I rang medic for these guys the other day. They're absolute sweethearts and didn't seem like the type to throw you under the bus for one mistake. Tooth is one of the nicest people that I've met in this game - and was quite personable when I met him at LAN.

Best of luck guys, and I sincerely hope you find a medic that cares as much about his craft as you all do. I think this is a DREAM opening for a knowledgeable high open medic that wants to take the next step to IM and isn't afraid of the heat.

Good luck in your search. That team is going to be too much for most of open to handle. Some aspiring young medic is going to have a ticket to IM next season as a result.

Only 16 will make the playoffs from a field of 69. That means that 11-5 + High RF will likely be needed to make the field. It's going to get brutal - and make for a very interesting conclusion to the season.

Good luck, although I think you should have taken the angle of "looking for an Open team, try me out and comment on how I'm doing". Let the teams trialing you dictate how far up the "open ladder" you are (if such a thing even exists, lol).

@serv0: I've seen people with little experience as a medic become high open medics in a short period of time. Maybe you know him better than I do, but perhaps we shouldn't toss him under the bus unless he does something to deserve it.

Radium's Sixteen as of 5/7/2013:

http://play.esea.net/teams/75245 - kraka, noko, Sharpless, warped... ...this is Open?
http://play.esea.net/teams/73223 - excellent cohesion from this unit so far
http://play.esea.net/teams/75360 - LOL
http://play.esea.net/teams/74866 - smells like an 11-5 team from where I'm sitting
http://play.esea.net/teams/69789 - they've had a LONG off-season to hammer out kinks
http://play.esea.net/teams/69486 - solid, but not scary team that will be around 10th
http://play.esea.net/teams/73891 - they'll ease into the playoffs, but they're not perfect
http://play.esea.net/teams/74724 - brae is solid and will grow into a machine this season
http://play.esea.net/teams/73290 - underrated team with more talent than you think
http://play.esea.net/teams/64919 - passes the eyeball test in terms of talent
http://play.esea.net/teams/61741 - JaguarFiend has silently become efficient as a demo
http://play.esea.net/teams/70134 - they'll scrape together wins against bad teams
http://play.esea.net/teams/74406 - wrech and ictus are going to be too much for 80% of the league
http://play.esea.net/teams/74801 - they won't fucking miss this time, they're in season 2 now so expect a "step up" in improvement
http://play.esea.net/teams/72846 - Owl wants this about as bad as anyone
http://play.esea.net/teams/33057 - tons of veteran talent, but they could play smarter this season than they did last season

That should be sixteen. I'll adjust and elaborate on this list for next week's writeup.

I can't wait till the moment that some unsuspecting open newbies get to face lineups featuring kraka, Loronix, thrill, and tehoreoz in their first six matchups...

The good news is that Open scheduling adjusts after a bad/good start.

For the 2nd time in 3 seasons, we will have a tiebreaker game in order to determine who makes the playoffs. There are about 10-12 open teams right now that are nearly identical in skill.

There will be about a 70-75% team survival rate this season.

I'm not that big of a Tool guy, but I do like Lateralus as an album.

As for me, I've been hooked on this song lately: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA26uXxh5O0

Hello, everyone.

After writing some pre-playoff material for the S13 playoffs (a piece that would not have been possible without some help of a colleague of mine - London_Calling), I made the conscious decision that I was going to continue writing next season on a weekly basis. I believe that it would be pretty cool if newcomers to Open could play in a league and actually read material about teams they know and face regularly. I was considering doing a piece that takes some inspiration from the work of Bill Simmons in his site entitled "Grantland" (see: http://www.grantland.com/).

I want to avoid turning this into a weekly power ranking as we already have a writer in place for this. (I don't like "traditional" power rankings anyways)

Some ideas that I've thought about for early weeks include:
- Pick six: I'll take the most compelling six matches of the week and provide a little early hype.
- An interview with the Portland Burnsiders: I'll be addressing the ideas of being "locally sponsored" and how you balance the pressures of sponsorship with learning the game in Open.
- S14 obituaries: I'll do a narrative write-up to tell the tale of high-profile Open teams that ultimately fail to reach expectations (or ones that die mid-season).
- Rookie Watch: I'll highlight players that are newer to the scene that put up decent numbers now that they're in the limelight (of sorts). At mid-season and at the end of the season I will do an All-Rookie lineup consisting of the better new guys in Open.

If anyone has any ideas for additional material, please let me know. I want to have a clear direction for my weekly writeup (or at least a concise set of ideas) before I present it to rk for "review".

Thanks, radium

I once covered up a sexual relationship from when I was younger (around 13) and then proceeded to blatantly lie about it to my family. It's the only big lie I've ever told to my parents (with whom I have a positive and loving relationship with).

ESEA-Open is not the same animal it used to be about 4-5 seasons ago. You'll do fine, and your team should have a decent chance at picking up 5-8 wins if you're a dedicated "low open" team.

This is a recording involving one of the whistleblowers and an ESEA coder.

http://www.twitch.tv/ggty886/b/397871712

I felt that the attitude in the talk was a bit too light-hearted. "We calculated how much money we could have made if we did this to everyone... ...it was like hundreds of thousands of dollars".

I hope this doesn't kill off high-level TF2. As much as ESEA gives us at the higher levels (and that sort of gives the community a focal point to build from), I think that we as a community are a bit more than just ESEA.

Think about everything that people in this community have done to help things move forward: TF.TV, Tip of the Hats, numerous PUG groups of friends, long-term team captaincies (there are a few like Shwan that have really meant something during their time with us), articles and their writers, Newbie Mixes, mentorships, Fully Charged, casts...

Feel free to call me out as delusional, but I think that there is something more to this community than just ESEA. If we were to lose ESEA, I think that people would get crafty and arrange for something else to act as a proper replacement.

I hope ESEA cleans their act up after this - but I'm not going to consider the death of ESEA to mean the death of TF2.

Is he looking for an open team or a low IM one?

http://teamfortress.tv/forum/thread/7586-looking-for-a-medic-team-name-tbd

I'd be willing to medic behind you if you fit our team. PM me if you're interested as I'm going to lock up the roster in the next two days.

PSU failed today, will be putting a fresh one in tomorrow. Should be able to continue normal activities then.