Season 19 powered by Tt eSPORTS: Week 3 Report Card

After the slow pace of week 2 and the disruption of GGWP dropping, things picked up in week 3 up as new boys Salty Frogs looked to clear their backlog and 4-25’s new lineup set out to prove itself.

At the elite end of the league all 3 top teams faced obviously beatable opponents but with that comes the pressure to perform, one slip up could prove costly at the end of the season. Who gobbled up the small fry and who choked on the bones?

SUAVE

Normal service was resumed after last week’s tied affair against Awsomniac. It’s not quite a return to the Epsilon days of 20 minute 5-0s yet, and although Politically correct pander were able to show more resistance on Gullywash than Snakewater dragging two rounds out to beyond the 9 minute mark, SUAVE were never in trouble.

Mirelin went drop-less for the first time this season, but the real standout performance was WARHURYEAH, smashing the opposition on Gullywash with top damage and frags and top damaging by a clear 2000 points on Snakewater while his scouts cleaned up. An apparent switch away from NA style conservative tactics immediately resulted in WARHURYEAH terrorising the opposition in true overextendoman style.

Rising continues to be something of an unsung key to victory, continually posting the best stats of any roamer by a significant margin whilst still recording plenty of medic and demo kills, proving that he is willing and able to storm the enemy’s best defended points and come back alive with bits of them stuck to his clothing.

The scouts continue to be unsung by me, the dominance of their soldiers and demo continually suppressing their ratings – this is a shortcoming of my system. Even so they’re both solidly top 10 and handing down thrashings for the rest of the season may still see them coming out on top by a process of attrition.

Week 4 brings the regular season showdown between SUAVE and Ze Knutsson Rollerbladers. Recent PCW results hint that SUAVE may not be an unstoppable force, and the first games on cp_logjam may be the wildcard needed to overturn expectations. Even so SUAVE must go in clear favourites albeit by a modest margin, but they won’t be able to take this one easy.

Top dog: WARHURYEAH

 

Ze Knutsson Rollerbladers

Moving back up into 2^nd place Ze Knutsson Rollerbladers eased past the freshly renamed  Planet Express team. Snakewater was close and could have gone to golden cap but the Swedish/Finnish mix showed their class in the clutch moment smashing Planet Express at mid and finishing the round in just over 1 minute with seconds to play.

On Snakewater Zebbosai played a lot of sniper and it forced the game into long periods of cat and mouse positioning, and this was partly down to his relative ineffectiveness on scout as Planet Express controlled his usual rampaging style. Ultimately amppis was able to thrive and it was largely his pocket play that won them that map, and amppis excelled again on Gullywash. Herr_P also had a nice game on Gullywash.

Knutsson’s dropping problems are becoming a thing of the past, if he had a more accurate read of his own health all the time it would have been zero drops across both maps but as it is he and flushy were matched in this regard, although flushy’s team weren’t able to keep him alive anywhere near as much.

ryb was relatively quiet on both maps, doing a solid yet unspectacular job and zappis finally diluted his epic sniper run with a thoroughly mediocre two minute stint.

Week 4 may bring even more sniper play as Kiler4fun and smziii are likely to be extremely challenging for Zebbosai to pull off his normal rampaging scout act. Ze Knutsson Rollerbladers’s star players will certainly have to step up as will the supporting cast to get anything out of this one.

Pack leader: Ze Knutsson Rollerbladers

 

4-25

Sneaking into a surprising 3^rd spot 4-25 made heavy work of the win over coolclan only taking Gullywash after a golden cap. However things are definitely looking up with the acquisition of ShaDowBurn (the master replacing the apprentice), Shyyou’s improved form may be down to the opposition or it could be a result of having to do less on the flank, probably a bit of both. Even so the upward trend has to continue for him personally for his team to challenge the playoff spots meaningfully.

kensi. tried his best to go perma-sniper with mixed results, his Gullywash was mediocre but Snakewater was a spree where gdk also turned in a good performance. After last week’s heroics his scout partner sid vicious had a quiet match, but celebrity roamer ShaDowBurn crushed faces on Gullywash, his fast rollouts no doubt proving impossible to deal with.

Dikker blotted his copy book on Snakewater with 2 drops, but his team were able to keep him alive far more than Admirable and he had substantially more ubers and healing throughout as a result.

Do 4-25 justify their lofty position? A lot of their rating is down to the class discipline, they don’t ineffectively offclass a lot in comparison to some others. However they seem to have the weakest pocket in Prem at the moment, and they have yet to face the acid tests of the 3 teams above them. They have the week 1 catch up against Salty Frogs to play which has the potential to be a banana skin although on current form 4-25 should win, but week 4 brings Awsomniac who will be looking to stamp their authority on the eastern Europeans. This game could signal the start of a downward trend in their ratings here.

Alpha male: gdk

 

Awsomniac

Despite another convincing win the Frenchies find themselves down a place, largely down to too much showboating and undisciplined off classing, and with some credit to Salty Frogs of course. Captainhax led the way again, compiling masses of frags, seemingly able to simply stroll around both maps with Bulle while Salty Frogs threw players at him.

Despite his cap-or-die pushing style Exon. still had two good maps as well, and on current form is WARHURYEAH’s closest challenger in the Demo stakes. If he could ever bring himself to abandon failed pushes while there’s still time to get out he could genuinely challenge the upper reaches of the rankings.

The return of fl1p also made a difference, initially taking a while to shrug off the rust on Gullywash he sharpened up a bit by Snakewater. Over the coming weeks assuming he stays in the team he should become a force to be reckoned with, he’s already close to surpassing Flippy’s scout rating after one fixture. The second scout spot has historically been a weak point of this team, not any more.

