After taking one week off we're back to doing Match of the Week coverage on CEVO! This week's map is koth_viaduct, a popular map as of late, still in the honeymoon phase where everyone thinks its the greatest map since Badlands. Much like Gravelpit, Viaduct allows for lots of varied play styles, team compositions and strategies that you don't normally see in your standard push map. There should be some exciting matches in store -- assuming CEVO-P matches are played in a timely manner and the M and A teams have been practicing their koth. No interview this week, instead I've a special opinion piece regarding an overturned match in CEVO last week. But lets move on to the first depressing matter of business...

CEVO-P MotW: Maybe Someone Will Play vs. Another Team

Stop me if you've heard this one before: Community asks for both a Professional and Main division to compliment the Amateur division, gets exactly what they wanted, then completely fails to support the league in question. With only five teams left in the professional division, having only one or two of them drop is a huge blow for the league. Hopefully it won't come to that, but recent inactivity has led some to believe it might.

Not much else to say about CEVO-P right now. Hopefully the league will pick up and the teams will get their matches played. After all, there is still a huge incentive for these teams to play: the money. Seriously, just check out the prizes for CEVO-P: First place gets six cases worth a total of $1139.99, plus the biggest share in a $3,500 cash prize pot. Compare that to ESEA's first place prize of $2,000 (total prize pot is for top 4 places and valued at $4,250), and it looks like the CEVO-P prizes for each individual are equal to or possibly better than ESEA's, depending on how CEVO splits the prize pot and whether or not you factor in the $190 cases thrown in (second and third place receive non-cash prizes as well, on top of their share of the prize pot). So the question is, why are so many teams dropping CEVO?

EDIT: I have just received confirmation that all five teams are still participating in CEVO-P. CEVO is being flexible and allowing them to play their matches at their convenience. Which is a good news for everyone!


CEVO-M MotW: No Talent vs. The Spacebots

This looks like the best match in CEVO-M this week. No Talent is a well-established Mid team, and The Spacebots are an up-and-coming team looking to make a name for themselves, having made it to the TWL Division 3 finals last season and starting off their CEVO-M debut with three straight victories. No Talent notably added Sever to their roster recently, and after taking a loss to Smile Theory last week on Gpit, they are probably ready to win big on Viaduct. Should be a close, fun match if anyone is interested. But lets no dally any longer on this shall we...

CEVO-A MotW: Top Swaggin' vs orz

A pretty clear-cut pick this week in CEVO-A. First off you've got Top Swaggin', who I'm pretty sure is actually called Undisputed now, a team with some sort of giant hybrid-roster with like 50 people on it, half of which I'm pretty sure don't even play for this team. Anyway the guys that DO play for this team are pretty good, and this week they'll be duking it out with orz, another top contender in CEVO-A. orz is a solid group of guys and gals who have been playing together for a while now. Last week, their match got overturned on a ruling dispute which leads me into this week's rant...

Match Rant of the Week: Sticky Buffs

Ok, so last week's match was on Gravelpit, one of the few maps where the Engineer class sees regular play. orz defeated Team Ace in a 2-0 non-thriller, a pretty open and shut case for the orz crew. However, Team Ace later filled a dispute regarding orz's use of sticky buffs, and the match was overturned, giving Ace the victory, and a tainted loss for orz.

Now, for those who don't know, "Sticky Buff" refers to a glitch in the game where an injured player can stand next to a dispenser, and if a medic heals them to full overheal while they are on the dispenser, the buff does not decay, and "sticks" to them even when they are not being healed. This has been a well-known glitch in the game for a long time, but really doesn't get much talk about it seeing as it's explicitly banned from ESEA, and is only commonly applicable on attack and defend maps such as Gpit.

Personally, I think this whole dispute is pretty ridiculous. The sticky buff is a mostly harmless bug that only gives you a meager advantage, but orz ended up losing a match to this stupid thing so it got me a little fired up. Fortunately there's more than enough blame to go around so lets get started.

orz - First and foremost you have to blame the perpetrators, orz. Seriously, what were you guys thinking? I mean having someone come to get a sticky buff every now and again is one thing. Having your Engineer jump off a cliff to hurt himself so he gets the sticky buff... Ok, that's just asking for a dispute right there. And building a dispenser in spawn during the setup timer so everyone rolls out with buffs that don't decay? Yes, it's been done before, on the highest level of play even. But you should have had more sense than to test the CEVO rules by doing this.

But the ultimate herp-derp on orz's part was posting about the sticky buffs on their blog after the match was over. From what I'm told, Ace didn't even know about the sticky buffs until they read the blog post. I mean come on guys, when your posting on your blog about extensively using an exploit in a match... you can't really act surprised about the outcome.

