TimTum is here

Can you describe your team ? Who's playing what .. ?

We have Mystt and Ortin on scout, t4ntrum on pocket, me on roamer, xaM on demo and Muffinz on medic. After season 28 only Mystt and I were left, and we wanted to see if we could make another dutch team. I already knew xaM because he merced for us a few maps last season, and he said he was going to play in a team with t4ntrum and Muffinz. So we decided to make a team together and our original plan was to put Mystt on roamer, t4ntrum on scout and me on pocket. But after two weeks Mystt said he preferred to play scout and we changed to the roster we have now. I asked Ortin if he was interested to play again since we played together in open back in Season 21 where we finished 3rd.

Going into the season, were you expecting to make it to the final ? If not, how far did you expect to go ?

At first our goal was just to make playoffs. Even though we have players with high/prem experience, we also have two players who haven't really played top mid yet. So we were pretty sure we could make playoffs, but we didn't really think about the finals yet. After winning most scrims against div 2 teams we were confident to reach the finals. During the season our biggest questionmark was our maincalling. We don't really have anyone in the combo that has experience with maincalling, so we decided to let t4ntrum maincall. But that didn't really work so currently I'm maincalling with t4ntrum. In hindsight it was pretty difficult for t4ntrum to do it because not only hasn't he really maincalled before, he also has never played top mid. But he improved so that's nice to see.

Going into the final, what do you think are your strong points ? In term of playstyle, maps...

Comparing this season with our previous seasons our strongest point I feel like is our consistancy. Almost every season we've had roster changes mid season, but this is the first season everyone was able to finish the season. I really notice the difference because we are playing pretty good together since we don't have to play with subs/mercs a lot. One thing that hasn't changed over the seasons is prolands, it's by far our worst map.

And what do you think about the opposing team ?

We haven't played really played them this season (apart from the official in week 7), but obviously they are a good team. I don't know all of them, but we've played against Jordy, Mak and Raelyn last season and they are really nice. I've also played with Mak in EU Gimmicks (ESEA Open) and he was really chill. I hope it's going to be a good and close match.

Any closing words/shoutouts ?

Thanks to the TFTV crew for casting this match, hopefully it will be a good match to watch. Shoutouts to my team, our subs/mercs, the people that played with us in previous seasons/mixes, the people that played with EU Gimmicks, Kaas9, Domo and everyone that has been supporting us (:

Here be leaders of #BIGBOYSEASON, toemas_ and Jordy

Could you describe your team ? Who's playing what... ?

toemas_: toemas_ aph scout, gar roamer, jordy pocket, mak demo, raelyn med.

Going into the final, what do you think are your strong points ? In term of playstyle, maps…

Jordy : Well Raelyn Mak and I have been playing together for 2 seasons and have made playoffs before so we are really used to eachother's playstyles and gar aph and toemas played on a high project last season as well so we play together fairly well and we've got a bunch of sick DMers. We got a lot of experience from playing in high and tbh our only weak point is that we're just a little inconsistent and we've got quite a few tilters so if people are just not feeling it we can just lose

Going into the season, were you expecting to make it to the final ? If not, how far did you expect to go ?

toemas_:The start of the seaon it was suppose to be a friend mix team that we all had fun playing together and switched up classes each official just to have a relaxing season, but then we made it to playoffs and decided to main class to see if we could win. The core of the team come from last season which played mid playoffs and got 3rd.

And what do you think about the opposing team ?
Jordy: Well I've played with and against the dutchies and (though they switch their roster every season) and they've always had pretty good dm and they play the game like a very standard team but IMO they're not that strong at anything, none of their positives beat ours. We've beaten them in week 7 6-0 with a weaker roster back when we didn't scrim and only played to have fun, so I'm confident.

