Carpwrist is away this week Yaoooooooo’ing it up with eXtine at PDX in Portland. He’ll be back next week, but for now, you’re stuck with Immolation.

Monday 13th February

Kicking off the week is some ESEA open bracket action, featuring Jamtown Jesus Jambori and Witness 40lb. This match is casted by Greaver, and top Australian player Yuki. If you’d like to hear the difference(Please do, for the love of god. NZers are not Australian) check it out. It was an excellent match

Tuesday 14th February

If you were a lover on tf2, or just a single looking for your sweetheart, Valve had the hookups with the patch today. The Valentines Day update brought us the removal of the sandvich as a portable medpack, a few fixes on GPit, and the Something Special For Someone Special.

Wednesday 15th February

Tuesday had so much action, that it spilled over into Wednesday. Are you prepared for that much action? You better be! Not letting the Open division overshadow them, the Intermediate division wrapped up this week too, seeing LASER BEAMS defending their top bracket playoff run against Dinosaurs
These matches were simply amazing, with Salamancer and HRG’s Trekkie leading the commentary

Thursday 16th February

Have you been missing the Medic MoGs in your life? You haven’t? That’s disappointing, because this week’s MoG features medic play that is sure to not disappoint. This sets the standard for combat medics, and even has time to inform enemy engineer’s about proper dispenser placement.

This MoG was produced by SiN, who I am personally a huge fan of as a video editor

Friday 17th February

For those of you who read my last WR’s, you know it’s just not an Immolation WR without mention of an amazing Jump video, and luckily, Dellort comes through, with this amazing jump video. Featuring some truly unique jumps, including the use of Pyros and Engineers, this is definitely one to watch

Saturday 18th February

Pretty quiet day for TF2 today, but If you’re annoyed by Scouts spamming that they need a Teleporter they’re just going to run away from, this comic provides an excellent solution to the problem.

Alright, I lied. If you got this far, congratulations. You passed the test, your reward is to check out this Frag movie, courtesy of xTime (No relation to eXtine, Sadly)

Sunday 19th February

No news here. Have you signed up for CvP4 yet? {Pause for answer} You did? Excellent. You didn’t? Why not. Check it out and sign up here.

Carp will be back next week. Peace out.

Hey there eXtv fans! Moose back ‘atcha, with this week’s UGC Highlander map, KOTH_Lakeside! I’ve foregone writing an article this week, but have no fear – I’ve added a video instead!

That all familiar Yyyaaaooo is the first thing you hear in this weeks UGC match from our beloved eXtine, who had Hexagrams riding shotgun on the commentary and Mikal behind the camera. This was a great Platinum division match on Warmfront between Unbelievably Brave Sweethearts and Blunderful with a surprising outcome.

Tuesday February 7th

Back in the land of the ESEA Open playoffs the yyyaaaooo doesn’t start until 3:45 in to the video. Once eXtine and Trekkie wrangle this match together at 23:00 all hell breaks loose on cp_gravelpit_fixed with WITNESS 40lb vs. 22d.

The talent of the ESEA Intermediate teams shines through this week, starting with Leviathan Gaming taking on the dinosaurs on cp_gullywash_final1. It’s not a short video, but if you skip 31 minutes into it you’ll get to the start of a great steamroll of a match.

Wednesday February 8th

Another great ESEA-I match between the dinosaurs and Washed Up Gaming gets casted by dr.shdwpuppet, PYYYOUR, and seanbud. It opens with an homage to former spy superstar Lt. Cyndi Lauper. Condolences to all he left behind and to those left inspired in the pub community. The game goes live 33 minutes in. This bout was easily the game of the week.

Thursday February 9th

Another close contender for match of the week went down on Badlands between the ESEA Open teams Carl Sagan Foundation and WITNESS 40lb. Duder and Greaver take it away on the commentary, the match goes live just before the 4:00 mark. Dr.Shdwpuppet shows up right when WITNESS 40lb makes this game interesting.

Friday February 10th

Not much happened today. If you have time to be adventurous you could click this… or this, if you dare.

Saturday February 11th

Today was the day for the Communities to shine. Part 1 kicks off with the battle on Badlands. £1qu1D (Liquid) did more than his fair share of headshots, but it just wasn’t enough to withstand the force of the Classic Mixup. To everyone’s surprise, even the match on Steel in Parts 2 & 3 went to the Pros. Being good gents about the event, Classic Mixup and the Community players gave us all an encore performance on Foundry where the tide changed. Uro Uro Blue redeems himself and finds his spy knife stuck in Harbleu’s spine. If you have time for nothing else, watch the last round.