CEVO - Next up on the blame train is the league itself, on what I consider a very bad ruling. CEVO follows the trend of all major TF2 leagues in that it has notoriously bad rule lists that are murky and unclear at best, bizarre and hypocritical at worst. Check out Rule 24.10 Game Map Exploits for example, where it says, "It is illegal to use a map glitch/exploit for one's advantage when it was not in the original intent of the game or mapmaker," then later in that same paragraph goes on to say, "It is LEGAL to shoot through floors and walls where it is possible." The rules are just written so terribly written, they seem to contradict themselves at every turn, and are impossible to comprehend in places.

Unfortunately for orz, one rule is pretty clear: 24.20 Other Game Exploits. This clause reads clear and to the point: "It is illegal to intentionally utilize any game exploits." Well ok, that's not too difficult to comprehend. Looks like the ruling was the correct one after all, right?

No, my problem is with the rule itself. First of all, making all game exploits illegal doesn't really "tell" me anything. How do you define an exploit? Obviously things like clipping underneath the map and glitching through walls shouldn't be allowed, but banning all exploits? That's just ridiculous. Competitive gaming THRIVES off of exploits -- there are games that have been made possible at a competitive level BECAUSE of the exploits found within them! In almost any game, in any genre, at the highest level of play, exploits are used. This is just such a horrible, blanket rule it makes my eyes want to bleed out of their sockets.

Furthermore, lets just take a look at sticky buffs and how they impact the game. Basically your max health doesn't go down when a medic isn't around. That's it. If your health drops below 100%, you lose the sticky buff. Otherwise, it stays at 150%. Both teams have access to the engineer class, therefore both teams have equal access to sticky buffs. It *does* give you a competitive advantage, but it's a small advantage, and it's one that is available to both teams.

Also, if sticky buffs are banned, what constitutes as intentionally using the buff? For example, if a soldier comes over to get ammo and the medic starts healing him, he will get the sticky buff. So are medics not allowed to heal hurt players on dispensers? How do you ever REALLY know where there is intent? I mean obviously in orz's case there was clear intent, but that won't always be the case. Sometimes through normal, unintentional gameplay someone will get the sticky buff. But how do you know if that player didn't intentionally take damage from distance spam, just so they could get the non-decaying overbuff? You can't ever really enforce this rule properly, which is what makes it such a bad ruling.

The ban on sticky buffs is NOT warranted, it does NOT give you an unfair advantage against your opponent, and it is NOT discrete enough to be enforced. It's a horrible ruling on a harmless exploit and all leagues should get rid of it. So shame on CEVO (and ESEA) for having such a terrible rule. The least they could have done was have the two teams replay the match -- that seems more reasonable than forcing a loss just because the team was doing something that can normally be done at almost the same efficiency just by clicking quickly (i.e. it's already easy for the medic to keep everyone fully buffed).

Valve - Yep, I'm even blaming Valve for this one. This glitch has been in the game what, like over a year now? I really don't even know how long. It's been in the game for a least a couple seasons, if that tells you anything. This is yet another bug, like countless others, that persists for seasons upon seasons, update after update, and it never gets fixed. If Valve would just go in and remove it, we wouldn't even have these stupid controversies to begin with. However harmless it may be, the leagues all seem set on keeping it banned so Valve might as well get rid of it once and for all.

Team Ace - Last but not least, I have to blame Ace for this really, really, spectacularly butthurt move on their part. If I said these guys got completely destroyed in their match, that really wouldn't do it enough justice. I'll go ahead and try it anyway though: These guys got completely destroyed in their match. They got hammered, they got embarrassed, they got a good old fashioned beatdown.

But then they read orz blog, filled a dispute, and won the match despite failing every single push in the entire game.

Come on now, are you guys serious? Are you really that lame? Filling a dispute because of sticky buffs is right up there with the likes of .reportffw and JARS OF PISS BEING THROWN IN A FINAL. There is a special place in TF2 hell reserved for teams that refuse to reschedule and people that file disputes for this kind of crap. Sure, CEVO rulled in their favor, so they are in the "right" here. But that doesn't mean they're not pricks for filling the dispute in the first place. I know you guys probably felt burned after reading they used OMG EXPLOITZ in the match, but trying to turn your tough loss into a tainted victory... not cool, man.

As much as I could rip into them again and again (and believe me, I could) the greater thing to take away from this is just how bad the state of the community really is at times. Some teams will do ANYTHING for a win. It doesn't matter if they got rolled out of existence in the match -- if you can find something they did that breaks the rules, you can have your W. But did you really earn it? Did those sticky buffs really make the difference? (Looking at you too here, CEVO -- ever heard of an "effected the play" clause?) No really, ask yourself -- did they really make the difference?

So to recap, orz did something facepalm worthy, CEVO's horrible rule and even worse ruling cost them a match, Valve is lazy and Team Ace has official won my "Lamest Dudes in TF2 So Far This Season" award for excellence in tom foolery. I'm disappointed in all of you.

Agree or disagree with me about sticky buffs? Think I half-assed the Match of the Week coverage and have your own picks for this week? Be sure to share your thoughts in the comments!