hippole — New Year, new season, new teams, new players. In team transfer news, there has scarcely been a more exciting time than now and with a recent drop in the frequency of TF2 news, I felt it was time there was some real meaty gossip for the community to get its collective teeth into. Without further ado, let’s announce some of the new teams and lineups that are expected to grace the top flight of European TF2 in ETF2L’s coming season:
New Teams
Byte’s Tea(C)M
Demoman – Byte
Soldiers – Forsak3n + 1
Scouts – Gubbins and Rake
Medic – Ally
What is probably most interesting about this team is the lack of long term premier division experience. In fact, aside from Byte, all other premier experience in the team has either been limited to a single season or been over a year ago. The inclusion of roaming soldier extraordinaire Forsak3n and new-kid-on-the-block Ally make this one of the most exciting new teams to mention, a mixture of the huge experience that Byte brings to any team along with fresh talent could make for a sensational break into the top flight or a potential flop. I fear that consistency early on will be the main issue for these guys but in terms of dedication I can see them coming up tops and sticking through the hardships that come from such an inexperienced lineup. Rumours were flying that Zebbosai would be involved in this new lineup but it would appear otherwise. Perhaps Byte will aim to bring in one of his old friends to give the team a more stable backbone or will he continue in the same vein for the final player? There have been stirrings about Cyber’s return but so far only linked to a backup position.
I caught up with Byte briefly for his outlook on the team’s season:
Looking forward coming back with a team, the making of this team is based off the word “keen” the members currently in my lineup are all super keen, which is what I need. More importantly I hope to bring some of these youngsters (yes I’m old) into the prem gap and hopefully they get accepted at the top level, as we do need to bring in new legitimate players to prem. As for achieving something? Depending on if we are put in div 1 or prem next season in ETF2L, we would be aiming to maintain our position in prem if we got in, as for div 1, our aim would be to win it for sure.
A lot of scepticism I’m sure people will be thinking into the players I have chosen, but I believe with my help/knowledge their dedication/effort they can be a force to be reckoned with!
Dotter
Demoman – emptynoflow
Soldiers – Zebbosai and 2nuts
Medic – Ceder
Perhaps one of the biggest wildcards for the new season, with a mixture of old and new in emptynoflow and alba, could this new Swedish lineup bring down some of the top teams? I expect a division 1 entry for these guys but with the likes of Zebbosai and Jukebox, who makes this switch to scout (or perhaps sniper?) this team definitely has the potential to make waves.
Here’s what Zebbosai had to say about the team:
Well team dotter is just trying to bring together a good Swedish team again with some new up and coming players and some old experienced ones. We have only played 2 times so far but have gotten good results vs low prem/top div1. I don’t know what div we want to end up in next season yet it all depends on our results.
New Lineups
Demoman – kaidus
Medic – Evilmoon
With the extent to which the BFF lineup has changed, they are a new team in everything but name, however, perhaps owing to their 3rd place finish last season or the Finnish connections of the team’s leader, Darn, their additions range from the well established to the arguably legendary. On medic we have premiership debut of the season nominee, Evilmoon who was linked with a move to BFF prior to season 13 but lost out to Mirelin, and joining him in the soldier/medic combo is the stalwart hocz, a definite shift from the more aggressive style of Darn/Zebbosai to a steadier and arguably more natural pocket soldier. The scout partnership changes entirely with their star player, cookye leaving the team in addition to his partner bybben to make way for the return of TF2’s most renown pistol user, Quad and beaVern of humiliation kill fame. With such tried and tested players in this new lineup, it seems unlikely that they will be aiming for anything below a playoff finish but it remains to be seen whether this scout pair can fill the enormous boots left behind by cookye and bybben.kaidus only had a short remark on their aims for the season:
Honestly have no idea at this point. Based on strength of roster we’re going for gold, but that was the plan last season and we all know how well that turned out.
Demoman – Pognon
Soldiers – CaptainHax and Tek
Scouts – Flippy and plapla
Medic – k3
While hardly changed, it is worth noting the change in demoman from Flinn, who received endless criticism from the community about his inability to match up to the other demos, to Pognon who until now had been limited to the bottom end of division 1. Having just beaten aVenue in the premiership playoff in a tight game, Punchline will be returning to stake their claim to the premier division and no doubt they’ll be hoping for a season like season 12 rather than 13. Supposing the team manages to stick together , despite rumours awash about a potential fold, they could be in line to step up their form and challenge the top end of prem.
aVenue
Demoman – Brego
Scouts – Septique and msh
Medic – skeej
aVenue launched their campaign for the playoffs with a switch in two of their players from last season. The end of season 13 sees the departure of both Reveral and vroni who saw them safely into the second position in division 1 despite a poor start to the season and the inclusion of Salmon and msh. Many will know Salmon from his long history in the TF2 community but perhaps a few less will have heard of msh. With recent form in Pickup 2, I expect skeej thought favourably on his exceptional sniping ability and offered him the opportunity to make the step into the top flight which it would appear he seized with both hands. Despite losing to Punchline in the premier playoff recently, I expect them to be strong contenders for the remaining spot if there is a playoff to determine who will replace TLR. At the very least, they will be looking to go one better in division 1 and secure themselves automatic promotion with a top of the table finish.
Originally published on VanillaTV (vanillatf2.org) on 2012-12-13 by hippole.
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.