Imperium — Despite significantly reduced numbers at both signup and checkin, the cup had very few default wins & losses, leading to a lot of matches with the 44 participating teams. Now, however, that is down to just 7 with 1 team in the semi-finals, the rest in the quarters. This cup was the first ultiduo one to feature seeding, with 5 of the 8 seeds making it to the quarter-finals.
We have the last 6 games left to play to decide who gets the $200 first prize and $100 second prize. All 6 games will be played in the same night, Wednesday 24th August, one after the other. This provides around 3 straight hours of ultiduo coverage, which (all being well) will be streamed & casted live on VanillaTV. The schedule is as follows:
19.00 cest: Call of Duty Gamers UK vs ql?
19:30 : M&M vs bunchiez
20:00 : Cardinals vs Dark Angels
20:30 : virile unhumen vs CoDUK/ql?
21:00 : Semi-final 2
21:30 : Grand final
Summary of the first night
First up, no surprise. virile unhumen (HarryHook & Estanis) are through to the semi-finals after being seeded number 1, following on from their successes in cups 1, 1.5, 2, 4, 6 and ETF2L #1. They had a straightforward route to the quarters before playing _Baleth (Daleth & _Ben), where their game was slightly closer with around 3 minutes left on the clock in both rounds. Demos are available on the ETF2L site – STV, HarryHook, Estanis & Daleth POVs are here. _Baleth did overcome 8th seed Kumbullah (Genmix & Side|Effect), with Side|Effect winning cup #5 with Gubbins, but the inexperienced duo were outplayed by Daleth & _Ben.
Call of Duty Gamers UK (Shintaz & Cook) successfully came through their section as 5th seeds to make it to the quarter-finals. Having played 3 matches, they had little trouble making it to the quarter-finals, including a double whitewash against gr8 m8s h8 l8 d8s (Sisu & hurr), or as they like to call it, “crunch cornered”.
Their quarter-final opponents, ql? (zooob & TheSucker), won both matches with relative ease to reach the quarter finals. This included a notable victory against 4th seeds, semi-finalists from ETF2L #1, caLóóó (Kalhó & Slashptt). This game was also not an issue for them, raising the strong possibility that they’re an upset waiting to happen.
In the other half of the draw, 3rd seed CARDINALS (Dav1dd & Imperium) lost a round en route to their quarter-final against team >_>(baud & empty), providing a nervous match before making it to the finals day. Their other match was a simpler task, but dropping a round before the finals is never encouraging. Still, having won cup #7 they are still a team to beat, although both virile unhumen and bunchiez remain in the cup who have beaten Cardinals in recent cups.
Their quarter-final matchup is against perhaps the biggest surprise to see in the quarter-finals, Dark Angels (Ceymoure & Thy). Having beaten 6th seeds Eliyahu Ha Navi (although neither Retsh0ck nor Royze played! Torden & Psunfragga merced), they then proceeded to the quarter finals winning their round 3 game, although dropping a round in their first round match against Ha Noraj 1! (Askior & T-Mac).
Ranked at seed #7, MandM (Memento Mori & Mike) dropped a round against GetGood. (Tarkus & Fraggal), although their other two matches were more straightforward having not dropped a round. Despite not playing a cup previously as a duo (Mike has of course participated in previous cups, including runner-up in #5) and Mike playing medic rather than soldier, they appear to be progressing well.
Last but far-from-last previously, 2nd seed bunchiez (sajtos & knuckze) have had a fairly trouble-free route to the quarter-finals. Having been 2nd in the previous cup, they have a strong possibility of doing the same this cup or better. Despite their heavy defeat in the final of the last cup, they’ll surely be up for another go with them meeting virile unhumen in the final should both teams progress that far.
Good luck to all remaining teams, let’s hope someone finally stops the spaniards!
Brackets from from the earlier stages.
Originally published on VanillaTV (vanillatf2.org) on 2011-08-18 by Imperium.
Recovered from the Internet Archive (archived copy) as part of tf2esports.com's preservation of VanillaTV's TF2 coverage. The original site is no longer online. All rights remain with the original author; reposted for historical reference.