Shoutout to all the players and all the fans who clogged up the chat stream.

Sunday February 12th

Well done jump movies like dellort’s Freedom will always have a place in this article.

Think your community is awesome and want a chance to show them off against six professional players? Well go ahead get signed up for the next Communities Vs. Pros; registration is live.

Cheers!

Note #2: Apparently some people thought this article meant Rooks and Kings is getting sponsored by eXtv, which is not the case.

Rooks and Kings, initially a 6v6 team, was formed in early 2011. Its initial leader, Marcus Varrent, was unfortunately unable to continue as captain, so team member Micgao took over, in circumstances captured here. He changed Rooks and Kings to a Highlander team, and has led the team for two seasons so far. They are currently playing in United Gaming Clans Highlander Season 6, division Steel Red, where they have not yet lost a round and are currently ranked 7th out of 105 teams.

I spoke with micgao about the future of the team.

eXtv: Where do you want to go with the team?

micgao: I’m not entirely sure where exactly the team is going, but as long as I have the motivation, I will keep entering us in different HL leagues. I’ll make the decisions on what to do with the team after each season.

eXtv: How do you organize the team? Do you have each person assigned to one spot, or do they shuffle around?

micgao: We don’t have one guy assigned to each spot as quite a few players are very flexible class wise. I try to keep everyone playing the class they signed up for, but it isn’t always possible.

eXtv: Do you have plans to start a 6v6 team as well?

micgao: Well, this used to be a 6v6 team, but, for now, I don’t think I’ll start a 6v6 team, as I don’t have enough time for that – but we never know.

eXtv: How do you think Rooks and Kings will finish in UGC HL S6? Do you think you can win?

micgao: I think by the way things are going now, I’m expecting at least a decent result in the end, maybe not win it all but we’ll be sure to make it as challenging as possible for any teams who wants to beat us.

ROSTER

Stighl – Scout

I’m a 22-year-old guy living in California. I love reading, gaming and running. I’m a very competitive guy who hates losing, and hence tries to constantly improve. I have been playing TF2 for almost a year now and have loved it ever since I started; I’ve also hated it at one point, but hey that’s part of any healthy relationship right? (Damn you Crawkets) And yes I did use the “relationship” word with a game, and no I’m not like that.

Why/when/how did you start playing competitively, and what is your favorite thing about it? Would you encourage your friends to start?

I recently started out of curiosity with RK, when a friend of mine stated he was going to participate in ETF2L for the medal. I posted an app on the ETF2L forums and micgao (our team leader) contacted me. I joined up and have had a blast ever since.

My favorite thing is the teamwork aspect. I love the coordination of actions and the overall communication. It opens up a whole new dimension of play to excel in.

I would definitely encourage them to start playing competitively.

Kirk or Picard?

Will is my homie. So therefore Kirk is too.

What do you need to work on most?

Scout movement. The timing of my movement against good soldiers. And I also have the unfortunate habit of tunneling at times

Total hours in TF2: 1700

What is your favorite movie? Lion King

Shoutouts?

-UFF- Hugh Mann for being that friend who got me to play competitively. Huntsman S. Thompson, need you back on the team. micgao for coordinating everything. And a very helpful scout 4² Goldy (or goldie?) who gave me some useful tips a while back on scout.

Verborgene – Soldier

I’m a high school student in the SF Bay Area (go Giants), and have been playing competitively for just over a year. I’m training to make the US Fencing Men’s Sabre Olympic squad, which accounts for a lot of my erratic schedule because of traveling for tournaments and such.
Why/when/how did you start playing competitively, and what is your favorite thing about it? Would you encourage your friends to start?

I was inspired to start playing competitively when I stumbled upon the wonderful casting of eXtv. I watched a lot, and, finally deciding that pubstomping wasn’t enough for me, joined RK after posting on the CommFT forums. I started frequenting MGE servers, getting my butt kicked, but gradually started getting better. I have to say my favorite thing about competitive gameplay is the celebration in Mumble after a great push or a close round win. Everyone should play competitive! It’s great fun, and you’ll also improve incredibly quickly.

