CommunityFortress

One week left of this ESEA season. First I really have to commend this community. 29 teams are still active in the league and only 9 died throughout the season. I would have guessed over 10 teams in the beginning of the season. This proves that teams will be much more hesitant to just disband when they all paid for the league. One issue I would like to talk about is playing your forfeited, tied and unplayed matches. You paid for at least 16 matches in ESEA, so why not fully play those 16 matches? I don't understand teams trying to dodge matches to get the forfeit win or loss...are you really that desperate to have a better record in esea open? In the end, most people won't give a crap if you have a 9-7 or 8-8 record. Play your damn matches, its tf2, its suppose to be fun, you're suppose to want to play as many tf2 matches as possible. So if you have any matches that you still can play, PLAY THEM!

Alright, let's talk about playoffs. 11 out of the 12 teams are pretty much set, and they are all dangerous teams from eMg at number 1 to the revamped reamped gaming at number 11. The 12th seed is harder to figure out, but I'll talk about it later. But this is IMPORTANT guys...the esea admins still have not made their decision on the number of teams in the playoffs, 8, 12 or 16. If any of them are on your friends list, please let them know that we all want 12 teams! 16 drags it out for too long, and there are more than 8 teams that deserve a shot at the title. The teams with 10 and 11 wins deserve to be in the playoffs!

I increased the rankings to 11 because these are the 11 teams that I am about 75% sure we will see in the playoffs (other 15% if esea decides on a 8 team playoff, 5% if teams break up, 5% if teams lose to someone they're not supposed to lose to). This is probably the last power rankings I do for the season before my super playoff preview...so enjoy...for the last time. ever.

Click read more for the rankings.

1. eMazing Gaming (12-1-1) Last Week: 1st - If you want to watch the match of the year so far, you have to check out AG vs eMg on gravelpit. YMR and b4nny were both doing great on demo. enoryt and otter were having a fun little soldier vs soldier battle. AG was missing their top scouts Freight Train and Jammar, which could have caused the loss, but hey, a WIN is a WIN. Round 1 goes to eMg. Except for that loss on turbine against Hostile Faction, eMg's record is looking solid and they are definitely the favorites to take the title down this season.

2. Apocalypse Gaming (12-2) LW: 3rd - Except for those 2 losses in the middle of the season, AG has taken on the best in ESEA Open and took them all down. CRUSHING Hostile Faction and Gentlemen's Club easily gives AG the second spot on the rankings. These guys are going to be really hard to take down! (Unless Romeo Love is playing scout)

3. eXpertise (12-3) LW: 4th - Aside from eMg, these guys are the hottest team in open right now. Rockin a 8 game winning streak and looking forward to a showdown against Gentlemen's Club to finish out the season. Expertise did the same exact thing last season, slow start, and then pulls off a huge win streak to finish the season. Different roster, same result. Whoever leading this team is making the right choices.

4. Hostile Faction (9-3) LW: 5th - HF hasn't had a good run as of late, losing 3 of their last 6 matches. However, taking out Detox with ease on Yukon proves that HF is still a dangerous team. And they can most likely claim that they are the only team to beat eMg in the regular season this season. With drone starting at medic now, I feel a little bit more comfortable about their medic situation. It's simple, if Boogz, St Patty, Cringe, Arizona and Moose are all on top of their game (like they SHOULD for the playoffs), there is no one in open that can take this team out.

5. Gentlemen's Club (11-4) LW: 7th - Wild week for these guys. They destroyed Sneaky Charger 5-0...and then couldn't stop You Must Recover, lost to AG 5-2 and stopped their 6 game winning streak. Oh, they also had me on the roster for 12 hours. Wild. They go into this week with one match left, a showdown against eXpertise. I predict this might be one of the best matches of the season. Winner of the match most likely gets in the 3rd or 4th seed with a 1st round bye in the playoffs.

