Written by: Cal "Deathanchor" Gruhlke
(ESEAnews) - Warmfront week is now past us. For the most part we didn't have a ton of upsets go down. However, we did have a lot of top teams end up having to go head to head. Usually this doesn't happen this early in the season consider the first six matches of the season are randomly assigned and not based on record. Instead we saw huge match-ups happen such as Reloaded vs. Muffin, Koreabros vs. Animals, Hood vs. Muffin, and Submit vs. Squirrels.
Looking forward, week 3 will take place on the hectic King of the Hill map koth_viaduct_rc3. Unlike Warmfront week, we won't be seeing a large number of top teams square off. However I would still recommend watching some of the week 3 matches. I mean who doesn't like watching medics get bombed or sniped every minute. Yay viaduct.
ESEA TF2 SEASON 10 OPEN POWER RANKINGS - WEEK 3
TEAM
RANK
COMMENTS
? 22d
Central
0-0-0 (.000)
Streak N/A
1.
Retaining their number one slot is Muffin Stuffers. They started off their week with smooth sailing over 420tf2 winning 5-0. 420 put up a bit of a fight, but Muffin as a whole ended up being stronger in every aspect. Their second match ended up being against a more formidable team, Reloaded. Muffin had a strong start, ending the half with a commanding 3-0 lead. Reloaded dug in and was able to capture two rounds before the match ended 5-2 in Muffin's favor. I would say that usually the combo work of Sparrow and SS are the driving force on Muffin, but that night it was the scouting work of Hibachi and phife that really was able to seal the deal on Reloaded.
I think last week inside of Muffin's write up I learned that it's never a good idea to bash a single player in a power ranking. My apologies Skaboss! Especially after I watched him do work against Reloaded. Bottom line is he does his job as roamer. He's not one of those lame half-pocket roamers who just hugs the medic. He's out their initiating the pushes, causing the pops, and getting work done. You can catch Muffin this week against either Point and Click or Murder Death Kill. Point and Click is an interesting team, who may be able to win a round or so. Murder is going to be....well a murder. 4-0 result, no doubt about it.
? Move us to intermediate
East
0-0-0 (.000)
Streak N/A
2.
Similar to Muffin, Fabio's Fig Eaters ended up having one easy match followed by a fairly challenging one during warmfront week. Their first was against the solid team SYOPSTF2. SYOPS has a fairly strong lineup with names like reemix and blackdynamite. However Fabio proved to be just too much to handle and took the match 5-0. In their second match, Fabio went up against Tragic and crew in Hood. I would say Java went pretty big, being able to output big damage and stay alive even though he's on roamer. In addition sc0nes did a great job being able to clean up damaged enemies and came out with a lot of frags by the end of the match. I almost felt like moving Fabio to first after their impressive win over Hood. However I think it would be difficult to rationalize having Fabios at first with a loss against Muffin at second. Would have been more exciting if these teams didn't have to meet so early in the season. In addition I doubt any results from week 3 will have an impact on these top two teams. During this week Fabio will play against 420tf2 followed by Hard to Kill. Just like Muffin did, I expect Fabio to put away 420 without much effort. Hard to Kill will be a 2-0 forfeit considering at this moment they only have five players on their roster.
? Australians
Central
0-0-0 (.000)
Streak N/A
3.
Now let's take a look at Hood's side of the match versus Fabio. Hood made a pretty significant change to their lineup going into warmfont week. They gave their medic Milk the boot and picked up pt-, one of tragic's friends that had played for him in their undefeated Cevo season. Now since pt- is a soldier, it temporally left Hood without a medic. After several tryouts, tragic decided who better to medic than myself. I think it really came down to the fact that since the season had already started not many medics were looking for a team. I guess tragic doesn't trust many people with the precious ubers. His medic work wasn't outstanding, but it got the job done for the most part. I would not go as far as to say that this little switch was what caused Hood to lose to Fabio. Even if they had not made the switch, my guess is that Hood still would have lost with a similar score.
Now within the match, I was most impressed with chriztahfah. From what I have seen so far I'd say he is more of a sticky heavy demoman. He made good use of the cliff on warmfront's mid point and was pretty fast getting there. Other than him, I would say pt- did a decent job as well. He's certainly better off on Hood in Open than he was in IM on TF2 is for Fapping. This week Hood will face Ancient War Elephants and 420tf2. Continuing the trend, Hood should also have no problem with either of these matches. I gotta feel a little sorry for 420tf2 having to play the top 3 teams back to back to back.
