Gentleman Jon —The playoffs have gone according to league position and the top two regular season teams face off in the final – for the bloodshed, and the money.
Shuffling in the gloom of my sickroom I can see the difference between the teams this season has been Kill Switch’s failure to pick up decisive wins, settling for golden caps on several occasions when Highpander have bullied their way to the maximum points, but in doing so Killswitch have shown an ability to adapt tactically and turn around losing situations.
Their victory over IAG in the second playoff round showcased this, coming from a round down on cp_steel and stopping a comeback in its tracks on koth_lakeside. Both maps were won by seconds, and all rounds on both maps were won by narrow margins as well. Given how close this match was will they really be able to challenge Highpander who have reigned supreme over the highlander scene this season?
We’re gonna show these guys they’ve finally met their match
Emilio Estevez – Young Guns
The Maps
Highpander have decisively won the vast majority of their games this season although an examination of their record reveals a possible weakness on koth maps, losing to Kill Switch on Viaduct and IAG on Lakeside, although the latter was without their talisman and leader Hildreth.
Kill Switch by comparison have struggled on a number of maps without necessarily dropping them entirely, they don’t seem to have decisive weaknesses but have a habit of playing to less than their potential but winning through in the end. Complacency is even more dangerous than usual against them.
Player Matchups
Disclaimer: I’m making some assumptions about who will play that may be wrong.
Heavy
With IAG’s elimination we no longer have to make a Heavy comparison that is horribly skewed in one direction or the other, in fact quite the opposite.
There’s really no difference either in performance or style, both Nijoonen and Jamal put out massive damage and have a respectable KD as the spearheads of their teams. There’s no advantage to either side.
Demoman
The top two demos in Season 5 face off in this match, both main callers and both leading their teams
Hildreth hit ridiculous damage over the season, no doubt feeding himself a healthy diet of Kritzkrieg. Unlike his 6v6 season where he struggled to maintain an acceptable KD at the expense of damage output in Highlander he also has excellent KD figures.
Emilio Estevez by comparison has his damage boosted significantly from an intense Kritz battle on Lakeside against IAG, but sticks his neck out too often in comparison to Hildreth to get it. This should be an advantage to Highpander assuming Hildreth remembers to get out of bed.
Soldier
Moving on from the medic assassins of previous rounds we’re now looking at soldiers who play in more of a balanced style
Zoob was one of the unsung soldiers from the last 6v6 season, certainly one of the better performers outside of the tiny super elite group of players, and in this he shows his prem class over Ond kaja. There isn’t much of a difference in KD, but Zoob puts out more damage in general and should be more influential overall in the match.
Scout
There’s an interesting divergence in styles between furbo and Dennia, the latter is clearly more aggressive, possibly using Crit-a-Cola more often, at the expense of his own life. Furbo by contrast doesn’t get the damage output but takes a more measured approach with his own life more efficiently taking out targets and living to fight another day.
Overall the statistical expectation is that superior KD will win the day over DPM, but if Dennia gets more important picks with his high risk approach that may overcome the deficit. Small advantage to Highpander.
Sniper
Neither team is blessed with one of the league’s super snipers which goes to show although the sniper can be a hugely destructive class without the pushing power amongst the other classes they can only take you so far.
The difference between the two is only a small one, Phroblem marginally edging the contest and judging from his KD he probably takes fewer positional risks than kcot, but if true that would mean kcot could make better use of jarate. I would call this largely even.
Spy
With Inso gone there’s a lot less room for superlatives and general hyperbole when looking at the Spy class, we’ll just have to reflect on him managing to make Ombrack assist in his own death in the playoff match against DA (watch the kill feed, the casters didn’t spot this epic moment). And now onto the comparatively mediocre participants in the final.
Last time out I looked at Eliman as the KillSwitch spy, but now Snow has taken over as their Spy with the most hours having played against IAG. There’s a big difference in styles between the two with Snow far more aggressive with the Ambassador and Deadringer.
Fearboy relies far more on backstabs for his kills and tends to focus more on the medic as well. If he can get the high value targets then he can potentially contribute more but these blunt stats predict a small advantage to KillSwitch in this area.
Pyro
The top two Pyros in Highlander this season face off in this match. It illustrates just how big a gap there can be between the best.
This is a big advantage to Highpander, Steve puts out far more damage than the 2nd best Pyro in Prem and achieves a far superior KAD. Consider him the Inso of Pyros. Whether his aggressive style will give the likes of Snow more chances to kill his medic remains to be seen but it’s the only likely (but potentially very important) bright side of the Pyro situation for Kill Switch. Sizable advantage to Highpander based on the stats, but the style difference has other ramifications that aren’t so clear here.
Engineer
Kill Switch bring this season’s premier Engineer to the match in the form of It’s Mint.
He over-performed his season’s DPM stats by a significant margin in the last round against IAG, but the more aggressive play brought a commensurate drop in KD. Dr Kaka6ka is generally inferior in all categories but the Engie is unlikely to be a game breaking player.
There’s no particular difference in terms of the rate of buildings deployed or any other style indicators.
Medic
Hegee enjoyed some statistical superiority against Bulow but this time it’s a mixed picture. Ritalin has superior KAD probably thanks largely to Hildreth’s KD (with the Heavies being so evenly matched). Ritalin’s slightly better Uber per minute rate might be down to greater use of Kritz or Quick Fix. The Uber drops per minute rate is strongly in Hegee’s favour, so it appears Kill Switch certainly take better care of their healer, almost certainly a side effect of Steve’s spending a lot of time away from his medic and robbing the combo of their protection.
Medic Assassins
As against IAG apart from Emilio Estevez the vast majority of the top medic killers are on Kill Switch’s opponents, in this case Highpander. Hegee’s KAD did decline from the last match so there’s some evidence he was put under more pressure but not enough to win the game.
Once again Estevez is the top Uber dropper so Ritalin can’t rest easy, but ultimately it looks like Hegee needs to be in fear of his life far more.
Conclusion
Highpander have a significant statistical advantage in several key classes such as Demo, Soldier and Scout and have a star player in one the support classes in Steve, so they appear to be strong favourites with Kill Switch only able to claim an advantage in less central classes of Engie and Spy.
Kill Switch’s hopes must rely on their ability to adapt to their opponents play and overcome losing positions which puts a lot of pressure on Estevez to make the right calls, but that’s always the case with statistical inferiority.
Highpander just have to play to their potential to take the final, but they’ve suffered badly when missing their main caller (as you’d expect) and they may not have kept up their practice regime with Hildreth preparing for the 6v6 season ahead, or maybe a hopeless depression at West Ham’s recent form will get to him.
This could easily be a 2 map win for Highpander but if Kill Switch have up and down performances due to map and tactical choices it’s possible their peak performances will be good enough to take enough rounds to give them a chance to win.
I like these odds…
Emilio Estevez – Young Guns
Originally published on VanillaTV (vanillatf2.org) on 2014-01-20 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.