For Awsomniac week 4 brings 4-25 and the odds must strongly be on Awsomniac to firmly retake their place in the top three. They have clear superiority in the soldier and demo positions, in the scouts it’s more competitive but any scouts facing fl1p will need to be at their best even if he remains out of practice.

The dog’s bollocks: Exon.

 

Planet Express

The rebranding hasn’t brought any luck as they slip a spot to 5^th this week, just unable to match Ze Knutsson Rollerbladers across Snakewater and Gullywash. They deserve credit for playing compactly and reducing Zebbosai’s impact as a scout, but against the Zebbosai sniper there were long periods of “bend but don’t break” defensive play, taking advantage of the relative reduction in pushing power (but not capping power, Zebbosai never caps) and keeping the scoreline down to give themselves a chance by wining mids, which they did.

I’m not sure if it’s credit due for going for all 3 points on the final middle or naive play to not turtle and guarantee the golden cap point with only a minute to go. No doubt they’d have faced fierce criticism for such conservative play and it showed self belief to go for it, but as Ze Knutsson Rollerbladers proved it was misplaced.

Gullywash although not decisive until late on was clearer cut. Across both maps the obvious strength of their scouts were again the bright spots but kaptain also put in solid performances putting out a lot of the damage their scouts cleaned up on. Samsa returned to anonymity after last week’s heroics, and Setlet struggled, particularly on Snakewater (often a hard map for Demomen to thrive on).

flushy continues to be solid on his return to competitive TF2, dropping only one uber although he did die 70% more often than Knutsson so was under a lot more pressure to drop throughout the fixture.

Week 4 brings some respite and a chance to get back on the playoff trail in the shape of coolclan, Planet Express must surely be strong favourites for this one. It seems though they can’t win or lose by a big margin, so if they do emerge victorious don’t expect it to be easy.

Dog of war: kaptain

 

Salty Frogs

The French/Belgian mix have been hurrying to catch up but are still a fixture behind most other teams having yet to play their week 1 game against 4-25. Their 2 games so far have been a mixed bag, overpowering their conquerors in Prem qualifiers in the shape of coolclan, but comprehensively outclassed by their near neighbours Awsomniac.

Their obvious standout player across all 4 maps has been NiCO god's hand, their only player to record clearly positive frags ( Hidan has only one more kill than death three times) on every map even when his team were being crushed on Snakewater. His scout partner droso has been more of a mixed bag filling his boots when smashing coolclan but beaten down by Awsomniac.

The soldiers have swapped roles since their first game and found more freedom and effectiveness against coolclan, baud thriving on pocket. Few soldier pairs get much change out of Awsomniac though so the improvement may be down to the opponents as much as anything else.

Hidan has yet to really hit stride being either out performed or matched by Exon. and Smirre, the demo position may be one of Salty Frogs’s main weaknesses. Izzy57 has yet to record a drop and it will be of significant benefit to his team if he can keep that record spotless, although zero deaths between 95-99% uber indicate he looks after that charge like a baby. Excessive conservatism may also hold them back.

Week 4 brings the Politically correct pander and Salty Frogs will expect to be able to beat them in similar vein to coolclan.

Man’s best friend: NiCO god's hand

 

Politically correct pander

Scrabbling off the bottom by the proverbial nipple hair it’s looking more and more likely that Politically correct pander will be locked into a death grip with coolclan in the struggle to avoid the wooden spoon this season. Week 3 saw the Politically correct pander predictably brushed aside by SUAVE, with only zoob emerging with much credit from Snakewater and Muuki finally hitting a bit of form this season on Gullywash.

Bright spots are few and far between, Shifty subbing in for Kissakala didn’t do too badly in a rearguard action but that’s as much as you can say for most medics. zoob hit more than respectable damage on both maps too.

Presumably having saved Kissakala from the post-traumatic stress disorder Shifty is now suffering from, Week 4 brings Salty Frogs and the genuine hope of picking up some points. Politically correct pander strength lies mainly in their pocket zoob and their experience and team play, so overcoming the resurgent baud and controlling the rampant NiCO god's hand will be key for them.

Hair of the dog: zoob

 

coolclan

Back in the Premiership dungeon (sponsored by TT Esports) coolclan seem to have lost the mojo that brought them into Prem in the first place. 2 defeats in as many days against 4-25 and Salty Frogs have left them staring down the barrel of instant relegation needing to pick up form and points fast.

Their one consistent performer is wltrs who only had one mediocre map out of 4 and even then was one of coolclan’s better players on Snakewater vs Salty Frogs. amppis did well mercing for them against Salty Frogs but Bonkers has also done well, producing heavy damage numbers although he is a little more variable on the frags.

phromelo has put up some surprisingly good numbers from the roamer spot, but Dennia has proven to be somewhat exploitable and Smirre has struggled to assert himself as well. amppis also played for them against Salty Frogs, so this team instability can’t be helping either – they’re currently looking at wltrs to carry them if they can’t develop their synergy.

Week 4 brings Planet Express and sheepy dog's hand, so they can’t expect much in the way of scout superiority there, but the fact they don’t seem to be able to play consistently and put teams away will give coolclan hopes of at least keeping it close.

Old dog not learning any new tricks: wltrs

 

Team of the week

Pocket: amppis

Roamer: Rising (I’ve made a macro for this in Word now)

Demo: WARHURYEAH

Scouts: Zebbosai and wltrs

Medic: Mirelin (fanboys rejoice!)