I'm going to be casting a variety of matches over the next few weeks with different co-casters; tonight will be Rent-a-homes vs. Knights of Grillz at 10:30 EST. I will be casting with mustardoverlord tonight, and you can find some info below.

Stream: http://www.twitch.tv/quesclamation/
Match page: http://play.esea.net/index.php?s=stats&d=match&id=3359656

Post feedback/criticism below or in stream chat. Thanks for reading!

Really underrated demo. Performed very well last season, and if given the chance, will perform well again.

Stream Link: http://www.twitch.tv/quesclamation

For some reason the background image is of another game, but I only stream TF2. I'll fix that later. My plan is to stream 2-3 hours a night of my team scrimming, and possibly stream pugscrims/in-houses.

I live in the United States. I played in Open seasons 11 and 12, IM in season 13, and now open again in season 14. This season I am playing with a new team that I built, and am playing a new class, demo, as opposed to medic which I used to play.

Thank you for your time,
Ques

Woo I can make it

From what I noticed your in-game volume is way too high, making it hard to hear you guys. Also, try to fill in the silent bits with some discussion or commentary, possibly going over the line-ups for people not familiar with the teams.

No servers available from 9-11 EST on tues/thurs. How is this still a problem..

Picking classes for next year, and I'm wondering whether or not the ratings on that website should factor into my decision. Thoughts?

PLS

"SneakyPolarBear volunteered to write the section on my own team."

Not that slick. ;)

Is it TWC? It's probably TWC.

Based off the scrims I specced they don't, but things change and I wrote most of these a week ago. Don't worry, I'll keep them in consideration for week two if I write one.

Thanks for the positive response guys! What should I change in the next set, be it stylistically speaking or with regards to content.

8. Yoshi's Island

Yoshi's Island might be the dark horse of open-- might. Their team does well against most of the decently-high-open teams, not really beating any of the top open teams, but not getting rolled either. At the same time, they pugscrim consistently and are incredibly dedicated towards improving. I can't really pick out anyone as being a carry or being carried, which will be good for them in the long run, whereas a lot of supposedly top open teams with intermediate or ex-invite carries will crumble towards the end of the season. Their scouts take a lot of heals and bait their soldiers, but it works out well for them, since they have fairly good deathmatch for this level. Ricr especially is making a splash and has been performing well for his team during scrims. Their pocket, who main calls, can be caught out quite often which is something that will need to be fixed before they can compete at a higher level. Since their source of comms can be caught out of position, they are sometimes lost, which leads to them losing pushes. Their roamer, forgets, plays a fairly traditional roamer. He doesn't throw games, but he doesn't win games either. Their demo JDMYoshioka puts out fairly good damage but can be caught out of position fairly often. If he can take up some of the calling burden and coordinate with their pocket better expect this team to perform much better. Rounding out the roster is the team's medic, General Shenanigans, for whom this season of ESEA will be his first. As a relative unknown, it will be enjoyable to see his medicing skills hopefully blossom throughout the season. At the moment he plays at an acceptable level, but in order for his team to make the jump to the top of the open he will have to take his own play to the next level. Since they won't have any mid-season disputes about who is carrying who, expect them to crawl into playoffs near the back of the pack, but do better than anticipated in all of their play-off games.

Just Outside:

Crack Clan Yellow
Street Hoops
Team Echelon

Matches to Watch:

Fried Green Tomatoes v. The Fashion Police
The Best Team In Open v. M42 and the Running Men

7. I'm Sniping Guys

Once known as the Yarg Memoirs, “I'm Sniping Guys” are one the many question marks in the open division; not many people have been talking about them, but there are several big names on the roster. Ex-IM players drdonutman and Vortex are both returning to open to hopefully bring a new roster with four fresh open recruits back to IM. With donut making the return to medic, expect to see more exceptional medic play once we get to gravelpit. All jokes aside, his experienced heals and calls will most likely lead this team to a solid position in the playoffs. Relative unknown TheUrbanShakedown, who has four seasons of open under his belt, was just recently picked up on pocket, whose solid deathmatch combined with drdonut's leash should be a deadly force given time to mature. However, the real star of the show at the moment is Zambler, who has been putting up high damage games, admittedly with an extremely large portion of the heals. With a solid scout pair in Vortex and Monkeysuit to clean up all this new-found damage, these guys are well set to take open by storm. Joining them on the flank is Wowzers, an ESEA-virgin. Even with this lack of experience, he doesn't appear to be drowning under all of the high open pressure just yet. The one worry for this team is how new most of them are, with Wowzers and Zambler effectively not having any ESEA experience, and Monkeysuit only having played one season.Given a few weeks to work out kinks, since they started scrimming well after the other top-open teams, they should be vying for place at the front of the top-open pack.

6. Fashion Police

The Fashion Police have been making a really solid impression in scrims. Their scouts, Sunny and Clam, are truly a "combo", working together to distract and pick off numerous enemy players. This translates into very strong post-uber cleanups and a tough flank. Benk, playing pocket this season, is simply a reliable fragger, always managing to play both aggressively and smartly. Ques puts out really strong damage from demoman with a very aggressive style, and JJ's surfing ability keeps him alive even when his demo and pocket are aggressing and naturally leaving him a bit behind. The only player who, in my opinion, really isn't carrying his weight on this roster is Edy. From looking at logs of their scrims against other top open teams, Edy seems to have fairly low damage, a poor kill-death-ratio, and few medic picks. Fortunately the rest of his team is quite strong (especially sunny in the medic picks category) and tends to make up for his faults, but to really be a competitor for the top spot, Edy is going to have to pick up the slack. All in all, the team works together quite well with complementary styles. Watch out for this team to win more than one game in playoffs.

5. Satori Six

The team of medic mains, Satori Six' roster is comprised of three players who have played medic and three who have not. Thrill, the best known of the three is an ex-invite player and will bring considerable experience to the team. Think, Maela's medic on Bearforce1, will also bring to the table a powerful understanding of the game. If both thrill and think can bring their deathmatch up to the level of other top-open soldiers, they will definitely be the life-blood of the team. The last of the three, Miwo, will be playing Medic and will have the guiding hands of Thrill and Think to propel him to high-open glory. The question marks are the rest of the players. Their scouts are reimu and sh0ck, the former having open experience and the latter having played a stint in intermediate with the Power Rangers. Both don't have the best game sense but are reliable in the deathmatch department. If the soldiers on Satori Six can micromanage them enough they should be able to roll with the other top open teams. Satori Six have had quite the unlucky pre-season: they lost their initial starting demoman, benefit, to the misery that is Canadian-internet. Since then however they have been able to acquire Freddy to play the demolitions class, and with this new addition they have been playing at a much higher level during scrims. If Freddy can keep outputting the damage that he currently is, his scouts will have an easy time cleaning up, as long as they get their timings down. Expect Satori Six to do fine during the regular season, but have a few hiccups when they have to face teams that have better deathmatch and coordination as a whole in the playoffs.