I would love to be on mumble casting this match

It's an accomplishment, but not a major one. I wouldn't be super proud over it because you're a long ways from being the best there is. I don't think athletes set goals to be the best minor league team or individual player ever. The real goal is progression and continuing to move up and get better to ultimately become the best over all. I think there's a very big difference in winning open and winning invite. Open champs get to move up the following season in IM and see what it's like playing vs better competition. Hopefully you can survive and continue to progress. Once you win in invite that's it, you're the best of the best no question. The goal has been reached. Perhaps it's just a different mind set or perspective. Winning open can be done any season by any team wants to truly sandbag the division. Which has been done quite a lot in the past. I'm saying this: it's not that important to finish #1 over #2, because regardless you're both going to get moved up which is what you should really be focused on. Open is a gateway to either move up or die. I guess that's why ESEA makes every team start in Open regardless of their skill level.

If I went and made a team for UGC it would be for fun. If we won sure it's an accomplishment but nothing special in my eyes. Why? Because it's a low level competition. I wanted to play with some friends from xensity this season but couldn't find a roster to give enough room for us in IM or Main to take control so we had to start in open. Just the way it is. The teams you consider to be "sandbagging" in open would field a completely different lineup and work ethic if playing in a higher division. Truth.

Sandbagging is impossible to avoid because ESEA will not move you up unless you have started from Open. The regular season doesn't matter too much as long as you win a majority of games and make it to the playoffs thats when it becomes real. We just lost one game this week with 2 backups playing anyway so it's not like we're light years ahead of everyone. S14 Open is like S10 IM, regarding the top 10 anyway. Winning open isn't a big accomplishment. Whether you finish 1st, 2nd, or 3rd etc. As long as you stay alive you're going to get moved up anyway which was the main intention of some teams having to sit through a season of open. If the super teams were truly trying to sandbag all the competition the starting lineups would look a lot different and so would the effort. Winning open isn't really a big accomplishment when there's 3 divisions above you. The main goal is to continually move up having control of the roster if you're planning on staying long term.

It's the truth. If seanbuds team main classed, or if my team had solidsnake and spadez starting instead while playing 5 days a week like we did in IM\Invite... It'd obviously be a lot different. But you have to sit through an entire season of pug like matches and try to have fun with it. The team that just beat us though is 100% legit they're going to do well if they stay together. They could've beaten us even with our normal people playing.

It depends on a few things..

1) Prior FPS experience
2) Computer hardware
3) Natural talent
4) Free time necessary to put in ample amounts of practice
5) Opportunities to play and learn from already experienced players

Some people come in and move up real quick because of certain things I listed. Some people have been playing since day 1 and can't get out of open. Your best bet is to join an open team and watch a lot of demos while practicing your muscle memory skills daily. Learn the ins and outs of the actual game play not just the dm portion. Then put it to use in game situations where you're playing and molding yourself into the type of player you want to become. Also learn how to communicate properly it's extremely important. Soldiers and medics usually go hand in hand. Usually a good soldier can be a good medic. And a good medic can be a good soldier. I'd go that route. Good medics are a lot harder to find because the class is so unrewarding, however it's the most important class in the game by far. So in the end the total hours really means nothing it's what you do with them that count. And also the personal position you are currently in regarding the other factors. Hope this helps.

The conch 100% sped up that rush underneath and the heavy was in a horrid position vs a scout/soldier because of it. Was a good play on a rarely used unlock.

If you want to hop on my teams mumble and watch us play you should be able to pick up a bunch of knowledge from that alone. Add me on steam if youd like. Whatever you do, dont use crossbow. Use the overdose the added speed from having ubers built makes it much easier to escape and also catch up to your team. Crossbow is a gimmick youd be better off healing than ever using the xbow in my opinion.

The age of your team has a big to do with the success/longevity of it. Develop a solid core of players and then plug in the rest as you go. Thats the best way to do it I think. Spartacus your team definitely has potential hope you guys get it together.

Retarded.

People with the nerve to even attempt trying a cheat out in any way is scary. If they get away with it do you think it's a) going to never happen again they were just curious, or b) going to perfect the art and get more advanced with it. I'll choose option b and keep it real.

I bet there's dozens of people already cheating in esea anyway and nobody has any idea because of how advanced the hacks are these days. At least in TFC's days it was obvious as fuck. Also vhalin kind of cleaned up his rep after he went to LAN and won with x6 thus proving he doesn't need cheats to be one of the best in the game.

Now if vhalin had dodged LAN like a few other sketchy people I know then i'd still have my doubts.

In TFC we had a talented programmer named Ruiner who was actually caught cheating in one of my teams matches with an auto det on his pipes aka stickies back then. To make it back to the community he developed one of the best multi-cheats the game ever had and named it "Perfect Player". There was a catch to this amazing hack however. It logged your ip address, your steamid, the name you were playing under, and a few other things. About a year after he released the hack he posted the entire list of hackers on the forums and we ended up banning half of the community. You'd be surprised how many people actually do cheat and get away with it for so long. Not all cheats are super obvious to catch, but simple things like seeing through walls and knowing enemies healths are certain kind of advantages that would enable you to make better decisions in games that could just seem like a good play or luck. Can't be lenient or too gullible because the truth is.. It's definitely out there whether you want to believe it or not. The ESEA client is absolutely worthless as far as detecting cheats go and i'm sure a lot of players take advantage of it. I remember when the list came out in TFC and I was absolutely shocked on some of the players who were listed you never would have thought. Nicest guys around, seemed totally legit.

He should definitely be punished in some sort of fashion. I've been playing TF games for almost 15 years and never once had an urge to download cheats to try them out because it's all just plain stupid and not even funny in the slightest. Phrakture isn't THAT amazing in MGE, he just made a big mistake with letting his curiousity get the best of him goofing off in lobbies. Obviously the community is going to be disappointed in him just making it to invite and getting caught for this. I think he should just come clean and move past it. Do the Andy Pettitte way of a press conference and not a Barry Bonds.

I used to play with him I believe when he first switched over from console TF2 on his xbox and I was giving him tips. He's not a bad guy he just likes being looked at as a good player. I hope he doesn't let this ruin his career and all the hard work he actually did put in to get legitimately good at the game all over a dumb stint in lobbies. As a community if we're soft on cheaters it's just going to get worse and worse. Whether it's in a lobby, a pug, or a match it has no place in this community.

I think in a situation like this where you were caught red handed.. You should just own up to it. I don't think Phrakture actually cheats in esea matches he obviously had his fun in a few lobbies. Just man up, accept whatever discipline and move on from it because it apparently isn't going to just go away.

Poor defenseless medics :(

Cool video though.

Alts are so you don't have the same 5 people chasing you onto every map asking questions or for tips, so you can just practice and get better. Or for ego in case you lose. Alts have been around since forever who really cares just play the damn game.

Still wondering why big Phrakture has a VAC ban on record though.

Someone should add up the amount of paid players in each division and do the math of how much esea actually profits off of us off the league fee and premiums, so we can all vomit at once.