VanillaTF2

According to the Team Dignitas website, Haza has now joined their ranks as full time soldier, replacing  appe.

The team’s quote states:

With appe’s difficult work schedules, we’ve made the choice to bring the well known Haza back to full TF2 activity. One of the most consistent aimers in the game, Haza is well known for his ability to jump into a lineup and immediately play at his full potential. We look forward to playing with Haza, having had some excellent PCW results with him.

With the fairly recent acquisition of  dunc, Dignitas now sports two new players, bringing the current lineup to:

Darn
bybben
ryb
Rebeli
dunc
Haza

appe has currently detagged and de-avatar’d on Steam, leaving his TF2 future open.

We wish Dignitas and appe the best of luck.

Earlier on, on the ETF2L forums, Che could be found mentioning changes to come.

we reached what we hoped for but now its time for huge changes (sadly)

This has been followed by a removal of Kukkye, the scout who never misses, made famous by his “aimbot” frag video which caused a stir both in Europe and with our Gotfrag counterparts. Then, we could see this on IRC:

[19:16] * kyynel is now known as pwr\kyynel
[19:16] * cookye is now known as pwr\cookye

The ETF2L roster is now sparse, with Moose, Vallone,  Hocz, and Hymzi (who is due for army duty shortly). If the rumored Blood Pressure merger is going through, It will have taken 2 highly skilled teams in the making of the new Power cocktail. We hope Special Attack will avoid becoming the 3rd casualty of this spicy recipe, and wish them good luck on their ventures. We’d ask for comments, but Moose already told us to wait for the official announcement. Exciting.

Update: As it turns out, Moose already gave a statement on the PwR twitter page, 30 mins ago:

We’d like to welcome some new and old faces to our new TF2 lineup which is: cookye, kyynel, vallone, hocz, Haza, Punpu & mafu. GL guys!

Update:  Moose comes online, and brings us this wealth of words:

<pwr\Moose> you’ll get an official announcement at some point
<pwr\Moose> that should be enough

It’s been an active day so far, with the news of Fluffy’s removal for the team. For those who haven’t socialized with Finns before, you should know it’s an experience. And, with that, getting a word out from the member’s of Power hasn’t been easy. We got help from an anonymous source who gave us some relatively plausible rumors:

[Informer]: fluffy already left, and the article said that he had been having problems with hymzi which is pretty much bullshit
[Informer]: nobody can ever have problems with fluffy really
[Informer]: seems Moose is bringing a lot of changes in the roster
[Informer]: dunno if the power head guys have been unhappy about pwr performance or is he just carrying out his own plan
[Informer]: atm it seems like everyone but hocz and vallone (?) are getting the boot
[Informer]: hymzi is leaving for army this summer so his replacement was expected anyway
[Informer]: it’s kind of a second hand knowledge but the revamp should go something like this
[Informer]: fluffy replaced with haza, ollii replaced with punpu, paavi replaced with kyynel, hymzi replaced with mafu
[Informer]: bringing in haza and keeping vallone still in is kind of conflicting though
[Informer]: cos like everyone knows they fucking loathe each other <- Unconfirmed by Haza
[Informer]: and would never function as a scout pair
[Informer]: I dunno how moose talked hocz and vallone into it, but the rest of the team is properly pissed off
[Informer]: he pretty much just announced that most of em were getting the boot lol

For those uninformed, Haza,  Kyynel, Punpu and Mafu are currently involved in the Blood Pressure reunion, covered here on vanilla some weeks ago. It is also known that Weqo was offered the spot as demo (who declined due to being happy in Broder), during talks at i39. Bash was also mentioned as a potential candidate.

With this new info, we had some leverage to get some comments from some of our Finnish friends. Moose seems to be offline still, but in the meantime we got in touch with Paavi and Haza.

Paavi:

<VanillaTf2> hey paavi. I’ve been given some rumors about your team. Do you want to comment?
<pwr\paavi> nope
<pwr\paavi> ask moose.
<VanillaTf2> the rumor say that you, olli and fluffy got kicked, and moose is taking in most of blood pressure
<pwr\paavi> fluffy want leave. hes not kicked
<pwr\paavi> and hymzi is going to army if u dont know that yet.
<VanillaTF2> but, that doesnt explain you and Olli tho
<pwr\paavi> yep it doesnt
<pwr\paavi> or no
<pwr\paavi> ;)))
<pwr\paavi> ask moose he knows everything……….
<VanillaTF2> well, if it is correct that he is indeed kicking you and olli, it seems fair to hear both sides of it
<pwr\paavi> i dont know anything of this.. he said that he want old pwr punpu and kyynel back. thats only thing i know

Haza:

