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Brace yourself because this is going to be a long one. About two more weeks left until the end of the ESEA season. This has been one of the best TF2 seasons by far. The last few seasons, you could count on one hand how many playoff contenders there will be. But this season in open, I feel like there are 10 or more teams that has a shot at winning the open title. Sure there are favorites, but they do not seem as untouchable as the champions of the past seasons. This is going to be one hell of a playoff run. Speaking of playoffs, I have been bothering ehfk every day about it. I have been pushing the 12 team playoff system to him. 16 teams might be too many and there are more than 8 teams that deserve a shot at the open title. So 12 teams with the top 4 getting 1st round bye is the BEST choice in my opinion. I hope ehfk makes that decision soon and announces it.

A lot of familiar faces on the top 10, so I added some extra material for you guys. I interviewed a random member of each team on the power rankings. Some gave me really long and well thought out answers, others gave me 3 word answers. Either way, it adds a little extra to the write up and I hope you enjoy it.
Also, with the assumption of 12 teams being in the playoffs, I wrote my prediction for the 12 teams in the playoffs and their final records.

Click READ MORE to read the rankings

1. eMazing Gaming (10-1-1) - After that loss against Hostile Faction, something clicked in this team and they pulled off a 7 game win streak with 3 of the wins from teams in my power rankings. Much credit to virulent, who came in as medic and solidified the lineup. They have some difficult matches left, but I have a feeling they will find themselves in the 1st or 2nd seed when all the dust settles. That Sneaky Chargers match will be a good one.

djfivenine: Who is the MVP of your team so far?

eMg enoryt: I think every member of my team is equally valuable, everyone does their job and without any one of them, the team isn't the same. The great thing is everybody on our team pulls their weight. Cups for his ability to play almost any class and always be at the right place at the right time, B4nny for his ridiculous aim and his ability to leave stickies fucking EVERYWHERE, raf, jnkx and blaze for being straight up killers and virulent having one of the best survivability as medic.  His movement is really unbelievable, the guy gets away with murder, lol and while everyone’s doing EVERYTHING, I babysit the med, and make sure my stats are ridiculous so people think I’m decent.   

djfivenine: Which team is the hardest for your team to beat in open?

eMg enoryt: Right now the biggest threats I see are hF when they’re in fighting form, and AG.  They’re both really talented teams and any of the teams can beat each other on a given day.  It really comes down to who wants it more.  

djfivenine: Your favorite match in the esea season so far?

eMg enoryt: I’d have to say our match against eXpertise on freight.  They went up 1-0 and tried to burn the clock by not pushing our two for ten minutes, so we did it right back to them.  Went up 2-1 and I think we burned 25 minutes off the clock holding two.  It may have been a dick move on our part, but we felt the need to grief em back.

2. Sneaky Charger - (9-1-2) - Still one of the hardest teams to judge. Mainly because their only loss came on turbine, a map that will not see the light of day in the playoffs. Their only big statement win, against Hostile Faction, was when they were using Jaeger. Next few matches will say a lot about this team, they need some wins against VG, eMg, eXpertise or Gentlemens Club. Either way, we will definitely see this team in the playoffs.

djfivenine: Who is the MVP of your team so far?

notor: whizz, is our mvp

djfivenine: Which team is the hardest for your team to beat in open?

notor: toughest team to beat is hf

djfivenine: Your favorite match in the esea season so far?

notor: best match was vs. hf on freight

3. Apocalypse Gaming (8-2) - Sure they are on a 2 game losing streak right now. Two very hard-fought losses against eMg and Detox. Sure 4 of their last 6 games are against teams in our power rankings. Will these guys take a worse dive than the NY Mets and miss the playoffs? I think not. I have seen enough from these guys to know that they are skilled and experienced enough to shake off these two losses and get at least 3 or 4 wins out of the 6 to finish out the season and make it in.

djfivenine: Who is the MVP of your team so far?

AG | You Must Recover!!!: MVPs are otter and sephy

djfivenine: Which team is the hardest for your team to beat in open?

AG | You Must Recover!!!: Hardest team for us is surprisingly detox

djfivenine: Your favorite match in the esea season so far?

AG | You Must Recover!!!: Favorite matches are both turbine matches. Turbine kinda rules.

