VanillaTF2

Fog — The article is a bit late, but Week 7 is now underway. I’ve decided to stick with just Power Rankings for the rest of the season, so no more predictions or roundups (unless there is a good response for the roundups).

With only two weeks left to go before the end of the season, teams are going to be making the final push for the remaining 2 spots for LAN. At this point, Classic Mixup and Quantic Gaming have already secured their place for LAN (which team will be first or second is still up in the air). The race for the final LAN spots have heated up, with Area 51, High Rollers Gaming, The Experiment, and Mighty Ducks being in what is the closest race for 3rd and 4th that I’ve ever seen. This week, matches are being played on the recently made official map cp_gullywash_final1 made by Arnold.

Gullywash has seen many changes during it’s many revisions, the most noticeable change from the last Release Candidate to the final version is the addition of the drop-down at the middle/2nd point connector/choke. This opens up some new possibilities with flanks for soldiers and scouts, opening up the narrow corridor which slowed the game down a bit. Another part of the map that teams will have to watch out for is the passage to the last point from underneath, which also provides a massive point for players to flank and potentially backcap the final point with the team at last. The last point has 4 viable options when pushing into it, however, the last point is also notorious with being a hard point to push. With the rest of the maps for the regular season being the standard 5CP, maps should play in a similar style. Now lets get into the Power Rankings, which will be short and sweet due to my limited time.

Fog — As North American TF2 content hasn’t been covered as much as it should be, I will be taking charge of NA TF2 content, and will try my best to provide more covereage of TF2 across the pond. For now, I will be focusing on ESEA Invite (comparable to Premier for ETF2L).

Another week of matches have finished for ESEA Invite, with matches this week being played on koth_pro_viaduct_rc3. Where’s the second map, you may say? The North American TF2 scene only runs matches on one map per week, with teams playing two matches per week on the same map. It’s probably a good idea to go over the basic rules of ESEA while we’re early into the article for those who have never watched an ESEA (or NA TF2 match in general).

The rules:

• - First to 5 (4 in KOTH matches, 2 in Attack/Defend) wins the match
• - Two (2) 30 minute halves (20 minute halves for Attack/Defend)
• - Once a team has won 3 rounds (or after the time limit is reached), half-time commences and the teams switch sides
• - If both sides are tied after the two halves, an overtime round is played with the team winning that round winning the match (similar to golden-cap)
• - Unlocks are generally allowed (Gunboats and Equalizers ARE allowed), but there ARE weapons that are banned.

More info can be found here: ESEA Rules