Would just like to say that this thread's title kinda smears m17's name, in my experience, he follows the policy of the League and actually does a really good job being available for league issues, researching whether his ruling follows league guidelines/rulebook, and also actually genuinely giving a fuck. Ultimately, we are discussing the league's policy, and calling him out specifically wasn't called for.

Just pointing it out because specifically negatively targeting admins who care more and take on more decision-making by calling into question their character for league-specific issues has been a trend in the past. That trend is bad for this community and has stopped potential people from deciding to apply to be admins, which is bad for everyone regardless of whether you favor restrictions or not.

I was actually typing out a more winded response but you responded before i could and I was actually about to suggest the same thing.

If you want teams to reach invite at the capacity of being able to actively contest mid invite, then you should lower the number of teams in invite to 5 or 4, and make taking 1st or 2nd place in adv the required placement to play in a qualifier to take seed 5/4 or 4/3 before the next season.

The other option is to make a Div 1 and a Div 2, with div1 consisting of mid invite low invite top adv teams without restrictions.

The big problem with both of these is what if 2 mid invite teams play Div1/adv, get grands but dont want to be top 4 invite and play top 2 for half the season (or what if 4th or 3rd dies). We pretty much run back into the same issues we have had in the past. (I don't know what our current teams at this caliber think, I'm just presenting a problem that has risen in the past regardless of how we structure the divs)

While I think there is a benefit to difficult divisions with more skilled competition, I think there is a balance to be struck.

Saying that the kronge realm team history being not straight wins is a bit disingenuous if you take into account that they were facing other teams with other "sandbaggers', for example, in S10 where they got 3rd, the other 2 teams who were above them were also made up of multiple players with invite/adv winning experience on their mains.

The pipeline back in the day used to be get 5th or 4th in adv(ESEA-IM), move up to invite because everyone above you in adv already had invite experience, once you hit the wall in invite and want to take it easier, come back down to adv. Adv was never about actually competing at a high level, it was what invite teams did when they stopped wanting to face the top 4 wall in invite but still wanted to feel some competition. (This is not always the case, I remember Omni-5 w/ fyg hayes cin putting good numbers against the top adv teams before they moved up to invite, but this was a rarity.)

Personally idc where the line is. Ultimately, there are always things you can improve on. But I don't think it's that far-fetched to want the invite caliber teams in invite. and use Adv to develop players/new rosters.

Instead of these top 3 adv teams being in adv, they could literally just play low invite and create more competition in low invite. Instead of 3rd place adv being the bar that people need to reach, why isn't winning adv the prerequisite to facing the teams of low invite? I'd argue that most of those seasons Konge Realm won/placed, the top 3 teams in adv were better than the bottom 2 invite teams, and many of those seasons, the invite division had room to be bigger. (id also imagine low invite not being such a slog if there were 4-5 low invite teams as opposed to 1 or 2)

The rule where they made each team only have 3 restricted players made more sense from an ideological standpoint because it meant that developing rosters could form where 3 invite players developed 3 other players and tried to win adv, but more often than not what you see is admins approve those teams with the 3 new players and 2 of them get cut and rosters rotated onto their mains by the time the playoffs starts. (see Fjord Gaming/Quake these last few seasons). Most of the time, I don't see those other players starting new rosters with budding potential either. Usually, what we tend to see is those newer players who made it to the playoffs stay with that same core who may or may not play (and if they do only want to play adv), and the other players who didn't make it don't play the following seasons either.

Ultimately, incentivizing people to stay playing adv is what rgl is trying to avoid. While I don't agree with all of their restriction changes, I do think it's a good idea to not let teams just take their 6 down from invite to adv or get 3rd and wait 2 seasons and not play invite just to play adv again. and rinse repeat for the next 3 years because theyd rather continue playing their current division than try and make a jump into new territory.

i have been interested in starting to play more combo scout. hitting that consistent 55% scatter acc is making it rlly hard to get on a main team, but I'm restricted from playing IM. there are many IM teams looking for combo scouts. Please send your prayers.

As a Business owner I would say my life is objectively stressful. But one thing I just had to accept was that the vast majority of things in life aren't free and will require sacrifice to achieve, but it's on you to decide whether it's worth it to make the sacrifice. Expecting the sacrifice creates an alternative scenario where instead of looking for ideal situations you are looking for "good deals". You can reasonably just accept that usually you will have to spend potential fun to get what you want.

