hannah is hannah backwards

godsent over either of the two teams they just lost to ?

im not paying for pickems this year but challenger stage seems dirt easy. the only real conundrum is whether to be a chad and pick tyloo 0-3

sleeper picks are going to be Entropiq and maybe Cph Flames over BIG VP or Ence

Ence and BIG are probably good 3-0 picks. BIG are less likely to make it, Ence have been doing especially well in group stage type games but could also reasonably not make the cut

mr_poop

needed gf

chunkeyyy

https://i.imgur.com/TakWai5.png

shut da fuck up! fuck yourself! cocksucker!!!

It's not a new issue but I feel like it's worse than it used to be.

Partly I think that despite their issues, ESEA's roster moveup rules encouraged a lot more teams to move up as a team. If you were even one of the better players on a low playoffs open team, would you take your free spot on an IM team with your moveup roster, or take your chances LFTing for IM without a great e-resume?

Now there's almost no incentive to move up with your team unless you absolutely believe in them. Everyone wants to go at least 8-8 in their first season in every div now so they all go LFT I firmly believe this leads to moveup teams losing their best players more consistently, thus struggling and losing motivation to stay together.

Also (this is part of a whole other theory) I believe the rise of discord has killed the classic idea of strong friend groups/circlejerks, which were a major source of long term teams. When you hang out every night in voice with the same 8 dudes, you're generally gonna be making teams based around playing with those dudes for as long as its viable. Now people just post the same sped up gifs in the 23 identical tf2 discords they're in with the same 93 people in them. Season ends, team discords die, rinse and repeat.

and they lost the div who cares

People complained "we cant win open because of stacked teams" yet those stacked teams were the only reason winning Open meant literally anything. Any time an up and comer pulled it off and beat the sandbag team in finals you KNEW that was a good team.

The only functional problem with sandbagging was that maybe one or two games in your season were lost before they started, but that was a problem for like 95% of teams anyway due to the large skill disparity (still true to a degree). Overall it always looped back to people crying that they lost to a team because that team was better than them.

I don't think people who sandbag have healthy brains and they're generally unlikeable people but it's just not the end of the world. You go "oh no, I lost to people better than me" and move on.

This was tried in CS as a showmatch at Katowice 2016. Different game obviously but there's plenty of similar principles.

Astralis (ranked #4 at the time, ended up losing in semis at the main event) played vs 2 different teams of random matchmaking players (ranked between GN4 and SMFC), where Astralis tried winning rounds (CT side only) with as few team members as possible, starting with only Device.

It was restricted to one side of the map (Dust2 A site), which favors the CT in terms of manpower, but also allows Ts to commit to a full 5 man execute without worrying about retakers or lurkers. The closest equivalent in the TF2 version would probably be to prohibit backcapping, to force a legitimate teamfight.

Device alone got overwhelmed after only 1 kill
Device + Cajunb went 5-0 while trying to zeus people
Karrigan alone won his first 2 rounds but ended 2-5
Karrigan + Cajunb went 5-2

VOD/Cast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-OR3UJVvdI

https://i.imgur.com/m9l9L4y.png

hmm

grimace is a mid-t4 wp map with one cornerpogo that makes it t5 for some reason

i mean realistically this rule only works based on admin discretion
theres always players that are insane for their div yet dont make playoffs for whatever reason, and always players that are just ok and do make playoffs
the community is small enough, especially once you get to Main, that a well-connected admin can reasonably assess players individual skill level without defaulting to league records

u also absolutely have to use discretion with offclassing. im pretty sure sin karma hasnt played a season of scout, should he be allowed to scout in main?

why not just ring a main player