Pre-Season Movers & Shakers: Part 2

Admirable — As you might expect, rosters are at their most volatile in the pre-season period with so many clandestine deals, broken promises and vigilant whistle-blowers. Already the tremors from Part 1 are being felt and twenty four hours later sections are looking outdated and I feel the urge to amend and update. I will resist. Those words shall stand as a time capsule for future generations.

I must say, the response from the community in terms of bean spilling has been excellent thus far. So a big thank you to all those movers and shakers who have laid bare their teams’ internal workings. I will grease the wheels of eSports journalism with your dreams and aspirations for the approaching season.

Anyway! Onwards and upwards. My razor sharp wit has been surgically sterilized; I am ready to dissect another handful of teams and see what sort of juicy gossip oozes out…

Team Infused

Insomnia 49 did not go as intended for Team Infused. Despite not receiving many plaudits from the community in the lead up to LAN, I fully expect they entered the International Centre with a quiet confidence in their status as contenders. Various technical problems and last minute strategic reshuffles seemed to quickly erode any self-assuredness, with the end result being a disappointing 5th-6th place finish and a growing distance between their talismanic scout-sniper-playmaker, TviQ, and the rest of the squad.

Upon return from England, the disillusioned TviQ severed all ties, dropping himself from the ETF2L roster and 6v6 competitive play. The coming weeks saw several high profile scouts on trial including  BeaVerN and fl1p, but neither of them would make the cut. Their stories have already been chronicled in Part 1, but read on… for the plot thickens.

I neglected to mention that T-Mac was also stepping down from his soldier duties, swapping airshots for rimshots and lectures from Professor Ipz for a more formal education. This had prompted a pocket-weary Zebbosai to put himself forward as a replacement roamer. A few angry maps later and it became apparent that his fatigue extended to the soldier class in all forms. It was then that the Swedish superstar began to pitch himself as a scout, much to the dismay of ipz… at least at first.

It wasn’t until another would-be roamer by the name of Salt entered the equation that Infused’s Führer began to warm to the idea of realising Zebbo’s scattergun dreams. T-Mac’s former PyRoGEN teammate seems to have been the key here, boasting a superior grasp of English and in-game confidence. Salt may well be T-Mac 2.0; ipz has praised his initiative and chemistry with Zebbosai and seems more than happy with how the cookye has crumbled (kill me).

The death of Broder has created a strange state of affairs for Infused. They now find their supply of worthy practice partners diminished to only one; Epsilon eSports, who are themselves planning to drastically strip back their play time. This might be the season where the top of the top stagnates slightly. How can you beat Epsilon if you rarely get to train against them? Infused will require some laser focus and a professional approach, even against lesser opponents, if they want to do more than tread water this season.

The kraut commander has confirmed that Team Infused will be focusing their efforts on ESEA this season and treating ETF2L more as a scrimmage. He is keen to endorse the ESEA’s plans for Europe and also stated that they will be paying league fees tonight.

Publiclir Saints

Saints finished Season 15 knocking on the door of Division 1, having picked up a silver medal in Division 2B behind The MIPC Organization despite having beaten them convincingly in league play. It was only after they dropped the reportedly unreliable pocket rocketman, iZon, in the off-season in favour of the then-SOLAR’s exiled medic, vani, that their claims to greatness began to solidify.

With a string of encouraging performances in various summer cups, a few of which I was fortunate enough to cast, and a good showing at Insomnia 49 behind them, Publiclir Saints have marked themselves out as more than just your average Division 2 team. A glance at their screenshots provides a slew of big name scalps who would no doubt plead the “PCW!” defence, but as the old adage goes “there’s no smoke without a fire”.

Ond Kaja pulls no punches when telling me straight out the gate that their goal for the season ahead is a Top 4 spot in the Premiership. My thoughts immediately go to PyRoGEN, who made the jump from Division 2 to Prem before wilting in the intense heat and burning up three weeks in to the season. The Swedish medic assures me that they actually relish the opportunity to play Premier opponents and he feels they actually play better when challenged. Confirmed masochists.