Any closing words/shoutouts ?
Jordy: Shoutouts to Teo for playing most of our games and doing really well for his first season, also shoutout to vg and hamaham :)
toemas_:enemy, why you so nooba? And shoutouts to doughy

Moving on, we have Marshy and Dummy, from Epipslon eSprots
Could you quickly describe your team : who's playing what...
Marshy : So we have Me on Pocket, played for 2 seasons now. Dummy on Demo. He is currently maincalling however for the majority of the season I have been main caling. We have Scat on medic. Wflash on roamer. Jamie on flank scout and Oriano on pocket scout. Me, Wflash and Oriano have been in the team for 2 seasons but Jamie, Dummy and Scat are new to our roster at the start of the season. I made the team in its current form after playing with a previous iteration of the team last season and unfortunately just missing out on play off, despite having contending with many of the teams who made the cut. I wanted to aim for play offs and at the least and as the season went on we realised we had a very realistic shot of winning, so that became our goal. Oh we also have seiger as our scout sub, we originally intended to use him as pocket scout but he is on holiday during play off period so we got Jamie in and moved seiger to sub

Going into the season, were you expecting to get into the finals ? If not, how far did you expect to make it ?
Dummy: As a team we pretty much only wished we'd reach the play-offs - at least at the beginning. Once the season started however we realised that we're not as god-awful trash as we thought we were (at least in officials; scrims, we've always sucked), so Marshy started talking about the finals. personally, I'd have been a tad disappointed to not reach the final (luckily we did) since we've only lost a single map during the regular season

Going into the final, what would you say are your strong points ? in term of maps/playstyle...
Marshy : Hmm it's a tough one to answer really. In regards to this final in particular our strong points would be our deathmatch is generally better than the opposition we're up against for the most part. We also are very comfortable in stalemates, with lots of opportunities for good offclassing from Jamie and Oriano. We've had a lot of success with plays from them throughout the season. Map wise it's tough as we have been struggling with certain maps we used to be fairly comfortable on so it's still all up in the air as to what maps our 100% our strongest versus Sora in this case but we are definitely less comfortable on some maps opposed to others. We also have at times very good co ordination when pushing with momentum and with our aggressive soldier plastyle we can sometimes completely stop a team from retreating

Speaking of the final, how do you feel about your opponents ?
Dummy: To be frank, we felt like we got a bit unlucky in our path to the finals since the best teams were pretty much entirely on our side of a bracket. After the semi-final, most of us jokingly called it the real final. However, Sora have been hella improving lately while we've been getting worse and worse due to bad scrim results, so I wouldn't call us the favourites given recent form of both teams

Any closing words/shoutouts ?
Dummy: Shoutout to Marshy for getting us together and not killing himself after being the team's punching bag, and shoutout to Lit boys for being a much cooler enemy than I expected :D
Marshy ; shoutout to my team. Storm, Epipslon eThot and my mate Jack

And know, onto the part of the article where I let people with actual skill speak. We’re starting with Lena and Qbown, leaders of Sora Elektro.
Could you quickly describe your team : who's playing what…?
Lena : The team is composed of z0diack on pocket scout, qbown on flank scout, pyrozer on pocket, temp on roamer, tiia on demo and hm me I guess on medic. Our roster is pretty recent, on week 1 I think we only had 3 real main players and only 1 player from S28 Sora. Our current roster was only made in week 4 I think.

And how do you feel about your opponents ?

QBown : I have a lot of respect for them. It's a good team with nice people.

Going into the final, what would you say are your strong points ? In terms of maps/playstyle… ?

Lena : I think one of our strongest points would probably be our capacity to keep the initiative on our side. We have very good maincalling and even if we're just low, I think we at least really try to listen to the calls. For the maps, I would say all the maps of the end of the season are good for us as that's when our roster really came together.

Going into the season, were you expecting to get into the finals ? If not, how far did you expect to make it ?

QBown : I thought our team would die after week 3 given the circumstances at that time. After we got our shit together we expected to atleast make playoffs. Everything after that was just a bonus.

Thanks for answering me. Any shoutouts or closing words ?

Qbown : Shoutouts to the Bubble Discord, my team and their team, Ora Elektro and nation for maptalks and demo reviews and to Morrow for being our mascot.
Lena : I think I'm just really really proud of the team, after a rough start, we still made it into the finals despite everything! Whatever the outcome of this final game is, I'll still be super happy about this season. So may the best team win!

is the exact schedule up yet ? I need to know if there's games on Friday or if it is just a setup day.

Maps will be Process, Prolands and Gullywash.
Also if you want some less serious news that I couldn't figure out how to put in the write-up : Se7en have been playing with habib on scout in some of their scrims, hopefully he will be more successful than paddie in S27.

Will playoffs games be counted or nah ?

