4v4 – Fun but not serious, sadly

Week 8 of the UGC 4v4 season has come to a close, and we all breathe a sigh of relief as we thank some Deity that we don’t need to play against platinum and gold players any more. It was a lot of fun. Team SPUF (Special Party of Underrated Failures) finished the season 3-4, winning 3 rounds by forfeit and getting kinda rolled in the 4 matches we lost. And by kinda, I mean completely.

But I can’t blame us for losing. We had to play against genuinely hard teams. Every single team we actually played against was UGC Gold or higher in some other, non-4v4 format. The one single team who was genuinely on the same skill level as us forfeited at the last minute. But because we KNEW we were playing against unbelievable odds, we tried our best and didn’t care if we lost, since we certainly weren’t going to win.

The experience levels were a huge thing though. We’re talking about a team with a Medic with one season of experience, playing against people who are in platinum 6’s or HL teams. There’s even a couple of ex-Invite players in there somewhere, derping around in 4v4 because they don’t give a fuck. Basically, unlucky low-level teams like us acted as punching bags and stress relievers for them, while they still get a nice shiny medal at the end of it. For the low-level teams, it’s, well, completely and utterly pointless.

That’s why so many teams just flat out forfeited. In Season 4, back when we were just a Steel team like everyone else, we only had two forfeit wins, the rest of our wins were real, legitimate ones. But here in Silver, if you’re not one of these top teams, there’s no point playing because you’re going to lose. Two of the three teams that forfeited gave the reason that they wanted to “concentrate in 6v6”, the other team just got unlucky.

Thing is, no one takes 4v4 seriously. The pro teams want to blow off some steam and get some nice, easy wins. The less experienced teams don’t want to play because they don’t want to get their asses kicked. So you end up with this strange scenario where people just want to get matches over as quickly as possible. No one actually wants to, well, play. A paradox, really.

On the plus side, the format is still fresh enough that anything goes. In Silver, there was a lot more meta-sticking, but I feel this carries over from the many 6v6 teams hanging around. Pyro and Sniper have much more of a place here, while Heavy finds himself sitting out. Perhaps with the weapon changes this season, Spies and Engineers will have more toys to play with and be picked more.

So enough about that, what about you, Medic? Any thoughts? Best match of the season? Sadly, I wouldn’t say any of our official matches were the best, since we got stomped in all of them, but we’d occasionally capture. The second practice lobby we did on KOTH_Stallone though was so good. That was a genuinely fun match, with a good strategy that played to our skills and lessened our weaknesses. Worst match of the season? Weeks 4 and 5, which I missed due to stupid shit going on in real life. But none of that compares to the shit that happened in 6v6.

Oh well. 4v4 was way more fun than 6v6. There were no expectations, and with the season finally over, perhaps we can get back to some somewhat actually fair and equal matches back in Steel.

MVPs of the season go to Sham and Jensen, who, bless their cotton socks, put up with my lack of overhealing Scouts and suddenly Ubercharging Snipers because everyone else is dead.