Kirk or Picard?

I’m personally a Picard fan. Kirk is always trying to blow stuff up, while Picard is more of an intellectual, which appeals to me.

What do you need to work on most?

Definitely my deathmatch skills. As a soldier, making every rocket count, and being capable of huge damage output is imperative to doing well. I do fine in team play, but I still often get stomped by a lot of other soldiers in 1v1.

Total hours in TF2: 908 hours as of 12 PM PST (Pacific Sexy Time) 2/9/12

What is your favorite movie?

So many, I can’t count. But Lord of the Rings and Amelie are up there.

Shoutouts?

Varrent for picking me up, micgao for being accomodating for my crazy schedule, and all the players in MGE servers for being awesome and helping me improve.

Sleuthyrogue – Soldier

Australium Averger – Pyro

“Huh?”

Why/when/how did you start playing competitively, and what is your favorite thing about it? Would you encourage your friends to start?

I got into competitive for the first annual ETF2L Highlander Challenge in 2010. I was in it for the medal. It’s more enjoyable sometimes because you get to play with people you know, and have a bit more strategy than the average pub match on 24/7 Badwater.
I probably wouldn’t recommend it to most of my friends, as we have heavily conflicted schedules and typically prefer to make teletraps on Lotusclan servers. Ban didn’t last long, but I guess it’s what I get for trapping an admin for 15 minutes straight.

Kirk or Picard?
Picard. I have my reasons.

What do you need to work on most?
My computer. I don’t know what I was thinking buying this.
Afterwards I should work on reaction times, as opposed to impulse. Airblasting rockets becomes increasingly hard when the enemy doesn’t just jam Mouse1, or didn’t actually notice you fast enough.

Total hours in TF2: 1531 Hours as of February 2nd, 2012, 14:30 EST

What is your favorite movie?
Picking favorites is tough. But I think I’ll go with Jurassic Park.

Shout-outs?
YOU JUST REMINDED ME THAT I FORGOT TO TYPE IN ALL CAPS. OH WELL.
ALSO ARIAL > TIMES NEW ROMAN

Nurse Redheart – Demoman

FirestormXL – Hoovy

Iago – Engineer

I’m a 19-year-old Canadian college student aspiring to become an architect I guess you could say.

Why/when/how did you start playing competitively, and what is your favorite thing about it? Would you encourage your friends to start?

I started playing competitive TF2 about a year ago when I stumbled upon extv. Well I wouldn’t really considered it competitive when I first started, more just like scrims and such with random people on TF2 Lobby, but that’s when I started actively seeking out a team. Even tho I was absolutely horrible, just playing on a team that was somewhat organized and the sheer amount of strategy and teamwork involved in comp TF2 is what got me hooked. Yes I actually try to encourage my roommates often to start playing competitive and anyone I meet on a pub who seems interested. Its a helluva a fun time.

Kirk or Picard?
Can I say neither? Star Wars fan here, and I totally believe that being a Jedi or Sith would be ten times sweeter than a Captain of some S.S Muffin.

What do you need to work on most?
My aim, holy balls you don’t realize how bad it is until you play some Deathmatch and MGE servers.

Total hours in TF2:
I have around 780 hours and still growing.

What is your favorite movie?
Unfortunately I have many, but I’ll name a few off the top of my head. Hot Fuzz, How to train your Dragon, Beverly Hills ninja, Indian in a cupboard, the invention of lying and many more. Also anything with Rowan Atkinson.

Shoutouts?
Shoutout to our glorious team leader Micgao for picking me up for my first ever Highlander season! May your hammer be mighty good sir. And Shoutout to Verborgene for putting this all together, I tip my unusual Towering Pillar of hats to you sir.

ycpunk – Medic

I am a 19 year old attending my second year of collage in Omaha, Nebraska. I am majoring in computer science and have an awesome paying IT internship. In my free time, I like to play Rock Band drums and Catan.
Why/when/how did you start playing competitively, and what is your favorite thing about it? Would you encourage your friends to start?

I started playing competitively this year with UGC Season 6. I became interested after seeing eXtv’s top ten plays features and then started watching shoutcasting. After playing lobbies for a while i made a post on r/TF2LFT. My favorite thing so far is getting to know my teammates and their play styles, that is what really makes it different than a lobby or PUG.

Kirk or Picard?

Haven’t watched much star trek at all, but I’ll go with Kirk.

