ShoX — Holy interviews, Batman! War and I have been working our penises off pinning down the leaders of as many of the top teams as we can ahead of i46. Flying the flag for USA today is 
PYYYOUR from Classic Mixup.
Welcome, Sir! Could you give our readers a bit of background into your team?
Classic Mixup is a gathering of close online friends who have been trying to be on the same team for quite some time. A gathering of new and old, Classic Mixup offers talent and skill from the North American Team Fortress 2 competitive community. Platinum and Enigma have been together for a number of seasons. TLR has also been on Harbleu and Platinum’s teams in the past. They are all good buds. Couple that with the bromance of PYYYOUR and ruwin and you have got one pretty nasty deathsquad.
Free cookies for those who read more*
Who’re you bringing to our illustrious isle?
You must have some expectations of the scale of i46, how do you think it’ll compare to an ESEA LAN?
ESEA LAN varies depending on which LAN you have been to. Sometimes people are allowed to sit right behind competitors, other times, not so much. From what we know every match leading up to the Finals will be in a BYOC setting and therefore will be a limit to the amount of people watching and making noise while we compete. Assuming we make it to the finals, we will be faced with a much different beast. On stage, in front of thousands of people, and using a computer with limited capability that we wont use until it is finals time. I doubt any of us have played on stage before. Due to ESEA LAN, we are used to walking up to a computer and making it as comfortable as possible to play on. We are most interested in making sure we are geared up for the entire tournament more than the finals. If we end up making it to the finals we will do the best we can on the fly.
Americans should be pretty easy to spot.
Is there anyone in your team who you’d single out as being a weak or strong link in such a new environment?
Every single person on our team has gone to LAN and has performed up to their ability. There will not be a situation that has happened in LANs past in America where one player plays some of the worst TF2 anyone has ever seen. Even if someone is playing “not well,” it will not hurt the team.
As for “big game players,” platinum and ruwin are known to save up for big matches. Only give a taste of what is really cooking. If
Are there any individuals you’re worried about from Europe?
I have been a strong supporter of the European community for nearly 3 years. I have played in Div1 as a soldier, and have backup’d for a number of teams. It is safe to say I have had my eye on Europe for quite some time now. It is hard to name individuals since most individual performances stem from the scheme of the team, but since you have a gun to my head I guess I can name a few.
Extremer. Before I actually e-met Tom I was a huge fan. Incredible aim, destructive style, and a voice that sounds like Batman. Couple that with his insane LAN performance at his first LAN and you got a lifetime fan. I always tell my NA friends that if Extremer went pocket soldier, he be the best pocket in Europe, by far. Granted this was back when he played a bunch. I do not know what to expect from Extremer at i46, I hope that he doesn’t act like TLR and occasionally hit every freaking shot before and after Ubers.
Stefan. Lord knows there is a lot of hype surrounding this guy. Do not know him well at all, just want I can see from STV’s and his performances in the past. Not this last ETF2L final but the previous one, I watched the final with clockwork, enigma, and a few other terrible players. It was really not great TF2. From a spectators point of view it was real sloppy. But, what I did notice is how Stefan would just go huge on every life. Literally almost always die with taking 1 other person with him. Reminds me of the way carnage used to play. If Stefan can constantly play that way on LAN, we are definitely going to have to pull out some old carnage-killing-strats.
Honorable mention:
Mike. Assuming we meet up with quarantine I will not be doing a lot of surfing against this man. Would rather die like a mid+ medic than have to hear about all the airshot kills he has on me. <3 ya Michael.
You’ve been playing Vanilla in PCWs for a while now, how are you finding it? Bringing back some old memories?
As a medic, vanilla is much much easier to deal with. It takes much more skill for soldiers to reach you. Well, reach you with more than 70 health. Weve opened the transition with open arms. A little fact is that we’ve actually been practicing Vanilla since the moment last ESEA LAN was finished. So were quite used to it actually. Plus Harbleu played soldier in Europe a few seasons ago. He was kind of known for being a “retard roamer” here in America, but he gained a lot of experience by playing soldier in Europe and have to learn how to use a shotgun. Excuse me, how to use a shotgun and hit a shot above 30 damage.
Even Barack is practicing Vanilla.
