ESEA TF2 Open S8 Playoff Interviews, Seeds #1-8
(ESEAnews) - Well folks, I went out and interviewed a player from each Esea-O playoff team. That's all I'll say, being that each interview is like a gazillion words long (in fact, I had to split it into two!). Thanks for taking time to talk to me, guys, and the power rankings/preds will be out soon!
? Dead Dazzle
Central
0-0-0 (.000)
Streak N/A
- Hi, can you start by telling me a bit about yourself, your background in the game, etc.?
Howdy, I'm Fearless who plays the roaming soldier role for the team Avoided. I joined this team a couple months ago and this is my first season in ESEA, my first season with this team, and my second season in TF2 (I first played in Cevo and dabbed a bit in TWL). Before I played TF2 competitively, I was involved in the CS:S scene for 2 years as a strat caller mainly.
- Ok, now let's talk about your team. First off, when and how did you guys form, and how has your team changed and evolved thus far?
Second, why do you think your team made playoffs? You can go into playstyle, DM, experience, anything you'd like.
I'm not certain about the entire history of the Avoided team but from what I know, they broke off from the pub clan "DD" to focus themselves on competitive play. They played a bit in UGC and CEVO before joining ESEA Open for their first season in this league (same as me). The core of the team has remained pretty stable so far with Angry Shrew Inc. as the team's medic, Dun (who used to play roaming soldier) as pocket soldier, and FireFarseer as the team's demoman. Our full roster also includes me on roaming soldier, and Ben and Okas on Scout. However, changes in players were really never drastic as one player was being swapped in after a certain period of time, not all three at once.
I believe we have made it into our playoffs due to our strong work ethic regarding improvements in play, commitment to practice and studying from others' mistakes and our own. We also try and experiment with many different strategies and modify things on the fly. We seem to be known for a passive playstyle, which is a fair comment. However, we've been transitioning into a more aggressive one. Sadly, I haven't adapted to it very well but the rest of the team seems to have fit into it quite nicely. We tend to split our forces into two groups with our combo, composed of our demo/medic/pocket, and our flanking force, roaming soldier/scouts which allows us to be flexible in movement yet stay together enough to be able to support each other. In regards to DM, all of our players are fairly rounded although Dun gets a lot of glory and rightfully so, he's one of the most impressive soldiers I've ever seen. I feel like a lackluster counterpart in that regard :). However, the rest of our players are able to pull off some pretty slick plays (go ahead and watch Shrew pull out his needles as you can hear me yelling in Mumble hehe). Once again, I'm the exception to that.
- So let's discuss your first game of the playoffs. You are seeded as being up against Gym Leaders (aka "JAKE ROCKWELL'S TEAM"), and the map is coldfront. How do you feel about the map choice and the team that you are playing?
I feel fairly confident as I believe our players can hold their own and we have played on the map enough to know most intricacies of it. I feel that we've figured out the map flow pretty well and can react to most situations. Coldfront is a pretty chokey map which suits our "passive" playstyle fairly well. I believe we will win this.
- Which player(s) on your team have, in your opinion, contributed most to your success? Or is it mostly a team effort?
Even though I seem to berate myself a lot, I believe that we are all a piece of the puzzle and it would be different without some of us playing on this team. Many people already know of the Dun/Shrew combo but FireFarseer deserves his fair share of glory as well as he normally accompanies them. Ben is also a very talented scout. On the flip side, me and Okas are more like steady workhorses who play steadily so we may seem more in the background. I think that Okas and me provide consistency in our play which allows our team more freedom in their choices. As an additional note about that however, I feel that we must absolutely be able to provide that consistency for our team to succeed and on my bad days, I feel that I drag the team down.
- What do you think your team needs most to work on?
Since our change in playstyle, I've had a harder time adapting to it but I'm putting my best efforts to rectify my mistakes. However, I think the team is progressing very well. As I've mentioned before, we are modifying our playstyles and trying to rectify flaws so we can play aggressively but not make too many mistakes either. I don't really know what my teammates would like to work on but I would like to improve my individual plays and have better teamwork with our scouts.
- How far do you predict your team to make it/what would you say your chances of winning are?
I would say that we can get to the Finals and most likely win it. We have played against some of the best teams in the Open league and had strong showings against them.
- Your team had just one big roster change this season, and that was from whal3r to ben on scout. What necessitated this change? Also, you guys are known for almost always having all 6 of you in-game, and your superb chemistry; was it difficult to adjust to a new scout?
We changed from whal3r to ben since we believed that we would not be able make whal3r into the player we believe that he could be in the time given to us. He has a lot of potential but we just didn't have a big enough time frame to raise him to his full potential. It was not very difficult to adjust to Ben since a lot of our plays are set up ahead of time.
