Here we are again with the second round of open playoffs. Grats to the 8 teams that won last week and secured their spot in im. Another guest appearance by london.

indust we trust (#1) vs gettin cozy (#8)

http://i.imgur.com/N1aFmPP.png

Indust we trust should continue to breeze through their playoff matches this round with a matchup against getting cozy. Gettin cozy just barely scraped by last round with a 5-4 win against BIG BOYS. I'm yet to decide whether this was a sign of gettin cozy being worse than I anticipated or if BIG BOYS has rekindled their fighting spirit, either way it shouldn't really matter. KillemAll pulled out all stops last week, doing more damage than anyone on his team sans the demo and putting 54 frags on the board, but I don't see mumbo and darkstar letting him have his way with them. Indust takes this 4-1.

Players to watch: kL, darkstar, KillemAll

Playground Tactics (#4) vs slippin with slipz v2 (#12)

http://i.imgur.com/QXmsdP8.png

Both of these teams have a fairly large amount of experience, and I'm going to say this match will probably come down to differences in dm ability. Slippin with slipz does have the upper hand in the soldier department, but playground tactics are head and shoulders above in terms of their scouts and demo. On viaduct I'm going to stick my neck out and say the latter will be more important. Insom and sonn should dominate the flank and leave room for typhus to freely bomb slipz. The fact that defiance is off classing is probably going to show a lot more in this matchup, where I think he's going to get pressured out of a lot of fights. Playground Tactics will win this 4-2.

Players to watch: Rikachu, insom, bsc

The Crunchy Bunch (#3) vs Zaboomacrew (#11)

http://i.imgur.com/X50hljg.png

The Crunchy Bunch are one of my favorites in open this season in terms of playstyle. They have some of the best dm in open, and they play with the balls to show for it. That being said, I think they should dominate Zaboomacrew in this match. While Zaboomacrew may also tend towards an aggressive playstyle, I think that the dm is sloped completely in the Crunchy Bunch's favor which should be the decisive factor, especially on viaduct. One thing that the Crunchy Bunch is really good about is making sure that their scouts always have buffs. I'm expecting Zaboomacrew to get shut out pretty badly with a flank that gets mowed over and lots of early bombs from Rekuso that will force them into unfavorable ubers. Crunchy Bunch wins 4-1.

Players to watch: Avast, Rex, Bosh

Tonights Entertainment (#7) vs New Faith Church Gaming (#15)

http://i.imgur.com/dhxrWjE.png

This match has the potential to be either really close or really one sided. If mausy plays out of his mind and dflame and stratovarius both have on days then they may be able to take this just because this is viaduct week, but I'm doubtful of that happening. One strength of New Faith Church Gaming is that they don't really have a carry, the team is incredibly well rounded. Sure, Clorg can be doing 400 DDM, but it isn't the end of the world for NFCG if he goes down. Tonights Entertainment's scouts and demo should be about on par with NFCG but their weaker soldiers and much weaker team synergy aren't going to be enough to topple New Faith who are coming off of a dominant 5-0 roll over the #2 seed. New Faith Church Gaming gets the win 4-1.

Players to watch: mausy, clorg, kev
P.S. shoutout to cabin for using the shotgun on roamer

windows 8 is windows 7 with extra features and some small performance improvements. The metro UI isn't actually bad, people are just big dumb babies who don't like new things.

hey hugh laurie I tried to add you on steam to ask but you denied me, are you guys running the same lineup in round 2 as you did in round 1

http://teamfortress.tv/forum/thread/3744-gaming-music
http://teamfortress.tv/forum/thread/1484-music

ffg irl

http://i.imgur.com/e3gTVWL.jpg

I was lazy and just pulled the lineup from whatever version of london & radium's thing I had, my b.

shoving the biggest cars in the game into the swingsets is always fun, like the flatbed truck and firetrucks. You have to smash the sides in just to fit them into the playground though.

another thing noted for next round, thanks

I was under the impression it was stoper aliasing and people were just saying it was mausy, guess I'll keep note of that next week

trans-autistic railroad (#5) vs slippin with slipz v2 (#12)

http://i.imgur.com/PaBSsUI.png

Courtesy of london calling

How poetic that these teams meet in the first round of playoffs after meeting in week one on cp_process. That match was an hour long ordeal where neither team scored a round in the first half, and then slippin with slipz figured something out and brought it to a 5-1 finish. The only change to the regular rosters for these teams will be morphiend (aka June) playing pocket for trans-autistic. I expect this match to be long and painful with a lot of pushes across the map from last to last, and the first twenty minutes will be the first round, as is characteristic on cp_snakewater for evenly matched teams. The mids will come down to how much conductor and defiance do to eachother, and then by which soldiers can bait their team harder. The flank for trans-autistic has gotten pretty strong, and while I think the DM side of the scouts for slippin with slipz is even with kohaku and abramelin, it remains to be seen how well dana and reemix will play together to make those plays happen. It's going to be close, but I'm going to be giving this first round victory to trans-autistic railroad 5-3 with a long, grueling first half followed by a quick and exciting second half.