<Haza> WHAT
<VanillaTF2> wat?
<Haza> no i wont
<VanillaTF2> dont like vallone eh?
<Haza> Ö:D
<VanillaTF2> :D
<Haza> who’s the snitch
<VanillaTF2> :D
<Haza> or have they made it public or something
<Haza> im not playing for anyone
<Haza> all ive heard is rumours about some of the players quitting and us merging with them
<VanillaTF2> can we get a statement about what you think of vallone?
<Haza> i think he’s superb, perfectly capable of facing the top scouts
<Haza> one of the best id say
<VanillaTF2> and this rumour about you two hating each other?
<Haza> nonsense
<VanillaTF2> i take that as you’re possibly joining up with them
<VanillaTF2> :)
<Haza> as i said, im freelancing
<VanillaTF2> with a tag?
<Haza> :D
<Haza> youre an annoying reporter.
<Haza> eat shit

It shall be highly interesting to follow this one, as well as how they solve it with ETF2L’s hijacking policy. Update: Snowie (ETF2L admin) says in comments: The rosters are locked for the last week but power have already finished all their games, there’s a chance that teams could end up on the same points and we’d need a playoff game to decide second/third place, but rosters would still be locked for those.

But what about the upcoming season8?

With activity on both ESL and ETF2L profiles, the return of Blood Pressure has already become a well established rumor. But, they’ve been shy to shed light on it. Until now! First, a quick recap of the history that is “Blood Pressure”.

This is a resurrection of nothing less than an old Finnish super team. After a relatively failed attempt at Division 1, back in season 2, these boys went on to be picked up by Oslo Lions for the coming season 3.

Lineup as of July 2008:

Rauli Savela // Darn
Jukka Kauppinen // Rebeli
Jussi-Heikki Piipponen // Scock
Antti Kunnamo // Kuntsi
Toni Riikonen // Sexy
Tuomas Kunnamo // Punpu
Lauri Rasi // mafu
Anders Örndahl // Pjoxt

Source: Cadred

However, It didn’t go long before fold was a fact. Sexy, mafu, Pjoxt, and Kuntsi would step down from the top scene. Haza would go on to Übersexuals, who managed to win division 3 as the only team so far to shake 4Kings (now Dignitas) off their poles. Darn would go on to 4Kings, where he’s helped them win countless of leagues and cups ever since. A while after, Rebeli would join his red-pigtailian friend. Punpu went to Interrobang (later Crack Clan, then Power), and was to celebrated as the best soldier TF2 has ever seen – but had to stop playing due to Finnish military duty.

Now, a year later, Punpu is due to for release – Enter the second era of Blood Pressure! And, from the looks of it, they’ve got old tf2 stars like Masiina (4Kings/Dignitas) and Kyynel (Crack Clan/Power) to join their ranks. One of VanillaTF2′s “journalists” were lucky enough to get some comments from Haza:

[23:26] <Ha-za> we’re not gonna start playing 4 nights a week no
[23:26] <Ha-za> but we’ll start playing some after punpu gets completely back from the army
[23:26] <VanillaTF2> when is that?
[23:27] <Ha-za> like now
[23:27] <Ha-za> :d
[23:27] <Ha-za> he still has some days left

[23:27] <VanillaTF2> you intend on joining season 8?
[23:27] <Ha-za> guess so
[23:28] <Ha-za> isnt there like week 4 games going on in etf2l tho

[23:28] <VanillaTF2> what about dunc. Won’t you break his heart by leaving?
[23:29] <Ha-za> :D
[23:29] <Ha-za> ive already “left” them a good while ago
[23:29] <Ha-za> i was never with them properly anyway
[23:29] <Ha-za> just a freelancer playing for them every now and then

[23:30] <VanillaTF2> are you gonna be at Assembly?
[23:30] <Ha-za> no idea
[23:30] <Ha-za> probably not
[23:31] <Ha-za> might come and visit and get drunk if things go better than last time when everyone was playing till fucking 2 am

[23:31] <VanillaTF2> is moose gonna join you?
[23:31] <Ha-za> why would he isnt he in power and with the same role as i have atm?
[23:31] <Ha-za> aka freelancermerc whatever

[23:32] <VanillaTF2> is there a main lineup?
[23:32] <Ha-za> me kyynel mafu punpu sexy masiina sturmis
[23:32] <Ha-za> thats our whole lineup
[23:32] <Ha-za> if everyones around i guess sturmis will have to stand down but i dont know
[23:33] <Ha-za> we’re just playing some games as it stands now atleast

[23:38] <Ha-za> you can add something along the lines of “if only they had 5 other players as good as haza” to the bottom, implying its your words ofcourse
[23:39] <VanillaTF2> will do!

Big thanks to Haza!

Expected lineup:

Kyynel – Medic
Punpu – Soldier
Sexy – Soldier
Mafu - Demoman
Masiina – Scout
Sturmis – Scout, backup
Haza – Scout/Soldier, backup
 Kuntsi – ?