Darkdwarf —

First is Cp_Croissant, winner of the 5cp section for the recent (a)symmetrical mapping contest over at TF2maps.net – since then the map has gone through a number of iterations from community feedback and is now in it’s eleventh beta version. Next we have Standin, a unique map similar to the “domination” modes one can find in Call of Duty. The map has recently had a massive rise in it’s profile thanks to it’s inclusion into the recent ESEA season’s map pool.

Read on for more info about the maps and their makers’ opinions about them.

Cp_Croissant

Last point on Cp_Croissant

Download link|| Feedback: ETF2L thread
Format: 5cp
Most innovative thing: The shape of the map!
Shape:  Croissant is symmetrical, looking quite similar to a banana.

Video of Croissant being played

Cp_Standin

C point on Cp_Standin

Download link|| Feedback: ETF2L thread || NATF2 thread
Format: domination
Most innovative thing: The game mode
Shape:  Standin is symmetrical, with three control points, all avaiable to cap off the bat.

Video of Standin being played

Interviews

What is the theme and overall feel of your map?

ScorpioUprising: Well, I was primarily aiming at something close to cp_yukon, a sort of grayish/brown rocky mountain environment with hidden spy tech facilities buried underground. Yukon’s lighting was a bit too bright, and had trouble with some of the tall cliff walls, so I switched it to sawmill’s lighting, which created a really dynamic and clear grey color that made finding targets a bit easier. The overall idea is two industrial facilities in a mountaintop retreat, and a secret underground installation with twin rockets. Due to a clerical error, red and blue colors are split evenly between the two sides, so the two teams must fight in order to repaint the facility for themselves, and resolve this bureaucratic mix up.

Arnold:  The theme is alpine, much like lumberyard the first arena map to be included in tf2. It has alpine trees, alpine rock formations, alpine waterfalls, alpine lumber, alpine yeti, alpine dirt, alpine grass, alpine sky and some control points scattered around. It very much feels like the visualisation of a slightly autistic mind.

What is different with your map compared to our usual maps of Granary, Gullywash and Badlands?

S: Compared to 5cp maps, Standin plays out much faster and with much more chance for split tactics. In order to win, a team must manage to capture all three control points at once. They can be captured in any order, and take a while to capture so teams have a chance to block a capture if they position themselves correctly. The free flowing nature of the captures has led to quite a few alternative strategies for mid rollouts, and the tactics commonly used for standin are still a bit up in the air. A common strategy seems to be splitting your team in two at the beginning, with scouts going to A and combo + roamer going to B. This allows you to capture two points at once, but can often backfire if the enemy team (who went B) sends their combo to stop your scouts at A. You’ll lose both B and A in one foul swoop, and while you might be able to push into B with uber, you’ll still be down in numbers and probably lose the fight for mid.

A: Maybe the biggest difference is the mirrored symmetry and the shape of the map that strongly resembles a banana. I would even say croissant looks nothing like the aforementioned maps, no control point on croissant slightly resembles any control point in the staple maps apart from maybe the double layered mid resembling Gullywash as mid also has two layers from which a player can cap. Oh yes, before I forget, it’s also alpine themed.

Do you have any specific goals with your map’s development?

S: Well, with any new game mode one goal is to make sure the idea is solid and that it plays well for competitive play. Of the matches I’ve watched, the scrims and pugs that I’ve played, it seems to have worked out quite well, as long as people playing it are willing to learn new strategies, focus more on calling and team play, and think ahead, anticipating possible outcomes. Medics in particular have to be very aware of where they are standing and where the enemy team is going to be attacking from or they are likely to get decimated by flank attacks. As with the diversity of map types in NATF2, I’d like to think that domination style maps could be a viable fourth game mode, in a spot somewhat similar to Viaduct or Gravelpit – which, to be honest, is a pretty dangerous spot to be in this heavily dominated 5cp world.

A: The goal was to make a map that treats each and every control point the same. So the biggest change in that would be the last control point not having the spawns behind the control point but rather on the sides. I also tried to remove ceilings as much as I could, in the very first iterations a Demoman was able to jump from cp 2 lobby to the enemy’s cp 2 lobby but this has since been altered due to various reasons. I also want it to play well and not stalemate but we’ve all heard that before in every map thread ever conceived. I also wanted to do something with alpine trees but I can’t recall specifically.

