There's really no reason why he can't play in IM. He's an extremely nice human being to be around.

The only issue that I'd have with this is that some players are benched and not cut from their rosters. This rule would bar them from going from a low Main team to a high IM team in order to secure more playtime. The spirit of your rule is brilliant, but there'd need to be a few conditions put in there for circumstances outside of the player's control.

Your hair looks fine, freakin. I couldn't imagine you with a buzzcut.

I don't make decisions, but having a 9 team CEVO-P and a 9 team CEVO-M would have been a good idea. Both sets of teams could run double round robins to fill the schedule.

With that said, I'm excited to play against some of the best teams NA has to offer - even if we lose to all of them. Furthermore, there will be outstanding games between teams near each other in the standings.

GL to everyone involved.

I used to work at a Dunkin Donuts when I was in HS. Tips are what made the job worth the time - and that job actually broke minimum wage before tips. Not all service sector jobs do such a thing.

During my time, I saw people kind enough to order a $2.20 coffee and tip $2.80 since I prepared it fast and got it right (she handed a $5 and just said, "take it"). I remembered shit like that - and you can bet that the people serving you do as well.

As for respect, I highly respect any service worker that is considerate and puts in a legit effort.

It was extremely good service. A $20 order usually gets about $5-6 from me.

I would tip about $4 for a $10 pizza (assuming decent service). Delivery workers are often broke since they aren't a part of any kind of hospitable salary scale. I've made a $20 dinner order before and tipped it to $30 because I was so impressed with the demeanor of the delivery worker. Service has value - especially good service.

33 rosters. 10 paid. I have a feeling that we'll have way more Open rosters than the 30 needed - but I am worried that not enough of them will pay up. I guess this will be an "off" season for ESEA - like in S12 where there were 39 open/21 im/8 invite.

What do you guys think needs to happen so that we are not in this same predicament at the start of S17? Shooter isn't going to remedy the problem for us EVERY offseason.

Perhaps we could address new communities during the course of the season - this way, people have time to build up rosters and train up for ESEA play. I'm starting to think that if we wait to bring in new blood until halfway through the offseason it could be too late.

CEVO did a great job of bringing in new blood for S4. I think the ESEA-side of TF2 (players/admin/etc.) could learn something from that. (Note: I want to see a strong ESEA AND a strong CEVO)

There is a HUGE market of new blood out there. 600+ people at one time watched the later rounds of FITES this past weekend (I actually would hazard a guess and say that 1000+ saw the tournament at one point or another). There has to be a way to get these viewers to convert into players and build up the community - but I myself don't know how. Any ideas?

I look like I'm fuckin pissed in my photo with kace.

I think it might be time for players that have been in ESEA for a few seasons to give some free coaching to new teams with little to no competitive experience. I'm not sure how it'd work, but I think that an aggressive policy is the only thing that can allow ESEA to reach 30 Open teams.

Will CEVO still run the "old" model of Professional in which there is an elevated expense ($35-50 from what I remember) along with a bigger prize pot? Anyone with the guts to play against the best could play in it back then - and usually they would fill a 16 team division every season.

What happens when the bottom third of CEVO-Open - these are probably UGC silver/platinum level players - begin to get stomped by pugteams/IM+ caliber teams in their debut season and quit? A 60 team league can quickly dry up in a few seasons once the "we're paying to lose" mentality begins to settle in.

The honeymoon period is always going to be sweet - but the decisions being made now will not show their REAL consequences until about 6-7 months from now when all of the long-term players are going to finally be able to make sense of the new reality.

Good luck, CEVO.

I heard somewhere that being a good bottom actually helps you do a better job at being a top. Now, I have no idea how that would apply to being in a straight relationship, but just saying...

Those Dota 2 references were confusing as hell. I forget who said this, but somebody mentioned how the game should be played with only a few unlocks and perfected. The angle of the argument was "we still haven't learned everything that you can do and PUSHED the envelope all the way" I thought that was a good idea.

I hate the fucking conch, btw.

I was told otherwise. I stand corrected.