I'll echo the sentiment of wanting to play the game, and emphasize that the time commitment for higher level tf2 is one of the biggest detractors for consistently playing seasons. I would be willing to bet that it's also why there's the retention problem towards the upper levels. 3-4+ nights a week of 2 hours of scrims for ~3 months is just a lot, and leads me to just be burnt out at the end.

I don't think pugs are really the solution, as a lot of the time they're unbalanced, or people don't really take them seriously. And playing a pug will never be the same as playing on an actual team.

More consistent cups seems to me to be a good solution because it allows for people to play the game, but not have to commit to a full season. We went a whole summer without any 6s cups, which is a little crazy to me. But I can also see an unrestricted and free divs being good for rgl as that way it's not as much of a problem if you join with a no scrim team or something.

> why restrictions seem to change every other season

This is the big one to me that I think most people complain about. When forming teams, sometimes it can be "Well we're hoping X player doesn't get restricted", but it's just unclear if they will get restricted off a class. So my question would be how can players get a clearer idea of what someones restrictions will be before rosters are finalized?

I recognize that this is part of it, but you can see how this would make it difficult to plan rosters and form teams.

Aside from that, I think the biggest thing is just regular communication. Status updates on different projects, updates when different decisions are made, etc

Vegas earned it, sucks panthers couldn't put up more of a fight. Cya next year

The only thing that would make it worth it is if there's a reverse sweep. I'm always a fan of reverse sweeps, but it would be tough with Dallas then being hot going into the finals

Fully on the Bobrovsky bandwagon

What's crazier is that they didn't even look tired. Incredible conditioning by them. For people that haven't played, it's probably hard to tell how actually tiring it is because these guys make it look easy

Honestly who is even the favorite now? I feel like any of these teams could win. These playoffs have been unpredictable to say the least. I'm rooting for Carolina, but I feel like every other team is hotter rn

I also think people underestimate Seattle. They had a pretty good season, and have pretty strong depth. They don’t really have any superstars, but you don’t need them when you have all lines producing (kinda like the opposite of the rangers).

Speaking of the rangers, the devils were able to absolutely shut down everything they tried to do. It was nasty. If the devils can keep up this defense, then they could make it pretty far

+1 to what Macron said, Noot is lowkey the reason our team had so much success in S10, he's a very smart player, and he's really good about recognizing and communicating what the team needs. Without him, our ability to adapt would have been way worse. (Especially because of what he said in his post about having perspectives from different parts of the team, he really knows the needs of each role, and can translate that to how a team should play).

He is a little cursed to get 5th place, but if you're ok with 5th place in advanced, then he'll definitely be a good pickup

I can’t tell if the rangers are looking strong or the devils are looking really bad. But regardless, seems like every team except the rangers has had been having some trouble

Honestly for me I feel like the "just look up" arguments miss the real issue, that it's just kinda silly that someone is able to float in the air. It's not like wall bugs are crazy or overpowered or anything, just kinda dumb

Wallbugging is a crutch for soldiers with bad timing on bombs :D

A few thoughts from the 1 pug I played:

- Discord forcing push to talk is not ideal imo
- If a pug is being set up (i.e. map being voted for), it blocks the UI which is a little annoying, especially if I'm just trying to log in
- Mobile UI is a minor thing, but still would be nice to have (if I wanted to check to see how many/who is added up)
- Probably worth having pocket/flank scout be 2 separate roles rather than just scout. It's frustrating as a medic when you don't have a clearly defined pocket scout
- Idk how many people would agree with this, but one thing I liked that Faceit did was force steam aliases in game. It helps when discord names line up with in game names when I don't know everyone's aliases

Never played on a team with Rumpus, but have played against him and hung out with him a bunch in discord. He's a fun guy to be around, and I'll also say his pipe aim is crazy, he dropped me on medic more than any other demo this past season and it wasn't even close

Very good beer league hockey goalie