B point on Cp_Standin

Why did you develop a map this different?

S: The easiest answer to that is I saw some forum posts by players lamenting the maps available for NATF2, as well as some mumble discussions of the map Cp_Fallout. Essentially, they mentioned that the game mode for Fallout was really fun, but that the map itself was incredibly problematic. Asymmetrical layout – requiring team switches at the end of each round, poorly planned skyboxes which you can hit your head on, and a really long sight line that screws with optimization all led to a interesting idea with poor implementation. After pug’ing the very early versions of Cp_Standin, people really seemed to enjoy it. The layout and the distances between the points seemed to work, with the exception of medic being somewhat weak. However, after some more play testing the medic problem resolved itself for the most part. Meds are still fairly easy to kill, and the speed of the map means that inexperienced or unsupported medics don’t get uber as often as they might like, but an experienced medic can really turn the tide of battle, especially when they are calling strats on the fly and anticipating/blocking captures.

Basically, the game mode is fun, stalemate free and requires incredibly quick, on-the-fly decision making in order to play. Its also quite controversial, striking right at the heart of some of the assumptions people have about what a comp map is.  Given some of the backlash its received from players, it may not see another season in ESEA, which would really be too bad given how some of the best NA players have championed it.

A: I did it because I think it really opens op a wide range of tactical possibilities mostly due to the shape of the map allowing players to bypass mid completely. You can also bypass cp2 without a problem. But the trick is to balance it so six players can hold and or push effectively, not an easy job, and I liked the idea of having a banana as a shape to base my map on, i like to eat bananas and drink milk simultaneously so it’s kind of like a milkshake in my mouth.

What do you think about the new Valve-map Foundry?

S: MAN ITS PRETTY! Uhm, but that aside I’ve had quite a bit of fun pug’ing it over the past couple weekends. I think that all three points are fairly solid, with second being the real highlight of the map. It’s interesting how such a huge point area doesn’t feel like a sniper haven as much as you might think, and despite its seeming lack of flanks, you can still maneuver fairly effectively. Middle is fine, if a bit uninspired. The mid art style is awesome, but may have gone a bit overboard – its sometimes hard to read where players are with all the visual noise. Last is the weakest part of the map, if only because the spawn positioning is just awful. If Valve fixed the spawns we’d probably have a great new addition to the comp line up, but given how they’ve laid out last that doesn’t seem incredibly likely. The most viable places for a spawn – left and right of the forge – are blocked up with brushes and props and the entire catwalk area behind the point would need to change in order to really put optimal spawns in.

A: I think it doesn’t introduce anything remotely interesting and is too wide. It looks very good though, as expected from Valve. But eventually the players will decide which maps are best I suppose I’m just another guy with a keyboard.

Middle point on Cp_Croissant

How do you think the map style of comp-tf2 has evolved during the last few years?

S: Hmmm. I’m not really sure to be honest. The one thing I might say is that some of the more visually talented map designers tend to design one map for comp and then that’s it. MangyCarface, Icarus, and company all seem more set on making a 5cp map and getting it played, but don’t seem super dedicated to competitive play. In terms of an evolution of comp maps, it seems that things might have gone a bit in the other direction, with very few viable candidates and very few maps being accepted that don’t rip off Granlands in some respect  – my Cp_Process included.

A: I don’t really think it has, I’m trying to introduce some really weird concepts because I’m just an idiot and I don’t want to understand that people generally stick to what they know. But I believe there’s so much still to be done with the 5cp game mode. I really don’t think it’s been fully explored. Maybe people aren’t waiting for something new and maybe I’m just fighting a lost battle but somehow it’s the only way I can justify spending a ludicrous amount of my precious youth mapping.

Could you please rate the possible futures of Cp_Standin, Cp_Quay, Cp_Evergreen, Cp_Croissant, Cp_Obscure_remake and Cp_Collis?