On top of LAN, the Saints have also managed to finance themselves to sail on the maiden voyage of the good ship ESEA EU, joining the growing list of fully paid teams. Their seemingly boundless ambition only slightly overshadowed by news that they will be using backup Maffi in place of the USA-bound  Smirre. Unperturbed, Ond Kaja’s resolve remains steadfast in attainment of their Premiership goals, adding the escape clause “if we keep it together during officials”. I think we can all relate to that.

Reverto

On to a much more cut and dried case of Premiership aspirations; Reverto’s path was the direct golden ticket earned through closely fought Division 1 campaign which culminated in a playoff victory against their arch-rivals, Decerto A.K.A. Furbo Pandas.

After a past season that saw Maffi, Stark and even HYS all playing demoman in some shape or form, Division 1’s golden boys have taken it upon themselves to secure a new stickie slinger before the season commences. WARHURYEAH and hawku tried and failed to impress their prospective teammates, who seem to have been more enamoured with notorious basket baron, huhy.

When quizzed further on why they had not picked up the demoman of i49, WAR, Stark revealed that there were certain colleagues “who were unhappy with him as person”. I also learned that hotshot scout, Aephage, has recently gone A.W.O.L. following a connection timeout during practise. Let’s hope that by the time this work of art is published the situation will have changed.

Having played against them with TLReform, I can tell you that Reverto are infuriatingly robust, playing a low risk, passive style that I feel will guide them far in the new Premiership landscape. Kudos in particular to Huhy, who was more than a match for the veteran HYS on the night, delivering a superior performance in damage output and map control. Genuine contenders.

Man vs. Wild

Salmon, much like his idol, Bear Grylls (also the teams patron), is a man not afraid to brave the elements. Where Bear withstands the freezing tundra or searing desert heat, Salmon has weathered the drought of Finnish talent that saw the demise of 90° Fov eSports ATK-Gaming and the toxic conditions of the ETF2L Recruitment section to put together an interesting proposition for Season 16.

Bringing delzic along for the ride and pairing him up with my personal upcoming talent of last season, gf18, is the headline here for most people. Also nomadic medic, skeej, was onboard from an early stage, prompting Salmon to put in some Ultiduo hours and hang up his gunboats in favour of a pocket role.

The last piece of the puzzle was the one that caused me the most discomfort, as KillAri was a player who seemed to have picked up a mixed reputation in previous teams. I confronted the Finnish frontman on his decision, but he was adamant that the roster worked well, continuing by stating that the Belgian was a team player, functioning well within the team and they had no intention of looking elsewhere.

Despite the shining appraisal of KillAri, I did also pick up that they may yet experiment with the roamer-pocket roles. Salmon was also unwilling to take my bait when asked “Do you think you will die less on pocket?” and even resisting the barbed “Do you suicide all the time in game because you are sad irl? ;____;”. Admittedly, I do love to pick on Salmon, but only because he is a good player badly in need of watching his own demos.

P.S. I don’t compete anymore, so I can freely talk trash!

P.P.S. Worth noting the metamorphosis of kr4tos in the past few months, who has gone from being someone I goaded in Pickup 2 for being so flaccid to a genuine powerhouse demoman. Do not underestimate him or you will be gnashing your teeth in the spawn queue.

Haunter’s Team

I’m afraid the last team to go under my knife this episode are already undergoing the onset of rigor mortis, in fact, there appear to be a pack of wild dogs ripping the corpse to pieces. Argh! Still slightly turned on…

Focus! My preliminary investigations had heard tell of an all Portuguese line-up headed by the only man I know to have small area of virtual wooden decking named after him, Haunter. By the time I got to speak to the aforementioned handsome bastard, it was already too late, with t0da’s real-life movements providing the fatal blow to their dreams.

The team was born from Portugal’s Nations Cup efforts and I can’t help wonder how much face Kiler and the now-unbanned Marcu would have raped4fun? Furthermore, was Haunter actually the medic? How would he have fared? How good is Concrete? Why the hell did they even want to play with t0da anyway?! Questions, questions, questions.

The car-crash-LAN-dodger did let slip that kalhó and Kiler4fun were trailing for TLReform, but that was since plastered all over the TF2 News ticker. Damn you, F2! Anyway there you have it for Part 2 of what is fast looking like a four part series. The circle of life continues.

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Originally published on VanillaTV (vanillatf2.org) on 2013-09-12 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.