1⁵ᵀ (1) Epsilon eSports(140 points)2ᴺᴰ (2) TeamInfused(125 points)
3ᴿᴰ (5) Crack Clan (102 points)
4ᵀᴴ (3) Team Dignitas (97 points)
5ᵀᴴ (4) Relic (89 points)
6ᵀᴴ (8) Broder (80 points)
7ᵀᴴ (6) CKRAS Gaming (61 points)
8ᵀᴴ (7) Team Yoyotech (58 points)
9ᵀᴴ (9) Exotic Island (36 points)
10ᵀᴴ (NEW!) Quarantine (13 points)
Greg — Fifteen votes will go into each month’s rankings, ten of which are from the previous month’s top ten teams, and five of which are from our panel members, who will vote every month. The points system remains simple: a first place vote earns that team 10 points, 9 points are awarded for second place, and so on. The numbers in parentheses refer to the specific team’s ranking in the previous Month.
Continue reading to find out who the panel members are, and see their thoughts and opinions on this month’s rankings.
The Panelists
Alex "Hat" Melia
Alex is making his debut as a top ten panellist, stepping in for Mr Champagne who has mysteriously gone AWOL this month.Currently playing for the up and coming Team Yoyotech, where the godfather of TF2 doublemixes has been carried by TheSucker into the top tier of European Team Fortress Two.
“With the end of the ETF2L winter season, December comes with little in the way of competitive tf2 action – save for the fantastic spectacle which was the premiership grand final of Team Infused vs Epsilon eSports, it had all the makings of a classic tf2 final; starting with a dominating performance by Epsilon who carried incredible momentum in the first half to take 3 quick, successive rounds to which Infused replied to in the latter half with 3 rounds of their own to tie the score up 3-3 – forcing a golden cap round in which Infused took after building momentum from a successful middle and several key picks on Epsilon. The second map Snakewater was a dominating performance from Epsilon who came through with a 5-0 victory which lead into the third map Gullywash which ended up being a nail-bightingly close game with Epsilon taking it 3-2 with – of course – a little tf2 drama right in the closing minute of the map with Epsilon bringing out two Heavys (illegal in ETF2L rules) to defend their final cp against the last effort push of Infused. One of the better matches of recent history, Epsilon ended up taking the ETF2L season 10 premiership crown from Infused 7-2.
Leading up to the grand final was the 3rd place playoff of Crack Clan vs Epsilon which ended in a fairly solid victory of 6-0 for Epsilon with Crack Clan only taking two rounds from the champions over the course of two maps. And so going from these results and little else aside from season 10 final standings the beginning of my top 10 for December is found, Epsilon take the top spot with Infused and Crack Clan taking 2nd and 3rd respectively. Relic, Ckras and Team Dignitas make up the 4th, 5th & 6th spots.
Further down the line we have Broder who come in at 7th for their victory over Team Yoyotech in the fight for the 8th slot in the premiership in season 11. Yoyotech take 8th for their results in division 1b and Exotic Island enjoy 9th spot due to their standing in division 1a. The last spot would have to go to Quarantine due to their successes in other areas in recent competitive TF2.”
Gregory "Greg" Bushell
*Greg is the resident superstar scout on the panel, having risen through the ranks with his fellow Brits at Team Infused. He also has been known to lend his vocal talents to shoutcasting and is universally known as being a ‘lovely guy’.
His biggest claim to fame is that he has proven to the tf2 community at large that he can offclass as demo with the very best of them – destroying all comers at i44 with absolute ease, oh and he also held a champions league trophy but that isn’t nearly as awesome.*
Team Fortress 2 rolls into the Winter hibernation this month, with the only official results coming from the ETF2L playoffs, where Epsilon battled their way through relic, Crack Clan and Team Infused to take the Season 10 Crown and as such they retake 1st place in our rankings, with a fully deserved maximum 140 points! Then comes Infused after pushing Epsilon all the way in the Grand Final, with Crack Clan and relic taking 3rd and 4th. Infused and Crack Clan have both changed a scout since December, so it will be interesting to see how much cookye and basH affect these two teams going into January.
We also saw Broder and Yoyotech guarantee themselves Prem spots next season, as well as Dignitas retaining theirs. Broder come away at the top of this pack after a great playoff game with Yoyotech, with the later dropping below Dignitas who take my 6th spot and if they hadn’t have folded earlier this month would be looking good going into season 11. Since their playoff game versus Broder, Yoyotech have mixed up their roster brining in some strong new players (Kaidus and Droso), we will have to wait and see whether these roster changes will propel the team closer to the top 4 teams CKRAS take 8th after a month where they were looking for replacements for paavi and Tuce.