4. eXpertise (10-3) - Other than eMg, this team is the hottest team in ESEA Open right now. Six match winning streak with 3 of them against power ranked teams. I casted them tonight and I can tell you that they outfragged and outplayed VG, something that not a lot of team can take claim. With the 10 wins, they are pretty much in the playoffs already. But trust me, they are not aiming to JUST make the playoffs. They want that top seed, and they will need to get through Sneaky Charger and Gentlemens Club to have a shot of doing that.

djfivenine: Who is the MVP of your team so far?

ex.Ggglygy [N]: Shakr is the mvp for leaving to go to applebees right before we scrim

djfivenine: Which team is the hardest for your team to beat in open?

ex.Ggglygy [N]: The hardest teams to beat are teams with snipers whose diet consists of Wheaties

djfivenine: Your favorite match in the esea season so far?

ex.Ggglygy [N]: The matches that have been the most fun are the ones where tictac doesn't show up or arrives 2 hours late because he's tripping from taking extasy while bored home alone.

5. Hostile Faction (7-2-2) - These guys are still one of my favorite teams in open. Again, Moose is the best player you don't know about. I want to rate them higher, but they need to start playing their older matches. They should get into the playoffs no problem, but damn, that match on freight against AG looks like one hell of a match...I hope they play it soon.

djfivenine: Who is the MVP of your team so far?

hf.St.Patrick: The MVP of our team is Arizona/imtired/elfkiller (killer of elves)

djfivenine: Which team is the hardest for your team to beat in open?

hf.St.Patrick: the hardest team for us to beat in open is clearly expertise

djfivenine: Your favorite match in the esea season so far?

hf.St.Patrick: Our favorite match would have to be the sneaky charger match
hf.St.Patrick: p.s. i'm a faggot

6. Detox (10-3) - I was very impressed with Detox and their 6 game win streak, specifically that upset win against AG. I was going to put them a lot higher on the rankings...until their 5-2 loss against HF. Detox is arguably one of the best teams on badlands, which will come in handy in the higher playoff rounds. But they looked uncomfortable on yukon. They end their season on granary with eMg and Sneaky Charger, let's see if they have any more "upset specials" left for us.

djfivenine: Who is the MVP of your team so far?

pMb: I'm gonna give the MVP to our scout combo. Yes, mesr is a beastly scout but I'd like to give duck some credit as well. He's played very well all season and together they have proven to be one of the top scout pairs in open.

djfivenine: Which team is the hardest for your team to beat in open?

pMb: The hardest team for us to beat in open would probably be eMg. We havn't fared well against them in the few scrims we've played but I can't think of any teams that have given us as much trouble as them. We've never played against sneaky charger (do they even scrim? lol) so I have no idea how we would do vs them. These next two matches (emg and sc) will be good insight as to who will be the team to beat going into the playoffs.

djfivenine: Your favorite match in the esea season so far?

pMb: My favorite match so far this season would probably be the one between us and AG on badlands. AG was going into this match with a perfect record and we knew this would be a turning point for us. If we lost, we would be considered a lower top 10 open team and many people would question if we had what it takes to repeat our performance of last season. But if we won, it would catapult our team to the top 3 or 4 of our division, so this was a very important match to us and we were very happy to come away with a win.

7. Gentlemens Club (9-3) - Everyone laughs when I said Helix has a chance of winning open this season. But these guys are still technically helix and they are still in this. I am still not too confident about this team because they still haven't pulled off an impressive victory against a major contender. That match against Area 51 was good...but meh. Their next three matches are against teams 2 3 and 4 in the rankings. These three games will tell a LOT about the teams and if they actually will stand a chance in the playoffs.

djfivenine: Who is the MVP of your team so far?

vhalin: In season 4 of CEVO-open we used serveral "CEVO-P" ringers such as Ruwin and smaka resulting in much of the community criticizing for using these players. Today this is no different, smaka still carries. Although smaka doesn't always put up impressive numbers on the scoreboard, he puts out a remarkable amount of damage.

djfivenine: Which team is the hardest for your team to beat in open?

vhalin: ourselves

djfivenine: ...

8. Vicious Gaming (8-3-2) - The business folks started out the season very promisingly with 6 wins in a row. However, they are in a bit of a slump here losing 2 of their last 3 games played. Their last 3 matches of the season are against teams not in the power rankings. So they should have at least a 11 win season. However, they still have unplayed matches against Hostile Faction and Sneaky Charger. If they lose to both, then I am not sure if these guys will be able to hang around in the playoffs.

djfivenine: Who is the MVP of your team so far?

