Following up with what drak says, balancing 6s scrims with a couple of HL players on the team is a massive challenge - anyone with good advice on how to deal with it and still scrim effectively - I'd love to hear it.

Also, while I'm posting here - I'm pretty sure that a bunch of people posting in this thread are on teams that would qualify for the UGC->ESEA challenge prize. There are about 8 teams in it, but there have to be some more that are eligible but didn't apply.
I said I'd cut off applications at the end of week 2 of the ESEA season but I've been pre-occupied with other stuff and never chased for more applicants.

So, if you think this thread is talking to you/your team, hop on over and consider applying. If you talk with me on steam/PM me on the forums by Wednesday night, I'll extend the deadline for you. I know the "rules" are a little wonky, but if you're all/mostly brand new, you're probably eligible and it will definitely give your team something to play for in the back half of the season.

Look, I would feel sorta bad about that, but it's not like it's a secret that the Wrangler is banned in every league.

To be fair, this is largely true because of who you're playing/scrimming more than it is how much you're scrimming/playing.

Scrimming and playing teams that are pretty much universally working as hard or harder than you were makes a big difference - not to mention that pretty much all of them have the experience/gamesense to capitalize on your mistakes gives you way more opportunity to grow out of bad habits (since they're punished so mercilessly).

IIRC most of Dedoris played CEVO-O last season, no premium-type fees.
It would surprise me if they were the only ones coming over from CEVO where some of their players don't realize that the league fee wasn't gonna cover all costs of playing the season.

Woah, Saturday Mixes!

If DPM and HPM are used in the calculation - how are players who take mid-game sub spots handled?

Logs calculates those metrics as if those players had been in for the whole game (I think it doesn't track your portion of the time played, but I have no idea). So, taking a lot of sub spots could easily drag you down, especially since it's likely a fair amount of sub spots are heading into no-win situations that you have no way to know when you accept it.

This happens all the time, dude.
Get over yourself.

$25, you're almost there.

A significant deterrent to new players/UGC teams from giving Open a try is the massive gulf in the skill level of the top teams vs. the low/new teams - a lot of folks are slow/wary to pay to get beaten down so regularly for the possibility if ESEA TF2 is around in a year they'll have more of a shot at playoffs in the future.

Keeping skilled/talented teams from being formed in IM if they want to isn't just bad for that team, it's bad for ESEA immediately (if they play in Open, lower fees) and also for the league in the long-run as it keeps players in below their level and makes Open less appealing for marginal players to join.

http://i.imgur.com/IXG6EWL.png

I really like the idea of a comp scene that supports locally based teams. I'm not sure if it's really viable but if it works, there's nothing special about A:R that makes it any more viable than any other gametype.

I think you'd have to at least accept the Sandvich, Wrangler, Disciplinary Action and Danger Shield at minimum if not also the Mad Milk and Beggar's Bazooka to satisfy them. But, yeah, my point is they still wouldn't care.
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Because, like I said, 99.9% sure they wouldn't actually do anything.

Bumping, the team is dead so I am looking again, edited the original post with a little bit more open availability as well.

Pretty nice guy, his DM is good and he rarely YOLOs it like so many UGC scouts. Definitely has a future if he finds a team to work with.

I can't forgive him for making me constantly mispronounce the hat, but you might be able to. Give him a tryout!

If Valve wants a "competitive" TF2 to happen, they will do it. All signs point to that they don't.
I don't get why they never tried to make a go of it, but it's what happened.

It's disingenuous for them to act like the way the community plays is the problem - they left it to it's own devices and so they built a game they wanted to play.

I, personally, think the whitelist could be expanded significantly without major damage to the game, leaving all but the most broken items in and most people wouldn't run them. It would make games a touch gimmicky and slow the game down at times, but if it would make Valve suddenly turn the car around and give big time support to comp, it would be 100% worth it, IMHO.

However, I am 99.9% certain if we did that, they wouldn't. Save your hope for TF3.