- Do you guys think being mentored by Blackymonster gives you THE COMPETITIVE EDGE over the other teams in open?
He normally just yells at us in mumble while we play and tells me I'm bad. However, when we ask him questions, he helps us out quite well but for the most part, our learning is independent. I'm quite grateful for him to be our third eye though and he provides us with an invite/outsider's perspective.
- Thanks for your time, homie. Any shoutouts?
Of course. Shoutouts to my teammates for carrying me, Whaler, Fatal Shot, Fawx, Waffle, CM, Cpd, Blackymonster, Minty, the Kpop crew and Gypsy Davey. Sorry for the long list :[ Also, I love you Dave__AC.
? Leviathan Gaming
Central
0-0-0 (.000)
Streak N/A
- Hi, can you start by telling me a bit about yourself, your background in the game, etc.?
My name is Tyler and I have been playing Team Fortress 2 for a long time now. Most of it has just been for fun in random public servers.
- Ok, now let's talk about your team. First off, when and how did you guys form, and how has your team changed and evolved thus far? Second, why do you think your team made playoffs? You can go into playstyle, DM, experience, anything you'd like.
Team Viper Gaming formed back in early November of last year. The team was the brain child of my brother Panic and I. We wanted to play on a together on a team with our good friend Magus. Over the last half a year or so the team has changed a lot. We have had our scouts Jazzy and Chaz for a while, but Slam, Magus, and I are the only originals still playing. We made playoffs because we are an aggressive team with the ability to hold if necessary. In scrims I am sure many teams see our aggression, constantly throwing our scouts and roamer at them. It is good to practice that kind of thing, to see how much you can get away with before match time.
- So let's discuss your first game of the playoffs. You are seeded as being up against enter the 36 chambers, and the map is coldfront. How do you feel about the map choice and the team that you are playing?
We know very little about the 36 Chambers as a team. I know Foomp used to play soldier for Chemical Reaction, but that is all that is known about this team. When it comes to the map, our team is fine with cp_coldfront as a map choice and we play it well.
- Which player(s) on your team have, in your opinion, contributed most to your success? Or is it mostly a team effort?
Instead of selecting certain players, I credit all of my teammates. First of all, our medic Slam is more clutch then anyone would know. This guy gets extremely nervous and shaky. The fact that he battles through it during our matches makes me really respect him as a player. He pulls of some ridiculous moves too, killing three or so people while defending last against Nothing 2 Prove. Next I would like to talk about Patrick, a hell of a leader in-game and quite the pocket soldier. Ever since he joined we have become a much better team. Now Magus, this guy is someone who would always be put down by other players. I couldn't count how many times people have called him bad. But look at him now, one of the best Demoman in the league and definitely has the DM to back it up. As for Chaz and Jazzy, they work well together to produce results. They both focus fire and do well together without even communicating. Jazzy is always looking for a way to set Chaz up for him to abuse his great aim. Chaz has the best DM on the team, definitely contributing to our success.
- What do you think your team needs most to work on?
Unfortunately I wish I could say we had a weak spot so we could focus to improve it. It is more that we want to improve every aspect of our game so we can be a competitor in the Intermediate League next season.
- How far do you predict your team to make it/what would you say your chances of winning are?
I am anticipating we make it to the final four teams. From there we have the ability to win it just as everyone else. It will be a lot of fun.
- So, it seems as if an important piece of your team's success was you and St. Patrick switching places, with you roaming more and him on pocket. Has this change benefited your team and, if so, how?
Great observation Mustard because this was a key move that took our team to the next level. We learned during the cp_badlands week that we functioned a lot better with Patrick playing pocket and myself roaming. The reason it helps is because Patrick has more experience calling the shots for a team, this way we can have a dedicated caller. It also helps that I am on roamer, as on pocket my DM would sometimes falter with stress. Playing the disposable position really took that stress away from me and made the game more fun.
- A lot of people have criticized your team for being "those guys with the 2 invite players", which I think is unfair for a number of reasons. However, I felt like you'd want to defend yourself in that regard, so please do so, and put down tha hatahs.
Well I am not going to pretend like we aren't any better with them. Patrick and Chaz both do amazing this for us, and helped our coordination as a team in many ways. But the comments towards us only being good because of those two players are ridiculous. The game is a team based game, a lot of people are not looking at the team aspect of it. Some evidence to prove my point, go look at our damage stats on our team profile. Now go look at some other strong open teams' damage stats and you tell me what you think. What you will find is that our team really doesn't focus around a single carry or two.
- Thanks for your time, homie. Any shoutouts?
I would like to give a shoutout to my brother Panic and my friend StampeeD's new team. Along with Chemical Reaction and the Viper Gaming community.