VG|BURBERRY: The MVP of the team so statistically would have to be either Gremaud or Droog. Yet in every match every single member of our team clutches in their own ways. Maybe it's Lange jumping the med, Daniel killing the demoman, or Tank getting that clutch pick.. it all works together nicely.

djfivenine: Which team is the hardest for your team to beat in open?

VG|BURBERRY: The hardest team for us to beat and our only loss on the season would have to be AG for now. They have a solid team from top to bottom and Sigma keeps it all under control very well. FREIGHT_TRAIN is one of the best if not the best player in open, the only player close to that would be mo0se who is on HF at the moment.

djfivenine: Your favorite match in the esea season so far?

VG|BURBERRY: Toss up between the 4-0 romping of Helix and "I'm reflecting" win on Turbine. Both of those matches showed that we in fact quite the smart team that actually prefers a bit of tactics and brains over pure DM. Or just gay... either/or works.
VG|BURBERRY: and uh an addendum to the first one would be dkay playing mean engie

9. Lores Merry Men (8-3) - LMM has been very consistent all season. They beat all the teams they needed to beat to get to the position that they are in right now, which is an opportunity to get a shot in the playoffs. The only reason they are not higher in my rankings is because they still haven't proved that they can beat a highly ranked team. They will get to prove that to me on badlands against AG and eMg.

djfivenine: Who is the MVP of your team so far?

DeTh`: Mvp so far for this season so far has to be lore and his mad needlez.  His needlez decide match and if that doesnt work green goes heavy.

djfivenine: Which team is the hardest for your team to beat in open?

DeTh`: Blindside since they are using the tactic of avoiding us.

djfivenine: Your favorite match in the esea season so far?

DeTh`: When we sandbagged against sneaky charger on gpit "wink" "wink"

10. Area 51 (8-5) - 51 is not out of it yet boys. With sx and sting leaving the team, most of us thought the team might have just gave up on the season. However, these guys pulled off 3 wins in a row. With 3 easy matches left, look for Area 51 to sneak into the playoffs as a middle seed.

djfivenine: Who is the MVP of your team so far?

[51] Alan.BW εїз: mvp is our whole NEW TEAM AND MOE CAUSE HES A SEXY BITCH

djfivenine: Which team is the hardest for your team to beat in open?

[51] Alan.BW εїз: Oh yeah hardest team i would honestly say detox cause there beast and im in love with pmb hes the man

djfivenine: Your favorite match in the esea season so far?

[51] Alan.BW εїз: im not a benchwarmer like some people so i dont watch shit :D

djfivenine: ....

[51] Alan.BW εїз: im a bit toasted
[51] Alan.BW εїз: llo
[51] Alan.BW εїз: why u ugys do this at 3am

Playoff predictions

1. eMazing Gaming (14-2)
2. Sneaky Charger (14-2)
3. Apocalypse Gaming (13-3)
4. eXpertise (12-4)
5. Detox (12-4)
6. Hostile Faction (12-4)
7. Vicious Gaming (11-5)
8. Lores Merry Men (11-5)
9. Area 51 (11-5)
10. Gentlemens Club (10-6)
11. Fistfight (10-6)
12. Crack Clan (10-6)

Just out of it:
Rusty Buttholes - There always will be a team that gets snubbed. Unfortunately, Rusty might be that team. They have lost 3 in a row and still have 4 more matches against ranked teams. They will need to win 3 of their last 5 matches to make it in the playoffs, but looking at the other teams trying to sneak into those 11th and 12th spots, Rusty has the hardest schedule by far. I wish them the best of luck. Those 3 losses in a row were so surprising that I thought they were going to make the power rankings YESTERDAY and I interviewed cometojesus about the team. Here is the interview anyways:

ComeToJesus ©: There is no clear cut MVP on Rusty Buttholes. Everyone has the potential to pull off amazing things when they are on, and at the same time everyone is capable of stinking up the place enough to make one wonder how they tell the difference between the mouse and the keyboard.   

2. The hardest team for us to beat is the team with the best teamwork. We can tangle with the best of them 1on1, but at higher levels, it usually doesn't work out that way, and we crumble due to lack of coordination.  

3. Favorite match of the season so far would have been against Team Haiti on freight, had it not been for the technical difficulties in the second half; was kind of a buzz kill. I'd probably still go with that one, as the other matches we've played have been largely uninteresting.