Hey, I'm back and I'm not late at all.

Ascent.EU vs OMNI5 : 6-0 (3-0, 4-3)

What I expected : While OMNI5 seemed like strong playoffs contenders, Ascent.EU would still be too good for them, especially after their crushing victory on Product in week 5 which showed Credu’s ability to lock down an entire team.
What I got : while the Product was not much of a surprise, OMNI5 were not demoralized and came swinging into Prolands, winning 2 rounds in about 8 minutes and not looking like they wanted to slow down. A server change sort of broke their momentum however, and after 14 minutes both teams had scored a round a round each before Ascent finally got the ball rolling in their favor, scoring 3 additional rounds and ultimately winning the game within 30 seconds of the timer ticking down. Worthy of note is that OMNI5 were very dominant in their mid-fights, winning all but one of them.
Stand-out players : Raf and Gotti were key players, wreaking havoc during mids and showing that their role swap was for the best.

Nunya vs Ora Elektro : 6-0 (3-0, 4-2)

What I expected : Nunya was looking for playoff points, and were coming into this fixture as the favorite, but Ora Elektro could have still reached playoffs were they to win, and seeing as they managed to get some points from wer das liest ist doof and OMNI5 before, they could have expected to grab at least a point or two, helping them to maybe get out of the relegation zone. Nunya seemed better on Product, but overall this had the potential to be a close game.
What I got : Product went extremely well for Nunya. The presence of Krafty, mercenary extraordinaire meant that they were able to field a sniper and 2 scout mains at the same time, something that Ora had trouble countering, and when you add the DM and aggressivity of Nunya, Elektro didn’t stood a chance. Nunya’s good form sort of carried over to the next map, where they were in the lead for most of the time, before finally furthering said lead in the last 5 minutes thus walking away with all 6 points.
Stand-out players : Lukas was in a good form this whole season, but he really showed up this match notably hitting close to 500 DPM on Product. Also, uubers was a constant threat on Prolands, despite not having as much heals as he was used to in Lowpander.

the swamp vs Se7en : 3-3 (3-0, 0-5)

What I expected : Sure, the swamp has improved recently, but no way on Earth would they able to defeat Se7en, right ?
What I got : Seems like Se7en are trying to make unexpected ties in week 6 a tradition. The swamp’s victory on Product was also a straight roll, making it even more impressive. Sure, iatgink was a monster, Crayon was really accurate and Domo hit above 500 DPM, but for this result to happen something must have gotten wrong on the other side as well. If I had to guess, I would say a combination of playing with an altered roster and the tilt factor of losing to a team worse than you hindered Se7en in that map. They came back strong, winning 5-0 on Prolands, but the swamp walking away with 3 points is still a huge upset.
Stand-out players : The 3 aforementioned ogres seemed very strong, but that’s based on logs only.

The Bus Crew vs wer das liest ist doof : 0-6 (1-3, 0-3)

What I expected : This match was sort of similar to the Nunya vs Ora one, because there’s one lower-prem team whose victory could start a crazy comeback, and a team that if they win, are a feet into playoffs. The Bus Crew performed not as well as Ora, so the Germans + 2 seemed strong going into this, but everything could happen.
What I got : The first map was closer than the scoreline shows, with every round being fought teeth and nails by both teams. In another repeat of the Nunya-Ora match, TBC had trouble shutting down the enemy sniper, and ultimately succumbed to the better focus fire of WDLID. This loss hurt their morale a bit, and they never really managed to get a foothold into the second map, resulting in their loss.
Stand-out players : Krafty sniped quite well on the first map, and aidelos and stefaan are one very effective scout duo. Speaking of duo, the soldier duo of clip and Fischkopf is still performing, even after they swapped roles.