? fuck squider
Central
0-0-0 (.000)
Streak N/A
(AUTHOR'S NOTE- ZACK ANSWERS THE FIRST FEW QUESTIONS AND THEN ROOT TAKES OVER, BEAR WITH IT, THEY'RE JUST REALLY LAZY AND DECIDED TO GANGBANG THIS INTERVIEW)
- Hi, can you start by telling me a bit about yourself, your background in the game, etc.?
Well im Zack :4 (the :4 is part of my name) I currently play demo for root +5/dynasty/erock's official fan club. This is actually my first season on demo; before this I mained scout for several consecutive seasons but I also mained soldier and demo for brief periods of time as well.
2a. Ok, now let's talk about your team. First off, when and how did you guys form, and how has your team changed and evolved thus far?
Well the original root+5 roster was comprised of root, mgib, nonis, killing, spadez, and trix. Eventually killing left and root (who I had played pocket for about 2 years ago on ionic) contacted me to demo for him. On my first day of playing with root+5, we were in the process of getting hero to soldier/mentor us, to replace trix who had to leave because of his job.
2b. Second, why do you think your team made playoffs? You can go into playstyle, DM, experience, anything you'd like.
Well if root were doing this interview right now his answer would probably be something like “I have no idea how we managed to make playoffs, I play with a bunch of idiots.” which in many respects is a good answer. At the beginning of the season we planned on winning all our matches by purely out DMing the other team. However throughout the course of the season we've had comms ranging from bad to horrible to horrific, which became detrimental to our coordination. Our comms are still inconsistent but they have improved since the beginning of the season. I think what caused our success however goes towards our aggression and forcing the other team to be in positions where they are forced to dm us vs letting them play passive.
- So let's discuss your first game of the playoffs. You are seeded as being up against Kawaii Kingz, and the map is coldfront. How do you feel about the map choice and the team that you are playing?
During the regular season coldfront was easily our worst and least favorite map of the rotation. We had to go up against Eccentric on coldfront where surprisingly we were able to perform much better than we expected even with hero being forced to scout because of his ping, and mgib being forced to go sniper because of it. In all honesty I love Kawaii Kingz; they're great guys, and I could see them taking an upset if we're not careful. However we've been playing quite strong through our past matches with our new lineup so I'm confident that we will show up and perform to this match despite our feelings towards the map.
- Which player(s) on your team have, in your opinion, contributed most to your success? Or is it mostly a team effort?
Well if you just go off of our team's stats, me and hero tend to top frag in a majority of our matches, but it is a humongous misconception to say that we carry because of this. I give huge credit to our team's success to our scouts mgib and nonis, who constantly apply pressure and outplay the opposing teams scouts, which allows our heavy classes to play as aggressively as we would like. Along with pt and spadez who despite the flak they get are very strong players, especially with the lack of heals they receive because of my constant bitching/screaming in mumble for heals.
- What do you think your team needs most to work on? [THIS IS WHERE ROOT TAKES OVER]
Besides our comms being absolutely terrible, the thing I believe we most need to work on is self discipline. All too often (and everyone on the team is guilty of this, save maybe hero) players get caught trying to go big when they should be falling back. As a team we have a hard time slowing down and picking our battles. Everyone on the team has fantastic death matching capabilities, and if we can focus on playing smarter, I believe we'll see a great improvement in our performances.
- How far do you predict your team to make it/what would you say your chances of winning are?
We're more than capable of beating every team in Open. It all depends on whether or not we want to put in the time to practice. If we put in the time, I expect nothing less than the championship. If we don't, I would still be disappointed if we didn't at least make it to the final four.
- Can you tell me a bit about your roster changes this season? I know you've switched soldiers around a fair amount.
Our original pocket soldier was Trix, a lesser known lobby star soldier with amazing DM. Unfortunately he ended up getting a night job and was unable to play any matches with us. When we found this out we rushed to pick up a replacement, and ended up picking up both Demourge, the premier division pocket soldier from Crack Clan, and Hero of Sway/EG fame. We've used both of them a little bit, but they're both not able to play with us every night of the week. We also picked up Pt as a backup towards the beginning of the season. Because of our struggles to get 6 players on any given night, he's ended up playing much more than he originally anticipated, and is currently a starter (I think). Going into the playoffs, we decided to move our roamer, Spadez to backup. He is going to be going back to his main of scout next season, and we wanted to give him time to try to find a team, as well as pursue options for a soldier replacement for him next season. As it stands right now, our options for soldier are: Hero, Pt, Dem, Zack, who can play any class well, and Spadez. I wish I could give you a definitive starting roster, but at this point we're lucky enough to get six people on at all.
- So, can you explain your name to me? Is Erock just the coolest cat on the face of the Earth?
I live with both Erock and Scottpockets of the late Internet Tough Guys (Gamer House...get jealous).