Zaboomacrew (#11) vs Toon Gang (#6)

http://i.imgur.com/Km4ee4u.png

Following some forfeit win shenanigans and the unexpected turnout of their match against Playground Tactics, Toon Gang have found themselves sitting pretty at 6th seed. Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to end up doing them any favors. I'm expecting avast's damage output and shlaner's aggression to shut down Toon Gang's combo, but the scout matchups are the more interesting aspect of this match. If PowerMangoes can go nuts Toon Gang may very well take this, but I don't expect Okas to let that happen. I think Zaboomacrew should take this 5-2.

Players to watch: Avast, Okas, Powermangoes

Tonights Entertainment (#7) vs Very Good Bad Boys (#10)

http://i.imgur.com/iHLMBxU.png

With help from perhaps the easiest schedule known to man, VGBB have found their way into playoffs. However, I really don't expect this match to be close, as VGBB have lost every time they've been up against another playoff open team. Tonights Entertainment's scouts will probably run a train on these boys regardless of how very good or bad they are--it's on VGBB's shoulders to show that they deserve to be here. Here's hoping they surprise me. Predicting Tonight's Entertainment to win 5-1.

Players to watch: dflame, stoper

BIG BOYS (#9) vs gettin cozy (#8)

http://i.imgur.com/oQq8HZe.png

I don't really know what to think about this match. gettin cozy has recently cut their pocket SneakyPolarBear to resurrect crazytom of the long forgotten team "the terribles"; whether this switch was for better or worse remains to be seen, since they didn't really get much of a chance to strut their stuff after getting worked in both of their granary matches. Up against them is BIG BOYS, who seem to be on a decline as of late, or at least not playing up to their former standard. I'm going to give this to gettin cozy 5-2.

Players to watch: Bio, Noko, Hooli

I was waiting for brackets to come out to write these since something seems to go wrong with them every season, guess I waited for nothing though. I'll try to write these throughout playoffs given that I have enough time to do so. Guest appearance by london calling.

indust we trust (#1) vs Rent-a-Homies (#16)

http://i.imgur.com/UXL0ZwJ.png

Given how strong indust we trust has consistently shown to be throughout the season, I really can't see them dropping more than maybe a round in this match. Nomadic will need to have much more of a presence in team fights if Rent-a-Homies wants to take this; while having a strong pocket in serv0 helps, it won't be enough to topple indust. I'm predicting 5-1 to indust.

Players to watch: kL, mumbo, serv0

New Faith Church Gaming (#15) vs Hanky Panky (#2)

http://i.imgur.com/Z940Upw.png

I think this match will actually be a lot closer than most people think it will be. I'm not sure if hanky panky is going to be running dashner on roamer for this match, but I'll assume that they will be. NFCG has really stepped up their game from the first half of this season and I think that they'll most likely end up winning a lot of the fights in the flank; supplemented by the high damage numbers clorg has been putting out all season, I think this'll end up clinching a win for them. I'm actually going to go with the lower seed to win this one, NFCG takes it 5-3.

Players to watch: clorg, kev, fanofangels

The Crunchy Bunch (#3) vs Randy and Chums (#14)

http://i.imgur.com/lqtya8j.png

I'm actually not too familiar with how randy and chums plays. Blackymonster, kraka, Fearless, and spammy have all been playing this game for ages though, so judging from their experience I can't imagine them making too many big mistakes. The Crunchy Bunch has randy and chums almost completely outclassed in the DM category though, and that will probably end up being the deciding factor of this match. Unless kraka can go nuts I don't think randy and chums will take this, but they should be able to snag a round here and there. I'm predicting Crunchy Bunch to win 5-3.

Players to watch: rex, kraka

The Peppercock Family (#13) vs Playground Tactics (#4)

http://i.imgur.com/owvSVBV.png

This should be an interesting matchup, or at least the class matchups will be. The outcome of this will probably end up coming down to the performance of a certain man whose name starts with "z" and ends with "alfy". If insom & son can't keep zalfy--the former Invite superstar--in check, you can expect him to wreak all kinds of havoc on Playground Tactics' combo. Playground's scouts certainly aren't pushovers either; I think they should be able to manage to hold their own and open up space for Rikachu to shove the Peppercocks out. I'm expecting zalfy to have some bonkers moments and win his team some rounds, but Playground Tactics should probably win this. Giving it to Playground Tactics 5-3.

Players to watch: zalfy, rikachu, insom

etf2l is probably a better place to ask this question, but I've heard good things about multiplay. Hiperz is another european option, but they don't offer servers in the UK

brackets are out now

open - http://play.esea.net/index.php?s=league&d=bracket&id=5041

im - http://play.esea.net/index.php?s=league&d=bracket&id=5040

certain servers are only going to be filled at certain times of the day. You can't really expect anybody to be playing in American dm servers until after 4pm or so, the ips to all of those are in the sidebar. If you want to play dm at odd hours you're pretty much gonna have to play on foreign servers.

If you want to play earlier you can try playing on european servers (given that you don't mind the ping difference), I don't believe europe has as many dm servers as we do but here's an ip to one 94.23.68.246:27065

Alternatively if you want to play either really late at night or really early in the morning you could play on australian servers (unless you play scout this isn't exactly doable though) 203.33.121.209:27036

games begin today for cs:go, brackets are gonna have to come out some time today I imagine