? WELOVEANIME
Central
0-0-0 (.000)
Streak N/A
4.
Continuing their win streak is iCarly. They should really chance their name, because iCarly is anything but dead right now. They had no problems in their first match against Brinkle Brothers taking it 5-0. There is no doubt that Tiger is iCarly's strongest player. In my opinion he was that best soldier in Open last season, and is now showing signs that he should very well be the strongest within this season. Against Brinkle he had twice as many frags as any of his opponents in addition to scoring almost twice as many compared to everyone else on his team.
iCarly's match against Fruit Vendors ended up having a bit of a surprise. A friend of the team, mummy, decided to drop in to play. Mummy is actually a former invite player that dates back to season 3 when he played for Virgin Police. His scouting and sniper skills not only assisted in defeating Fruit Vendors, but actually out fragged Tiger. This feat is unheard of on iCarly. Tiger always gets top frag for his team. Mummy effectively countered what could have been a Fruit Vendors victory. FV's pocket bsc was almost if not on par with Tiger, and mummy was able to close that gap. I would look out for him if he plans on playing more matches for iCarly. They will be playing Princeton Plainsboro first followed up by Paramecia. The match against Princeton could be somewhat close, but I doubt iCarly will drop more than a round. Paramecia will be a 4-0 no question.
? Reloaded
Central
0-0-0 (.000)
Streak N/A
5.
This week Reloaded picked up the always classy forfeit win over Hellsgamers, and then had their 2-5 lost against Muffin Stuffers. Within their match against Muffin, I noticed a few things. First off, ninjanick was doing a fine job on medic as always, but their overall combo seemed weaker than usual. This was because against a team combo-based team like Muffin, the enemy pocket can really cripple the effectiveness of your own combo. In addition they were using DTM as their pocket soldier instead of their regular Bucky. An interesting, yet now clearly bad choice. Luckily for Reloaded, Rekuso managed to come through and get some big kills as their roaming soldier. Without him, I doubt they would have won the two rounds that they did.
Now for the roster changes! Both DTM and Pwner were cut from Reloaded soon after the match against Muffin. It just so happens that DTM and Pwner were the lowest scoring players during that game. Coincidence? To fill the scout spot, they picked up former Kinetic Gaming player, Jav. I think Jav is a great scout, and should boost Reloaded's strength significantly. He's had a taste of IM, but now he's back in Open to shake things up a bit. Wiggles will be moving to demoman, and leaving the last scout spot to Senn. You can watch their new lineup roll their week three opponents that include Bropship and Soft Served.
? Animals with Guns
Central
0-0-0 (.000)
Streak N/A
6.
Making a big leap up to sixth is Animals with Guns. A lot of people were skeptical when I first put them on last week at ninth, so I'm expecting a lot of the same now that I'm moving them up even farther. But let me explain why I think they deserve the spot, at least for this week. They picked up nonis going into the second week as a backup scout. Now I knew nonis was good, but was still shocked by how well he played versus Fruit Vendors. Now Fruit Vendors is by no means a weak team, in fact they could score rounds off a handful of the top Open teams. So when Animals were able to 5-0 them, it has to make a statement. The match wasn't a blowout entirely, but Animals were able to dominate the match throughout its course.
In their second match they played the always unpredictable Koreabros. If there was a comeback of the week, this match would have to be it. It might even go into the running for best comeback of the season. Animals were down 1-4, and were able to turn it around into a 5-4 victory. I think this is where the newly recruited nonis really came through for his team. I'm not saying he single handily turned the match around, but he for sure started playing better after they lost that 5th round into the match. I'm not sure if Animals plan on moving nonis into a main spot. If they did it would put Zen, one of the original aWG members, into an awkward position. Whichever they choose, they won't have any difficultly handling Devastation or Squirrel Clickers.
? Immortal 6
Central
0-0-0 (.000)
Streak N/A
7.