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/dasabig...
We made this group hanging out in mumble a while back, and it's been my primary group since then. When I was looking for a team name to finish the season with, I saw it and changed our name to that. We'll be going back to Root Plus Five for next season though.
- Thanks for your time, homie. Any shoutouts?
Shoutouts to Erock, Scottpockets, my other roommate Riley, the rest of the Internet Tough Guys, and everyone who hangs out in my mumble (squider, math, trix, zepol, goblin40, and everyone else since I'm too lazy to list you all).
? 6 Brogues
Central
0-0-0 (.000)
Streak N/A
- Hi, can you start by telling me a bit about yourself, your background in the game, etc.?
I'm DennisTheMenace, playing as scout for 6 Brogues at the moment. I've been back and forth between QuakeLive CTF and TF2. I've spent countless hours in the DM servers and MGE which is where most of my terrible gamesense but somewhat 'good' (as said so by most of the people I meet, not to act like I have an ego here) deathmatch ability comes from. My history of the game is pretty boring, so I don't see a need to go into that. If we want to go into real-life, I'm 15 and currently learning coding languages such as C#/XNA.
- Ok, now let's talk about your team. First off, when and how did you guys form, and how has your team changed and evolved thus far? Second, why do you think your team made playoffs? You can go into playstyle, DM, experience, anything you'd like.
Neither I nor our medic DeTh was on the team originally. We left Spacemoney after some in-game cooperating issues then took the spot on Brogues together. DeTh nabbed hearts and the medic spot after discussing things with Dy`, feeling that he was a competent medic, it was just that the majority of the team didn't feel like we would go far in playoffs with him. DeTh started working incredibly well with Blank within the first few days of scrimming. I for one started as roamer, which was my first TF2 class. While I enjoy it, it really just isn't a competitive class for me. So I requested that we could possibly try a class switch and Fawx was the scout whom I switched with. Ever since we've joined, it didn't really feel like we were starting on a brand new team. I have played with Zephyr on Mobility in a short season of invite for both of us, so scouting with him was easy to cope with. Blank, DeTh and Black Dynamite really lock down areas and have good positioning to help the flank and keep up with the enemy combo. Fawx, coming from scout and now playing roamer, does most of the things he needs to do to help the flank out and set up some opportunities for us to really do some damage. All of this started to come together rather fast when we settled up with the new arrangements, it's like we've known each other for awhile but really we don't have an incredible amount of experience with each other. Everybody's DMing ability seems above par to the place we are in the division, letting us win a lot of battles that sometimes shouldn't have happened if we had more experience. The players on the team are all eager to become better by doing some things that sometimes pain other teams to do, like sitting through a demo with the whole team.
3.So let's discuss your first game of the playoffs. You are seeded as being up against Battery, and the map is coldfront. How do you feel about the map choice and the team that you are playing?
I personally don't really like coldfront, but our soldiers can really put forth an aggressive and effective playstyle, while Black secures areas and Zephyr and I clean up, so it works out for us. I don't feel threatened by Team Battery at all. We have scrimmed them and I feel confident we can take the victory. Whether it be 5-4 or 5-0, a win is a win.
- Which player(s) on your team have, in your opinion, contributed most to your success? Or is it mostly a team effort?
Everybody really does their own unique plays that contribute to the team. I'd definitely say Blank is a major factor to the team's success. He can dish out a LOT of damage and can take on situations when the odds are against him, really helping a man disadvantage. He keeps the flow of the battles pretty smoothly, which is pretty crucial when you hope to win. For the most part, when we don't listen to either DeTh or Blank, we end up losing a point. So I'd definitely go with Blank being the biggest factor in the team's progression but of course we all do our own thing that really helps.
- What do you think your team needs most to work on?
I'm not really sure, we've fixed the crucial things that hurt our game very early when the new lineup came about. We don't all have the best decision making in game, we could definitely review a demo or two and then start thinking twice on some situations to help things turn out alright.
- How far do you predict your team to make it/what would you say your chances of winning are?
Going back to the second question, our teamwork is pretty good naturally (when we are paying attention) because our playstyles all favor each other, it doesn't really feel like a new team, having been using the same lineup only since yukon matches. I'm not sure what to expect in playoffs, we can be a totally new team when we take the game seriously in actual matches either for good or for worse. Good, being positive and on top of our game, or worse when we didn't practice something enough, and it gets capitalized upon then we begin the blame game. I do think we can be a serious contender for the championship. If we take scrims as if they were matches, we could see some more progress. We've given the favored open teams and some mid-level IM teams an upset or a run for their money. I think doing things with some more effort will allow us to catch a lot of victories.
- Well, from my estimation, your team went from being pretty good to being a legitimate contender for the championship once Bl4nk joined. Am I right in saying that he's the driving force behind your success?