What do you need to work on most?

I need to press tab more to be able to help signal pushes and retreats more efficiently.

Total hours in TF2: 816

What is your favorite movie? Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

Shoutouts?

Shoutout to Micgao for picking me up and for Salamancer for his great casting and camera work.

micgao – Medic, leader

Potassium – Sniper

Shadyy – Spy

Leptir1 – Spy

18-year-old guy who does YouTube as a job-sorta-thing. I play Spy, and even consider stabbing people’s backs while in a Supermarket. I look for places to dropstab from often.

Why/when/how did you start playing competitively, and what is your favorite thing about it? Would you encourage your friends to start?

For some time now, I’ve been wanting to change the way I play TF2. I want to play it in a close-knit group of people and playing with more tactics, to improve my spying. Fav. thing has to be making a medic drop uber with a backstab and then getting away. Fuck yeah.
Friends to start? As spy? Getting good as spy in pubs while playing for only a year now was horrible. Fuck re-learning spy. I’d never wish that upon anybody. It’s a fun class, but it’s not worth learning lol.

Kirk or Picard?
What? In any case, the true answer is Nutella

What do you need to work on most?
Competitive Game Sense

Total hours in TF2:
975

What is your favorite movie?
Saving Private Ryan

Shoutouts?

OMFGassassin – Spy

It’s time for another write-up! Moose here, and I’ll be covering, once again, this week’s UGC Highlander map – cp_follower. Now, for those of you unaware of what I do here, I do my best to point out and overview important places on maps, and try to keep perspective on the Highlander class composition (as compared to writing articles based on what 6′s players should watch out for). A few people thought that my last article was a little bit shallow, but a lot of people are already very familiar with the Coldfront/Warmfront mechanic – to make up for it, I’ll be doing as much writing as I can on this much more obscure map, Follower!

So, what do I need to know?

Anybody that runs through Follower is going to notice a few things right off the bat:

1. General length. This map is huge and has long distances between capture points.
2. Follower has a VERY Badlands-esque middle point.
3. It’s shaped like Granary.

All of these are true, so you probably already have an idea of how you want to push out. However, there are some VERY unique map features here that I want to touch on a little bit.

Starting with some vocabulary

I didn’t feel like making 100 pictures explaining each landmark, so I decided to make a video! Be wrapped up in my soothing and enchanting voice (/sarcasm, I’m sick this week) as I explain the terminology I’m going to use in this guide.

The Central Capture Point

So much to cover! As stated in the video, there are 6 ways in to the middle area and all of them are viable rollouts. What your team ends up using is up to you guys, but you also have to be prepared to defend against anything! Do what you can to cover your flanks – you know that there will be pesky Spies and Scouts using those many doorways to try to slip around your team and flank your Medic.

This midfight plays out a lot like Badlands (durr), so the most aggressive team will usually either drive the other team back or end up finishing them off. Keep a track of sightlines and keep your Medic hidden from their Sniper. A smart but aggressive Soldier might try to jump the train and rain hell on the enemy Medic/combo while remaining within the healing range of his own Medic, so be cautious for an up-front assault like this as well.

Basically, when dealing with this middle capture point in particular: The less time you spend bunched together in one area, the better!

Yard

The yard’s huge, and the initial momentum advantage lies with the attacking team (due to the hill). There really aren’t a whole lot of flank routes against a team holding defensively in the yard, minus perhaps the drop-down area from the house or the staircase. Either way, most defenses fizzle out here quickly, so there’s really no need to worry too much about attacking here, but you’re definitely going to want to be prepared for attacking the 2nd point.

Both teams need control of the upper flank area I mentioned in the video – defensively, it gives your team an extra route from which to push out if they gain the upper hand. Offensively, it gives your combo another height advantage (you can tell I’m a Soldier by the way I think) and a little bit of breathing room. Kritzes work well in these tight spots if you know you’ve got the Uber advantage.

The Second Control Point

This is the only part of the map I don’t like – it’s super tight and very easy to spam out. An Engineer with a level 3 sentry here on defense is only bested by an Ubered Demoman with awesome aim. That being said, you’ll often find big sentries where they can defend both the point and the entrance to the upper flank area. Engineers might also decide to put a level 3 sentry in the lower left area and put a teleporter up top in the upper room to get heavy classes up top and in a defensive holding area faster. A defense that knows they own the upper flank area can afford to post a Soldier on the ledge above the point to hide and pick off anything trying to cap the point.

