Well I'm new around these parts and my alias is short bus. I'm proud to be a new writer for CommFT. I will be covering UGC 6v6 and I will keep you guys posted throughout each season with the latest news and information. For all of you that do not follow the league, UGC 6v6 Season 8 playoffs started this week and there are a few good teams in the running for the championship. The teams in Platinum this season are:

Whiskey Militia
Super Happy Fun Time[x]
Pow Pow
The Last Bosses[x]
Take it Easy
Yancy Dick Sucking Club
The Typedefs[x]
Honey Badgers[x]

The first match of playoffs was already played on cp_granary (at least we got it out of the way) and those teams with x's by their names in the list above have been eliminated already. I am very excited because this season we have some really good players in playoffs. In particular, the YDSC roster is stacked with some ESEA-IM players: TECHNOSEX, SteveC, and m0nster. Likewise, Whiskey Militia has Mausy who is a IM player as well. His team has already won their match against Super Happy Fun Time. Although every team currently in playoffs has strengths, I predict that it will most likely come down to these two teams in the championship match. Both teams have a few good IM players on their rosters and they have a strong W/L up until now. However, it should be noted that Whiskey Militia has already lost to YDSC once before so hopefully they have learned from their mistakes and will be prepare for a re-match.

Although Whiskey Militia and YDSC both have strong rosters, the other teams in playoffs should not be ignored. The remaining teams worked hard to get where they are and might be more motivated than Whiskey Militia and YDSC given that the players of these teams will be occupied with ESEA-IM from this week onward. After all, most ESEA players that play UGC only play to keep busy during the offseason. The other two teams, Pow Pow and Take it Easy, have their fair share of talent and experience. From playing against them, I know that the Scout combo on Pow Pow is very strong and certainly a force to be reckoned with. The next two weeks will be very interesting and I will post more articles as the matches progress. Every team remaining has a chance to win and I know that they will be giving it all that they can.

Please leave a comment saying who you think will be playing each other in the final match and who that you think will win. Stay on the lookout for more UGC coverage from me in the next two weeks - I have some great stuff planned and I will be keeping you guys up to date through the championship. Thanks guys!

I hope you enjoyed your month-long hiatus because ESEA is starting back up and we may be seeing some turbulence during Season 11.  Even in formation, each division has already seen its fair share of changes as Team Fortress 2 continues to attract new competitors and last season's favorites move up.  We'll see some newcomers in open and last season's top teams playing in the big leagues.

Click the jump for the schedule!

As the preseason favorite for winning ESEA-Invite Season 11, Mihaly's Flow (in case you're wondering, it's pronounced MEE-highs) has already sent shockwaves through the upper echelons of the North American competitive TF2 world. Enigma of ESEANews and Invite Scouting fame has said, in an otherwise scathing season preview, that they are "easily crushing their competition" in preseason scrims. Their competition comes primarily in the form of Classic Mixup and Quantic Legacy although srsly br0, featuring yz50, and S10 fourth place finishers HRG are also strong contenders for the title spot.

Yet, even before Mihaly's Flow played any scrims, the formation of their roster changed the balance of power amongst the top teams with harbleu coming over from reigning champions Classic Mixup and ww- joining from The Experiment. On this team, harbleu will be playing in the pocket Soldier position instead of Medic and ww- will accompany him as the roaming Soldier. PYYYOUR will be returning to Invite as Medic on FLOW after a brief jaunt into the Intermediate division last season (his team in IM, LASER BEAMS, finished in the 2nd place spot in IM). The roster is rounded out by soup on Demoman, Ruwin on Scout, and Shrugger on Scout. Although both soup and Ruwin have Invite experience, Shrugger has not played above the level of IM and he is seeking to prove himself this season with a good result during the regular season and at the LAN.

Regular CommFT readers will remember that CommFT sponsored The Experiment for their Season 9 run to the ESEA LAN. The community donated enough money to fly the whole team to Dallas and to pay for their hotel rooms. The team responded with mentoring sessions for donors and increased personal interaction with community members. All in all, our sponsorship of The Experiment seemed to be a total success and the team put on quite the show in their LAN matches. Given this success, the promise of the roster of Mihaly's Flow, and our friendship with PYYYOUR, we have decided to sponsor Mihaly's Flow for this coming season of Invite. We have already paid for their league fees and we are going to be running a donation drive to get them to the LAN just like in Season 9. Community members who want to donate can donate via PayPal with the button on the upper right side of the homepage. We'll be posting more details about the donation drive in the coming weeks.

Although much is expected of Mihaly's Flow, there has been little coverage of their preseason activities. Aside from enigma's season preview, insight on the team is lacking. Since we are sponsoring them, we might as well kick off the coverage. Press Read More for an interview with harbleu...

Hey everyone, welcome back from the break!  ESEA is back in full swing starting this week and eXtv has a full schedule.  As always, along with a selection of the most promising upcoming matches, we’ll be listening to the entertaining and informative commentary of eXtelevision’s staff and expert guest casters!

Click the jump for the schedule!

Registration ended at midnight, so I hope you got your team got paid up in time!  Season 11 of ESEA promises a lot of action with over 70 teams registered with fees paid in three divisions and another 25 trying to secure spots for a total of nearly 100 teams listed on the standings today.  We’re looking at some significant division revamping this season.  Good luck, have fun everyone!

Click the jump for details!

eXtv will be casting your weekly highlander action on Monday, and on Saturday we get to see the Finals of the international Reddit Round Robin.  Be sure to check in frequently for updates because they’ll be filling their schedule throughout the week, but until then you can find the details after the jump!

Click the jump for the schedule!

ESEA has released a list of the teams who will be competing in the Invite division next season.  Seven of the eight teams have been decided, while the final team is up to the community to decide.  Check out the list and find out where to vote after the jump!

At this point in the UGC Highlander season, the top teams are starting to distance themselves from the rest of the pack. For the next 2 weeks, the teams at the top of Steel Red are going to be jousting for playoff seeding, while the others will be fighting for a chance to simply make the playoffs. But who are the top teams? Read more to find out!

I'm excited to announce that our new coder, Lapp, has finished the first version of CommFT's recruitment tool. Designed for both players to find teams and teams to find players, the tool can be found at the "Recruitment" button in the top navigation bar of the homepage. It was inspired by the recruitment page at the ETF2L site and we hope that it will streamline the recruitment process for competitive TF2 players in North America. Currently, it is very barebones and functionality-oriented, but we hope to add features and aesthetic upgrades in the coming months.

Be sure to check it out and leave a comment on this post with problems or suggestions!

From Steel to Swiftwater to Turbine in the crazy, mixed map-pool of UGC but one thing it does do is give teams a fighting chance against the best. The top 10 hasn't really shifted about much all season but as we near the playoffs it is crunch time for those who practise regulary enough to want to win the league whilst those who like to turn up for a laugh are putting on their game faces, getting angry at the screen and mashing their keyboard and amazing themselves at how close they came to an upset. Still, the fight for positions and seeding is hotting up. Shoutout to the Couch Athletics, after winning eXtravision's first ever 'Community of the week' award they didn't play because their would-be opponents BRB-U due to them apparently folding - so poor CA will be behind a game this stage of the season. Anyhow onto the rankings: