VanillaTF2

Pledge — Over the past week, the European Team Fortress 2 League released their map pool for Season 12. Six maps in total, of which four were pre-decided. The other two though, which will be the focus point of today, were to be decided by a public poll. Gravel Pit, Croissant, Foundry, Turbine and Obscure (the snowy one) were the results of a nomination thread and were the options. To much surprise and criticism, Obscure and Gravel Pit won the poll with a clear margin. Today, I want to take a look at the results of the poll and answer two simple questions: “How did these results end up like they did?” and “Is a poll like this the best way to decide maps?”

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

Fog — With less than a day before the start of the ESEA S11 season, here is a preview of the teams and their rosters

Seeing has some of the rosters have yet to be set in stone, and not a single official match has been played with any of these teams, I will only focus on the teams, their off-season changes, and their potential ranking. I will not bother with making predictions and actual power rankings until the second week of the season.  With that being said, enjoy the ESEA S11 Invite Preview article!

There have been a lot of notable changes from the end of last season to this season, with notable players such as TLR, Mackey, CB, and TechDude no longer actively playing in competitive TF2 due to personal reasons or otherwise. Along with that, Area 51 Gaming TF2, The Experiment, The Spacewhales, and Blight TF2 have dropped off as team for this season. Replacing those four teams, we have the seemingly super-team that is Mihaly’s Flow, the return of Yz50 with Srsly Br0, Season 11 ESEA-IM 1st place winners Pinball Wizards, and ESEA-IM S11 4th place team and voted in by the community Leviathan Gaming. Of the teams that have stuck around, all of the rosters have some new faces, mainly from the remnants of the defunct teams. With the short amount of time between seasons and the new rosters not being fully in sync, expect there to be a lot of surprises in the first few weeks of the season.

Read on for the full lowdown!

Faint — Sorry for the awful attempt at a witty title, but I’m not as gifted as Trell and its 3am. With season 11 drawing to a close there hasnt been much 6v6 action to cover lately. Today however, sees the first of the premiership playoffs between  Yoyotech and  Crack Clan.

Tonight’s BO3 will decide who gets a chance to face off against  Epsilon in the 2nd round of playoffs, and with it bags themselves a Tt eSports prize, and most importantly of all, a little pixel trophy to put in their virtual trophy cabinet.

In both of the last 2 encounters between these two teams, Yoyotech have been the ones to come out on top. With a 2-0 map victory in the excello invite semi-final, and a 1 map a-piece draw in etf2l, with yoyotech gaining the edge on points, thanks to a closely fought golden cap.

With  Greg filling in the open scout spot, yoyotech will have to be on top form to prevent crackclan from getting some payback on their previous encounters. Depending on how the bushman fits in with the team, and if   TheSucker manages to hit right click, this game could be a nail biter.

Join  Admirable and  ThePledge, with  Warden on the stream at 21:15 for an exciting start to the end of season 11.

Crack Clan Royze, Pescanova, MatnuN, BasH, Retsh0ck, Longás

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Yoyotech TviQ, kaidus, TheSucker, Boomeh, Linus, Greg

ETF2L Season 11, Playoffs Round 1

(29 comments)

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TIME

• Monday March 26th
• 21:15 cest
• 15:15 edt (na)
• 05:15 est (aus)

CASTED BY

• VanillaTV Livestream
• VanillaTV Mumble

SOURCETV

• relay.vanillatv.org:27100

Who will win this match?

• Crack Clan (56%, 115 Votes)
  
• Yoyotech (44%, 94 Votes)
  

Total Voters: 207

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cp_badlands6-1VanillaTV

cp_gullywash5-0VanillaTV

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Trell — I’m so sorry  dunc, really I am, but these pun opportunities just keep presenting themselves, and I’m far too weak willed to pass them up.  Onto the facts!  Tonight in Season 11 of ETF2L’s TF2 league, we bring you another premiership game, this time between Team Infused and Karnage eSports, featuring our very own  Admirable.  Whilst being played a little later than technically it was meant to be, this is Week 2, which means that the maps are Snakewater and Gullywash – so unfortunately we won’t see  Greg or  quad run over by a train.

Karnage have only managed to play 1 game so far this season, and lost it resoundingly to Crack Clan, who roflstomped their way to a convincing 6-0 victory.  Infused on the other hand have managed to complete 3 games, with 1 default win against the now defunct broder, a draw against Epsilon and a win against tryhards (which we saw last time on VanillaTV).

Team Infused Greg, cookye, numlocked, Flisko, Mike, dunc

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Karnage-eSports quad, antyy, Raliator, Zebbosai, Admirable, Crouton

ETF2L Season 11: Week 2

(8 comments)

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TIME

• Thursday March 1st
• 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?

• Team Infused (77%, 82 Votes)
  
• Karnage-eSports (23%, 25 Votes)
  

Total Voters: 107

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cp_gullywash5-0SourceTV

cp_snakewater5-0SourceTV

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Tonights cast will be an Open Mic cast with CommanderX and  Leon along with  Warden streaming - join us from 21:15 onwards!

EDIT: Please note, the mumble for tonight is - fakkelbrigade.eu:64740

Trell — Yes, as you can probably deduce from my terribly witty post title, tonight in ETF2L’s Season 11, Team Infused take on Tryhards.  Infused have proven themselves to among the cream of the EU TF2 crop currently, but are they in danger of being ‘forever 2nd’?  Hopefully not tonight – they are coming up against a Tryhards team that has yet to win a single game in Season 11.  Scary statistic indeed, especially when you look back at their previous games and see that they have yet to win a single map.

Will  Taimou manage to rally his troops tonight and give Infused a run for their money?  Or will  Greg’s men school everyone in the art of TF2?  I hear that  cookye is a ‘Fast Learner’!

Team Infused dunc, Mike, Flisko, Greg, cookye, numlocked

20

tryharders havoK, Taimou, Mineral, Trax, longas, Erectus

ETF2L Season 11: Week 5

(9 comments)

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TIME

• Tuesday February 28th
• 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?

• Team Infused (64%, 121 Votes)
  
• tryharders (36%, 68 Votes)
  

Total Voters: 189

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cp_badlands5-0

cp_granary4-2VanillaTV

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The action starts at 21:15 CET on VanillaTV, so tune in, grab a drink, and watch as the story unfolds.

gaal the Hamster — It seems like Season 10 was just yesterday, but here we go again. 2 of the top TF2 teams are going to play it out, for what will probably decide first, second, and third place at the end of the season.

For some strange reason,  Epsilon and  Crack Clan have decided to play their week 2 match ON TIME. ( Prem players lost their minds this season? ) I have not heard of any rumors as to what is happening, though if it were to be my guess, both teams probably feel they have been playing well for the last couple of weeks, and so they want to play the match “at high”, rather than at a time when  Stefan or  Retshock wont be able to carry their teams.

Seeing how Epsi/CC/Infused are the top 3 teams right now that dont really have a good match to play except each other, this means you MUST watch this game. ( As opposed to say, oh I dont know, Epsi-Tryharders). If your looking to see the highest level of TF2, this match is it.

Furthermore, we have an awesome caster lineup going on, so you’ve got no excuse not to tune into VanillaTV at 21:15 CET to join  Greg and  ThePledge casting, with  Comedian running the stream.

Crack Clan basH, Pescanova, Retsh0ck, HarryHook, matnuN, Royze

11

Epsilon eSports GeaR, KnoxXx, F2, schocky, Randa, wltrs

ETF2L Season 11: Week 2

(27 comments)

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TIME

• Monday February 6th
• 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?

• Epsilon eSports (68%, 89 Votes)
  
• Crack Clan (32%, 43 Votes)
  

Total Voters: 130

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cp_snakewater2-1SourceTV VanillaTV

cp_gullywash2-4VanillaTV

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