To further my personal interest in encouraging new players to give ESEA a shot as they improve and develop as teams - I am taking applications for sponsorship of up to two full (preferably) UGC 6s teams for their league fees (up to six player entry fees - Premium not included).

Eligible teams would be any team that completed UGC NA 6s Season 17 in Steel, Silver or Gold and registers an ESEA Open TF2 roster.
S17 Playoff teams preferred, but will review all applications submitted.
Teams interested should move quickly - applications are due by midnight EST on April 20 and league registration ends April 22!

Please download the application document from here and e-mail responses to plinko(at)gmail.com by the deadline. Only complete applications will be accepted.

I know the notice is short, with the deadline just around the corner, but if you're thinking of taking your team into a first Open season, now is the time!

Granary is dead, long live granary.

The tournament is a really good idea - obviously not viable for S19 but worth thinking about for S20.

Sponsorships for UGC playoff teams is also a good idea I can do right now so will probably do something like that soon, thanks!

Nice folks, winston is really good.

Time to finally wrap this up!

This ended up being pretty close with first and second place being decided by rounds for and the third place squad just one win behind for the season.

1st Place ($100): Dong Kongs 9-7 (54 Rounds For, 40 Rounds against) - led by Dreamerrr.
2nd Place ($60): Guitar Heroes 9-7 (36 Rounds For, 42 Rounds against) - led by Lial
3rd Place ($40): All Blue 8-8 (44 Rounds For, 46 Rounds against) - led by Rage____

The prize money has been paid out per the leader's wishes (with the exception of one player who is choosing to take his share as ESEA fees for S19).

With this done, I'm open to suggestions on something to do in a similar vein for next season - the primary goal being to encourage new-ish players/teams to get into Open sooner rather than later. I'm not sure this did much to actually get teams into the league, though maybe it kept some teams sticking through the end (I like to think).

While none of the teams that entered made playoffs, plenty of them seemed to be competitive enough and many of the players are going to stick around for another season at least, which is a success in my book! Congrats to everyone that participated and made it through the season, best of luck next season!

I've played with aiera the last two seasons.
Actually would do well on pocket with the right team around him (note: not the situation we had last season), but will excel on roamer pretty much anywhere .
Hates getting the beam. Has really good DM, does smart things on the flank, has good calls, plus top quality heavy offclassing.

He's pretty good at demo - seriously way better than his history would suggest.
Also extremely chill - maybe the least toxic person I know.

He'll do well with just about any team.

To clarify - having ESEA (or other) profile links would be a great thing to have, completely independent of an 800-hour minimum to add up. I am not sure if any kind of exception to the minimum hours rule would be remotely feasible to manage and even if it is, not sure that linking an ESEA profile would serve the purpose of deterring trolls/hackers since signing up for an ESEA account would be less of a hurdle than getting your hands on an account with the requisite hours.

Maybe tsc can work something up to grab the shortened Steamid's from the ESEA site?

800 hours is a pretty fair minimum, it would be good if there was some way around it for the extreme rare cases but I'd err on the side of making it hard for alts/trolls more than anything.

Dude is super calm and fun to have in your mumble. Has good DM and plays with purpose, never YOLOs it just because he's the roamer.
His big area for improvement is to relax a bit when facing super passive play from the opposing team, which is pretty low-tier as flaws go, IMHO.

Will do well with a team that has good comms/calls because he listens and cooperates.

Bump, edited the original post with more recent information.

I got my BA in English Lit a long time ago. Now I'm a corporate stooge.

I've pugged with Kimmi quite a bit, she's quite serious about improving and a lot of fun to be around.

Bump.

I had a really fun time in S18 with No Homer's Club. Good teammate, good friends and I learned a lot, but I guess we're going our separate ways so I'll throw my name out there for next season.

I'd love to find a chill team to play medic for that wants to compete for a playoff spot. I still prefer not to maincall - but I would in the right situation. I think I got a lot better this season as time went on and would like to keep improving from here.

I would be happy to play scout as well - I need to work my DM back into shape after playing medic for the last six-ish months, but I think I could contribute well as a somewhat passive role scout on a mid-open team. It would be fun to click on people again.

I worked at a Subway in college, it didn't scare me off the place for good but I do miss the old 'u-gouge' cut for the bread. Pretty much no one still works there that knows how to do it so I can't get my sandwiches that way anymore. . .

I get:
Wheat Bread
Ham
American Cheese
Onions, Lettuce (I ask for 'light' but it doesn't seem to affect how much they put on), Black Olives
Oil&Vinegar, Salt&Pepper.

I used to get the Turkey+Ham but one day I realized that the local Subway charges $4.25 for a Ham, $5.00 for a Turkey but also $5.00 for a Ham+Turkey and I've refused to order it ever since.