Certainly.
- It seems to me as if your team now essentially has three scouts, with two of you on scout and the third on roamer. Has this created problems, or are you satisfied with your team's current class arrangements?
I'm pretty satisfied with it, I don't think Fawx has any strong feelings about playing soldier, I think he is just happy to be there, whether on scout or soldier. It sort of created problems in the beginning because switching classes overnight doesn't really work out, it takes some time, but Fawx got over that quickly and has impressed all of us that in that he is just as effective on soldier as he is on scout.
- Thanks for your time, homie. Any shoutouts?
Not a problem. I'd like to shoutout to June, Riot, PlasmaSnake, Lange and my good friend OMFGNinja. You too iamRoot. Maybe Nonis. Can't forget the ITG crew for being one of the funniest group of people I've sat in mumble with.
? THERES STILL HOPE
Central
0-0-0 (.000)
Streak N/A
- Hi, can you start by telling me a bit about yourself, your background in the game, etc.?
Hi, I'm ninjanick, and I've played medic competitively for almost a year now. Played on GT and unR with Jav and Snypes and they've been playing competitive with me on and off since I first got into it
- Ok, now let's talk about your team. First off, when and how did you guys form, and how has your team changed and evolved thus far? Second, why do you think your team made playoffs? You can go into playstyle, DM, experience, anything you'd like.
We formed just before the season started. Snypes, Jav and I wanted to make a team after not playing for a while. We took over a dead roster to get into ESEA because we were too late for registration. I think we're one of the better DM teams in the league and that's why we've gotten as far as we have.
- So let's discuss your first game of the playoffs. You are seeded as being up against Sqwiggling with Sqwiggles, and the map is coldfront. How do you feel about the map choice and the team that you are playing?
To be honest we're not too fond of the map, but we've been playing well on it and expect a rather easy win for the first round of playoffs.
- Which player(s) on your team have, in your opinion, contributed most to your success? Or is it mostly a team effort?
I think its been a combined effort for our success. Snypes and Plasma, as well as Sting have put up really good numbers for damage, and dlay and jav have done a good job cleaning up. I just heal things. :3
- What do you think your team needs most to work on?
Our team is currently having issues with our teamwork/strats. So we're going to have to work hard for the upcoming gravelpit round that will most likely decide whether we win open or not.
- How far do you predict your team to make it/what would you say your chances of winning are?
If we work on gravelpit and do well against avoided, we should be able to do very well in playoffs. Viper and Dynasty could also be a threat so we're not ruling them out at all. Should definitely be a close matchup between the top 4 teams.
- So, you guys changed demo mid-season, replacing snypes with the underwhelming kaoz and kaoz with the generally more roam-y Plasma Snake. How do you think this has affected your success.
Plasma's DM is obviously an improvement from kaoz. He's been putting out the most damage in almost all of our matches and practically destroying the other team whether its on flanks or with our combo. He still manages to surprise me with how he gets out of some very sticky situations.
- Well, you guys changed sponsors recently. Can you tell me about the change, like what necessitated it and how it's worked out for you?
Yeah, thanks a lot to Sway who's been doing a lot for the community lately. He decided to start his own e-sports organization called Kinetic gaming and is giving us an NFO Server and a mumble. It's been nice having our own server recently.
- Thanks for your time, homie. Any shoutouts?
Shoutout to Sway for sponsoring us
Shoutout to Sting for controlling his rage
Shoutout to GooB for being a faggot -snypes
Shoutout to oov and blaze for helping us out recently
Shoutout to Gym Leaders for getting them into playoffs :3
Shoutout to Unusual servers for making me shit at this game
Shoutout to Allah for not bombing my house
Shoutout to rane, swat and hobbit for getting into competitive tf2
Shoutout to xy (xy50) for being a faggot -ninjanick
Shoutout to plasma snake for being lazy
Shoutout to jav for being horrible at april fools jokes
and shoutout to all the other teams in playoffs, good luck have fun.
? MAKING A COMEBACK
Central
0-0-0 (.000)
Streak N/A
- Hi, can you start by telling me a bit about yourself, your background in the game, etc.?
I'm ESEA Superstar Mark "math" Nolan. I've been playing TF2 for roughly a year. I was on Carnal Gaming for two seasons before that devolved into a series of ringers and forfeits. Now I lead Stephen Hawking's Pro Wheelchair. It's neat.
- Ok, now let's talk about your team. First off, when and how did you guys form, and how has your team changed and evolved thus far? Second, why do you think your team made playoffs? You can go into playstyle, DM, experience, anything you'd like.
