VanillaTF2

Fog — Hey everyone, sorry about the lack of a Week 8 Power Ranking, but I had no time to write the article due to various personal reasons. Hopefully this roundup makes up for the lack of power rankings

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.

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 — Due to exams, I had not had the time to write my articles. So this week’s Power Rankings will not include predictions (they were terrible), with the roundup for week’s 4, 5, and 6 coming in the following days (Week’s 4 and 5 will be combined).

We’re now entering our 6th week of the ESEA-I Season, and with only two weeks to go in the season, Things are only heating up for the final LAN spot. Now, after this week, there will be a two week break from the 19th of December to the 1st of January which co-incides with various holidays. This week, matches are being played on a very new and interesting map in cp_standin_b5, created by scorpiouprising.

Standin is unique map, as it has the distinction of being the only map with all 3 capture points available to be capped at all times. It also introduces ESEA, and probably the rest of the competitive communities around the world with a new map type, Domination. Similar to Domination mode in Call of Duty games, teams must capture all three points to win the round. However, once a point is captured, it does not lock for the team and it is always available to capture (Like KOTH, but with 3 capture points). For teams to be successful on this map, The most important thing is actually understanding how this map works. Teams who play this map like a regular 5CP map or focus on DM over strategies are going to run into a lot of issues. Other things to consider on this map is the abundant flankings areas with the map’s multiple entrances and exits to points and spawn, and the extremely close proximty from spawn to B point. This map is the smallest map in rotation, making the gameplay very fast and full of action (Great for Spectators, not so great for players). 

Fog — The week 4 matches have finally concluded, with week 5 matches starting tonight on cp_snakewater

Snakewater is a 5CP Standard Control Point map created by Chojje. This map has gone through serveral different revisions and release candidates, before landing on its final version. For a team to be effective on this map, they will have to be on constant alert with the map’s many entrances and exits to different points. Some notable examples include the dropdown between 1st and 2nd point, the window at 2nd, and the kitchen at middle point. Teams will also have to be aware of possible back-caps, as they are common-place on a map like Snakewater. The last points of this map are known for stalemates and slowness, however Chojje has improved the speed of the last point over serveral revisions of the map. Otherwise, this map plays like a standard 5CP map, which will be a welcomed change from the maps of Viaduct and Gravel Pit played in the past few weeks of the season.

In terms of roster changes this week, Bl4nk has left Snooplicity and has moved down to Open to play on ex-invite Medic Tragic’s team, which coincides with the pickup of Boomer last week. Other then that, the only noticable pickup was the return of scout great Ggglygy, however, his role is only a backup role, and not a starting role. Now on to the Power Rankings.

Fog — The week long Thanksgiving break is now over, with week 4 of ESEA-I going on.

This week’s matches are taking place on the always interesting cp_gravelpit. Gravel Pit is a 3CP Attack/Defend map, with the unique feature that both the A and B points of the map are able to be captured from the start of the round. Expect a lot of off-classing from the standard cookie cutter classes, with Engineer and Heavy on defense, and Sniper and Spy on offense being the most popular options. The map is a lot less focused on DM, and a lot more focused on strategies and key picks of utility classes. With Gravel Pit, most teams on defense barely focus their attention on the A point, and heavily fortifying the B point. However, this map is also prone to stalls as teams will wait for the perfect moment to strike, and can be very boring to watch as a spectator. For a team to be successful on Gravel Pit, practicing strategies on this map is key, as the teams who are not prepared to play this map will be destroyed.

There has been some shakeups with the teams and their rosters, the biggest one thus far is the folding of the beloved team The Spacewhales. The Spacewhales had a rough season thus far, being the only winless team in Invite. The team has had to play through different situations and circumstances, such as ricco not having power for an entire week, and the personal matters that forced rr- to miss the match vs. High Rollers Gaming TF2. To get more of an insight on the folding of The Spacewhales, I spoke with Zakirll, the former leader of the team.