mackey didn't really get cut for anyone, he more quit than anything

also he was replaced by dave ac

I would imagine an outdoors event would make a large impact on the data there, but either way I don't necessarily disagree with this take from an individual standpoint. It's fine if you'd want to go or whatever. I probably would too if I lived nearby, especially since I'll be getting a booster pretty soon. But in light of omicron, and according to Dreamhack, covid cases on the rise, it makes sense that the event is canceled. It sucks, but it's probably for the best. Like, it's not unhinged or weird or whatever to want to go to a TF2 LAN if you're vaccinated, and it's not weird to be disappointed that you can't go to something you might've already paid for or scheduled time for, but it is a little weird to just start blaming the government or Dreamhack for being too safe, insinuating they're stupid or crazy or something. There's a reason experts are consulted on matters like this and not TF2 forum posters.

I mean I felt like I was clearly not talking about you. Obviously getting a ticket refunded in the form of a "credit" is something I'd be pissed about and is just disgusting airline shit. Getting disappointed in a LAN not happening because of covid is absolutely fine and has been a staple of life since 2020. Directing that disappointment at decisions that keep the collective whole safe or muh lack of freedom is something else entirely. I think you are reading selectively if you do not see any posts that satisfy those viewpoints. And another good one since I stopped reading the thread yesterday:

which is just someone getting mad at epidemiology

stupid people trying to stay safe i wana go to a tf2 lan maybe we gotta tell california every team is coming with a medic

froyotech was built out of b4nny's failure to win the prior season, so certainly there are players you can say had as much say in froyo's victories as b4nny, whether that's me, habib, shade, blaze, lansky, even duwatna...the list goes on. This is also TF2, there's no buyout or contract stopping players from playing with their desired teammates. A lot of the time, the best players from underdog teams wind up either being on froyo, or back then mixup, not because b4nny is running a charity event, but because they give him the best chance of winning. So it's a bit unfair to judge players too harshly just because they were teammates with b4nny.

I also think there's a big difference between making playoffs and either winning or losing in the LBF or GF to froyotech. The confusing part of the rankings to me has been the inflation of people who have only made playoffs (in a lot of situations this implies 4th or a weak 3rd) over people who have won at all. It's not that making playoffs isn't good, like, I don't know if I could make playoffs if I played again, but making playoffs contrasted with either beating a b4nny team or being good enough to be included on a b4nny team seems like a very lopsided comparison. I fully expected numbers 100-75 or so to be perennial playoffs finishers, and the rest of the list to be comparing players who won and their individual performances OR players who were really close to winning, but just had to play against the best team over and over again. In that reality, muma is still like #75 because we literally carried him, but rando is ranked pretty highly still as a really good player that was always contending for 1st, 2nd, or 3rd (losing to the two powerhouse teams in mixup and froyo).

disagree that shade didn't know what we were all thinking, usually i'd let him order my food for me at tournaments and on more than one occasion he bought presents for duwatna and ash that were described by them as perfect gifts

don't really know that much about raymon but i doubt he could do something like that

I think winning anything is a huge achievement and it surprises me to see people whose most notable achievement is making playoffs at a 60% or greater rate ahead of people who won once or even more than once, especially if those wins are from at least 2010 onward. I can understand some boomers who won before the eMg win in s7 not getting a lot of credit for those wins, but people who won during that golden era and this newer era like cookiejake, muma, branslam, etc are deserving of higher placements based on just winning alone.

it's all contextual and being a perennial 2nd place finisher (with some 3rds mixed in during a stacked season or two) is understandably more impressive than winning like, once. but when it's just "making playoffs" it seems a bit arbitrary whether they should be there or not. I feel like some people think it's a slight against someone for them not make the list but it's only 100 players. that's really not that many and if the 100-51 range is going to mainly be players who made playoffs or played for a long time then even one single win in ESEA, RGL, or iseries should be an automatic boost above the majority of those players.

a worldwide version would be really cool, decided by a panel of people from each region. wish we had more intl tournaments that everyone could've competed in so we could judge more carefully, but I think a "TF2 community" Top 100 and not just an individual project (not to diminish this at all, it's really cool) would be awesome for TF2 content

in all seriousness I think muma should be ranked much better than 95

2 championships and a 3rd place at i58 should definitely put him ahead of people who just played a lot of classes or something. unless you're one of the best players in the game at 3 different classes like banny I think it's pretty irrelevant if you have middling results on multiple different classes or played the game for more years/seasons, but I guess there are 90 more players whose justifications I haven't seen so I won't think too hard about it

I do feel like I'll disagree more and more though if it becomes a trend that people who haven't won or been dominant on any single class be placed higher than those with wins or notable performances because of class versatility. super overrated skill IMO, what matters is how good you were for your team on your best class. unless we're talking about banny who pretty dominant on all 3 classes. I wouldn't necessarily agree that a career 3x 5th place finisher on scout should be ranked lower than another career 3x 5th place finisher who did it on each class. I'd care way more about individual impact and their competition those seasons

pretty good 100-91, I'd only change the ordering probably

muma 100, vhalin 92, ggly 93

pretty cool, always thought this would be a cool thing to do but the amount of work put in is very daunting obviously

I will certainly be using this as content to argue that all of the top 50-top1 placings are EGREGIOUS

neither did they

before ESEA started TF2 in 2009 and eventually moved to LANs in 2010, there really wasn't a lot of motivation for people to compete and improve. the players who were the best back then were almost by default better than most of their competition because of previous experience in games like TFC. by the time ESEA picked up TF2 (ESEA season 3), reptile wasn't playing on the same team (some of those people disappeared) and he wound up losing to a mix of, by his standards, "newcomers" in TF2. a few months down the line in season 6, a team with harbleu and mesr won grand finals. and by next season, eMg won, putting Yz, banny, tyrone, mackey, ggly and shade at the #1 spot in NA. this is just to show how quickly things escalated once LAN came to ESEA and new talent funneled in, playing to improve and win. as games grow and age, not only does the base level of knowledge improve drastically, but statistically as new players continue to give the game a try, there will be more and more talent flowing in, and probability-wise, more talented than the first notable team ever in the game.

this is along the same lines as the silly arguments like "quake players are the best fps gamers on the planet," or "competition was harder back in the day." games like overwatch, valorant, [new title] attract an insane amount of talent compared to TF2 in 2007. whether or not you respect the games is irrelevant; the money, fame, and financial stability results in a deluge of talented players trying to make a name for themselves and become the best. and this is without even mentioning all of the tools people have today to improve, from studying and improvising on playstyles from the past, to grinding aim trainers all day.

long story short if you took a team from 2007, showed them nothing from today, put them on their best map with all original unlocks vs an open team with the same unlocks from 2021, the 2007 team would get rolled. sorry, it is what it is.

I can't believe any of you think a team from 2007 is going to beat a team of open players in 2021

I can't tell if this is self-deprecating or not... there is no chance 6 players from a time when almost no one played the game seriously at a competitive level is going to beat 6 players from 2021

wtf?

no one would ever write "mis-conflate," it's just awkward. the english language would read awfully if you could just type mis- in front of something every time you wanted to state the contrary. you can use any other word or phrasing to convey that you made a mistake in your thought process.

also, conflate often has a negative connotation, so "conflating" those two things would imply you're combining two things that don't usually combine, or combine poorly within that context, making the mis- completely useless. the way you're arguing your diction here leads me to believe you just heard conflate the other day and looked it up online, giving you a simple definition, but not a nuanced one. or, in other words, a mis-nuanced definition.

This forum is a trip, man.