It started off at the end of last season when I decided to leave my team. I was offered a spot on NAMBLA, which I rejected because squid offered to get me on thug.na. That offer fell through and by that time Peyote had already picked up S on My Chest. After begrudgingly trying out for CashShitty's team, I was considering taking a season off TF2 until tC hit me up on steam. I didn't really know him all too well but he said he was making a team with Thrasher and Fluffyanimals so I figured it was better than quitting. I brought Icy with me from Carnal Gaming and we were scrimming as a pug team for a few weeks before Thrasher and Fluffy left for playstyle reasons. tC and I tested out a few more people but everyone was surprisingly bad and we got discouraged. Something like 4 hours before registration ended on ESEA, traced messaged tC saying that he, chapin, and bulldozer wanted to play with us on their respective classes. We played a few scrims and realized everything meshed well. At the beginning of the season we were really optimistic and figured we could pretty easily be #1 in open. Over time we've had trouble keeping tC and chapin consistent. tC has changed his sensitivity roughly 20 times during the course of the season and chapin lost interest in TF2 after about the 5th match. As for our success, Icy, Traced, and I were enough to carry us through most matches and on occasion chapin has pulled off some huge plays to redeem himself. tC sucks.
- So let's discuss your first game of the playoffs. You are seeded as being up against WNBA, the other 4-letter acronym parody team, and the map is coldfront. How do you feel about the map choice and the team that you are playing?
First off, coldfront is an awful map and it baffles me that it's even in the standard season rotation, let alone the playoffs. When SHPW played WNBA last, we were forced to use Killing12. Icy is essentially the backbone of our playstyle (Icy pockets, Traced roams, and Chapin suicides), so without him we had trouble rallying, especially on such a teamwork heavy map like gravelpit. It'll be interesting to play against WNBA with our best roster, and hopefully we'll pull out a victory.
- Which player(s) on your team have, in your opinion, contributed most to your success? Or is it mostly a team effort?
As I've already stated (as have many other people), Icy, Traced, and I do the most work on our team.
- What do you think your team needs most to work on?
Cutting people. Bye Jewsus.
- How far do you predict your team to make it/what would you say your chances of winning are?
If we play at the top of our game, I feel that SHPW has the potential to take the entire division down.
- Your team has had to bust out the backups a few times, with both peyote and Bulldozer appearing on med, and lancer occasionally coming off the bench as well. Have you fixed those roster problems, or is there any chance of using backups during playoffs. If so, will it affect your performance at all, in your opinion?
Peyote is possibly my favorite medic in TF2 so it was actually a pleasure having him play in our two matches. He really seemed to gel with our playstyle and I think he was the secret to our wins over N2P and Eccentric/Kinetic. Not to say Bulldozer isn't a great med, but they have very different playstyles and it just seemed to fit with peyote. I wouldn't be surprised if he shows up in a couple playoff matches. Lancer and Jewsus occasionally play for us and while Lancer is decent, Jewsus is almost as bad as tC and is always a last resort. We've had roster issues for most of the season so it's not like everyone isn't used to it, but hopefully we play with our starting 6.
- Ok, I think I speak for everyone when I say: 0-20? REALLY!? What cruel twist of fate led to poor Travis Chapman having such a poor game?
People would like to think that tC was afflicted with some awful medical condition or had a really shitty day in which his ladyfriend, Constance, told him she no longer wanted to be with him, but really it was just a Tuesday. tC just has days where he sucks and days where he sucks less.
- Thanks for your time, homie. Any shoutouts?
Travis, I know I bust your balls a lot, but I love you and it was great scouting alongside you this season. Shoutouts to the Bedazzlers, RomanHoliday, Engine, Gbot, my #1 fan Dim, Improper, the NSPug group, my lovers seagate and fox, Team Sausage Rocket, and everyone on SHPW.
? Pinball Wizards
Central
0-0-0 (.000)
Streak N/A
- Hi, can you start by telling me a bit about yourself, your background in the game, etc.?
Sup, this is slipz from N2P Gaming. If you have had the pleasure of playing with me, you know that I like to spam kpop music in scrims because we all know that it’s daebak, and the best music ever. I have been playing TF2 for quite a while now. My first class I played was scout and I first played back when TWL had 7v7 with Crits enabled, boy that was fun stuff. Then I moved onto a team in CEVO Season 2 called NRG, and then onto Crack Clan. Probably, most people would know me from when I played on Global Deejays the legendary team making playoffs with like 4 or 5 FFW’s). And then I made my break into ESEA IM with THPS as medic. And that’s what ended me up here playing with N2P.
[originally, in lieu of an explanation, slipz just posted the following video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=We_h6PK9K...
]
- Ok, now let's talk about your team. First off, when and how did you guys form, and how has your team changed and evolved thus far? Second, why do you think your team made playoffs? You can go into playstyle, DM, experience, anything you'd like.
