VanillaTF2

Torden — Before they folded, Torn Productions’ Decap was in the works of making them a frag movie. He didn’t get to complete it, but he rendered it out and the frags do the talking!

Leftism — With regular writer Torden unavailable due to work commitments, it’s been left to baddies like me to provide some form of post. According to m0re, a TF2 tournament at winter assembly looks to be off the cards. With this news, top level TF2 has lost one of it’s iconic teams: Team Dignitas, formerly Power Gaming, have folded – we’re unsure as to whether the lack of a winter LAN in Finland is the main reason behind it although as these articles are interactive and a constant development I’m sure some comments can help enlighten us on the situation.

The teams Scouts, cookye and longas, are in the process of finding a new team with the Finn having joined newly promoted Broder and the Spaniard making a recruitment post on ETF2L. Longas also confirmed in IRC that the remaining members of Dignitas, hocz; hymzi; kyynel & Haza, have no intention of playing TF2 anymore. He also confirmed the lack of a winter assembly was the sole reason behind the team folding.

Team Dignitas announcement

Although unconfirmed (from a reliable source, anyway), news of CKRAS is making it’s way down the grapevine – keep us posted on this development.

Update #1: M0re responds:

I’ve never said to anyone that I’m leaving ckras/tf2, neither that we would fold.

So there you have it, directly from the source!

Update #2: It would appear cookye has found himself a new full time spot at Infused.Tt alongside Greg and replacing pistol extraordinaire  quad. The main reason behind this change is that the Dane is unable to attend the upcoming insomnia events, i45 and i46, due to real life issues and the team wish to run a player they can take to LAN with them.

Hildreth — Welcome to part two of my three part article series documenting and reviewing the calendar year of 2011 in the world of competitive TF2. I would like to apologies to the Aussies, Africans and Asians for not really featuring you in these articles but I prefer to focus on the two main scenes which I actually know a something about. Anyway without further ado, I present to you the months of May to August of this year.

TL:DR – TF2 dies, gets born again and we have an awesome LAN.

Hildreth — 2011 was a great year for me personally; being the year of the ‘panda’ in the Chinese calendar – might have made that up, it could be a smaller animal with a likeness for orange vegetables – and has been one of the most eventful years, dare I say ‘THE MOST’ eventful year in our competitive scenes history. We have had the biggest LAN to date, TF2 going Free-2-play, launch of a new casting organisation and many, many great matches. It has also been a year of doubt and controversy. The slogan ‘TF2 is dead’ being printed on TF2 discussion boards everywhere and still being typed by many there has been dispute and frustration over unlocks, LANs and growth in the TF2 scene. There has been more gossip, controversy and drama than you’ll ever see on Maury. TF2 has changed – rising stars of TF2 have gone ’pro’, old pros have gone on the Brink of losing interest and leaving the scene. Coverage has changed and developed with new people writing articles, making videos, volunteering to cast or stream and hell we have even seen a new game mode start to become accepted in Team Fortress 2. To start it off I found a gem of an old-fashioned TF2 rant/commentary by  Foster with an actual positive outlook for 2011 and to steal a quote from it made by  Darn:

“Unless TF2 gets a proper LAN tournament in 2011, it will be the last year.”

Make of that what you will.

It’s been a long year. I intend to go over it month by month highlighting the memorable matches, the big dramas and the key events that defined our scene this calendar year. To avoid a TL:DR fest I will split it up into 3 parts, one to release now, one of New Years Eve and the last part in 2012. I would like to apologies to those who do not follow the Gregorian calendar, if for example you are Jewish please re-read this again in 9 months.

Update: I had a meeting today with assembly organisers and it seems there will be no tf2 games at winter assembly. I keep you updated if theres some changes.