Much is said of the teams that are tipped to do well, if you had to pick a top team (Epsilon, LG, Infused, TCM etc) who you think will underperform who would it be?
Underperform. Hmmm. We are very used to playing LG. They know us, we know them. God help us if we play in the late rounds at i46. It will probably be the best match of the tournament. As a team we have talked about this question. And not to marginalize LG’s play, but we feel that they do not match up as well in Europe. There are many more powerful demos in Europe who I see putting up a strong fight against b4nny. And if you don’t have one of those demos on your team, b4nny will constantly bully your demo and give his team damage advantage. So numlocked, retshock, extremer, kaidus, etc will all have a bull’s-eye on b4nny’s back. Shade, great medic.. clockwork and cyzer… both great scouts. But here is the issue. Here is the main problem. NA has always prided themselves on having the most sicknasty soldiers in the world. Always. Whether it is Reptile, Seagull, Platinum, or TLR, we’ve always had a soldier who is a notch above the best EU soldier. But with LG you do not have that. You have two soldiers, who are productive in their own ways, who are widely considered to be near the middle of invite in terms of aim and DM ability. If European teams can manage to shutdown b4nny, it is going to be a rocky road for Leviathan Gaming and their other stud muffin clockwork.
But never count out jesus. Never count out the savior.
What are your predictions for top 3 at i46
Epsilon
Finally, any shoutouts?
Our sponsor is the community. The north American community is freaking awesome. Tons of nice people. Tons of trolls, who we accept. Great leaders. Jeff eXtine. Salamancer. Shadowpuppet. Taggerung. Unf. Bl4nk. Rr-. Namlay. Powah (banned in brazil). Smaka. Seanbud. Lange. Puff. Thrill. Oplaid. Hero. Lansky kbk. Yz50. Boomer. Mesr. Dummy. Alfa. Soup. Ww. Shrugger. Phaser. Blaze. I could name the rest of you terribles but you know who you are.
And Kaidus.
Coming next, someone from Infused or Epsilson. Hopefully.
* There are no free cookies.
35 comments
TweetNice read Rob. Pure’s the man!
- # - nice! +7I would want to know that now when LG and Classic mixup have been playing vanilla… (and their pcw enemies)
How much do they like it? Could they even consider using Vanilla ruleset in America? Do they think cinnamon ruleset is better and would they want Europeans to use it too? Pros? Cons? for both ruleset.
(Well I could ask these question from the ETF2L NA 3 week cup teams too…)
- # - nice! +2I’ve told Mixup to get themselves on the site to answer some questions. Hopefully they’ll make an appearance later on tonight when they call get home from work / school / eating all day.
- # - nice! +2vanilla is pretty fun. takes a little bit of getting used to but after playing it for a while one can see the advantages. its a lot less random and focuses more on individual skill rather than relying on unlocks. i think cinnamon is the best option allowing the escape plan and boston basher along with medlocks. gunboats could be argued if people really wanted to keep them but after roaming with shotgun for the past month i think i will use mostly shotgun throughout the season.
Why are you switching to shotgun? Is it because you are used to it now? Or do you prefer the extra damage output?
- # - nice! +2there really isn’t much of a difference at all. unlocks honestly don’t change the game as much as many of you believe them to.
but the question needs to be asked: if it’s not worth banning, why ban it at all? if the unlock is plain and simple shit (candy cane, volcano fragment, etc etc 90% of the weapons ini the game), no one is going to use it anyways. if you die because some idiot 95 hp scout with a candy cane picked up a small health pack after killing someone else, blaming shitty unlocks should be the last of your concerns.
the ONLY thing banning all unlocks does is perpetuate the elitist and exclusive stigma surrounding competitive play.
That teething period man.
- # - nice! +3Yes, the effects of playing with unlocks are minor but the make the game more forgiving. Out of position? Run away. Miscommunication with pocket? Scout will build. Demo stickies spire to slow down scouts? Boston Bash up there. Heal order hard to perfect? Escape plan. You sometimes clip a wall on your roll-out? Escape plan. The unlocks won’t change the position of the top teams, but it will close the gap because it takes some of the skills needed to play vanilla.
