Permzilla,

I'm willing to be an admin for the new NA division if you are hurting to find candidates. I think I have the qualifications that you are looking for in post #162.

The spectacle of LAN has driven a lot of new blood into Open over the last few seasons. I think that you NEED a LAN for that reason alone. It's literally our Super Bowl from an exposure/marketing standpoint. I think that the migration would have happened already if CEVO were to say "we're running a league funded LAN event".

How the LAN participants are FUNDED needs to be addressed, but I think the that idea of a LAN championship is quite an honorable one.

I don't think that a new plan is a smart idea. I think that a good idea would be to elevate an existing league and pressure them to give us the features that we want. I wonder if CEVO is willing to create/sponsor an invitation-only LAN.

ESEA is the best option right now, but CEVO and/or ETF2L could easily become a better league once key changes are made.

There are a lot of things that ESEA gives us right now that we take for granted. CEVO has serious promise, but they have to add live stat-tracking, a LAN, a decent prize structure, and a few other small things in order to tip the scales in their favor.

The amount of human capital, time, and resources required to build an entire league is absolutely staggering - and it would involve likely thousands of dollars and plenty of manpower (at least 10 people).

Our best bet is to let non-TF2 people build the league and give them a minor cut (a little $) in order to make it all work. ESEA did this for us, but upper management at the league have compromised their position.

He's trialed for me before. Believe it or not, he's only about one season from being low IM.

He needs to improve his positional awareness in order to take the next step. I think he'd pick that up by spending one season on a high open team.

My recommendation to this guy is that he should sharpen his DM over the next month or so, and apply for a playoff Open team in the coming offseason. He has a very good attitude which will endear him to a lot of team captains out there.

OK, so people are just throwing shit on the wall at this point and hoping that something sticks. Thanks for the quick update, xep.

Has insom or anyone else even confirmed the event that triggered the VAC ban? What if it wasn't caused by anything that happened in TF2?

If he was fucking with cheats in a public server of some other game, then the VAC ban only shows a lack of judgement. I'm not going to burn the kid at the stake until I know the truth of what happened.

Why do people put private conversations on pastebin?

IM didn't live up to expectations this season.

Out of 16 teams, we have:

- 2 dead teams
- a VAC ban situation (not going to judge until the full story comes out)
- 2 teams that are still alive, but came thisclose to dying and making things really awful
- a few teams scrambling for players or making sudden midseason shifts
- a playoff race where 9 teams will battle for 8 spots - the top half of IM is likely battling for seeding at this point

I'm 100% certain it will get better next season, though.

He's not for everyone, but he's a pretty explosive roamer provided he fits the system that you're trying to run. Unfortunately, I don't think there are any IM teams in the market for a roaming soldier right now. He might have to wait until this offseason for a new IM team.

Good luck, though.

Rental!

Do you remember kobra kai dojo?

LinkAy is a sweetheart, and the team as a whole are a bunch of decent people. Good luck in your search. Crux is a pretty good demoman.

See you on Sunday.

We've found our scout for this season. Thanks to all who have trialed.

A few updates:

1. Shout out to Loronix and Abramelin for playing last night's match. I should be able to run the new roster for all subsequent matches this season.

2. I will only need one more scout at this point, but I already have a number of people interested for that position. I received more tryouts than I could initially handle, but I should have everything wrapped up in a few days.

3. The only remaining piece of business at this point will be the acquisition of an all-class backup to fill in during scrims. He/she needs to be able to play late nights (after our starting scout is in bed).

4. I was a little awestruck by the amount of support we received through this thread. Thank you.

These guys are quality scrim partners. Best of luck in your search.

Hello everyone.

After five matches, we've had a few people that needed to go to attend to real life endeavors. We went 0-5 in that time frame - but we were competitive in all of those losses. I have made the decision to rescue the team instead of letting it die and ruining IM for everyone else (I also want to make use of league fees). With one dead team already it would completely destroy what is already a tight division if we lost another. I've always been bitching about this when other teams die - so I want to put my money where my mouth now that I'm in the first person.

Here is the team page: http://play.esea.net/teams/61594

My objective for this team is to take a bunch of "borderline" players (like myself - I have a few things I need to personally address this season within my game) and build a team that will be able to finish in the top half of IM next season. I'd also like to set up a serious schedule that includes demo reviews, match watching, and maybe some 2v2 work.

The current situation is (and I will update this as I know more):

Medic: radium
Demo: cali
Soldiers: kace, X
Scouts: corsa, cloudmaker

Backups: A few people that played in the first five matches

I've ran a team before that lasted ~2-3 seasons, so I'm not a rookie in the team-building regard. I'm just new to IM (rookie season).

Feel free to add me, and thanks for your time.