VanillaTF2

Greg — Season 11 is over; the undisputed champions Epsilon have been defeated, which sees Team Infused crowned the new champions - breaking their curse of never beating Epsilon.  We now move into the off season break, however pretty much every team has had a mid-season or post-season team change, which has gone unreported except for live on PirateRadio (with CommanderX, kaidus and myself).  I am going to take you on a journey through the Season 11 team changes and look forward to the Season 12 Prem teams.

Current Premier Teams

Team Infused:
Lets start with the Champions of Season 11: Team Infused.  It has been a season of progression for them, beginning with a player change, the former dignitas scout cookye came in to replace the quad pistol and just a few days after this pickup the team lost out narrowly in the first Excello final of the season to their nemisis Epsilon eSports.  They took this in their stride and pushed forward, eventually repeating their first place in the regular season; granting them first seed into the playoffs, where they finally defeated Epsilon and secured the title “Champions of Europe” for Season 11.  However it has not been plain sailing for the English team as during the playoff period I made the decision to leave the team, the Team UK and former Team Thermaltake scout JoeyC (also known as Fisshu) replaced me.

Lineup: numlocked, dunc, flisko, mike, JoeyC, cookye

Faint — Tonight sees the start of the Invite bracket of the Excello Sparkle Winter Warmup TF2 Cup.

With the winner of last night’s open bracket   Karnage eSports gaining the 7th seed, they face off against  Infused.Tt. This gives the newly formed Karnage a chance to show what they can pull off against a top prem team.

Elsewhere  Crack Clan gets a chance to show themselves back in form against exotic, and  Epsilon eSports face  Team Decerto which should be a simple game for the former of the two (in theory at least).

The last of the quarter-finals features  Broder against  Yoyotech, which should be a cracking game and will give the newly promoted teams another chance to battle it out.

Torden — 1 prem spot, 5 contenders?

Update: Added news about Equilibrium reform, above Rejects. Also added Clippen comment.

The pre season mating period has officially kicked off, as vibrant as ever. Last season, Crack Clan had a pretty clear edge on getting the free promotion. This time around, it’s more difficult to predict – and not from the lack of hopefuls. Quarantine, Decerto, Exotic, Karnage and Taimou’s new crew are now on a path to a brawl to figure out who’s best of the rest. Here’s the insight.

Torden — A bit of a weird week, as the Vital roster folded, handing the org over to Rejects. Now Fish’ crew is set to rebuild under the old “renoB” name, however with the team being marked as dropped, there’s no official word on their proceedings for week2.

Last week provided no real upsets, whilst showing some interesting stats on badlands vs gully, as all the latter had much more 1 sided games than the former for all 3 match ups. Perhaps most notable, the 5-4 nailbiter between underdog Rejects (now Vital) and favourite broder. This week may make for a change regarding upsets, as Gravel Pit is introduced to the mix, a map sometimes known for providing coin toss results. The 2nd map is Gullywash.

Joining me for predictions this week are Division 1B’s  Drosophile (idk?), Evokje (idk?), Skeej (Visualize Your Enmity), and Hat (Yoyotech).

Torden — Week 1 starts teams out on familiar turfs, Gullywash and Badlands, which should ensure a minimal amount of surprises. On the flipside, there are quite a few newforms going, with teams still building rosters and routines. The current season sees a return of the old formula of 2 equal divisions below the top, just with a change of numbers. Be it for the good or bad, what’s for certain is, there will be some uneven mixups throughout the season.

This week, Div1B’s Drosophile (idk?), Psunfragga (Crack Clan) and Skeej (Visualize Your Enmity) have joined me for predictions. You can of course do the same, in comments below. Draw is 1 map each, Win is either 2 maps won, or 1 map win + 1 map draw.