competitive – Page 4 – The Daily SPUF

The Loose Cannon – OP or simply in need of tweaks?

October 17, 2015 Medic 0 Comments balance, banned, competitive, tweaks, weapon

It’s the start of the new UGC competitive season, and we’ve seen some new weapons come and go. The most prominent weapon though is the Loose Cannon, which has now been banned in Highlander and 4v4, but not in 6v6 in UGC. This is incredibly strange, especially since ETF2L has gone the other way in Highlander, allowing both the Pomson and the Short Circuit. ETF2L seem to have lost their mind, but with how Engineers took a pounding during Gun Mettle and what with the Wrangler, Rescue Ranger and Jag all being so good, perhaps the more insane weapons will… [Continue Reading]

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The LCS is here but…

October 10, 2015 Garen 0 Comments competitive, DEMACIA, league of legends, lol, non-tf2, tournament

The LCS, the World Championship, Worlds, whatever you want to call it, the biggest League of Legends tournament, featuring the best teams across the planet, is here. Well, actually, it’s here, on the League of Legends E-Sports website, but I am sure you blog-goers would understand. Unfortunately, due to my duties in Demacia and on the Fields of Justice, I was actually late to make this announcement. There is a problem though. I wonder how much of the community actually cares? Of course, the Asian communities almost certainly care. E-sports is a steadily growing phenomenon, and some places like South… [Continue Reading]

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The Future of TF2

October 2, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments community, competitive

How’s that for a clickbait title! Let’s commit clickbait suicide and optimistically answer the question right off the bat: Yes, TF2 definitely has a future. Valve has mentioned more than enough pokers in that fire, whether that future is competitive matchmaking, community updates, or something else. I just don’t think it’s going to be the same as what we’ve been getting up to now. It’s not hard to see Valve themselves is updating TF2 less and less. Looking at the history of major updates reveals a parabolic arc where 2011 was the heyday and down the line we get less every year. Valve’s… [Continue Reading]

Featured The Competitive Corner

Help me! The importance of knowing where everyone is…

September 9, 2015 Medic 0 Comments 6v6, competitive, help, Highlander, i beg of you help me please, me, medic, please

Let’s face it, I am a spastic twat with all the coordination skills of a donkey wearing ice skates. I’m bad. And in organized play, this is multiplied tenfold in my awfulness. No seriously, poor old Jensen so rarely gets healed because I can’t damn find him. Okay, to seem less cruel to myself, Jensen is a good old Scout who never stands still, which makes even just locking onto him very tricky, but you get what I mean. Knowing where everyone is could be considered the second most important thing in the entire game, the most important thing being… [Continue Reading]

Featured The Competitive Corner

Confusing Comms: Health Callouts

September 8, 2015 Medic 0 Comments 6v6, advice, competitive, guide, medic, strategy

An important part of competitive TF2 is communication. Being concise, clear and understandable are vital, especially as the environment you will be speaking in could have anywhere between 3-8 others all speaking at once while each listener is distracted by what is happening onscreen. It is no secret that the SPUF EU 6s and 4s team require improving with their co-op skills, so today I will talk about a simple aspect that is often overlooked: friendly health callouts. Enemy health callouts are well known, and the skills well practised. The term “lit” has entered even the vocabulary of non-competitive TF2… [Continue Reading]

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Fire and Smoke go through the dust, too!

August 31, 2015 Davjo_ 0 Comments advice, competitive, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, CSGO, non-tf2

Hey there, fellow people that read The Daily SPUF! As you can probably tell from the name of the article, this one is CS:GO related instead of TF2 related, and today we will be learning some good smokes for the most recognizable map in the Counter-Strike series, Dust2! How I got to like Dust2 is kind of a coincidence, since it was one of my most hated maps (probably due to me liking more CT-sided maps like Nuke instead of balanced ones), but trying out “new” maps I thought that Dust2 is quite OK, and now it’s one of my… [Continue Reading]

Community Announcements Featured The Competitive Corner

Froyotech wins i55

August 30, 2015 Medic 0 Comments 6v6, competitive, i55, Insomnia

Congratulations to Froyotech, who just beat Nerdrage TF2 3-1 in Insomnia 55. The final scores were 2-3 Sunshine, 3-1 Product, 5-0 Snakewater, 5-0 Process. It was a bit of a shock to Nerdrage, who’d beaten Froyotech in Saturday’s matches. More information is available on teamfortress.tv Also, a big round of applause for everyone involved. i55 was absolutely amazing.

Featured The Competitive Corner

What the Gun Mettle Contracts Could Mean For Competitive TF2

August 5, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments competitive, dlc, matchmaking

In my recent article about the weapon-dropping mechanic and specifically its affect on Ubercharges, I mentioned that it could be seen as a sign that Valve is attempting to alter the meta of the game, probably for the sake of revitalizing competitive and keeping things fresh. Part of the reason I think this is because a lot of Valve’s recent decisions have been rumored to be competitively-motivated, and ster (also known as Niichts and STAR_) said a lot of interesting things in his July 2nd Twitch broadcast that went on for 8 whole hours. Considering I can’t ask you to go… [Continue Reading]

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Why I’m Bothered By The New Medigun-Dropping Mechanic

August 1, 2015 Medic 0 Comments 6v6, competitive, dead, gun mettle, medic, uber

It’s actually not very often that me and aabicus disagree on things, but somehow we’ve found something to argue about. Possibly. It’s not really arguing, more like politely putting down our opinions and compromising with one another. I don’t think we’ve ever really argued. But the sudden implementation of Medi Guns keeping Uber when dropped is certainly something to discuss between two Medic players who spend a lot of time running a blog together. Weapon switching does very much spice up the meta, which, when you look at it competitively, often gets very stale. Heck, even Valve servers get stale… [Continue Reading]

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4v4 – Fun but not serious, sadly

July 25, 2015 Medic 0 Comments 4v4, competitive, fun

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… [Continue Reading]