Well, we first formed at the beginning of this season. Everyone on the team actually has been playing together since last season and I was the only one that actually joined up with them to play scout since they were in need of one. We meshed really well together as we started off the season strong, but then we ran into some issues within the team, so we had to change up the roster a bit. As you have seen in the last matches of the season, we have now picked up squid to scout and cannon to soldier and I made a switch back to medic, and hh had switched back to demo. As for making playoffs, I feel that as a team, we have very good DM skills and I feel like this helped us get into the playoffs.
- So let's discuss your first game of the playoffs. You are seeded as being up against 2+2=5, and the map is coldfront. How do you feel about the map choice and the team that you are playing?
I think everyone might agree with me in saying that coldfront isn’t the most fun map in the world to play, but I feel that we are fairly confident in playing it. We have gone over the map many times already and have had scrims on it, so we aren’t too worried about playing coldfront. As for the team we are playing, they are a good team and we will not underestimate them when we play them. It should be a good game :) to play.
- Which player(s) on your team have, in your opinion, contributed most to your success? Or is it mostly a team effort?
I feel that our success comes from teamwork, even though many people might say otherwise. We have many players that are capable of making the big plays, but I feel that everyone on our team can make the plays at the times they are needed. Tang is always there to do work every map, squid is a great passive scout that always watches flanks and knows when to make plays, cannon is a beast of a pocket, hh is a strong demo, and blueberry can hold flanks great and knows when to suicide the med or just get great picks in general.
- What do you think your team needs most to work on?
The thing we need to work most on still is our teamwork. With the roster changes that we have made in the season, we are still getting used to each other playing, and I’m positive that we are all almost in sync with each other.
- How far do you predict your team to make it/what would you say your chances of winning are?
I think we can go all the way in the playoffs, but what team doesn’t think that when they are in the playoffs. I think we will at least be in the top 5 for finishing, but we still are aiming to finish the playoffs going all the way to finals.
- So, compared to a lot of the top teams you guys have had a hell of a lot of roster changes- scout moved to medic, solly to demo, and new scout and solly brought in is nothing to scoff at. Have you adapted well to the change, and come out the other end as a stronger team than before?
I personally think as a team, we have got a lot stronger. If we didn’t come out stronger, I don’t think we would have made the changes that we have done. Like I said before, squid is a very good scout partner for tang, as they complement each other well, something I had trouble doing with tang, since we are both aggressive scouts. Cannon just sort of fit in perfectly, as when you are a good soldier such as he is, it is easy to fit in with many teams. HH moving to demoman wasn’t that much of a change considering his main was demo last season, so to him, it wasn’t that hard of a change to make. As for me playing medic, we tried it out once when our previous medic, Love, went on a vacation for spring break and he suggested trying it, so we did and it worked out, so we stuck with it.
- Following up on that question- I think just about everyone agreed that you going to medic was an upgrade, as medic is your main class. Was hh moving to demo an upgrade, a necessary downgrade to make up for the awesomeness of Cannon, or a sidegrade because he can play both well?
Well, I pretty much answered that in the last question, but I’d say that every move we have done is somewhat a side grade to what we previously had. It is just that when we tried it out, it worked better for us, so we just stuck with it.
- Thanks for your time, homie. Any shoutouts?
I’ll make a shoutout to all the people in n2p, sash, love, snoopy, rummy, all the people in [kr], all of the people I played with on THPS, and anyone else I might have forgotten. And I must say, Gee Gee Gee Gee Baby Baby Baby.
? Stats and Hats
Central
0-0-0 (.000)
Streak N/A
- Hi, can you start by telling me a bit about yourself, your background in the game, etc.?
My name is Dan McCaulley, aka thrasher. I am currently playing pocket soldier for Stats and Hats. I've been playing comp TF2 off and on since season 3 in cevo, and the first season (season 2 I believe) that ESEA picked up TF2. This is the first full season I've played in quite some time. I helped out my friend Bulldozer last season in the last few weeks of the regular season and playoffs, but it has been quite some time since I've actually played a full season.
- Ok, now let's talk about your team. First off, when and how did you guys form, and how has your team changed and evolved thus far? Second, why do you think your team made playoffs? You can go into playstyle, DM, experience, anything you'd like.
