Pre-Season Movers & Shakers: Part 1

Admirable — Ever since the glory days of gossip.krus.dk, the European Team Fortress 2 community has loved a good old chinwag. You can never be quite sure who is browsing your ETF2L Profile, stalking you on Steam or pastebinning your conversations… especially with certain unscrupulous, possibly Irish, eSports journalists on the prowl.

It’s been a while since I did any real sleuthing, so my first port of call was to SuddenlyStarMia who put together a mammoth piece in the wake of Insomnia 49 entitled “Post-LAN Shake-Ups! (a.k.a The longest article you will ever read!)”. It’s a great precursor to this latest round of Premiership and Division 1 updates, and it is with her blessing that I proceed.

Being the business savvy cat that I am, I will be departing from the long read format to bring you some episodic content. I’ll give you gossip junkies a taste for free and before you know it you’ll be exchanging sexual favours for the latest competitive whisperings. It could happen.

Ahem! Anyway let’s bring this preface to a close and go frolicking in the rumour mill…

Epsilon eSports by Fragnet Networks

Since the close of ETF2L Season 15 there has been a lot of speculation on the future of Epsilon, particularly post Insomnia 49. We now live in that possible future. Epsilon are World Champions and they are staying together. It was no secret that Season 15 and i49 would be KnOxXx’s swan song as Epsilon’s cornerstone player and as a Team Fortress 2 competitor, with the fresh-faced Raymon lined up to fill the biggest of boots.

Pre-season rumours abounded that Epsilon would be taking a relaxed approach to their ETF2L and ESEA duties for the remainder of 2013, with Mike commenting that he was only intending to play one night a week in light of his impending studies and social obligations. I tackled numlocked on the issue and he went on record in saying that they now plan to commit 2-3 days a week.

I also received confirmation that Epsilon will be competing in the inaugural ESEA EU TF2 Open Division. Which means they are going to have a relatively busy schedule, with ESEA creating two additional officials per week for the ETF2L Champions, not to mention new maps and unlocks to contest with.

With former pocket Mitsy currently relocated to Canada I have to question the depth of the current Epsilon roster, which is apparently lacking options. Perhaps KnOxXx can be called in for those emergency situations, but a dedicated backup might be a smart acquisition for a team intending to play a less whilst being obligated to more competitions.

Note also that Epsilon are yet to compete with Raymon since his first successful outing in the ESAGamer.com Cup. He put in a sterling performance, conspicuously frustrating Broder pocket, Zebbosai, in the Grand Final with excellent dodging and mechanics, but he has largely been accepted on good faith. The next few months will be the acid test for his game sense and situational reads; two things that separated KnOxXx from his many pretenders.

Tea See Emm

So from the glacial changes of our eternal overlords, Epsilon, we jump in to our first new team of note. It wouldn’t be a new season without Byte getting the urge to add more bronze medals to his collection. Oh yes! The man whose tombstone will read “forever third” is back to scratch that itch.

Gentle ribbing aside, I am genuinely excited to see the return of such a strong leader to top level competition. After the disappointment of Season 15 Pre-Season Playoffs’ blink-and-you’ll-miss-it The Potentials’ failure to make the cut, Byte has returned with an incredibly solid looking roster. The screenshots and logs I have seen tell a story of a team deserving of a spot in the Premier Division or at the very least a place in any playoffs.

This roster has only been confirmed as of last night, with droso and fl1p having been previously linked to potential suitors TLReform and Team Infused respectively. With a teasingly tongue-in-check team name, one has to wonder is this a stopgap team or might we see them in blue shirts at an iSeries event in the next 12 months.

On paper this team works for me because I see five solid deathmatchers, arguably not renowned for their in-game smarts, teamed up with one of the games masterminds. In the past there has been what I can only describe as ideological friction in Byte’s teams, but if he is the sole caller and micromanages successfully this could be the season when “intelligence and anticipation” pays dividends.

I was (and perhaps the only one who was) impressed by several of Forsak3n’s hyper-aggressive performances last season, but with recent internet troubles there is a real possibility that he may be replaced before competition commences. Prospective replacements have been named as kos, Tek and Captainhax.

