World Champions – The Cream of the Crop

Perhaps one of the more prestigious accomplishments that a person may be able to claim is being able to compete directly against the best of the best with the world’s eyes locked upon you. In the new world of e-sports, it somehow becomes more prestigious when you’re sitting right next to them as opposed to not even in the same city. In any case, we call those who emerge victorious champions of the world. Team Fortress 2 is a curious case among e-sports of the modern day – it doesn’t have a recognized worldwide competition of its own which can… [Continue Reading]

Read more

Sandbagging – A Problem?

TeamFortress.TV is known to many (and to some proudly) as a ripe source of drama within the competitive community. Whether it’s the newest revelations about the ESEA scandal, players getting VAC banned, or a top player leaving a team, TF.TV will gulp it all up. This week has brought renewed attention upon a certain phenomenon – sandbagging. To recap, the ESEA Main grand finals took place on Wednesday night between Street Hoops eSports and AG Rinkuing with Rinku. AG Rinkuing with Rinku, which had been a roster moved down from Invite that had recently picked up several Invite players to… [Continue Reading]

Read more

A New Year

Well, it’s been much too long since I last posted here about competitive, but here we are, with too much happening while I was away. Thus, let’s go over the finer points of what exactly happened. Of course, we can’t forget the biggest event of competitive (well, at least in North America and 6v6) – the ESEA Invite LAN! Four teams traveled to Dallas, Texas to compete for the serious money on the line: WELOVEANIME, lost in translation, Classic Mixup, and iT. From the beginning, the fight was expected to be mainly between iT and Classic Mixup. iT, the team… [Continue Reading]

Read more

Fall Recap and Look Ahead

Well, as I said in my column last week, it is the end of the season for most… or is it? Apparently not, as ETF2L Highlander will wrap up their regular season next week, and ESEA has decided to give us all a wonderful winter break and decided to start playoffs the first week of January. But enough of that. It’s time to cover our latest results. First of all is the TeamFortress.TV ZOWIE Invitational conducted this past Sunday. The first tournament conducted of its kind by TeamFortress.TV, it comprised top teams of North American 6v6 in a competition for… [Continue Reading]

Read more

The End is Here

It’s that time of year again… most leagues are finishing up recording another winter season into the record books. Currently ESEA is in its final week of the regular season, UGC is nearly finished with playoffs, ETF2L 6v6 is proceeding with its Premiership playoffs, and ETF2L HL is in the second half of the season. So near the end, I think most can agree… this season has perhaps not been as exciting as it has been. For the ESEA Invite division, the LAN situation has pretty much stabilized… and it’s much less contentious than in previous seasons, with each seed… [Continue Reading]

Read more