Also, in my experience the rocket aim for lower level soldiers ain’t too bad but their shotgun aim is awful at best. Gunboats would give them a chance to play at a level they shouldn’t belong. It basically the same as the fan when it was broken (anyone who played against Kodyl when it was allowed will attest to that).
this (hypothetical) reduction in importance of such skillful and fun mechanics such as building uber and nailing down static heal orders is surely reason to ignore all of the upsides additional game mechanics bring
“Also, in my experience the rocket aim for lower level soldiers ain’t too bad but their shotgun aim is awful at best. Gunboats would give them a chance to play at a level they shouldn’t belong.”
balance decisions shouldn’t be influenced by the lowest common denominator
- # - nice! +4Please give me the upsides for the boston basher, gunboats and escape plan? They are not really hypothetical either, because we used to play with the equalizer for example. It made me a better soldier because everybody can attest that I tend to screw up my roll-out quite regularly. It also made me get out of shitty situations I shouldn’t have gotten in in the first place.
And of course balance shouldn’t be influenced by the gameplay at the lowest level. Their influence can be looked at though. Closing a gap in skills should be done by practice and experience, not by items.
- # - nice! +7I can confirm he does indeed fail the roll-out more often than he makes it and he does get into bad situations often.
Actually the more i think about it why the fuck are you on our team??
- # - nice! +514:50 – CommanderX: you’re the best solly on this team
- # - nice! +7You’re lucky woody never learnt to read cos this would hurt his feelings.
And with the whole unlock thing i don’t think it makes any difference. The changes in the game are pretty small and easy to adapt to. Vanilla just makes everything cleaner, simpler and more spectator friendly.
- # - nice! +7all three items increase the pace of play
that’s reason enough
- # - nice! +3No, players increase the pace of play (unless you call bombing the demo like an idiot asap on every mid a good thing). Nobody forces you to wait for uber (or just run perma kritz), you can still roam hard with shotgun (hell, I’d even go as far as saying that the extra damage from it make team fights shorter), and a dead soldier that would have survived with escape plan makes room for the enemy team to push in.
- # - nice! +6i don’t understand how you can speak with so much certainty and authority having never participated in an environment with those unlocks allowed for any meaningful period of time
- # - nice! +2We played with the equalizer for ages. It definitely did not make the game any faster. The rest is based on simple deduction.
But if increasing the pace of play is so important we should drop medics altogether and allow unlocks like jarate. That should speed things up quite a bit. I know this isn’t really an argument, I just want to point out that you oversimplify it by saying they are good because they increase the pace of play, which you seem to value a lot “that’s enough reason”.
enigma gives up
- # - nice! +4Europe :1 America: 0
Add ESL Wire in there and you have a winner!
- # - nice! +2Nice work, keep them coming :)
im looking forward to see how u pull out “some old carnage-killing-strats” :D
i46 will be FUCKING AWESOME – sure thing!
cya :)
So Pyyyour is saying B4nny will go HUGE @LAN, because he spend a whole paragraph on how B4nny is LG’s hope with underperforming soldiers, but still predicts them to win… :)
- # - nice! +3I think he just put lg as top3, not first
- # - nice! +1hello europes cu@lan
- # - nice! +7My belly shakes from laughter at Obama caption.
Brad predicts LG to finish #1…
Classic Mixup? More like classic mindgames :D
That pun was pretty fucking grim. There was a lack of decent results for “Fat american men holding ice cream” I had to work with what I had.
- # - nice! +2i46 is going to be a lot of fun, see you guys in euroland
also unlocks aren’t a big deal, especially for anything other than medic and roamer. I’m probably going to play the esea matches before i46 without equalizer haha
haha, oh tyler
- # - nice! +6Dunno why he seems so worried about the TUP PC’s at i46. No idea what crap ESEA have, but the TUP PC’s multiplay have are like solid high end i7 machines. If it’s the 120hz monitors they’re worried about then ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I guess.
- # - nice! +1ESEA has great rigs, hardware lag is something you never have to worry about. It’s the 120hz monitors or lack thereof that raises concerns.
- # - nice! +4Look out look out, byte’s about.
- # - nice! +3Nice read hehe
- # - nice! +0np that we get you to LAN, np.
Russian translation: tf2world.ru/?p=12643
- # - nice! +2