M0re — Winter assembly needs you. I’ve been in contact with the admins about the possibility to have TF2 at WASM. I’ve been told that theres less than 10% chance for it after horrible summer assembly. Hardly got enough teams to join the tournament and teams were honestly low-mid mixes. I’m now early to have chance to get TF2 a spot in and I need teams to confirm their attendance for me to have a finished list of at least 8 teams to present for assembly admins. Also I’ve been talking with Comedian about two casters to attend the event, if it happens, to get some streams going on for you fans out there.

Teams interested should contact CKRAS|M0re as soon as possible over on Quakenet or Steam.

Torden — YES, it’s time for another interactive article where I write some stuff and you clever people correct me. After the jump, changes in Yoyotech, Dignitas, CKRAS, Broder and Crack Clan.

Update: Drosophile replaces Origo for Yoyotech, Cyber is getting replaced by Kaidus – Linus explains. Also, Yyt now officially prem
Update: CKRAS’ shake up is now confirmed, more details after the jump.
Update: Blight returns to German TF2. Trell has all the details:

Trell — basH caught me on IRC earlier today to dish out some juicy gossip (note: may not be gossip to some of you :P).

Hey! We’re really happy about joining blight-gaming again.Since we have a full lineup now were ready to train a lot and ofcourse prepare for season 11.

I’m pretty sure we can reach a lot with this team soon and with the blight support we gonna try to get to the important events.

James “blackfoger” larsen of Blight Gaming had this to say:

I have worked with Bash and Viqun in the past, both excellent players they just need the right management behind them to become a top team again. Glad I get to work with these german powerhouses. I can’t wait to send these guys to LAN hopefully soon here. There playstyle is very unique to what our american counterparts are use to. Now we have Blight TF2 EU back under our banner.

The lineup:

Lukas “basH” Stauffenberg
Timo “Thy” Krüger
Tim “Viqun” Sijpkens
Tommy “KLar” Schneider
Tomas “Thun” Unsleber
Samuel “smZI” Niebiossa
Gabriel “Shifty” Braun

I did ask the obvious question, why no marco?  basH’s answer was simply: “He’s gone.  To BF3.  I think.”  Another casualty of war :(

Faint — Ladies and Gents, tonight is the invite final of the Excello ZOWIE TF2 Challenge II!

With Team Dignitas coming out on top in last nights 3 map (almost 3 golden cap) thriller against Epsilon eSports, they get to face up against Relic who beat  Crack Clan in the other semi-final last night, all in aid of winning the coveted 6x ZOWIE P-TF Mousemats on offer.

Both teams had convincing wins in their quarter-final games vs. CKRAS Gaming and                Team Yoyotech, and look set to try and show that they are back in form and can be known as the #1 team in europe, a ‘title’ that Epsilon seem to have hung onto for the last couple of months.

The action kicks off at 21:15 CET and VanillaTV will be covering the match with AcidRenix and Beta casting, and Comedian on the stream.

Also covering the action tonight is n2otv, and finally TF2World.Ru TV who will have Salamancer casting.

And for you highlander fans out there, TF2World.Ru TV will be covering the ETF2L Highlander Season 1 Week 3 game, between Colony and SNSD which starts at 19:00 CET.

Trell — It’s time to shed a tear and say goodbye to Season 10 of ETF2L’s Premiership league.  Tonight sees the final game play out (before the playoffs, that is), between this season’s surprise overperformers from Spanrael,  Crack Clan and those crafty Finns,  CKRAS.

With  Infused winning both maps over  equilibrium last night, they’re currently sitting pretty at the top of the Premiership, meaning that Crack Clan need to win both maps tonight.  This would then put them joint second on top of the table, however, it would mean they have won one more map than Infused, and according to a little chat I had with Crasp yesterday morning, this may just be enough to allow them to take the top spot and best seeding for the winner playoffs.  EDIT: Apparently, according to ETF2L admins, if CC and Infused end on the same points (ie, CC win both maps cleanly tonight, then they’ll have to play a seperate game vs each other to see who takes 1st spot and the best seeding!

