Hildreth — As the Summer i-series approaches, European hopes will be laid on the mighty shoulders of Epsilon once more as they attempt to retain their World Champion status versus the might of North America and Australia’s Team Immunity. Epsilon managed to see off Awsomniac on Thursday night in a two map win, they retained their ETF2L crown for the 6th season running. The history books will say it was business as usual for European TF2, the formidable giants of the scene dominated and won – AGAIN. But when you take a closer look at how the past few months have gone for Epsilon, it was their worst season in years.
Roster uncertainties
Epsilon meanwhile had a number of spiralling changes to their roster, having seen the epic German duo of Stefen and GeaR “retire”, Knoxx moved over to Pocket, Mike back to Roamer for the first time since his Team Infused days and Portuguese scout, Kiler4fun finally being given his shot after a brilliant season with The Last Resort. They also started the season with ex-TLR Demoman Hys as the replacement for the legendary Numlocked and Raymon retaining the Medic position he took over from Knoxx after their i49 victory back in Season 16. A few bad pcw results prompted leader Knoxx to cut Hys and try to swap Mike to Demoman and recruit GeaR for comeback but such a swap lasted an underwhelming week with GeaR not expressing interest and the Welsh genes of Mike not mixing with the Black Scottish class. This incarnation barely lasted 1 week and led to nerds jumping in their basements at the news Numlocked might return, he merced for the side versus joint bottom side Lazy Pandas where Epsilon barely scraped through 2 maps, losing rounds and dropping their first point for 2 years.
Major reshuffles followed, Raymon was cut from the team shortly after and Knoxx moved across to Medic after many people (possibly even his own team?) thought he was not up to standards on soldier. This opened the soldier spot up for Tek to come into the side on Roamer and move MGE Mike aka “Best soldier in TF2″ according to some onto Pocket. However in all of this, Numlocked decided he wasn’t up for playing with a team that loses points to a bunch of Highlander nerds, deciding to continue to focus on League of Legends, opening the spot up for Warhuryeah to jump ship from Rockit and become Epsilon’s 3rd English Demoman of the season (I was robbed). The Epsilon drama train had rolled past ‘Roster Central’ and continued down the track to a stop they never thought they would visit – ‘Map Loss Junction’ as they refused to settle for a Golden cap on Granary with the scores tied versus main rivals Awsomniac, they made an ill-advised push from Granary middle and got crushed, handing Awsomniac enough points to take them to 1st seed and see Epsilon drop their first map in the regular season since season 12.
The Epsilon drama train conductor – You must be at least this handsome to ride
The lineup was now fixed for Epsilon and the results had started coming, but from 2nd seed they would need to dispatch a re-emerging Fenneks side in the Playoff semi-final match. To make matters worse, Tek’s availability had been sporadic up until this point and they needed to bring in GG.WP soldier, Forsaken in to merc for the game. Needless to say Epsilon looked shaky without their main team and Fenneks lead at certain points in the match, but eventually they managed to overcome the 5th placed side in two closely fought maps. Their resolve grew bigger as Tek returned to practise with the side and War’s confidence grew so much he no longer titled his streams “Yet to be kicked from Epsilon”. They had settled after a turbulent season and now all that was left was to face off against their main foes, Awsomniac who had sat comfortably watching the World champions sweat it out in the playoffs.
Classic Epsilon performance
Despite many people backing the new blood from Awsomniac to break the dominance of Epsilon, it was the latter who dominated proceedings right from the word go. On Awsomniac’s map pick of Process, Epsi raced to a 4-0 lead and controlled the first 20 minutes of the match, capitalising off AWS mistakes. It seemed like the Epsilon of old had returned and played their methodical style, with Bash impressing with all of his backcap and distraction plays along with Tek, opening space up for the main Epsilon combo to dominate. Awsomniac staged a mini fight back, won some key fights off some scrappy plays and rode their momentum but in the end they couldn’t break through and the map went 4-3. The second map was Badlands and was largely dominated by Epsilon who raced into a 2-0 lead amid timeouts from AWS pocket Zebbosai, but a botched resupply push from Epsi led to a 2-1 game and kept themselves in the game but Aws promptly got wiped on the following middle. They struggled back from their in the fourth round but lost a key engagement on the 15 minute mark and fell further behind and kept losing rounds until it was 5-1 and time ran out as the game slowly devolved into late night doublemix standards and ETF2L’s season 18 champion was crowned, taking €500 + 6x Tt eSPORTS Cronos Gaming Headsets.