Bringing up the rear are the teams that will be looking to push themselves into Prem in 2012; Exotic and Quarantine.
Duncan "dunc" Wraight
With Admirable stepping away from eSports coverage, Dunc will be taking a permenant role on our panelist team, where he will be featuring his almost random scoring system to decide his top10 rankings.This outspoken geordie and previous Team UK captain has recently ventured back into the TF2 scene, having formerly played for Ubersexuals and Team Dignitas, he has blagged his way into Infused.Tt where he is currently making up the numbers.
“Well Jesus Christ on a Bicycle, this month I’m going to have to eat my own words. Or my hat. Probably both! Epsilon are once again crowned Champions for December, having an impressive unbeaten run against the current crop of Europe’s best teams. Making GeaR mad didn’t appear to work out too well for us, though in fairness Epsilon’s win over Infused had little to do with him. Damn you wltrs, you cheating Swedish LAN dodger!
Not really much to say about December other than that, so let’s have a look at the New Year. There appears to be some controversy over on ETF2L about TF2 dying, and I’d really like to know why people think that. With CKRAS potentially becoming much stronger; YYT almost doubling their potential; broder using gay tactics like two snipers and unfortunately i reckon dignitas might fold, however the next season of ETF2L will likely prove the most competitive we’ve ever seen.”
Sivert "Torden" Bakkeng
Don’t be fooled by is puppydog eyes; Sivert is a grizzled veteran when it comes to competitive TF2, having risen to fame in the revered Weapons of the Rebellion\4Kings squad that produced many of today’s top players.He has previously captained Team Norway and currently the Scandinavians, Broder, playing the pivotal medic role for which he is recognised as one of the best in Europe.
“There’s not much sample data this month, as I’m sure all the other panelists will mention. To my knowledge, the only teams to win a ranked game this month were Epsilon, Dignitas and Broder (if I’m wrong, take this as a sign to start getting your matches into the Vanilla ticker).
I guess it’s a controversial decision to leave an ETF2L finalist out of the top 3, especially when 1 of the replacements is my own team. But on the other hand, this is a monthly list of concurrent results, a win is a win, a loss is a loss.
The rest: Infused, Relic, Crack Clan and Yoyotech for participating in ranked games against high opponents. Blight and CKRAS fill the last 2 spots for being the best of the rest.”
Jason "kaidus" Allan
Jason completes our ramshackle panel again this month. Many of you will know him as the outspoken debate junkie from the ETF2L forums turned Cadred (non-)contributor, but he’s a nice guy really!His biggest claim to fame is that he once played in the same team as Admirable at LAN. Fortunately he is able to play TF2 once more, and you can now find him rocking huge airshots for Team Yoyotech.
“December… Not particularly results intensive, but with ETF2L Season 10 coming to it’s official close it seems right to use the final standings as the basis for this top 10. 1-6 of the premier division: Epsilon, Infused, Crack Clan, Relic, CKRAS. Dignitas. Following such logic, long-term strugglers equilibrium should come in 7th but granted the fiasco that was their season 10 ultimately concluding with 0 points, it doesn’t seem right to place them above div1 chart toppers broder and close runners-up YoYotech who fall in at 7th and 8th respectively. I’ll throw EQ a bone and give them 9th for having the heart to play the season out with “best of the rest” exotic making up the numbers.
Looking on toward 2012: So far epsilon take the asshole award for cancelling PCWs, asuch I have absolutley no idea as to how well they are recovering from the christmas break. With Infused taking on Cookye, and Crack Clan taking on basH, if there was ever a time when slacking could cost them dearly it’s now. Having said that, Infused’s practice regime has been non-existent thus far so I can’t imagine they will have a lot more to offer. Crack Clan look the contenders for any immediate competitions; having played nearly every night for 2 weeks they are my pick to steal the Sparkle TF2 Winter Warm-up over at excello.
If CKRAS actually make it to Season 11 I expect them to fall behind in the rankings with broder and yoyotech shaking things up and an array of promising premier projects currently brewing in the pots of Taimou and Antyy looking to steal the prem spot. Both these projects are too fresh to make a really differentiate, but they’d be my candidates for a playoff match. Quarantine deserve an honourable mention, however I’m unsure at this stage if they’re worth the gamble. If they find themselves in division 1 they are my pick to win it, however exotic and decerto might have something to say about that. Prove me wrong boys.”
You’ll be able to catch more thoughts from our panel with VanillaTF2′s January Rankings in a few week’s time!
Originally published on VanillaTV (vanillatf2.org) on 2012-01-12 by Greg.
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.