An offense has to be careful here about Uber management – the way you flank in is your decision, but you have to have enough Uber left over to take over the other team’s Sentry while still laying damage on the enemy combo. Be sure to practice this as much as you can (and however you can, whether it’s in practices or lobbies), and by pushing with different classes from different angles.

A defensive combo is relatively safe in the upper room area by the zigzag. This also gives them a quick escape route and a way to drop down on any classes that can manage to sneak through the garage doors and into their final yard.

The Final Capture Point

Nobody wants to be stuck defending last, but if you’re on Follower, then you have a couple of things to your advantage. For starters, there are lots of places to slap up a sentry, whether it’s underneath the bridge by the pond or behind the platform, or even by the cinderblocks. Either way, just because the point is easy to defend doesn’t mean it’s easy to push out of either – the attacking team has a forward spawn by the L-shaped house in the yard, and is very capable of getting back to a holding position quickly.

What the final defense comes down to is a game of endurance – who can play longer without making a mistake? Who uses Kritz and who’s using Uber to counteract it? I can’t tell you what to use and when – a surprise defensive Kritz on the defending Demoman is more than capable of taking out everything in Zigzag with one well-placed sticky, but you’re also running a risk of losing that Kritz almost immediately to an offensive Uber.

TL;DR…

If nothing else, at least watch the video and get familiar with the map layout. Remember there are endless ways to attack the middle point, so be on your toes and be ready for anything. I don’t think individual DM will be as important here as coordinated teamwork, so I predict the winning teams this week will be the ones with better coordination. Be dynamic with your pushes and defenses, and be smart about using Ubers – the team that does both of these things better will win this map.

Enjoy playing cp_follower this week!

- Moose

Link to Follower Reddit thread

The first official match of Season 6 kicks off with eXtine, Mikal, and Hexagrams and three members of tangerine who later went on to face bonus! Points, a team reformed from DesA, on pl_badwater. The match starts 22:30 into the video.

Later in the night, the crew casts the ESEA-O match of Swaggin Ball Z vs. Carl Sagan Foundation on cp_warmfront.

Tuesday January 31st

Gaming Heads is now taking pre-orders on the medic statue. I could probably put some pun in here about Ubercharging your card for $234.99 but I’m attempting to make this tasteful.

The ESEA Open Upper Bracket Semi-finals match of Submit a Ticket vs. CHOKES ON 22nd on cp_warmfront is casted by eXtine, Greaver,and Tragic. If you stick with the same video for 27 minutes you can watch the LASER BEAMS face off against Washed Up Gaming on cp_snakewater. Without spoiling anything, these were both incredibly close games and worth the watch.

eXtravision shows up a day late but with more than enough updates to make up for it.

Wednesday February 1st

Ggglygy uses some lulz to tell a dark story about the ESEA-I team Quantic Legacy. More specifically, the post is about getting screwed over by Tyrone who cut Ggglygy from the roster 3 days before the LAN. As of this writing Tyrone has not responded.

On a much lighter note, eXtv teams up with the eXperiment and helps get these guys to the Season 10 ESEA Invite LAN with a $1,079 donation to cover the travel expenses. Thanks to all who donated and as a way of saying thank you, check out the mentoring session video put together with eXtine and the eXperiment.

Thursday February 2nd

The TF2 Writers give us all a nice tease as to what’s coming to Hat Team Fortress 2. Namely, the Meet the Pyro video on top of a secret project.

Friday February 3rd

Stabby stabby showcases his smooth voice alongside some mellow tunes to make one sexy Spy video. This guy should consider shoutcasting.

Professor Gentleman shows off his scout popping and Uber dropping skills in his new video.

Saturday February 4th

There were just too many great matches this week for a carp to watch this week. Here is what I should have taken the time to watch and you probably should too:

ESEA-IM: Mayhem vs. Beybladers
ESEA-O: Immortal 6 vs. Carl Sagan Foundation followed by ESEA-IM: Leviathan Gaming vs. Beybladers
CEVO Finals: Superior Posterior vs. Immortal 6

Neco from Community Fortress does a great job at wrapping up the ESEA Intermediate playoffs and even provides links to the STV demos.

Sunday February 5th

Nothing happened today so… there’s this.

Cheers!