S: cp_quay: I’ve only played the very first alpha of quay, so I can’t really comment on it in its latest forms. From what I’ve seen, it seems a bit spartan, with some fairly problematic layout choices that could end up hurting it. The primary choke into second seems like the sort of thing you want to hold forever until you get uber, but then when you walk through it you either pop really quickly or you spend a long time walking your med up to the point, either by going behind the point towards enemy spawn, or by wandering into a ramp room warehouse and then up. Last also seems to have issues, as the main hallway behind the point is massive and the separation between flanks is going to be hard to coordinate. However,  Chojje listens to feedback so I’m sure a lot of these issues could be resolved in the future.

cp_evergreen: I’ve play tested several of the earlier versions pretty extensively and I do seem to enjoy it. The two issues that I see is the area between last and second is a bit of a nightmare to navigate, and last itself is not that much fun to play. I haven’t really come up with a way to solve last at all, but it might be the sort of thing that you just need to detail and figure out from there. Visually, I’m interested to see where he goes with it. The angled rooftops everywhere thing seems a bit too easy and not very visually exciting. If he mixes that up a bit it could look really good, but we’ll have to see. Seems to have some potential as a badlands-esque map.

cp_croissant: We’ve played it a couple of times. Seems okay, though it has some pretty frustrating geometry that makes me not enjoy it as much as I might. The middle point seems like a really anti climatic spam battle, with medics and pockets standing around waiting for something to happen. Second is not bad, though the ledge behind the point still bugs me. Having to drop down and around in order to push back inside doesn’t seem like much fun at all, and I don’t really get the reason for it other than some sort of lame “forces you to commit” nonsense. Even a barrel or a box there would make the maps flow for Meds feel so much better. Last is fine, and though the cap time is really long, the style of combat that happens there seems to support such a long cap – though, that in itself worries me for its prospects as a NA map. Could have some potential for play in NA, though I worry about grindy pushes into second, and the overall euro play style not meshing well with NATF2.

cp_obscure_remake: I played a couple of pugs on cp_obscure a long, long time ago. I’ve seen screenshots of the remake, but I’ve never played it. I have no idea what has potential here. I guess the last seems a bit better, but that tower in the middle worries me. Throw a heavy up there, force the team to pop and get pushed back. Dunno, not a huge fan of that sort of architecture.

cp_collis: The version of cp_collis that I played basically felt like a map that may have had an interesting idea, but wasn’t really able to implement it. The layout is very frustrating with a lot of very tiny doors and cluttered geometry. Some things, like the waterfall, feel really gimmicky and the solution to the problem of seeing if the waterfall door is open or not, just doesn’t seem to work or make sense given TF2 mapping conventions. The best part of the map is obviously the spire, but even that doesn’t look that great – essentially just cramming a bunch of props together and calling it a night – and while it might be fun for a scout to jump around on, the rest of the maps layout really won’t last when the spire’s novelty wears off. Feels like someones first map, the sort of project that might need to be scrapped and started fresh to get it done properly – not trying to be too harsh here though, look up Cp_Resonance to see my first attempt at a 5cp map.

A: cp_standin: haven’t played, followed development and watched several matches. In my opinion it really is just glorified deathmatch while you spend the time in between capping. There’s too much going on to coordinate properly.

cp_quay: Can’t comment I’ve walked around in it but it’s too early in development.

cp_evergreen: Walked around in it but haven’t seen any matches, I will spectate when i get the chance but can’t really critique as of now.

cp_croissant: probably just me finishing the map up and hopefully some more people give it an honest shot, I have no idea beyond that but let’s hope for the best and habitable planets where we can move to in the foreseeable future when we finally overpopulate the world.

cp_obscure_remake: While i do admire the effort the mappers (forgot all of their names) and byte have put into the map I don’t feel it’s any better or resolves any issues the old one had.

cp_collis: Also walked around on but have yet to see proper matches on it.

Trell —

The team looking to act out Goliath in tonights clash is the infamous Team Infused (no longer Infused.Tt, but  Greg reliably informs me that they are still sponsors, just not title sponsors), who, as mentioned are regarded as being in the top 2 EU competitive teams and have enjoyed considerable success over the past few months.  It seems the only thorn in their side has been the in form  Epsilon, who manage to outfox them in nearly every game.  Surely this means that Infused will be looking to pick up as many points as possible outside of their eventual game versus Epsilon.

