the original signed by paddie por favor

Tbh I'm not surprised it was raised so quickly. For one, this is the only community fundraiser (that I know of) for Insomnia. Usually, there are like 2-3. 1-3 for various teams, and one for production sometimes. With there only being one, there's less of a chance of a split pot or the community's money being fractured across various fundraisers.

Two, they're only asking for 2 grand. I feel like the last time two teams were sent it was more like roughly 4-6k was the goal per team. They also have very good experience oriented goals. Most of the perks for other teams held no group encouragement for reaching a certain goal (other than a team attending LAN), only a certain amount of perks for the individual donation amount.

Three and probably most importantly the team, Froyotech (or b4nny depending on how you look at it), has the biggest consistent/dedicated fanbase, purely because of the fact that b4nny is the most consistent/dedicated/popular streamer for competitive tf2. It would make sense that the fans that already support him through twitch subs would pay to see him compete globally.

TLDR: not surprised cause 1. No team has a fundraiser right now 2. There only asking 2 grand w/ good community experience oriented fundraiser goals 3. b4nny has a consistent fan base.

I really don't think this can be said confidently. Even if you include the fact that Froyo has won every major title it has attended, that still doesn't set a standard for the rest of NA. I mean, the whole point of these lans are to try and get NA and EU players to compete against each other(AU if possible), you cant go out the door saying that NA is better, when a majority of NA has not played against EU teams. Only the top of invite has, with usually only FROYO or maybe ASCENT beating whatever team is sent overhere. With that just alone it says the top EU team, which didn't have its best roster going up ASCENT or FROYO anyway, is still better than all of invite that fought against it.

If you look at iSeries, Ascents usually placed 4th with 2 other EU teams higher than them. the last time FROYO went to an iseries they lost (i58) and haven't bothered coming back since. I truly don't think you can say NA is better than EU, making Rewind superior. They are both great places for either continent to send their best teams.

Let the NA Shuffle begin...

Nobody ever leaves TF2...
But good luck to y’all nonetheless!

My question on TFCL is whether or not they make a profit (or make even). It's great and all if they give out cash prizes, but if it's out of their pocket, well that pocket is going to run dry eventually.

And yes while esea has its issues, it is a fairly well known competitive league that gives a certain amount of validity to Tf2 in the esports scene along with FaceIT. It is thought that these companies provide room for possible expansion and growth that community-driven projects (TFCL or PugChamp) don't provide. You could argue that Esea hasn't helped our growth which is a fair statement, but if we did have a swell in the player base it wouldn't be ridiculous for us to get lan back.

That isn't all to say that community driven projects are worthless, but they come from a place of personal drive and love for the game. This is something that I love about Tf2's community is the plethora of love present for this game in community events, groups, and scene. Eventually, though, that love runs out or it doesn't become feasible for them to offer the same service without some compensation. Sometimes there is someone to take their place, other times there aren't. I just don't think that has the same stability that a company would provide, however, I might be wrong.

More importantly, CEVO caused divisiveness and the community couldn't all transfer from one service to the other leading to two small leagues. I don't think that would change now.

When Ascent win the first bo3, do they do another map pick ban or is it the same maps? Can they pick the same ones or is just the leftovers?

Lets go Bdonski!

DROP CITY

also Bdonski 410 dpm good lord

fucken stv servers man...

Lets go Sneaky Pete!

Technically if Ascent won this, they could still get Second going into playoffs if they have more Rounds For than Svift does (which they currently do now) but yeah that doesn't really matter seeing as 2nd and 3rd play each other anyway.

Paddie. I know that paddie scout is often accompanied by a LUL, but I think he really stepped it up for this lan and proved that he can contend with the best on scout.

Thank you for not spoiling it in the title like all the other articles for all other International lans do.
Congrats to Froyotech for winning
Special grats to Ascent for all collectively playing out of their minds this Lan.

Damn, nice quick write up! Also, that was a hell of a match, especially those first two maps.