If I had to describe Epsilon in that final, I could use a multitude of words and phrases, including “solid”, “dominant”, “methodical” and “cocky”.Awsomniac looked slightly nervous, rattled by the loss of their scout fl1p who couldn’t commit to LAN and their technical problems, they seemed like a different side but all of that is for another article. Focusing on our champions, Epsilon seemed like they had done their homework on how their opponents played, the TeamFortress.tv casters Twiggy and CommanderX noted how Epsi gained some early rounds by baiting Zebbosai’s uber out of last or into difficult pushes. Throughout the game they took few chances, if they lost one player in a straight 6v6 uber vs uber situation, they immediately backed out and got superior positioning, making life difficult for Aws. The mid fights and second point looked extremely structured, Tek and Bash had a lot of plays where they really split the focus and pressured the combo of Aws into a corner whilst Kiler4fun and War did a lot of cleaning up, rarely being pressured and countering a lot of the aggression.
On second point pushes, players moved around the flanks with their heals and found openings, caught people off guard. A big part of the Epsilon plan seemed to be getting Bash and Tek in behind and it paid dividend on a lot of occasions. When it failed their combo didn’t have to commit, War was able to fill in that Demoman role that Numlocked had mastered and play the controlling, heal heavy style with Kiler and Mike for company a lot of the times. Knoxx the puppetmaster had aligned his team exactly how he wanted and the newer people like Kiler4fun and Tek really stood out in the game, both performing superbly well whilst War dominated as Demoman. Even Knoxx himself pulled out the mindgames, Gentlemen Jon’s well made pre-game stats showed the wily Frenchmen had not used a single Kritz all season as Medic but then pulled it out a number of times in the final. Great stuff, and all of this helped Epsilon rush into quick leads, especially on Process where some of their cockiness showed as they lost their 4-0 lead with some strange melee moments and loss of concentration, perhaps thinking they had it in the bag, they certainly helped Awsomniac back in the game. But when you’re that good on the night, perhaps you’ve earned the right to show off a bit right?
The structured and organised style of Epsilon of old displaying why they have always been so good. (C) Byte’s Youtube
Chances at i52
So the big question on everyone’s lips is what are Epsilon’s chances of retaining their status as TF2′s best team on the international stage? Before I watched this game I would have given them zero chance but after this final I would say they have a better chance than they did at i46. The differences being that now Epsilon will actually be practising for the next month or so, even if it is ETF2L’s off-season whilst back in 2012 with the roster you see in the above picture (+Shintaz) they played 3 days worth of pcws versus two American teams that had spent the last 6 weeks tryharding the EU ruleset. Suffice to say preparation is a key factor, and has been used as a reason for not just European defeat but also by North American’s as Cyzer pointed towards the pre-nerf Quick Fix shenanigans of ESEA season 14 LAN which happened a week before i49. Whatever your belief on the reasons why, one thing is for certain, more practise equals better results. So with that in mind along with the proof from this final that Epsilon are more playing better TF2 than they were one or two months ago, that their team looks more balanced, organised and has enough talent to compete.