Then it's just up to you to motivate yourself using whatever tactic necessary. Sometimes I motivate myself because I know I'll have to sacrifice somewhere but I'm looking to make the smallest sacrifice possible for the largest outcome. Ultimately asking myself "am I fine with the aftermath or should I exert energy now" and thinking about it logically makes me choose the correct outcome. (Allot of the time I just straight up fear the other outcome and so the fear gets me to act)

Also similar to Geknaiir, I have limits. If something bad happens I just tell myself to do what I can today, the rest tomorrow me can worry about. It's not worth worrying about things I can't control in the moment. The vast majority of the time I don't work past 5pm unless absolutely required. Ultimately you should just try to do your best in the moment. For example if someone said "Niko you have to do this or something bad is gonna happen" rather than taking on stress about what could happen you could think instead "ok I'll do my best now and if something bad happens that's for future me to deal with, and just do what you can and be satisfied that you did your best. (Again you actually have to do your best though)

Bump c:

Agreed, been waiting a long time for this to come out.

An absolute joy to play with, always has a good vibe.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1371259829720715356/1415187975515537468/atweirdo.gif?ex=69287842&is=692726c2&hm=27b4a0af32308c4de54ed0d1b6cdaf2e75df5e14be4747f1a357b311cbb8a527&;

This is really important because we are talking about default time from an admin standpoint. Default time should be the enforceable time that allows the most teams to keep using their regular 6, in case both teams can't agree on a time that works. This does not have to be the regular time.

Also, would like to add that if you do full-time school, part-time entry-level position, you are more likely to work Saturday or Sunday because those are busier days for those types of jobs. I would argue this archetype of player is more common than the full-time office job worker, though I'm sure you see it more often in invite because the players tend to be older.

I'm on West Coast. I run my own business and, as such, make my own schedule, but when I was working a regular job, I had to quit my team those seasons because I was getting home 10+ minutes past scrim time every night at 6:30(by the way, I lived literally the next block over from my job, which is unheard of.) I've also been playing a long time and have known many west coasters who, after high school/ first 2 years of college, had to quit because the current time is already too early.(Currently working at a bar or restaurant or fast food place or grocery store or gas station is off the table if you wish to play tf2 on the west coast.) Saying that there are fewer west coasters and so the time should be adjusted is a little crazy, considering that as a west coaster, I'd rather have later scrims than earlier. Also, many of this games' top players are West Coast or were for a very long time. B4nny, habib, skeez, marmaloo, arrekk, ether, exile, grape juice III, paddie, yosh, taz to name a few are all from or currently live in PST.

Also, I know of more than a few players who would rather not scrim until scrim time because they'd rather not make the sacrifices that a lot of West Coast players make to play TF2. (ie, they have work, or hang out with family. girlfriend, or friends, or go to the gym before scrims. It's not so clear-cut as to say that West Coasters are the only ones who benefit from a later time. In my experience, most of the invite teams already end up rescheduling most of the time anyway because players have real lives and unfortunately, cannot play TF2 all day, every day anymore.

Personally ive played on teams the last 2 seasons that play 2-3 days a week, and as a west coaster its honestly a blessing, i dont have to rush home, i can take my time and cook and go to the gym, and actually go out to stuff, most of the time im home by 10 pm which if i was an east coaster i could just do that and also play tf2, i wouldnt have to take days off or play on a relatively unserious team.

Id be interested in a cup like this, that being said;

There is an objectively tiny pool of players ive seen play at a higher level, be it even main adv or invite, that have gone down a division or more and played with people who werent a part of their immediate friend group/circlejerk; and the amount of players who have done that and not wanted to blow their brains out after a week is even less. Playing with people who play a lower level than you can be very frustrating, so I'd keep it in mind when proposing something like this.

Also, 36 players are too few. How are you selecting who gets to play and who doesn't? im sure there are definitely more than 36 players interested in a unique experience like this. Are you excluding people who have played invite? Id argue there's a huge gap between low invite and mid/high invite.

LFT med for S20, preferably Invite. would really like to go to LAN, would consider Adv/Open Bracket for the right people.

Discord: slicerogue

Im more skeptical because this isn't your personal money.