CommunityFortress

ESEA Open is alive and kickin. Loved playing and watching viaduct matches. They are always exciting and really targets teamwork more than individual play...mainly because the map is so small, you never get those 1 v 1 matchups you see in 5 pt cp maps.

Now let's move on to gravelpit, one of my favorite maps to play as an utility player....not so much as medic. But honestly, I feel like the map is dictated by the sollies. Roof control on B, tower control on C...just can't be done well by any class but the soldier. A map that is fun to watch when it is two evenly matched teams. But it is the WORST map for an uneven matchup. Instead of a quick roll, you get to watch a team failpush B 10 times in a span of 15 minutes. Yaaaawn.

Anyways, here are my rankings. I narrowed it down to 10 because I'm lazy. Will add "honorable mentions" later in the season. The rankings will still be unstable until we hit granary. After 8 games and the comfort of 5 pt CP maps arrive, I expect the rankings to stay relatively the same. Enjoy.

ETA: A lot of people are wondering why I have so many 0-2 and 1-1 teams in the rankings while there are other 2-0 teams out there deserving of the rankings. Maybe they do, but 2 matches on viaduct is not going to make me drastically change any rankings. Teams that I have confidence in will have to lose more than once for me to give up on them and throw them out of the rankings.

1. Hostile Faction - LW: 2 (2-0)

Cruisin USA through the first map. Two solid mid teams to play against on gravelpit, but it shouldn't be a problem for these guys. From what I remembered, the old Vhalin/Harbleu team was damn good at gravelpit. As long as the team stays together and the chemistry builds up, I am still picking these guys as one of the championship teams at the end of the season.

2. Vicious Gaming - LW: 4 (2-0)

Had a hard fought match against Fix It Freddy, but mainly because they were missing Slardel and Moose. From what I've seen from these guys, they are going to stick to the old strategy of pocketing the demo...and sheep is a good damage outputter and kritz user. Word is that Slardel's vid card is out, so let's hope he gets that fixed soon. But shouldn't worry about next week as they play 2 teams that are not in my power rankings...AND they have 10 active players on their roster. Also, gotta spread some love since I hated last week...I thought ehfk was a horrible horrible medic that was going be the demise of this team and competitive tf2 in general. He is not.

3. Blight - coolstory - LW: 7 (2-0)

Blackfoger was trying to convince me why these guys are undoubtedly the #1 team in open. I was swayed enough to move these guys to #3, but I will need to see some more quality wins before I put them at #1. The expertise team they played was a mess with roster issues. Coolstory had an interesting time with their roster this week. They first recruited pokey, who could have single handedly propel this team to the #1 or #2 spot. However, Davis left the team to join nXs in invite, and pokey left 4 days later to join diehard/dynamic. Rough. But this team is still a contender. They picked up a good soldier in ekos, who is going to try his hand at demo. They are also going to run a Soldier By Committee style with warped, blackstar and blackfoger. I'm going to assume warped plays against the good teams, foger plays against the shitty teams.

4. Team Dynamic/Die Hard -LW: 3 (1-1)

If you put together a team with John McClain, Jimmy Tulipski, Koreben Dallas, Hartigan, David Dunn and that dude Bruce Willis played on Friends when he was banging Jennifer Aniston...you get this Die Hard team....what I'm trying to say is their roster looks badass. The issue is, they all play like they're the lead in a movie, there is no teamwork, DMing only. Sure they outfragged harmonic, but they played viaduct last night with absolutely no strategy and paid for it with a 2-4 loss. Now I hope this is a wakeup call for Team Dynamic. I hope they realize that they can't just come in here like Royce Gracie at UFC 1 and just own dumb nubs who don't know what they're doing. If they don't scrim and take this seriously, they'll just keep falling on the standings.

5. Lightning Bolt - LW: 1 (0-2)

In lightning bolt tradition, they start off the season with a 5v6 and then a forfeit. Now I'm just waiting for the match when Jaeger comes in as "Jason". Looks like they solidified their roster a little by picking up smash while blaze goes backup, and they still have an invite level soldier/medic combo in Sureshot and DaveMD. With a 0-2 start, look for these guys to get a favorable schedule for the next 3-4 weeks, so don't be surprised to see them at 6-2 after Granary week.

6. Have Fun - LW: 6 (2-0)

Not having too much fun when you get forfeit wins in the first two matches. When you pay $26 to play tf2, the last thing you'd want is forfeits. They'll have better luck on gravelpit because I know Harmonic is still alive and kicking. Big question is how rusty these guys are after not playing a match for a week.

7. Cause of Death - LW: 10 (2-0)

Added a good scout in moero, but I hear he only played the first match and will go to backup. Their overall gameplay was very impressive on viaduct against mobility gaming. That win pulled them away from that middle pack as they shoot for a spot in the top 5. They could do that if they take down both expertise and unrestricted on gravelpit.

8. eXpertise - LW: 5 (1-1)

Definitely not a good way to start off the season. Losing to a strong coolstory team, and then giving up 1 point to a team they should have easily rolled through. Now, you see Kermit and forcestealer, two of their big offseason acqusitions, leaving their roster. I hear they are trying to do some more recruiting to solidify that roster, they have 7 on the roster, but I believe two guys are backup. Tri is a good pickup at scout, but I'm not sure how he'll do against the top teams. They can still recover from this bad start, but they need to make sure they have 6 starters first.

9. Harmonic - LW: 15 (2-0)

Gotta give credit where credit is due. Harmonic played a great match against an invite pug team in Dynamic. Kankle did a great job staying alive from the solo bomb-jobs and flame/breather did a great job spying and flanking against a DM happy, strategy-less crew. Let's see if they can keep that momentum up against Have Fun on gravelpit.

10. Focus Gaming - LW: 8 (1-1)

Looks like they solved their demo issue by picking up marmell, an open experienced demo. That was AFTER they lost to PCGU, some steam issues with Lore and Green and one of their starting scouts in yodogs jumped to another roster. These guys are still a playoff team, they still have a solid soldier and medic core, and mesr is still amazing. Should climb to 3-1 without any issues...but will they be able to take down any of the top contenders? Will Killing be able to manage this team, esea and be a starting scout at the same time? We'll see!