Gentleman Jon — This Sunday the first round of the ETF2L Highlander playoffs takes place (no cancellations please) with itsallgood taking on reigning champions Daroutoutou. The Frenchies have struggled to meet expectations this season although they finished ahead of SNSD whereas itsallgood have surprised having had to fight to get into the division in the first place.
I’m taking a player by player look at the two teams to see how they match up. Disclaimer: there could be one merc in the final, there could be lots. We know JoeNUFC has been requested as demo by IAG on the match page, but for the purposes of this article apart from this exception I’ll assume their usual players will be in the match.
I’ll also be debuting a possibly controversial probably useless and easily derided rating stat, which is basically a combination of the KD and DPM stats in a ratio that reflects the importance that aggression and kills have in the result. These ratios are also based on 6v6 games so how well they translate to Highlander and the preponderance of payload isn’t clear, and obviously there’s a lot of other stuff going on with how the different classes are utilised during the games anyway. I think it’s interesting so that means you have to put up with it.
Heavy
For IAG this is a tricky one, later in the season kKaltUu played more Heavy for them but I get the feeling that Pinky was the preferred choice. Still, kKaltUu has the most time on the class for the team so that’s who we’re going with. Daroutoutou (from now on known as DA) boast 6v6 stalwart Tek.
To describe this as a clear edge to DA is an understatement, Tek is the top rated Heavy so far this season putting most others in the shade, whereas kKaltUu has struggled. Pinky would make a better comparison, but would still be clearly outclassed.
Healing figures are unreliable as sometimes F2’s medic stats are used and sometimes not, but it does appear that Tek is more heavily pocketed. Even so that wouldn’t make up for the difference. Is Tek really 3 times the player? Maybe not but either way it’s advantage DA.
Demoman
IAG are using JoeNUFC who is no slouch on a variety of classes, whereas DA will obviously be using the only Demoman in France, Exon.
Joe doesn’t have a huge amount of time recorded on this class this season so his stats must be taken with a pinch of salt as they could be the result of a game against weak opposition or on a spam friendly map.
With that in mind it’s clear to see that the ever-present Exon’s stats are somewhat worse, particularly in the damage output department. It’s closer than the Heavies but this looks like a tentative advantage to IAG, with the caveat that Joe may not play up to these numbers although of course he may do even better.
Soldier
One again the Frenchies are sporting a 6v6 regular on-classing in T-Mac, while IAG have the much loved Muuki famed for the efficiency of his suicidal medic bomb.
Muuki gets a lot of praise from the Highlander commentators but the stats say that T-Mac is the more aggressive and more efficient killer. Relatively speaking soldier in Highlander is very much the poor cousin of the 6v6 equivalent, but for what it’s worth DA seem to have a modest advantage in this area.
Scout
Plapla was one of the weak links for the Frenchies in Season 16, whereas Lazybear is considered by many to be the strongest scout in HL this season. Does the 6v6 pedigree cross over into Highlander regardless?
The short answer is no. Lazybear’s credentials look to be well earned, having a similar impact to T-Mac overall if the rating stat has any significance. It should be remembered that scout stats can be victim to being stuck on cart pushing duty so I won’t be too hard on Plapla without exhaustively watching the demos (I haven’t), but suffice to say that this looks like a clear advantage to IAG.
Sniper
Sniper is one of the most devastating classes in Highlander, and DA boast the 6v6 sniper of the season (sorry Forsak3n). Can the marvellously named Fanny_Filth possibly compete?
There are a few snipers competing for the top spot, but unfortunately Fanny isn’t one of them. In their earlier meeting the sniper vs sniper battle went 12-7 to Flippy so IAG are going to have to come up with a game plan for him specifically as this kind of damage output can’t go unchecked.
Big advantage DA.
Spy
Although some of the match ups presented so far have seemed quite one-sided there are usually other players from the other teams between them and it isn’t generally a chasm between the top player and the rest of the league. In the case of Inso though this is a fairly typical comparison between him and 90% of the other Highlander spies.
If Epsilon wanted a full time Spy, this would be the man.
To his credit Isil doesn’t compare too badly in the aggression stakes, but he’s just miles behind on KD (Inso is the only Spy with decent time on the class with a positive KD). Whereas other spies use the L’Etranger for extended cloak time and cloak and dagger for information gathering, Inso selects the Ambassador for headshots and the God mode watch for aggression.
It’s an interesting comparison, but generally speaking if you see Inso in the lineup it’s advantage whoever’s got him, in this case IAG.
Pyro
It takes a special class of Pyro to have a huge impact on a game, and usually some help from the map or opposition. In this case with Inso on the other team it’s DeGuN who has the bigger chance to be a hero. He’ll need his lucky spy checking pants on for this one.
They’re incredibly evenly matched, with Rudi playing slightly more aggressively but this amounts to very little between them.
Verdict: Even, but DeGun is under more pressure to perform.
Engineer
Of all the classes, even including the multi-faceted spy, the KD and damage stats may be most inappropriate for the Engineer. Even so in a CP setting the battle Engie has to perform as the fluid gameplay make the support structures less important.
From the overall Engie stats I’d say IAG would be much better off with Lenny but Ncm has been their Engie of choice for most of the season so I’ll assume he’s their man for the playoffs.
Ncm is marginally the more aggressive player while Mista has better KD, but realistically this is almost completely even. Looking at wider Engie stats Ncm favours support buildings a little more than Mista but this could be down to the maps he played on.
Medic Panicked Addendum
It’s always hard to judge a medic, but let’s look at what we can. Uneven use of of the medics stats rules out heals per minute being meaningful and how well the pocket does tends to skew the other stuff.
Tek’s brilliance on Heavy gives K3 quite an edge on KAD, but this is only to be expected. Bulow however is also less reliable getting uber, which would indicate his team can’t protect him as well, or he’s less likely to use one of the fast charging options like Kritkrieg or Quick Fix, but of course we can’t tell. Thanks Valve.
Neither Medic is particularly prone to dropping. Overall it looks like DA get more out of their medic than IAG, but the margins are pretty fine. Over a 30 minute map DA can expect 3 more ubers of whatever type. If it goes to 3 maps that’s a lot more uber goodness overall. Slight advantage DA.
Conclusions
DA’s strengths in this match lie in their Heavy and Sniper superiority, but they’re both under threat from the most deadly assassin in Highlander Prem this season in Inso. T-Mac should be more effective on soldier, but Muuki is no slouch in dropping medics.
On the IAG side Inso’s threat is much bigger, and Lazybear should be much more effective on scout. Demoman may be an advantage for them, only time will tell.
This looks like an incredibly close match with both sides holding their aces. It may swing on a weaker player stepping on the big stage, or a clever merc choice neutralising a weakness before a shot is fired.
Originally published on VanillaTV (vanillatf2.org) on 2014-01-11 by diemasher.
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.