GameArena TF2 ladder recap #5

The GameArena TF2 finals are upon us, with the top 8 teams ready to play-off in a series of matches to decide the ladder's first season winner.

In the 5 weeks since last recap, some of the biggest news has been the departure of Jin and Minbari from Egotisitcal. Rumours pronounced Jin as a potential MAD DOG, but it seems he has made his way to the super-strong Symbolic instead. Minbari, unfortunately however, has walked away from Team Fortress 2 indefinately. Zhenjie and Doublethink, previously Heads on Sticks members, appear to have jumped aboard to fill the void, and a recruitment drive could continue.

Hyphen Gaming have split due to what is said to have been caused by internal commitment issues, specifically revolving around a lack of love for the 8v8 format and inability to field a full line-up regularly in light of this. Kinnear is now playing for PnP, and while a small number are also looking for opportunities elsewhere, some of the team have put together a strictly 6v6 side under a different banner, not yet announced.

Without wasting anymore time, let's have a look at the standings and recent matches!

MAD DOGZ seem concreted in 1st with a 14-0 streak. They are clear favourites to take out the finals, with two strong wins against PnP and APR while defending their position.

Symbolic have confidently stepped up in 2nd place, right behind the mighty Dogz, after a 1-0 victory over PnP, 4-0 victory over Hyphen Gaming and huge 11-2 win over Egotistical. Those big wins are seen by many in the community to have prompted both Hyphen's disband and Ego's loss of key players.

Angry Power Ranges, currently 3rd, have continued to perform well, with wins against Clan-A and Fang with Vengeance since the last recap. Rumours of an unavoidable roster shake-up circulate, but are still seen as contenders for a promising finals performance.

Psychedelic Noxious Pugnacity very nearly dropped out of the top 8 with two upsetting losses to Symbolic and Egotistical, but have moved back into 4th thanks to much needed wins against both Clan-A and Fang with Vengeance. A chance of finals victory looks to be an uphill battle, with their first match against none other than the Mad Dogz.

Fang with Vengeance have moved up to 5th with a number of convenient wins, and would have indeed still been sitting higher if it weren't for a discouraging couple losses very recently. Seemingly inconsistant results make some apprehensive, although many still see potential for a huge finals performance if things fall into place for Fang.

Egotistical, now amusingly named Emotistical after their internal dramas, are sitting 6th with a mixed bag of results including the aforementioned win over PnP (4-1) and huge loss to Symbolic. They're without doubt still considered part of Australia's higher echelon of TF2 teams, but it's clear some of the community have begun question their ability of a speedy recovery, and subsequently their chances of note-worthy success in the upcoming finals.

Clan-A have dropped from 5th to 7th since last recap, losing to PnP and APR, tying with the Evil Space Monkeys, and being able to take home just a single yet crucial win against Daemon Vice Eternal. Their first finals match is against Ego which is an unlikely win for the team, but an upset-victory is not out of the question considering Ego's troubles.

Team ACSSL, the team rounding out our top 8 finals group, narrowly slipped in with a 1-0 victory over Z0r Gaming. It seems obviously that other competing teams would have made better use of this finals spot, but the ladder system is what it is, and those teams will have to wait until season 2 despite the brutally honest reality that ACSSL's chances are easily the worst out of the 8 teams moving into elimination stages.

For those wanting to have a gander at the finals time-table and match ups, please head over to the appropriate GameArena forum thread, found here.

Not sure if you know but in the ego vs ^ game, ego only fielded 7 players with doc dropping around 6-7 times during the course of the game. We won the round when we had a full 8 person team at the end. GG to ^ though.

Yea that clearly was not an indication of ego internal issues, rather tones' shit**** computer. Both symbolic and ego had 1 player consistantly dropping, but ego had one of their best players out until the last 2 rounds (which were the 2 they won)

Wow awesome reporting.....the key players you are talking about had dropped before the symbolic game, so your interpretation of that big loss (played for the most part with 6-7 players) causing the internal dramas clearly shows a lack of understanding what the dramas were. So perhaps if you have no clue about a subject it is better to not comment on it at all.

As the saying goes better to have people think you are a fool, than to say something and confirm it.

I clearly said that's how it appeared to people, not necessarily what was factually the case... Many community members didn't know about Jin/Minbari leaving until very recently, which is why people have been shit-talking regarding the reasons for it (ie; that loss to Symbolic).

Glad you took the time to set the community straight and didn't perpetuate the "shit talking", would hate to think these recaps were nothing more than baseless gossip otherwise you might need to change the name of your column to new weekly and make scandalous rumours about the real reason min left, which is that he is pregnant with povohats baby.

I can understand why you're pissed off, but it could have been easily resolved by private messaging me asking for an edit rather than a public rage.

I do like the love-child story though. I'll run with that in my next recap.

zor wasnt a narrow victory...... :|
everything else is true but trust me in saying, were going to give it a good run vs Fv

gogo e drama!

...aaaaand that's why I stopped playing FPS's.

Quote from Milenko;341664:
...aaaaand that's why I stopped playing FPS's.

So you went and played WoW, E-Drama central. lolololol

Haha, touche' :)

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