NO BRAKES ON THIS BUS

This game is so late that even my updated writeup is outdated now. Here are the logs for the latest Essential Cup Se7en vs Ascent match.
http://logs.tf/1974460#76561197999595616
http://logs.tf/1974507#76561197999595616
http://logs.tf/1974536#76561197999595616

Ora Elektro vs Rakuzan : 1-5 (0-1 GC, 2-3)

What I expected : This would be one very interesting match to watch, as both ex-high teams have a very calculated and controlled play-style. I would have given an edge to Rakuzan based on results only but seeing as both those team play pretty similarly, any of the teams could walk away victorious, especially when you add Product to the mix.
What I got : Both maps definitely were very close, but not in the same way. Snakewater back-and-forth for the entire 30 minutes, and while the Golden Cap ultimately picked Rakuzan as the winners, I feel like both teams could have won this map in default time had the other team made slightly more mistakes. Product started off very strong for the electric Norwegians, with Ora going 2-0, putting them at match point. However, Olgha (who was mercing for Raf) switched to Pyro, and was simultaneously able to drag his team up 3 rounds to win the match and to be the cause for the monthly “ban pyro” thread.
Stand-out players : I briefly want to mention the medics of both teams, Raptor and celvn, who both played well as they were able to survive unlikely situations, and overall did few mistakes. It’s tough to mention medics as stand-out players since most of the time the thing that you remember the most about them are the drops, so before I start praising the literal spawn of Satan that is the Olgha pyro, I figured I might as well mention some meds as they are the unsung heroes of TF2 (non biased opinion). Soooo, love him or hate him, but Olgha is clearly the player that stood out the most for me, at least on Product. His switch was really smart, as his team still had two scouts on the field, and Ora had to give up one of their scouts to go Sniper and counter him, which they did try by moving Azunis to Scout, but they switched back to cookie-cutter very fast. The Pyro was also denying the Ora soldiers, who were doing very successful bombs before. I’m not saying that Olgha carried his team, especially since players like Scruff and Demos were really good at playing around him and forming a blob of death, but Olgha definitely tipped the balance for Rakuzan and it’s not like he’s a brainless pyro as well, hitting some lovely reflects and consistent detonator shots.

Nunya vs Se7en : 0-6 (3-6, 0-3)
What I expected : While Se7en were certainly looking like the most probable winners, the fact that they would be playing maybe not as seriously as before and also that Nunya has a great scout combo could mean that we could have seen some close maps, especially Product.
What I got : (logs only). On Snakewater, Nunya tried quite hard, winning 3 rounds in 7 minutes. However Se7en came back hard, winning 6 rounds back to back after that. Did Se7en simply needed a warm-up ? Did the process of losing to a team with 2 mercs motivated them to stomp their way to victory ? Nevertheless, the European powerhouse was here, and rolled the second map in a clean 3-0 scoreline.
Stand-out player : basing this on logs is always risky, so I’ll simply be pointing out that Starkie roamed and did pretty well. I don’t know how definitive this move is though, but it’s a possibility that he’s keening up on a role that he did not play for a fair amount of time.

Ascent.EU vs The Bus Crew : 6-0 (5-0, 3-0)
What I expected : Anything but a clean sweep from Ascent would have surprised me.
What I got : The Bus Crew tried, but first place of prem against last place of prem is quite one-sided. Ascent.EU scouts outfragged the entire enemy team on Snakewater, and while they did put up a decent fight on Product, it simply wasn’t enough.
Stand-out players : Credu hit 34 headshots on Product. That’s something.

The swamp vs wer das liest ist doof : 3-3 (2-1, 1-3)
What I expected : The mostly-Germans looked a bit better in term of logs, and it seemed plausible that they won, but the swamp has improved recently, and the fact that they took Nunya to a golden cap the week before shows that they could grab some points from this match as well.
What I got : the swamp was surely showing that they put in the work on Snakewater, as they were able to get some points on the board and then to control the flow of the game, leaving wer das liest ist doof starved for time. They carried their good form over on Product, winning the first round convincingly with yllen on Scout and Crayon on Sniper, but this was the start of a turnaround from the mostly-Germans, who pulled krafty from roamer to sniper. This change was apparently all they needed, as their scout combo was able to challenge the swamp without getting sniped and ultimately winning, as 2 scout mains is better than one (sorry yllen).
Stand-out player : krafty really turned up on Product, and while he scored one less kill than Crayon his ability to score headshots (33 on that map) meant that he was able to get rid of the enemy sniper easily, and most importantly to score a lot of damage, so the swamp was under more pressure, despite both teams having a sniper. Iatgink really showed up on Snakewater as well, his hit-and-run style of play gives him a lot of opportunities, and he has a great DM in general. He is one important element of his team, and I would say that he is easily one of the better scouts that’s not part of Se7en nor Ascent.