TLReform

This is the most recent and perhaps the most fragile of the season’s new-borns. I don’t even want to call them The Last Resort as I scarcely even know if this will happen. This is a team who managed to achieve more in a brief season than most expected, ruffling feathers online and at i46 with strong showings. Their leader, HYS, remains as elusive as ever, sending mixed signals at every possible turn; playing PCWs and yet denying firmly that this is “a team”.

I merced for them this week, much to the dismay of my Team Infused brethren (old wounds run deep), and for all intents and purposes they seemed like a team to me; albeit one short of a roaming soldier, with the twitching Traxantic nowhere in sight. Results were mixed but you could definitely see a spark there, if not quite the proverbial phoenix from the flames.

So it came as a surprise to see droso confirmed for Tea See Emm last night and I immediately rattled HYS’ cage to see if this non-team was in fact stillborn. True to form, he told me that the team was “never alive” before name dropping flushy as an Evilmoon replacement. Wait what?!

If I am being trolled by HYS remains to be seen. Whilst I might be happy to indulge the suave slav, I don’t think the ETF2L admins will be offering any leniency with the impending signup deadline of midnight on Thursday. The clock is ticking, but if they can pull something together I hope the powers that be see fit to give them a shot at playoffs.

Revoluzion la metagame

The award for the team most hyped about the new season definitely goes to RLM. When I shone my Bat Signal in the cloudy skies over the ETF2L forums, not one but two of their players were messaging me on Steam within minutes. So props to Snyppis and Brego for being goldmines of information, both on their own team and others.

As Mia previously uncovered, there have been significant changes to the roster since Season 15 closed its doors. Spin has decided to step back from medic duties to fulfil some sort of management position; who does he think he is? CommanderX?! In fact, only Snyppis and wltrs remain, so it seems quite likely that RLM will have to contest their Premiership spot again under ETF2L’s roster change rules.

A glance below will inform you that BeaVerN is now confirmed as the 6th a final member. After a brief flirtation with Team Infused, it seems he felt the chemistry was better with fellow Swede, wltrs. I don’t think I need to tell you that that is a formidable scout pair. If they can stay alive and clean up Brego’s thermonuclear damage, they might just be able to brute force their way to victory against the majority of teams.

WalKeR and Slate are obviously the two players who stand out here as rookies, but the fact that they have been transplanted from Trick17 bodes well for them terms of pocket chemistry. The team currently seems to be in a state of flux, with wltrs requesting a more passive role, giving BeaVerN control of the flank. The soldiers may yet try switching roles, although I don’t necessarily expect a “true” pocket soldier with Brego capable of so much when given adequate heals.

Brego himself told me that they are aiming for a Top 3 finish in both ETF2L and ESEA and they are also looking for an MGO because they “don’t like their name”. Ambition and ability could well be a winning combination.

TERRORISTS

Everyone’s favourite airkick enthusiast, Moogle, came out of the shadows to inform me about this band of familiar faces. The straight-talking German is looking to compete in ETF2L Division 1 with no mention of ESEA. Yet in the same breath he went on to say that “if bytes team is prem, so should we”. I would expect nothing less from such an outspoken underachiever; a man after my own heart.

The team looks solid, but I dread to imagine who is actually calling in this Frankenstein’s monster of squad. Shout out to p0le for being a genuinely good, underrated medic. I reckon sickless’ big numbers alone could be enough to push past some Premiership hopefuls, so again I hope ETF2L admins will give all willing teams a shot at playoffs, not least for the spectacle.

Although the roster originally floated to me included Ordinator I have also heard he is linked with a new CommanderX team. The plot thickens when I now see Erectus awaiting verification on their ETF2L Roster. Might we see sickless or Erectus swap stickies for rockets?

More teams and updates tomorrow. No doubt the observer effect applies to this bizarre ecosystem; the very act of trying to measure it causes it to change!

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Originally published on VanillaTV (vanillatf2.org) on 2013-09-11 by Admirable.

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.