joddi haven't seen anyone say it yet, so: thank you to sal and eX for starting the dialogue about a pug system, regardless of format or people's gripes.
This, 1,000 times this. In a single (well probably multiple) step Sal and eXtine have done more for the competitive tf2 scene than all of the tf.tv and vtv drama thrown together, top work.
The step from pub to HL isn't huge and the step from HL to 6's isn't massive either, already in lower divs of ETF2L you see 6's teams made up from parts of HL teams that want to keep playing in the off season. So this is going to be good all round for comp scene, exposure, sponsors, all that good stuff. HL TF2 at the next International? Wonder how many sniffy 6's players would turn down the chance for real prize money?
It seems what Valve want to be able to do is not have a Ban list per se, but to have enough data around the weapons that a lot of people don't like to play with/against in HL Lobby so they can balance them properly. The range of weapons then allows for inventive strats and a gradually changing meta (which is scary to be fair,... but could you imagine the thrill of watching Shade bust out some bonkers Vaccinator strat, or Mike with near constant buff banner running... excite!)
Some ELO-esque business eventually would be great. Hell if they were super awesome they could do an ELO game at a certain level except one class was allowed to be a Mentoring class so you can get a high level player in helping out newer/lower level players.
Yay !