Join us at 21:15 CET on VanillaTV with the dedicated  Comedian streaming, and commentary provided by  Byte and  Admirable,  - maps are standard week 1 fare, cp_badlands followed by cp_snakewater.

Team Infused dunc, numlocked, flisko, mike, cookye, Greg

20

Broder jukebox, prozak, deux, macisum, drleon, zebbosai

ETF2L Season 11, week 1

(18 comments)

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TIME

• Thursday February 2nd
• 21:15 cet
• 15:15 est (na)
• 05:15 est (aus)

CASTED BY

• VanillaTV Livestream
• VanillaTV Mumble

SOURCETV

• relay.vanillatv.org:27100

Who will win this match?

• Team Infused (76%, 139 Votes)
  
• Broder (24%, 50 Votes)
  

Total Voters: 184

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MAPSSCORE

DEMO

VIDEO

cp_badlands5-0SourceTV VanillaTV

cp_snakewater4-1SourceTV VanillaTV

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Trell —

With this in mind, tonights game should prove to be a great match.  cp_badlands is first up, and both teams will be looking to score the first few rounds and take the map before we move onto cp_snakewater.

Tune in from 21:15 CET onwards with your streamer  Comedian, and  Admirable   CUBE casting.

Yoyotech tviq, Linus, droso, boomeh, kaidus, TheSucker

24

exotic Gubbins, Natural, Spary, klar, sparkle, smZi

ETF2L ETF2L Season 11 Week 1

(7 comments)

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TIME

• Tuesday January 31st
• 21:15 cet
• 15:15 est (na)
• 05:15 est (aus)

CASTED BY

• VanillaTV Livestream
• VanillaTV Mumble

SOURCETV

• relay.vanillatv.org:27100

Who will win this match?

• Yoyotech (100%, 2 Votes)
  
• exotic (0%, 1 Votes)
  

Total Voters: 2

 Loading ...

MAPSSCORE

DEMO

VIDEO

cp_badlands4-3VanillaTV

cp_snakewater2-4

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Faint —

LDLC.com

02

Cido

ETF2L Season 11: Week 1 (Division 2B)

(49 comments)

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TIME

• Monday January 30th
• 21:15 cet
• 15:15 est (na)
• 05:15 est (aus)

CASTED BY

• VanillaTV Livestream
• VanillaTV Mumble

SOURCETV

• relay.vanillatv.org:27100

Who will win this match?

• Cido (77%, 34 Votes)
  
• LDLC.com (23%, 11 Votes)
  

Total Voters: 44

 Loading ...

MAPSSCORE

DEMO

VIDEO

cp_badlands0-5

cp_snakewater2-3

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Trell — Vanilla TV swing back into regular action tonight with  Comedian and  Chaplain bringing you coverage of the Division 2C game between Outsiders and Team Insolence.  This week 1 game should prove to be an engaging spectacle, with OutSiders relatively new to ETF2L, having only previously participated in the one night foundry cup prior to Season 11, and Team Insolence having been dropped into division 2C after coming third in Division 3b in Season 10.

More information on how you could get your sweaty mitts on a free Steam Mobile key after the jump!  

Comedian (via atmo) has managed to get his hands on a Steam Mobile Beta Key.  If you’re a smartphone user (you monster!) and you would like to be in with a chance of winning the key, all you have to do is reply in the comments with your guess as to how long the first round win on cp_snakewater will take.

UPDATE: forsak3n has added another Steam mobile beta key to the prize pool, so the two closest guesses will now win a key each!

HOWEVER, we’re not going to make it that easy for you!  There are a stringent set of rules you have to follow.  The winner will be the person that gets closest to the actual winning time, to the nearest 30 second mark, without guessing over the actual time taken.  I’ll give you an example:

Johnny guesses 2 minutes and 25 seconds.

Alan guesses 2 minutes and 58 seconds.

Phil guesses 3 minutes and 12 seconds.

The actual round winning time was 3 minutes and 8 seconds.  In this case, Alan would win – whilst Phil was closer, he guessed over the actual time taken.  Credit to  SeriousCat for this reasoning, which he helpfully dubbed ‘The Price Is Right’ method.