Well I originally had no intention of playing this season at all. As most people know, fluffyanimals and I have been good friends for a long time, and he was playing with this team (which was known as apocalyptic order at the time). I was ringing for them a bit just to get a chance to play with fluffy again. Everyone seemed really chill and the team seemed to have potential. They eventually asked me to join despite having a large roster. I didn't know if I'd be playing every game or trading off or what, but I decided to join since fluffy was there. I didn't know many of the people on ao when I joined. They had some old TFC players on the team, and some who had played TF2 for a bit. We practiced a lot before the season, but since we had a large roster we were playing with a different 6 all the time. Things changed right before the start of the season. We parted ways with our one scout Ibby right before the season started, and they asked me if I could get someone to scout for us, so I got my friend Thrickster to join. A few days before our first match our demo Kaoz had problems with his steamid on the esea site and he wasn't going to be able to play the first two games. They asked me if I could get a demo, so I grabbed my friend Mythikal. Kaoz ended up joining Eccentric so myth became our full time demo. Fluffy had spent over a year in China and Japan for school and he hasn't played comp for quite some time, and he will be the first to tell you that he wasn't playing well at the start of the season, so dospac, one of the team's founders was playing medic some games, and fluffy was playing others. When they weren't around KoolB was ringing for us a lot, and we just started to click with her on medic. We ended up picking her up for medic, and that was pretty much how we evolved to the lineup we have now.
As for why we made the playoffs... that is an easy one, our hats. We should win an award for best dressed team in ESEA. I mean have you SEEN the hats we have? Clearly our awesome collection of unusuals has carried us to the playoffs, lol. Seriously though, a lot of people were surprised we made the playoffs just because of how we started off the season. If you look at our first 4 matches, we played 2 of the top teams, and one who would have been a top 10 team had they not died, and this was before we had solidified our starting lineup. We also had a lot of bad luck those first games. For example, in our first game against Dynasty (root + 5) we had problems getting some people on the client, and Mythikal dropped 5 or 6 times. Pause didn't work, and whenever we lost our demo we got rolled. The game was actually pretty close when myth was in the server. I honestly think if we had our current 6 from day 1 things would have been a lot different.
- So let's discuss your first game of the playoffs. You are seeded as being up against Quitters, and the map is coldfront. How do you feel about the map choice and the team that you are playing?
We are really looking forward to the match. We had a lot of success on coldfront this season. We had a very close match against Kawaii Kings on that one which went for 58 minutes. We were down 4-3 with less then 2 minutes to go and we had to go for an all in play to try and tie it up, but we rushed and didn't coordinate it right which let them roll to our last for the win. We were happy with the way we played that game, and then we went on to beat Zilla 5-2 on coldfront (and we beat them on coldfront again in cevo).
- Which player(s) on your team have, in your opinion, contributed most to your success? Or is it mostly a team effort?
Everyone has contributed to our success. Thrick and Snuggles are very solid scouts. Thrick is also a beast sniper, and Snuggs has made a huge impact as spy as well. Mythikal has TONS of damage output, and so does our roaming soldier Treaux. Brit has been spot on with medic. I'm not the type of person who likes to talk themselves up so I won't go there, lol.
- What do you think your team needs most to work on?
Getting more unusual hats...
- How far do you predict your team to make it/what would you say your chances of winning are?
It's hard to say. There are a few teams in the playoffs that are very good. I really feel that we have started to come together as a team with this lineup over the last month or so. Most teams won't be that worried about playing us because of our record... hopefully they will underestimate us =)
- So you guys changed up roster a fair bit throughout the season, switching medic and roaming soldier. Have the changes generally been for the better?
I'd say so. Everyone who has played for us this season has been good, but sometimes for whatever reason, some people just don't work together that well. That's nothing negative against anyone, it's just a teamwork thing. Those same players could jump on with a different team and have things click right away. Sometimes that's just the way it goes.
- A lot of the players on your team are old-schoolers, with some of them even being TFC players. Has this been an overall benefit, because of experience, or a detriment due to people being rusty or out of the current competitive metagame? [Metagame? What is this, Pokemon? Jesus mustard get it together]
It's a mix... speaking as an old school player myself (played the original QWTF mod for quake competitively from 1996-2000) I can tell you that it doesn't help all that much when moving to TF2. A lot of the skills in previous fortress games (bunny hopping, grenade and conc jumping, etc...) don't apply in TF2. It will help you get a basic understanding of how each class works, and how the game itself feels, but TF2 is way different then any other fortress game. It's very slow paced and teamwork actually means more than the individual skill of the players on the team.
- Thanks for your time, homie. Any shoutouts?
No problem! Shoutouts to all of ao/SnH (current, and all previous members), shade, blackymonster, bulldozer, noid, carl+, boulder, remiCs, evo, papasmurf, tech, justin, manny, yaddy, leogeo, maxf, zack, tulkas, s/x, swagger, nightmare, hibachi, and all my other friends =)
The saga continues...
/tf2/index.php?s=news&d=comments&id=9429
Originally published on ESEA on 4/4/2011, 5:20 PM by baklavadarryl.
Archived from ESEA TF2 Open Pre-Playoff Interviews PART 1 as part of tf2esports.com's preservation of ESEA's TF2 coverage. All rights remain with the original author and ESEA; reposted for historical reference.