Crazy intense fun to watch action in tonights matches. I wasn't able to catch much of the first two matches, but in both the higher seed prevailed. This sent Blight.Own and eMg into the Lower bracket to battle for survival.

The first map, Granary, resulted in a 5-3 win for Blight.OWN and eMg facing a potential elimination in the second map Gravel Pit. Things turned around for eMg however as they were able to take both sets of the stopwatch match. I strolled home from work to catch the last map Yukon which turned into quite the slugfest. A tense first half ended with eMg up 2-1, but at the start of the second Blight turned it on. First they made it 2-2, then rounds were traded again to make it 3-3. Blight.OWN took it to 4 to get the first shot at match point before eMg leveled with only a few minutes left in the half through a sweet YZ50 backcap. Blight barnstormed mid on the start of the next round however, leading to an easy take of the 2nd point and a sudden attack on the last point. Platinum, with good heals from BlackyMonster, came up big with the clock ticking down, scoring a triple kill from a top the shack. Blight took the round and eliminated eMg from the tournament. It was a spirited match with the Yukon map most definitely going to be turned into an eXtv.

Another TF2 classic followed the Blight.OWN and eMg match with the Upper Bracket Final between Blight.Fanom and Complexity. Before I get into the results, if you have time to watch the Videos on Demand from TGBF.tv, check the action out. The replay starts with the 2nd map with m0lk and eXtine on the mic. Read more for a recap of the entire match.

http://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=4076&p=1

A little late, but the Team Fortress team announced their picks from the first ever PolyCount Pack Contest! A ton of great entries, so hopefully the repeated "first ever" bodes well for the potentials of another contest! In typical Blog post action, there was some laughs to be had:

These five lucky individuals will soon receive the unbridled adoration of the TF2 community when we release their packs in an update. Unluckily for them, we're also going to attach gameplay attributes (probably of a game destroying nature) to these items, sullying their perfect work with our clumsy attempts at game design.

Check out the winners on the Polycount Website and speculate in the comments about the potential gameplay attributes we might see from some of these items. With only 5 winners, and no class overlaps, the Medic, Engineer, Heavy, and Demoman were left out. Valve also hinted at the possibility at picking some runner ups, so hopefully after these 5 get implemented Valve will pick out 4 entries from the classes not included.