SEASON 20 POWERED BY TT ESPORTS PREMIERSHIP FINALS SUNDAY THE 29TH, 19.00 CEST

Toiling away all season long spilling blood, sweat and giving it their all are these three teams. They have proven themselves against the best of Europe and prevailed. But the final hurdle still remains, as we go into the finals. First out are 2^nd and 3^rd placed teams Ze Knutsson Rollerbladers and  Se7en. They will be facing each other in a best of three to see who makes it to the Grand Final. Ze Knutsson Rollerbladers were last season’s runner-up and now they’re out for the gold. But in their way is Se7en who, under the leadership of veteran premoman kaidus, have dispatched most of prem to get here. These are two evenly matched teams, last time they fought the treated us to an exciting 5-4 on cp_sunshine_rc5 which ended in the Rollerbladers’ favour.

Whoever triumphs over the other still has to face the season’s most dominant team SUAVE having only let one point slip away from them throughout the regular season, there is no surprise that SUAVE made it straight into the Grand Final. But that point that did slip away was to Ze Knutsson Rollerbladers. But that was when bk. had their fallen comrade Knutsson. One must remember that SUAVE are last season’s gold medalists, albeit in an altered form. So tune in to see which team claims the first place and 1500€ in prize money, and if this hasn’t gotten you exited yet check out the teaser made by amppis below.

banner by Yggdrasil

It’s time to continue our look at your Season 8 Premiership teams with Season 7 runners-up PremTech. Promoted from Div 1 after Season 6, they announced themselves in the top division by making bold claims of “aiming to be top 3 of Prem in S7.” While the naysayers scoffed, Finnish Demoman BAITO busied himself by picking up a roster of players from around the globe that proved themselves capable of standing up to the big boys. ShaDowBurn tore the division a new one with his Black Box & Concheror shenanigans while UGC Platinum Champions Kids Next Door donated their Medic Nursey and Heavy Kresnik to the cause. Tseini returned from his military service to pick up the Sniper Rifle once more, and they dethroned Season 6 Champions Highpander© in the semi-finals before taking Tourettes Chessclub to a third map in the Grand Finals. Sadly the fairy tale ended with a mere Silver medal, but BAITO and the gang are back for more in Season 8. We spoke to the man himself to get the lowdown.

How happy were you with the team’s performance last season?

BAITO: Of course we were really happy with the result, 2nd place and first season in prem. But as we could have got the golden medal, it was a bit crap to lose the final the way it happened, reservoir as the deciding map.

Have there been any changes to the roster?

BAITO: We weren’t about to change our roster at all, but apparently ShaDowBurn and jwso quit for their studies. We had to get a new flank, so we robbed Tourettes Chessclub and got atomic- and uubers. And during the preseason Tseini quit TF2 so we picked up tracker. Now Tseini is back so it´s kind of a 50/50 with our Snipers. The one who can play, will play. Both of them have had some computer/connection problems recently.

How has pre-season been going? Have you been playing a lot?

BAITO: After we had had almost 1.5 months break, we started playing again just 3 weeks ago and played a couple pcw´s with an unstable roster, but finished our new roster on last Sunday finally. We have been doing 2-3 pcw´s a week when we can, and it is looking really strong at the moment with the current roster.

What do you think of the map pool? You’ve been very vocal in your support of Gravelpit, you must be pleased to see it back.

BAITO:Yes of course that meant a lot for our whole team, we´ve been undefeated on it for so long. It was just ridiculous to see how disorganized most of the prem teams were on a map like gpit last season. However I think the map pool is good, new versions of maps, 2 new maps, seems to be okay for everyone. I am only mad because we got all the payload maps against the new prem teams and the other maps against the top prem teams, which seems to be worse than just typical bad luck.

Who are the standout performers on the team? Who should we be watching for the big plays?

BAITO: I won´t name a single person, because this season we already know each other too well. If one of us is missing, the whole team will be probably fucked unless the merc coming in is like ShaDowBurn or jwso or someone who often mercs for us. So everyone should be equally important. All of us are going to go huge again though, that´s for sure.

Are you aiming to win Prem this season? Who do you see as your biggest rivals for the title?

BAITO: Because of the maps, the games against pander and chess shall be interesting ones this season, but kKaltUu will still probably cause most of the problems for us again. And yes, we are totally going for the league win this time.

Finally, any shoutouts?

BAITO: PremTech gang, Blackout casting gang, Deutschlan gang, that´s all.

With one of the more stable rosters in Prem, PremTech certainly look a safe bet for the top 3 once more. Keeping their combo intact will give them an edge over the other top teams: Both Highpander© and Tourettes Chessclub have changed Medics for this season, so Nursey, Kresnik and BAITO will be looking to exploit any signs of instability in their rivals. The North American players have adapted well to ETF2L, and seem committed to the team. atomic- and uubers were contenders for flank of the season for Chessclub, so their arrival will soften the blow of losing ShaDowBurn and jwso. Perhaps the key to PremTech‘s season lies with their Snipers – Tseini‘s presence will be a huge boost when he’s available. tracker had some outstanding games during spells with Stacked and Tourettes Chessclub but has been inconsistent in the past, so he will need to turn it on when it counts.