Hopefully that makes perfect sense to you – get guessing!

*Please note: In the event of more than one person guessing the same time, a random winner will be picked from the winning guesses.  Current VanillaTV staff are ineligible to enter this competition.

LuckyLuke — Once again some mind blowing clips, don’t miss it! Submit your best league / tournament clips via a form on our website for the neXt editions.

Hosted by eXtine, sound mixed by Airon and produced by the sometimes Lucky Luke!

CommanderX – Tonight, is the night, that two become one!  Something, something Greg, something, something Kaidus. Something, something ETF2L results . Something, something ETF2L fixtures. What I mean to say is that it has been a quiet week but we’ll still be on for a bit to discuss what action there has been and take a look ahead to the games that will be postponed next week. I’ve not asked anyone about this but I’m CommanderX and I’ll do what the fuck I want, what I mean to say is we might be a bit short on topics this week so any suggestions for topics or things you might want  talked about, post here or PM me and we might give it a blast.

Same time as always: 22:30cet

Mumble - fakkelbrigade.eu:64740
Live stream @ Twitch TV
Join our IRC #PirateRadio on Quakenet

And for all previous episodes links to the links are on ETF2L.

Update: Changed to tomorrow 30/01 same time, same place. Also tune in to find out or secret competition and win yourself a steam mobile beta key!

Double update: kaidus is some sort of pussy so instead we get TF2 player/caster/fanatic/legend  Admirable

Trent —

At a delightful 0300CET,  Classic Mixup will battle it out against a community team representing (amongst others) UGC, Reddit, and eXtv, with Salamancer on Medic for the latter. But will they be strong enough to mix it up with the mixup? YouTube seems to have made up its mind already…

The maps chosen for the event are Badlands, Steel, and Foundry. As this is the first Communities vs Pros match not to include a Payload map, and the previous victory for the Community team was attributed largely to that game mode, it will be interesting to see what Classic Mixup come up against in what is sure to be another cracking game.

‘Communities vs Pros’ is sponsored by PubComp, End of Reality, and eXtelevision, who will be casting the event on their stream.

Kharne —

But that’s not the most exciting part, the winning team earns 6 tickets to insomnia46! Our summer LANs are the Mecca of TF2 globally – last summer our tournament was the biggest ever seen and we look to repeat this at insomnia46 in 2012.

Team Infused - Winners of i44

Further information after the jump.

Here are some prize pool examples:

12 teams = £900 and £642 worth of i46 tickets.
24 teams = £1,800 and £642 worth of i46 tickets.
32 teams = £2,400 and £642 worth of i46 tickets.
64 teams = £4,800 and £642 worth of i46 tickets!

Insomnia45 takes place over the weekend of the 4th-7th May 2012 so disguise yourself as an enemy pyro and make your way over to our tickets page to grab a BYOC ticket, and then get signed up on our Team Fortress 2 tournament Page.

Sakura — eXtv will be casting an exciting matchup between two ESEA-IM teams on new territory! Join Greaver and crew as they cast  Beybladers vs.  Mayhem on cp_croissant_b10, the banana-shaped map, and cp_standin_b9, the crazy map with 3 capture points! eXtv will be also joined by the map creators,  Arnold and Scorpiouprising respectively. The exhibition will start tomorrow (Saturday) at 9pm EST (03:00 CET Sunday). Come watch in order to prepare yourself for the new map poll next season.

Mayhem Gremaud, Pet, Defiance, Caidh, MaskedJackel, Boink

02

Beybladers Sigma, Tyranny, Sephy, Seymour, Kraka, Mike

No League eXtv New Map Exhibition: Beybladers vs. Mayhem

(5 comments)

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TIME

• Sunday January 29th
• 03:00 cet
• 21:00 est (na)
• 11:00 est (aus)

CASTED BY

• eXtv Livestream
• eXtv Mumble

SOURCETV

• dal.eoreality.net:27020

Who will win this match?

• Beybladers (75%, 15 Votes)
  
• Mayhem (25%, 6 Votes)
  

Total Voters: 20

 Loading ...

MAPSSCORE

DEMO

VIDEO

cp_croissant3-4

cp_standin1-5

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Fog —

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.