But individual talent may be where Epsilon (and Europe?) win or lose the tournament – pound to pound, the pedigree of players such as War, Tek and Kiler4funn is not in the same bracket as their American counterparts. These three are the new kids on the block when it comes to playing with the best teams in the world. Everyone from Mixup has won championships and been at the top level of TF2 for a long time, everyone from Froyotech as well and Team Immunity? Let’s just say they’ve dominated their part of the world longer than Epsilon have dominated Europe and with a lot of the same people. For these three players, they have been around the scene for a long time and playing in Prem, but this is their first time playing for champions and they are replacing some of the best European players of all time in Schocky/Stefan, GeaR and Numlocked. The optimist in me thinks they have what it takes, Kiler4funn was cleaning up frags for Epsilon and relishes in that garbage-man Scout role, the only question is will his DM and Gamesense be at the standard of his continental counterparts? When you go against the likes of Enigma, Sheep, B4nny and Clockwork, generally you’re in for a hard time so it is up to Kiler to show the world what he can do. The same applies to Tek, who really stood out in the final, reminded me of a A_Seagull playing for Mixup. He jumped around, flanked a lot and did a lot of little solo plays that were low risk, high reward for his team as well as having a lot of good chemistry with Bash. He has come a long way from his “Solid Low Prem” tag, his DM close to Mike level and his his knowledge of the game is top notch, if Tek can play to his potential he can potentially outshine other roamers like GeaR and Jukeboxx did at i49. Final part of the trio is Warhuhyeah, a Demo who has played the game as long as me and rose through the ranks, every scout who has tried to rush him or Soldier who has tried to jump him will know how good he is at killing stuff and dealing damage. Capable of deathmatching as well as the world’s best, War will bring the sort of damage dealing presence Numlocked brought to the team, but the danger with War’s game is he does tend to be caught out of position a few times or overextending. This could cost Epsilon, but other Demos playing in Coventry may also have the same problem as all of them apart from Platinum/Kaidus will be coming into LAN with similar experience to War. If he minimizes his mistakes and plays to the level he can, he shouldn’t have too many issues and we all know his slow rollouts won’t matter considering he’s replacing Numlocked.
The German trio of Schocky, GeaR and Bash were a big part of Epsilon’s i49 success.
The core of the team
The three new editions that are replacing last year’s players have the potential to raise their game and come good, but Epsilon’s trio of surviving players in Knoxx, Mike and Bash have to also perform to their ability. These three have been there and won that, defeated America and Australia’s best and won numerous European titles. For Knoxx as the main caller and tactician of Epsilon, he will be under pressure to lead his team against the biggest challenge they have ever faced – 4 dedicated and strong sides from different parts of the world. He will also be pitting his brains against Classic Mixup for the first time, their paths never crossed at i46 so a lot will rest on not only how Knoxx performs on Medic but also how much homework he does on the likes of Mixup, Froyotech and Team Immunity – Not being able to practise verse them much will mean they won’t get to figure them out though the same point can always be reversed.
Elsewhere Bash has been cited by some for not performing on the same level as he did last year, perhaps he isn’t able to practise or maybe having some burnout? Who knows exactly but he performed well in the Grand Final and is a multi season veteran of the game. His LAN pedigree should carry him through even if his form hasn’t been able to, I hope so anyway because we all know Bash is capable but when he comes up against the cream of the crop, the question on many people’s lips is will the same player at i49 turn up? I think he will and Epsilon definitely need him to. One player that is always consistent though is Mike, the master of MGE and Europe’s best soldier. With pocket soldiers like Yuki, Lansky and TLR coming from abroad, the fresh faced Welshman may be the only European player likely to strike fear into the hearts of North Americans. I personally cannot wait to see Mike go against Lansky and Yuki again and many people will anticipate the TLR vs Mike battle on Badlands spire….in the tournament folks. I also felt after i49 Mike was a little disappointed with how he played, I of course could be totally wrong as he still played outstanding but I think he knows he can do even better. A scary thought but Mike is the star player in the Epsilon roster, the one man on this Epsilon roster that is proven to be as good as the rest (or maybe even better).
My bold prediction of where Epsilon will come? My heart says 1st but my head is saying 3rd – Either way I think they will be Europe’s best chance of summer glory at #i52tf2. Stick around for an article about the other half of Europe’s powerhouse.
Epsilon are:
Knoxx - Medic
Warhuhyeah - Demoman
Mike - Pocket Soldier
Tek - Roamer Soldier
Bash and Kiler4funn - Scouts
Originally published on VanillaTV (vanillatf2.org) on 2014-07-27 by Hildreth.
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.