An opening week meeting with Prem new boys WASP should provide a relatively comfortable first game for PremTech, but with their meetings with the heavyweights coming on their weaker maps any upsets or dropped points will weigh heavily on BAITO‘s mind. Results against the likes of Stacked and Fair Enough will be expected this season after their previous triumphs, and every team is susceptible to choking under the pressure of expectations. If Season 7 taught us anything, though, it’s that you don’t want to rule PremTech out too early.

• Scout: atomic-
• Soldier: uubers
• Pyro: Ascendary
• Demoman: BAITO
• Heavy: Kresnik
• Engineer: cobz
• Medic: Nursey
• Sniper: tracker/ Tseini
• Spy: polar

Big thanks to BAITO for taking the time to talk to us! Next up in our series of interviews: Stacked.

https://youtu.be/go2Xs9lAous
Season 8 trailer by Jack

Playoffs & Prize Money

Thanks to our Indiegogo campaign we managed to get over 3.000€ through crowd funding which allows us to provide the biggest total prize pool as well as the biggest prize pool for the Premier Division to date. A total of 4.080€ will be spread among the best teams of each Tier. Thank you to everyone that contributed.

Premier Division

The Season 20 powered by Tt eSPORTS Grand Finals will take place on March 29th with the following schedule:

Semi Final: 19:00CET Ze Knutsson Rollerbladers vs Se7en

Grand Final: 21:15CET SUAVE vs Winner of the Semi Final

The teams are fighting for a total prize pool of 3.000€! with the following distribution:

1500€ / 250€ per player

900€ / 150€ per player

600€ / 100€ per player

High Tier

For the High Tier we decided to go with the system we used when the Premier Division Playoffs included four teams.

Round 1: March 22nd-March 25th 1000 poops of the poopocalypse vs Lutuset

Round 2: March 26th-March 31st prtyboiz vs 1000 poops of the poopocalypse

Final: April 1st-April 5th ELOGURL vs 1000 poops of the poopocalypse

The teams are fighting for a total prize pool of 720€ distributed among the top 3 teams:

360€ / 60€ per player

216€ / 36€ per player

144€ / 24€ per player

Mid Tier

For the Mid Tier we are going to use a modified version that was suggested by TimTum during the last Fully Charged Europe episode:

Round 1.1: March 22nd-March 24th TURNUP vs Dodging Bullets

Round 1.2: March 22nd-March 24th International Oral Sex vs mid high

Round 2.1: March 25th-March 29th B-HAVE vs Dodging Bullets

Round 2.2: March 25th-March 29th Iso-G vs mid high

Semi Final 1: March 30th-April 1st Gamsjaga eSports vs Dodging Bullets

Semi Final 2: March 30th-April 1st Lemmings vs Iso-G

Final: April 2nd-April 5th Winner of Semi Final 1 vs Winner of Semi Final 2

The teams are fighting for a total prize pool of 270€ distributed among the top 3 teams:

135€ / 22,50€ per player

81€ / 13,50€ per player

54€ / 9€ per player

Open Tier

We will be handling the playoffs for the Open Tier the same way we handled it for Season 19. Each team’s leader will be contacted by Sonny Black through Steam to submit their availability. The teams will then be matched by their seed and their availability. The playoffs will take place between March 22nd and April 5th, due to this fairly tight schedule each eligible team that wants to participate in the playoffs should be able to play at least 2 matches per week. Beside the top 14 teams in Open candy sticks and Gibusztalan Spam Fest! will fill place 15 and 16. This was decided based on their Sonneborn Berger rating.

The teams are fighting for a total prize pool of 90€ distributed among the top 3 teams:

45€ / 7,50€ per player

27€ / 4,50€ per player

18€ / 3€ per player

Additionally we are trying to turn what we received in item donations into keys, to ensure a somewhat evenly spread distribution for the top 3 Open Tier teams.

REMINDER: koth_warmtic_b6 is now being used for Season 8 matches, you can download it here.

Season 8 is officially beginning and we couldn’t have a better game to start out with! Join CeeJaey, sigafoo & Jon on BlackOut TV for the ultimate game between two titans of Premiership, Highpander© vs Tourettes Chessclub on pl_upward.

Highpander© are known as the victors of Highlander Season 6 for when they dominated over itsallgood 6-0 however during the latest season Highpander© slipped up when they faced PremTech in the playoffs stage losing 3-6. Despite this, Highpander© have brought on players like lawn, Zebbosai and Spreijer to even up the playing field and possibly take Season 8 as their second win.

Facing them tonight is Tourettes Chessclub, our returning Season 7 winners who beat PremTech 5-4 back in January in the Grand Final playoff. However, even with such a victory for themselves, they’ve introduced Freakie, Lazybear and ondkaja to their roster. Is this the boost they will require to win this season like the last?

Whatever the result tonight, a great match will be in store for us.

