CommunityFortress

If you include the playoffs, we are around the half way point of the season. So let's take a look back and check out what happened during the first half.

The Sky is blue award for "stating the obvious":
Last season, we saw eMg and AG pull away from the rest of the league, but the second tier of open gave the best and closest competitions. Tight matches between VG, Focus, expertise, hostile faction, vires and detox made that league and playoff so great.

This season, you have NO ONE behind Vicious Gaming and Hostile Faction. It is a two horse race. That's all you can talk about, comparing who is the better team. And that's a tough one too, it's like asking who is the hotter jailbait, Miley Cyrus or that chick from Gossip Girl. And don't fool yourself by thinking that HF win on granary solved this puzzle. Granary can easily contain daniel and slardel. I would love to set them loose against HF on badlands or yukon. And don't fool yourself by saying VG now has the upper hand with Harbleu leaving for invite, tehoreoz is more underrated than the movie Silent Rage staring Chuck Norris. Also, there are talks of Droog coming back to retake his starting positions from sheep, just throwing some more sriracha in this VG pho.

The Sawyer/Kurt Cobain Award for "Closest match":
Harmonic vs eXpertise on granary. Both teams put up one hell of a battle and the match came down to a sudden death round. DaishiKiller showed Kankles and the league why he is considered one of the best medics in open by staying alive and giving expertise a shot at winning every single round. However, flame and boulder both stepped up and outfragged their opponents to keep harmonic just slightly above expertise. It came down to a few expertise mental mistakes to give harmonic the win. Overall, it was a great match to watch.

The Sixth Sense award for "Biggest Surprise (player)":
dchow. Seriously, where the hell did dchow come from? Took a few seasons to realize that scout was his best class and there is no reason to try demo or medic. He has outplayed some pretty good scouts during the matches until he hit a wall with daniel and slardel. But hey, who in open can actually take on that pair anyways?

The Empire Strikes Back award for "Biggest Surprise (team)":
unrestricted is the easy pick here. They have gone from a 8-8 team to a true playoff contender. But you also have to give some credit to Harmonic. Seanbud was the only one on their starting lineup that was in the playoffs last season. The rest of the guys either were on below .500 esea teams, or took the season off. It is very nice to see them bounce back and get some big wins against Dynamic and expertise.

The "There is a higher chance of a doctor killing you than a gun" award for Craziest stats:
aaronlol's 1 death match against focus was impressive. no0 on The Legion has 8 bottle frags, 4 more than anyone else, also impressive. But Paintrain, not dying once against Divided by fros as a scout was just crazy talk. 14 frags, 12 assists, 9 caps, 0 deaths. Crazy talk.

The Public Enemies award for "Biggest disappointment":
God that movie was horrible. We knew there were going to be dead teams, but we didn't know there were going to be so many decent teams dead. Dynamic had an amazing looking lineup but died due to the lack of interest (I assume), coolstory is practically dead if they don't get pokey and blackstar back on the starting lineup, Moose, tictac, unf and their crew had a great team before dying, phresh's second team also dying.

The Roberto Benigini award for "Biggest Upset":
The Legion over Focus Gaming on granary. I mean yiiikes. Talk about telling the community that you're not that good without Kayaws in a really straight way.

The next 300+ reply gotfrag war topic award for "biggest upcoming controversy":
Has to be a tie between the debate to get crit-a-cola and the new engie weapons in esea this season AND the 16 team playoff that the admins are still planning for open. 16 team playoff? really? We're going to let some 8-8 team with 4 ffws into the playoffs?

The Cowpimp award for "Great players on teams that you've never heard of":
b on princeton plainsboro and greyfox on united gamers are two talented scouts who lead their team in frags and awesomeness.

The Katy Perry's implants award for "Best new addition to the team":
Best mid-season move HAS to be thenoid joining Purple Cobras. Those guys have been hurtin for a solid medic since the beginning of the season and they found one of the best in thenoid. This also gives st.patty the chance to get off medic into a fragging class.

The I'm out of ideas award for "Biggest surprise of the second half (player)":
tehoreoz, probably will be given the shot to solly after Harbleu decided to go invite. Going to be interesting to see if he can fill Harbleu's shoes and help HF to the open championship.

The jinn is probably going to lecture me on the lack of professionalism of my articles award for "Biggest surprise of the second half (team)":
Lightning Bolt. My #1 preseason ranked team have stayed rather quite due to roster issues. But now the roster is finalized and they are looking to make a big push into the playoffs. They still have not played against any of the top 3 teams on the rankings, HF, AI or VG, but they have the talent to hang with any of those teams. All 3 matches will be fun to watch.

The djfivenine award for best looking TF2 players ever behind djfivenine:
1. Adam "WO DOPKO" Dopko
2. Tech "Ronny from Jersey Shore" Nasty
3. Ryan "nOem" Staub