CommunityFortress

Welcome back from winter break everyone. I hope yours was as relaxing as mine. Here are my rankings for this week. There aren't many changes because most of the teams only played one match since the last rankings. But tMarshall is bored, so I decided to write this for him. Rankings 1-6 are still incredibly close, I would not be surprised if everything is completely different after turbine and freight, where the top teams face each other.

Click read more to read the rankings

1. Hostile Faction - LW: 1 (3-0) - During the last few weeks, Hostile Faction made more changes than a Lady Gaga concert. Their roster looks different, but I feel like it has improved dramatically. Aaronlol has replaced Gundy at medic. I like Gundy, but he does not have the medic experience that aaronlol has at the mid/high competitive level (the 4 glubers in 2 matches didn't help his cause as well). St Patrick has replaced ricco at scout, which I feel like is a good move. This gives Arizona the scout/sniper role while St Patty stays as the main DMing scout. While ricco is a lights out sniper, he has been criticized for not being able to keep up with the top scouts in open. This opens up a solly spot to Oh Noes, one of the top Free Agents out there. Now with a completely solid starting lineup, one of the most solid backup cores in open (with the pickup of drone), and no glaring holes, I highly expect to see HF in the championship match this season. And if they can get through turbine and freight week unblemished against the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 6th ranked teams in my rankings, I am positive these guys will be in the championship match.

2. eMazing Gaming - LW: 3rd (3-0) - Blame these guys for me not getting my rankings out sooner. I really wanted to see eMg against Helix before making my rankings, but it is too late and tMarshall wouldn't get off my butt about getting these rankings out. When you have 4 players on the top 10 list for frags/minute in the league, you either have been playing some joke teams, or your team is full of playmakers. I say its a little bit of both. eMg had a hard time stabilizing their starting medic spot. Luciious left the team and their pursuit of drone was unsuccessful. Right when I was going to mention that it looks like they are going to settle in with move as their medic, Virulent pops up on their roster. I tried to ask tyrone about it, but he was too busy idling. Oh, I'm also supposed to mention b4nny a bunch of times because everyone has a hard-on for him. After 3 easy opponents to start off the season, eMg has 5 tough matches ahead of them. From what I hear, eMg has a very interesting strategy that relies a lot on b4nny wrecking havoc. I am very interested to see their matches against AI, Watch This and Hostile Faction, teams that also have dominant demomen. 

3. Vicious Gaming - LW: 2nd (3-0) - A solid group of guys who are still probably getting their team chemistry together. I know scrims mean zip, but from what I hear, they have been getting the short end of the stick almost every time against HF and eMg, which isn't a good sign if their goal is to win open this season. Big test against Hostile Faction in turbine this week, as well as a "SHOULD" win against Righteous Chaps. If they go 0-2 during turbine week, look for them to fall to the bottom half of my rankings. Again, I'll just keep repeating the name Gremaud until the competitive community starts to notice him. The dude is a damn good soldier that teams need to start being aware of. O, a fun stat to pull out is Denial being in the top 10 for deaths/minute, thinkin about Taylor Swift too much?

4. Watch This Baby - LW: 5th (4-0) - Very impressive win over Apoplexy Industries this week. Sherr played out of his mind at the demo spot, outplaying l1tany and containing kaytee and coach, two scouts who played very aggressively during the match. You really gotta love how this team's overall play, they have grew tremendously since the Zilla Gaming days but stuck with the same strategy. Everyone does their job and in the end, that is what makes a team successful. Nice showdown against AG in turbine this week. Look for both teams to rely on their demos to do work and try to pull out the win.

5. Area 51 Gaming - LW: 4th (3-0) - Looks like Area 51 has picked up Mo0se, an old school legend, as their backup. How long will this last? I pugged and scrimmed with Mo0se a few times and he still has plenty of gas left in his tank. I am not sure who's decision it was to keep him at backup. But give him a few weeks to get back into the game, and mo0se might be the best scout on their team, if not the best player. Area 51 still has a lot to prove to me before I rank them any higher. Their win against Detox was impressive, but they should not be giving up any points to aggravated assault or bukkake. Their 4 matches on turbine and freight will determine where they belong on the rankings. I predict a 2-2 showing for them, which will probably land them around the same spot they are in right now.

6. Apocalypse Gaming - LW: 6 (4-0) - Two good wins and a perfect start for AG. As YMR and Jammar anchors the team and their soldiers go on a mission to prove me wrong (last writeup I called their combo not as good as the other top 10 teams), I expect this team to keep rolling. I also have to give Sigma, their medic some love for being in top 3 in the league for points as well as ubercharges. So even if their soldiers do well, I can just say it's sigma making them look good, right? Two huge matches in turbine this week against Watch This and Area 51. If they take both of the teams down, expect them to be in the top 3 next week.

7. Apoplexy Industries - LW: 7th (3-1) - First off, I need to apologize to kaytee. We had a short chat, and I discovered that it is not very nice when you nickname women kitchen appliances. Moving on. Lost their first big match of the season to Watch This Baby. They recovered nicely by defeating team shift (a great team on paper, but just a tough tough schedule). From what I hear, linkdx has been the star of the team, doing some good work at the solly spot. Aside from team shift, AI has had one of the toughest schedules to start off the season, and their nightmare schedule will not end as 3 of their next 4 opponents are top ranked teams.

8. Detox - LW: 8th (2-1) - Only match they played on follower was against a 1-4 blunt force trauma team (who picked up daniel, and MIGHT be making a push back to the middle of the pack), so I can't really make any judgments on Detox just yet. And honestly, they should be able to run through their next 3 opponents no problem as well. But even if they win those 3 matches, I probably won't put them higher on the list because they still have not proven that they can take down a top 10 team. I rung for these guys last night and they are all very nice dudes, remained calm and collect even though they had some baddie like me playing with them, so I can't really talk any smack about them. But something to look at is that their medic gdub is one of the leaders in ubercharge drops so far.

9. Helix - LW: 9th (2-1) - Your favorite team in ESEA Open is still rockin in the rankings. I can't move them anywhere because they have not played eMg on follower yet. They have made some changes on their roster as Deth becomes their 3rd starting medic in 3 weeks and whaz comes in as their new scout/sniper. After that showdown with eMg, Helix will get to avoid all teams on the rankings for 2 weeks. I wouldn't say the schedule is in any way "easy". But it is certainly easier than AI's or Chaps' next 2 weeks.

10. Righteous Chaps - LW: 10th - (4-0) - A rather easy week 2 for the chaps. Their only actual game was against one of the lower teams in the league. I was worried for a little bit because they gave up 3 rounds to Ammo Can, but after seeing the demo, I saw that they were messing around most of the time during the match. Still, I would like to see these guys play one of the contenders in open before I can make any serious judgment on them. Their next 4 matches (vs VG, WTB, AG and 51) are going to prove real quick if these guys are contenders or pretenders. If they take even ONE of those teams down, I'll probably keep them around the rankings, if not, then it is time to give one of the "honorable mention" teams a spot on these rankings.

Honorable Mentions

eXpertise - LW: NR (3-1) - Bounced back very nicely from that loss to Apocalypse Gaming. But both of their wins were against lower skilled teams and I frankly just don't have room on the top 10 for them at the moment. Shoutout and a big middle finger to ggglygy for leading the league in FaN frags.

Lores Merry Men - LW: NR (2-1) - This team has been getting a lot of buzz lately. I have always thought terribles were better, but with the recent addition of f1re, who has been doing tremendous work for LMM, I'm going to give them this honorable mention spot instead of Volt's Merry Men.