Skyrim is not a RPG
Most Telltale games offer you only the illusion of choice, and are closer to interactive movies rather than CYOA books.
Interactive movies, or walking simulators, whatever you wanna call them, are still videogames and shitting on them just makes you look like a 12 yo.
Any sidequest in Mass Effect 2 or 3 is better than every storyline mission.
Toxicity in online videogaming should not be so commonplace as it is today.
Every type of lootbox should be banned.

Well darn, I was looking at a good reason to fanboy over fluo, but now I can't.

Ascent.EU vs wer das liest ist doof : 6-0 (5-0, 6-1)

What I expected : This was a true test of skill for Smirre + 5 Germans : how they would fare against one of the 2 top teams would show if, provided they reach playoffs, they could create a surprise when facing one of the favorites. I would have given a big edge to Ascent.EU, but there was room for more unexpected results, especially on Granary.
What I got : Ascent.EU showed that they still above every other team in prem, except Se7en of course. It’s not like WDLID did not try, and they had to play with a merc as well, but they were outclassed in both team coordination and DM. An interesting thing to not is that they are a very rigid team in term of offclassing, and apart from standard defensive offclasses, they barely used any. It would have been maybe a good idea to go for more unorthodox plays, to try and stop Ascent in their tracks, but I don’t know how comfortable they are with offclassing as whole, so who knows.
Standout players : In those kind of games, it’s always quite tough to pick one player to talk about. That said, chris had a big presence on the flank, and was overall hard to stop.

Nunya vs the swamp : 5-1 (2-1 GC, 3-1)

What I expected : Before week 4, I would have named Nunya as the team most likely to win, but the loss of their 2 soldiers means that the swamp had a decent chance to win a map at the very least. Overall, I still expected Nunya to perform better than the swamp, but that was with the mercs being able to fit in the team. If they did not, the swamp could use their better team coordination to win the game.
What I got : It was a tense game, and many mistakes on both sides slowed the game. Granary in particular was extremely back-and-forth, and it took a golden cap to have a winner on that map; Nunya’s mercs, Raf and adysky were sometimes a bit all over the place, but it was quite a messy fixture anyway, Nunya emerging victorious thanks to some better focus fire, and some good flanks on Snakewater.
Standout players : adysky played a very unorthodox style of pocket, with some flamboyant offclassing and aggressive jumps, but he was definitely the play-maker for Nunya. On the side of the swamp, iatgink played a more classic play-maker role as well, and he’s showing to be one of the strongest elements on his team.

Ora Elektro vs The Bus Crew : 3-3 (1-2, 3-1)

What I expected : This was shaping up to be a very interesting confrontation. On one hand, Ora definitely had some better results than The Bus Crew, but on the other, TBC keened up recently, as surprising scrims results show them winning and drawing against the Germans and Nunya.
What I got : Granary was a slight clusterfuck, and I only really remember jimb0t tearing apart the fabric of reality, but the fact that The Bus Crew won really shows the work they’ve put in, as they were able to go toe-to-toe with Ora Elektro, a team that plays a quite controlled TF2.
Standout players : (the granary logs are a complete mess btw). Alba can snipe pretty hard.

Se7en vs Rakuzan : 6-0 (3-2, 5-2)

What I expected : Se7en to not try super hard. Rakuzan are surely a solid team, and they might manage to take some rounds, but if they came too close, I felt Se7en would actually try, and win.

What I got : A somewhat correct prediction, I think. Rakuzan showed up ready to play and determined to not get rolled, despite having to play with 2 mercs. They managed to climb 2 rounds from being lead 3-0 on Snakewater and overall had a strong showing, but they still needed the DM, and focus fire that separate the top of Prem from the rest.

Standout players : Rakuzan had to hire two Italians mercs, and, honoring the tradition of being good mercenaries, both of the Condottieri played very well. Ixy showed that yes, playing 5 Pugchamp games a day can replace scrims while fluo went and just established the record of airshots in one map for this season, with 16 of them (I did not actually fact-check this record but still, he hit 16 airshots). Meanwhile Thalash was determined to make the most of his minor warning for wrong nickname, and thus mr. enchilada claimed 73 frags in total.

This season in general is really close. Apart from Ascent and Se7en, I feel like every other team is capable of winning games against any team in the bottom 6.