Fog — Hey everyone, sorry about the lack of a Week 8 Power Ranking, but I had no time to write the article due to various personal reasons. Hopefully this roundup makes up for the lack of power rankings

After a very exciting final week of the season, the LAN spots have been decided! After the week 7 matches finished up, the final LAN spot was still very much up for grabs. The teams played on the classic favourite cp_granary for Week 8.

Granary is a standard 5CP map that along with Gravel Pit, are the only maps used from the launch of TF2. The map itself is known for it’s generally flat terrain, and it’s easy rollouts to the middle point. There have been some changes made to the map from the game’s launch in 2007, with the biggest recent change being with the addition of the second entrance to/from garage. Granary is also known to be a slow paced map with clear choke points and limited possibilities for flanks. Teams will have to rely on their heavy classes to put out lots of damage and also have to rely on their teamwork skills to be successful on Granary. Now it’s time to go over what went down in the 8th and final week of the regular season before LAN.

Coming into Week 8, three of the four LAN spots were claimed by Quantic Legacy (13-1) , Classic Mixup (13-1) , and The Experiment (8-6), leaving the forth and final spot up for grabs. The fight for the final LAN spot was very fierce up to the very final week of the season, with High Rollers Gaming (6-8), Area 51 Gaming (7-7), and Mighty Ducks (6-8) all still very much able to claim the final spot. From a glance at the team records and the matchups for week 8, Area 51 looked to have the best chance to claim the final LAN spot, and make their second LAN appearance in a row. However, High Rollers Gaming surprised everyone with their upset win over The Experiment (more on this match later). With that win over Experiment, this was how the LAN situation was looking for all three teams.

High Rollers Gaming:

For HRG, the best case scenario for them is Area 51 losing both of their matches (Especially their match against HRG), as well as Mighty Ducks losing their match against Quantic. If Area 51 lose to HRG but win against Mixup and/or Ducks win against Quantic, HRG will get the final LAN spot based on Rounds For. In all other situations, HRG will not make it to LAN.

Area 51 Gaming:

Area 51′s best case scenario is winning both of their games this week. The next best scenario is Area 51 beating HRG and the Ducks lose against Quantic. If Area 51 only beat HRG, and Mighty Ducks win against Quantic, Area 51 will take the final LAN spot based on head-to-head record against the Ducks. All other situations lead to Area 51 not making it to LAN.

Mighty Ducks:

The Ducks’s best case scenario is winning against Quantic Gaming, The Experent loses to Quantic, HRG to lose against Area 51, and Area 51 to lose to Mixup. In this situation, the Ducks will have to win 5 rounds against Quantic, and have Area 51 win no more than 6 rounds combined this week. If Area 51 do in-fact win 6 rounds, then a single-map playoff will be played against Area 51 to decide who takes the final LAN spot. In any other situation, The ducks will be, well, sitting ducks and not make LAN.

With the final LAN spot situation being as complicated as it was during Week 8, THE deciding match for the final LAN spot came down to Area 51 Gaming vs High Rollers Gaming. It was the most hyped up match of Week 8, but surprisingly, the match was very quick and one-sided for High Rollers Gaming. High Rollers Gaming rolled their way through Area 51 Gaming, and rolled their way into the final LAN spot with a 5-0 victory against Area 51 (more on this match later on as well). With the final LAN spot finally claimed by HRG, the seeding between first and second spot still needed to be decided between Classic Mixup and Quantic Legacy. Mixup could have secured the first seed at LAN with two victories against their opponents this week, but they were defeated in an upset by Blight TF2 5-2, giving Quantic Legacy the first place seed going into LAN.

Here is how the final seeding worked out after week 8.

LAN Seeds

#1 – Quantic Legacy (15-1)
#2 – Classic Mixup (14-2)
#3 – The Experiment (8-8)
#4 – High Rollers Gaming TF2 (8-8)

With two of the biggest matches of the season for High Rollers Gaming happening this week, they absolutely had to win both games to claim the final LAN spot. But their first match was up against the 3rd seed The Experiment. Here is a brief recap of the match between HRG and Experiment.

Match of the Week: High Rollers Gaming vs The Experiment

VOD:

Coming into this match, The Experiment was considered to be the slight favourite, but with ww- (wonderwall)’s absence, and Sequel playing in place of wonderwall, the game looked to be slightly closer, but still Experiment’s favour. High Rollers Gaming had to win this match against The Experiment to keep their hopes alive for that final LAN spot, and it showed in this match that they were in it to win by taking the first two rounds from The Experiment. After a quick third round win from The Experiment, HRG finished off the first half strong by winning the next, highly contested round to make it a 3-1 lead for HRG. The High Rollers had a comfortable lead against The Experiment after the half, but The Experiment was far from out of this game.

From the start of the second half, The Experiment came back strong, taking the first two rounds of the second half to tie up the game 3-3. With the game now tied up, both teams were still going strong, playing their hearts out to win this game. After a hard fought round between both teams, HRG won the round and took the lead 4-3. Needing to only win one more round to keep their hopes of LAN alive, HRG started to become much more aggressive at the very next mid-fight, and it cost them the round with the The Experiment practically killing all the players of HRG at the middle point. This gave Experiment their opportunity to attack while they were weak and they quickly won the round, tying things up 4-4. With this being the final round, HRG had to absolutely win this round to keep their chances alive, and play the round smart while providing the damage output needed to win the middle point. HRG did just that, by returning the favour and killing all of The Experiment at mid, and quickly winning the game with the final score of 5-4

With this win, HRG put the pressure on the other teams to step up their game, especially for Area 51, as they had to beat HRG to claim the final LAN spot.

The Deciding Match: High Rollers Gaming vs Area 51 Gaming

VOD:

This was it, the deciding match for which team was to make it to LAN, With HRG fresh off their win against The Experiment, Area 51 had to step up their game and shut them down for Area 51 to take the final LAN spot. However, it looked like Area 51 just did not have the drive to make it to LAN, and it showed in their performance in the match against High Rollers Gaming. The difference between this match and the match between HRG and Experiment was night and day. Instead of being the highly anticipated match everyone was expecting, it turned out to be a complete roll for High Rollers Gaming, with HRG taking both halves with ease and winning the game 5-0.

It was an exciting week in matches, and still very close up until the very end of the season. Overall, this season has been one of the better seasons from ESEA. There will be a post coming in the upcoming days or weeks outlining the LAN coverage for ESEA Invite, but until then, I’ll see you guys later.