Crack Clan Royze, HarryHook, PescaNova, matnuN, Retshock, EstaniS

11

CKRAS Gaming Honky, M0re, Santtu, paavi, TucE, Zappis

ETF2L Season 10, week 7

(26 comments)

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TIME

• Wednesday November 16th
• 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?

• Crack Clan (80%, 16 Votes)
  
• CKRAS Gaming (20%, 5 Votes)
  

Total Voters: 20

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MAPSSCORE

DEMO

VIDEO

cp_snakewater3-2SourceTV VanillaTV

cp_gullywash1-4SourceTV VanillaTV

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Continue reading for some of the highlights of the past season!

Trell — Update!  We have one more late night cast for you tonight – more ESH Cup action, with the highly delayed Quarter Final between Yoyotech and Broder being played at 22:45 CET, and casted by VanillaTV.

Join us once again on Own3d.tv from 22:30 CET with the pancake loving  Comedian streaming, and 2 casters!  Read on for the ETF2L playoff information.

Trell — Tonight sees more TF2 action (halfway through 3 full days of excitement for TF2 fans) with those cheeky chaps  Infused.Tt facing off against  Relic in the ETF2L Premiership.  I’ve done some league theorycrafting below, theres quite a huge possibility that I have things wrong, so if you notice any discrepancies, then lemme know on IRC or in the comments, thanks!

VanillaTV will be casting the game tonight, on Own3d.tv again, with  Comedian streaming, and  Torden and  Sal casting.  Tune in at 21:15 to see the excitement play out, and join us in #vanillatv on Quakenet to participate in the chat!

Team Infused quad, Greg, Mike, flisko, numlocked, dunc

20

relic ryb, agron, bybben, Rebeli, Darn, Larsa

ETF2L Season 10, week 5

(17 comments)

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TIME

• Wednesday November 9th
• 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?

• relic (52%, 56 Votes)
  
• Infused.Tt (48%, 52 Votes)
  

Total Voters: 108

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MAPSSCORE

DEMO

VIDEO

cp_obscure_remake4-2

cp_badlands5-3VanillaTV

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Trell — After the game Thursday night vs  Infused, I caught up with  Team Dignitas players to see if we could get some answers to some of the burning questions I had.  Beware the large wall of text!

First of all, this season in ETF2L can hardly be called one of your best so far. Is there anything in particular you believe is the reason behind this?

dajackal:  Two new players, hymzi back to play demoman, changed calls from Finnish to English.

cookye:  Oh you know, the lineup change.

Haza:  The main reason for that is probably the fact that we’ve only played together for 3 weeks.  Even though there’s 4 players that are the same, hymzi who’s switched to demo plays differently than mafu did, longás probably doesn’t play scout the same way hymzi did and I don’t play soldier like Punpu did (in addition to not being as good).  Also some of the matches (against cc and infused for example) were pretty even and I think we couldve won both of them, just didnt. Only 1 cap differences or so. So personally I’m quite surprised we’ve even managed this good.

Hocz:  Recent changes in our lineup has definately been the reason for this. Hymzi going from scout to demo and we have taken Haza to play soldier and longás as scout. Mafu and Punpu will be concentrating more on their studies and therefore can not play that much. It might not seem so big change for everyone because our new recruits are very good players but at this level of TF2 it is the little things that make the difference between winning and losing. We have improved a lot with our teamplay but it still needs little work. Also we need to work our rallyenglish comms a little. As you propably know we previously had a full finnish lineup.

Hymzi:  I think none of us were really expecting anything from this season.. We just changed our lineup and i had to change back to a class that i really don’t enjoy playing anymore + we had to bring in new players. We have been playing couple years with only finnish comms, so it was expected that its gonna take time to get used to. We are starting to get used to it now though.

longás:   Hymzi going back to demoman, Haza as soldier and me as scout with the “language change” are the main factors behind this bad season. We’ve been playing together for less than 1 month and we are getting really close scores against other top teams, we are improving fast and we’ll keep doing it.  The team didn’t expect too much from this season and they are happy with the team progression, there aren’t sad faces so everything is fine.