For all the pre-season info on the teams, be sure to read our interviews with leaders Scissors and Hildreth:

Highpander Interview with Hildreth

Tourettes Chessclub Interview with Scissors

Read the rest of this entry »

banner by Yggdrasil

With the opening match of Season 8 coming this Thursday, it’s time to take a closer look at another of our Premiership teams. This time we’re talking Highpander©. After finishing Season 6 as champions, a strong season ended disappointingly with a playoff loss to PremTech leaving them in 3rd place overall. With Heavy Piddox leaving the team shortly after the season, the team managed to win the Experimental Highlander One-Night-Cup #6 sponsored by scrap.tf using a much-changed roster that notably included Steve! on Medic and Kissakala playing Scout. We spoke to Hildreth to find out how the Pandas are shaping up for Season 8.

Firstly, how do you feel about how last season went for you as a team?

Hildreth: Obviously for us, coming anything less than second was unacceptable so to not even be in the final was beyond belief considering pre-season we felt invincible. Whilst many of the players were utterly disappointed in themselves and how we performed as a team, I can only praise our opponents for improving over the season and knocking us down.

Are there any roster changes the people need to know about?

Hildreth: We like to keep people guessing, the core of the roster will still be there, we may only have 1 or 2 new additions to the team in total. We’ve switched Kissakala back to Scout (his Season 6 role) as I felt the Medic wasn’t working, and picked up Spreijer. We may also pick up a new Heavy: Piddox, Polk and another Heavy are in the frame.

How has preseason gone? Have you been playing much or enjoying the time off?

Hildreth: You make it sound like it’s a job! It’s always a pleasure to play with my team, but a lot are busy with some aspect of their life either work, school or 6v6 so we’ve been playing once a week. We won the Experimental Cup and that was our first game since the defeat to PremTech, we did two pcws in two weeks since then versus Tourettes Chessclub, haven’t won a map yet but we’re not going overboard with practises at this stage, I want my team to peak during playoffs not during preseason like we did last season.

What do you think of the map pool? Is there anything you’d change?

Hildreth: Map pool’s fine really, a lot more thought has been put in this season than last season (lol reservoir), we got a few new maps to learn and some existing ones we can try and perfect, maps like Gpit are always the best to play, you can see unique strats and such, we may have lost every round last season but we were trying to play our own way. You’ll notice teams will do that, play their own style on a map like Gpit which is what I love about it.

Which players do you think will be the most important for you?

Hildreth: That’s easy – zoob and phromelo. Both are always big players for us, the stats don’t reflect it but zoob is the heart of our flank and is always making the right calls which as a combo we learn to play off, or he is learning to play off our combo. That’s why we’ve moved Kissakala back to scout, as they work together a lot, YanG "Пальмира" was more a solo DM heavy player who came into the combo. phromelo was a big miss for us versus PremTech, he is the sort of sniper that makes other teams afraid so when he told me he should be able to play this season I was excited, I just hope he sticks it out. The rest of our team has great players in every position, our combo will be solid and if I can maincall properly this season and keep ahead of the competition like I did in Season 6, we should win. We were confident last season and in S6. It changes when you win a season, the team expects to win more so I will keep reminding them of our defeats so they know we need to work hard and focus.

Who will be the biggest threat to your team this Season?

Hildreth: Well Tourettes Chessclub of course, I am not convinced PremTech will the same without ShaDowBurn, doesn’t mean they won’t be a threat but I don’t think they can win without him. Stacked have a stable roster this season, I can see them improving because they will practise a fuck ton, I don’t see any other team competing for the championship but Fair Enough will be able to pull off some surprise results.

Any shoutouts?

Hildreth: Shoutout to Arie from serveme.tf, to the HL admins except kKaltUu and to my team of course. foungi will get a shoutout for DeutschLAN as well, I hope we can go there in some capacity. Oh and BlackOut TV + Jon.

Fighting talk from the man in charge, but will his team come up with the goods to back up his confidence? With Steve! back to Pyro and Spreijer coming in, the focus will be on finding the right Heavy for the team. Zebbosai has joined the roster as a backup, but with the mystery Heavy still unidentified is Hildreth merely trying to throw us off the scent? No matter who the final piece of the puzzle turns out to be, the team are looking strong. Spreijer in an experienced Medic who put in some excellent performances for Chessclub last Season and Kissakala has been impressive on Scout. The unchanged flank and pick classes will provide stability and players like zoob and phromelo will remain the envy of the other Prem teams for their contributions.

The early weeks could prove crucial for Highpander©: A week 1 clash with Tourettes Chessclub followed by PremTech in week 2. Dropping points to their biggest rivals early in the Season could leave them under severe pressure later on, while wins could set them up for a dominant season. Only time will tell!

Highpander©

• Scout: Kissakala
• Soldier: zoob
• Pyro: Steve!
• Demoman: Hildreth
• Heavy: TBA
• Engineer: nijoonen
• Medic: Spreijer
• Sniper: phromelo
• Spy: Grenja

Big thanks to Hildreth for talking to us! Tune in to BlackOut TV on Thursday at 21CET to watch Highpander© take on Tourettes Chessclub on pl_upward to kick off Highlander Season 8 powered by Tt eSPORTS!