A lot of people over the last two weeks have been asking "where's The Pharmacy?" Well this week I'm happy to finally be putting them in. And at a fairly high position to boot. There were two main reasons I was so reluctant to put The Pharmacy into the top ten. The first being their laughable strength of their schedule. They could arguably have one of the easiest schedules in Open(I think Plainsboro wins that one). Other than tA, they have faced no challenges within their first four matches. On top of the fact their week 3 matches are more than likely to be one-sided as well. The second reason I questioned The Pharmacy's level was the memory I have of last season's Pharmacy. They finished last season with a decent 10-6 record. I would have never guessed that could translate in a top 10 or even top 5 Open team this season. They have retained many of their members including their leader Cranberry. Cranberry is a great demoman to watch; he is always taking the riskiest jumps and plays a high risk high reward style of play. One of the new players joining Pharmacy is spadez. Love him or hate him (probably the latter), you gotta admit he's stepped up his scout game in order to actually have some usefulness in 6v6s. I don't think either of their week 3 matches will be worth watching, I mean unless you like watching spadez sit behind viaduct balconies as sniper. Because I can guarantee you'll get a lot of that.
? The Teenage Cucumbers
Central
0-0-0 (.000)
Streak N/A
8.
So following Animals in a similar fashion is Bestest. They were able to put up two fairly meaningful wins over the week. First was their 5-4 victory over Enter the Goku. MVP for Bestest this match has to be Eulogy. He was pretty aggressive for a pocket, and took a fair amount of jumps during the match. He made himself a real presence on mid, and was all around the most dangerous soldier from both sides. Mr.Slin also did a good job navigating his team in the right direction, and despite having a few too many deaths, really was what that little bit of edge Bestest needed. In their second match they were able to win against 36 chambers 5-1. 36 chambers isn't exactly a top ten team, but their 5-0 victory over Submit a Ticket should tell you they have some decent talent on their team. Bestest was able to control the match once again thanks to the pocketing ability of Eulogy who ended up outputting almost twice the damage of his demoman ranga, who also did a nice job on his own picking up a decent number of sticky kills. Week 3 could prove to be the hardest week yet for Bestest, having to play Poisonous Timberwolves and then Superfriends. I have fairly good confidence they can handle Timberwolves, but Superfriends will likely prove difficult for them. Superfriends also has a very strong and knowledgeable medic. Viaduct is such a hard map for medics, that this match is likely to come down to which medic has better survivability.
? slippin with slipz
Central
0-0-0 (.000)
Streak N/A
9.
Falling slightly this week, but yet still remaining in the top ten is KoreaBros. They had a close loss against Animals with Guns, but were able to rock Squirrel Clickers with a 5-1 result. Slipz by far dominated the match with his soldier game, and was Koreabros biggest asset in the match. Also, Koreabros have recently picked up JakeRockewell who made his first appearance for them in this match. Now if memory serves me right, I could have sworn Jake was a demoman in his more recent teams. Jake would have done a lot better if was actually playing his main. However since Koreabros already have one of the strongest demomen in Open, I'm sure they were not ready to give that advantage up. After this week's matches, Koreabros also lost a player as well. One of their scouts Sash, has decided he was much better suited for Invite on Snooplicity. Sash I thought was one of the strongest players on Koreabros. So now with him gone, it's hard to see Koreabros regaining a top five spot or even staying on the top ten at all. I predict them staying at least for now. Their week three matches will be against Trash and Last Minute. Both of which should be easy wins for KoreaBros.
? WOOOPS
Central
0-0-0 (.000)
Streak N/A
10.
Submit a Ticket takes a massive fall to tenth after having a rough match with 36 Chambers. The 0-5 loss was not a total whitewash, and the match actually took a bit of time. Now I know I can't just be a bad map for them. Because later that week they were able to beat Squirrel Clickers on it 5-4. So in the end I have to give credit to 36 Chambers for the win. I really had Submit at the completely wrong spot last week, and was quick to rank them high because of their record. However, I still think they can turn their loss around. Both of their Viduct matches will be either 4-0 wipes or forfeit wins. After that, if they can pull out a win over another borderline top team like Clickers, I would consider them deserving of a lower top ten spot. I have a feeling Submit would get pummeled by the likes of any of the teams ranked above. On the flip side I didn't feel like any lower ranking teams really showed anything deserving of knocking Submit out completely.
Honorable Mentions/Teams to Watch: tAesports, Squirrel Clickers, Superfriends
Phew, and so that finishes my week 3 rankings. Remember to come back next week for our season's first record-based match-ups!
Originally published on ESEA on 11/14/2011, 9:23 PM by Deathanchor.
Archived from ESEA TF2 S10 Open Power Rankings - Week 3 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.