost all its esports stock into this game. everything is speculation, and it probably could've been handled in a better way than just calling him an ass on reddit (and probably will be in the coming days), but I thought it was actually pretty funny. most "billion dollar companies" aren't valve who themselves have a very special relationship with the internet and don't run million dollar+ tournaments for a game that has its own subreddit. comparing this announcement by valve to a different company that doesn't even have a special relationship with the internet and doesn't make video games is pointless.

c9 has kind of fucked itself recently on their pickup of stewie and freakazoid's outburst about s1mple. Honestly, their team did pretty well in the beginning, having placed highly in international tournaments. However, if you really look at the victories they had, most were over an envyus team that was surely dying. Ever since then their results have been lackluster. Unfortunately for them, that was fine until recently. c9 is a marketing campaign team; they have n0thing, beloved player, freakazoid who's a "cool dude on a cs pro team who sticks up for his friends" (something like that), shroud who's a huge stream presence, sean who was a c9 poster boy with n0thing, and skadoodle who is the "best NA awper." They were a team that would've retained a huge fanbase no matter the results. They're the "mighty ducks" sort of team who everyone would support, and when they'd lose all they needed to offer was an apology or an excuse that they would soon be rectifying (practice more, don't let jetlag get the better of us, take things seriously). But recently they've lost a lot of their support with freakazoid being the "community bully" and stewie being an all-around instigator and bad-mannered player (taco/s1mple situation).

I can almost guarantee you the manager of the csgo team and c9 in general has realized a lot of these things. As long as there were people supporting the n0thing/freakazoid crew, results hardly made a difference. But now with less community support of their players who are still underperforming, they might actually make a big roster change (not replacing a player who left).

the other day my screen went black in overwatch and I had to hit escape and blindly navigate to the exit game function

I don't understand why everyone is speaking like we're in the past and matchmaking isn't soon to be making waves in the TF2 community? Why do you think ESEA keeps TF2 around at all? They're just trying to keep themselves cemented as North America's primary league for this game. Luckily for them, they don't need LAN to entice us, because there's no other organization that offers it. They could probably drop TF2 entirely and it would make little difference, but they keep it in the rotation just in case.

like, a comment like this says what, really? Something we already know? Wow, guys, shocker! Before competitive TF2 was endorsed by Valve Incorporated, it didn't have the playerbase, crowd, or sponsorship opportunities to make ESEA a lot of money! Well, luckily, that's could be changing. That doesn't mean ESEA will provide us a LAN this season, but it does mean the mindset of "fuck TF2" is not a wise one.

what getawhale said isn't entirely stupid, no matter how badly you want to give an edgy response for those sweet, sweet, tasteful +frags. We can't say for sure it will be a huge mistake, but not being prepared for an influx of players and sponsorship on ESEA's end is a big mistake. It is, in fact, a business, and businesses will scope out the landscape for potential opportunities. Matchmaking is definitely an opportunity.

It would probably be better for everyone if this idea of "fuck TF2, it's dead," isn't something you're erroneously propagating. Everyone in this community knows you people hope TF2 gets bigger, and hopefully you can sacrifice the edginess for some positivity when it matters most.

lol weird because that's one of the only times the heavy is at his strongest but tbh heavy with a much smaller cone and less damage per bullet would be pretty cool

go for the finalmouse the za13 is really small, like so small I think unless you have super small hands the little lips on either side will get in the way