6. Sneaky Charger (9-3-2) LW: 2nd - Dropping two matches in a row isn't a big deal. But getting rolled two matches in a row is a big deal. eXpertise and Gentlemen's Club made these guy look like they didn't even belong in my power rankings. Sure they can give me excuses...but if you had 6 guy on the team in the server, there really shouldn't be any excuses that matter. These guys will make the playoffs, but the impact they will make in the playoffs is very questionable. I will tell a lot by the match vs Detox on granary this week. Look for SC to make a statement one way or another. 6-0 as Watch this baby. 3-3 as Sneaky Charger. HMMMMMMM

7. Detox (11-3) LW: 6th - That 7 wins out of 8 matches streak is impressive, but that loss against Hostile Faction shows that Detox still belongs on the bottom half of the power rankings. Sure they took out AG, but they are still 1-3 against teams that will be in the playoffs. They have two matches on granary against eMg and Sneaky Charger where I'm sure they will be trying to prove me wrong.

8. Vicious Gaming (9-3-1) LW: 8th - Bounced back very nicely from that loss against eXpertise with a win against the Koalas. Great work by Denial and tMarshall for containing yz50, who is slowly being recognized as one of the best DM scouts in open. Honestly I should rate VG a little bit higher...their only two losses were against teams ranked 2 and 3 in my rankings and they are 3-2 against playoff teams. But it is a "what have you shown me lately" mentality, and they just haven't pulled off any impressive wins lately. And again, this shows you how competitive this field of teams are this season, even the 8th place team on my rankings have a GOOD chance of taking home the title. Also, I'm sure the team doesn't mind being called the 'underdogs'.

VG also made one of the most IMPORTANT acquisitions this season by picking up sheep from the disbanded fistfight team. Sheep will be playing an important role in backing up droog...who is online 24/7 and will never miss a scrim or match, and also annoying the crap out of the rest of the teammates because his name is stephan and he is 13. Look for VG to drop a few matches because of this pick up.

9. Lores Merry Men (10-3) LW: 9th - Nothing too impressive last week, but they will need to show some fight against eMg and AG, the #1 and 2 teams on the rankings, on granary this week. They lost f1re, who was arguably their best scout in the first half of the season, to real life issues. They picked up some scrub scout named djfivenine to replace him, I doubt he will be able to do anything relevant. But seriously, the core group of this team, kayaws, ghost, green and lore have been together for so long that they don't even need too much communication to get work done, they pretty much can read each other's minds. So no matter who the scouts are, look for LMM to make each match a close one.

10. Area 51 (9-5) LW: 10th - They're baaaack. After the break up of their original roster, Area 51 pulled off 4 straight wins and are on the brink of clinching for the playoffs. BIG standoff against reamped gaming (fabrilous) this week on granary. It is obvious that this team isn't the same team who were considered top contenders at the beginning of the season. However, kayp, moero and breather are dangerous players and can give any team trouble.

11. reamped gaming (10-5) LW: NR - First I was upset about these guys sneaking into the playoffs. None of their 10 wins were against teams even CLOSE to making the playoffs. However, reamped with their revamped lineup look like a playoff caliber team for sure. And now with the new addition of noun on their roster, I want to see these guys in the playoffs to see what they can do against a top team like Detox or Sneaky Charger.

The 12th seed is a little big more complicated. 3 teams currently have the best chance of getting this last spot. Epidemic currently have the inside track to this spot. Beat TEAMBAD, which is very do-able, and they have 10 wins and look PRETTY safe in the 12th spot. However, Mainline and Yaug's Team also has a shot at 10 wins, and they would both take the 12th seed from epidemic based on tiebreaker points. However, Yaug's team has to get through Hostile Faction and Mainline has to get through Lore's Merry Men. Both tasks are a lot more difficult than epidemic's task. If all 3 teams fail, then about 8 other teams get into the picture as we start looking at potential 9 win teams with the best tiebreaker. Confusing...so why don't epidemic just win and help us out.