Muscle Milk and Moolians, the hottest Frag Video to hit North America TF2 since Reptile: The Movie. Unable to afford to go to ESEA-Invite LAN to put up another amazing performance against current heavy-hitters, compLexity.TF2. One of the most insane demos in the game, soldiers who both are good in their respective ways, two of the most underrated scouts in TF2, and a solid medic to round it out. Not the kind of reputation of an 0-5 team clinging for life at the bottom of ESEA-Invite, is it?
Why is the hottest team from last season basically about to be put back into ESEA-open? Fastfire and Stamjally.
Your pocket soldier is your flow. He is the meat and potatoes to the casserole. He is the Peyton to the colts. Unless you have a pocket soldier who is constantly around and always evolving his game you are going to drift away with the current. This claim is not unfounded, there are many rumblings in the community about 51 and their need for a more "active" soldier; especially versus teams like eMg, AG, and NeXus who are all planning to make a statement this season.
Stamjally. I doubt any of you have ever watched a pov demo of the man. I doubt it. Maybe one of you. Probably the one person who will agree with me. Stamjally was a beast last season. His movement makes everyone and their mother miss, and when he include his above average aim, you have a killer. Too many people make the mistake of seeing scouts as just clean-up players and items to "scout" areas out. Stamjally played like Enigma. Making soldiers miss left and right allowing for Ducky and Cbear to lay down the damage. Stam has now been replaced by DL. A pugstar. Sure he can spy really well..... in pugs. But he is nowhere near as effective as Stamjally.
I love how there are 40 teams in the league, only three of them technically dead, but somehow 20% of all matches so far have been forfeits. Maybe it is time for the admins to be a little more active in the scheduling making. If you are aware that 2 teams are going to play dead teams, maybe reschedule the two teams to face each other and the two forfeit teams against each other? Like I say every week, each team is paying over $100 to play in ESEA, admins need to ensure that teams actually play TF2 and not go through the first 2 weeks with 2 ffws.
The league took a nice break during the middle of last week due to stupid updates, but I commend most of the teams for rescheduling and getting the matches done on Sunday instead of dragging it out. This week, esea teams are introduced to a new map made by Icarus called coldfront. The first of three new maps that are in the league map rotations for the first time (rip follower and freight, eat a bag of dicks turbine). As a medic, I hated the first few drafts of the map where the mid was so open that getting spotted and hunted down was not a matter of if, but when. Obstacles were added in the middle to help prevent that, but I feel like diving for the medic is still the most efficient strategy for mid on this map. Other than that and the respawn time being a little too long, I really like this map, I feel like it could definitely find its way in future league rotations.
Let's get into the rankings. Not much change from last week, and I don't expect too much change until we get to granary, when the teams on the rankings will finally start playing against each other. So yea, didn't write too much, but enjoy!
UPDATE: If you are crashing right when the splash page loads, it appears that P-Rec is causing the problem. Deleting the P-Rec files in tf/addons fixes the problem. I'm sure this will be solved soon on P-Rec or Valve's side, Robin knows about it now.
UPDATE ON THE UPDATE UPDATE: Some things were left off of the initial update news, including a new version of cp_freight, and a new item: Crit-a-cola "While under the effects, damage done and damage taken will be mini-crits." Lvl 5 Lunchbox item, dunno for which class.
Looks like the dispenser exploit used recently in Cevo, aka the "Sticky Buff", has been fixed. More impactful are major changes to the Pyro and Heavy Weapons Dood. Link. Read More for highlights.
Grimm is looking for suggestions for wiki changes/additions in a thread on our forums. He has some spare time on his hands and is looking to update our competitive TF2 wiki. Be sure to offer some suggestions if you have any ideas.
You can always update the wiki yourself after logging in. Your site/forums account is also your wiki account - it's the same credentials.
After taking one week off we're back to doing Match of the Week coverage on CEVO! This week's map is koth_viaduct, a popular map as of late, still in the honeymoon phase where everyone thinks its the greatest map since Badlands. Much like Gravelpit, Viaduct allows for lots of varied play styles, team compositions and strategies that you don't normally see in your standard push map. There should be some exciting matches in store -- assuming CEVO-P matches are played in a timely manner and the M and A teams have been practicing their koth. No interview this week, instead I've a special opinion piece regarding an overturned match in CEVO last week. But lets move on to the first depressing matter of business...
CEVO-P MotW: Maybe Someone Will Play vs. Another Team
Stop me if you've heard this one before: Community asks for both a Professional and Main division to compliment the Amateur division, gets exactly what they wanted, then completely fails to support the league in question. With only five teams left in the professional division, having only one or two of them drop is a huge blow for the league. Hopefully it won't come to that, but recent inactivity has led some to believe it might.
Not much else to say about CEVO-P right now. Hopefully the league will pick up and the teams will get their matches played. After all, there is still a huge incentive for these teams to play: the money. Seriously, just check out the prizes for CEVO-P: First place gets six cases worth a total of $1139.99, plus the biggest share in a $3,500 cash prize pot. Compare that to ESEA's first place prize of $2,000 (total prize pot is for top 4 places and valued at $4,250), and it looks like the CEVO-P prizes for each individual are equal to or possibly better than ESEA's, depending on how CEVO splits the prize pot and whether or not you factor in the $190 cases thrown in (second and third place receive non-cash prizes as well, on top of their share of the prize pot). So the question is, why are so many teams dropping CEVO?
EDIT: I have just received confirmation that all five teams are still participating in CEVO-P. CEVO is being flexible and allowing them to play their matches at their convenience. Which is a good news for everyone!
ESEA Open is alive and kickin. Loved playing and watching viaduct matches. They are always exciting and really targets teamwork more than individual play...mainly because the map is so small, you never get those 1 v 1 matchups you see in 5 pt cp maps.
Now let's move on to gravelpit, one of my favorite maps to play as an utility player....not so much as medic. But honestly, I feel like the map is dictated by the sollies. Roof control on B, tower control on C...just can't be done well by any class but the soldier. A map that is fun to watch when it is two evenly matched teams. But it is the WORST map for an uneven matchup. Instead of a quick roll, you get to watch a team failpush B 10 times in a span of 15 minutes. Yaaaawn.
Anyways, here are my rankings. I narrowed it down to 10 because I'm lazy. Will add "honorable mentions" later in the season. The rankings will still be unstable until we hit granary. After 8 games and the comfort of 5 pt CP maps arrive, I expect the rankings to stay relatively the same. Enjoy.
ETA: A lot of people are wondering why I have so many 0-2 and 1-1 teams in the rankings while there are other 2-0 teams out there deserving of the rankings. Maybe they do, but 2 matches on viaduct is not going to make me drastically change any rankings. Teams that I have confidence in will have to lose more than once for me to give up on them and throw them out of the rankings.
forsaken : graham my series and whatnot is still being typed and prepared, just financial aid for college business has taken my time from under my feet
bcarr : Crap! I'll message you in the morning, Graham.
Graham : If you're a writer on CommFT and you see this, PM me on Steam.
