We ponder the Premiership action with the players as ETF2L Season 10 gets the green light tonight

Every season in recent memory I have attempted to produce some weekly coverage to do justice to the intense endurance battle that is encapsulated within a full season of competitive Team Fortress 2.

The farthest I ever got was Week 5 back in ETF2L Season 7 and that was barely even half way through the schedule. Will Season 10's eight-team divisions and seven week main season be the crutch I need to hobble over the finish line for the first time? Let's fucking hope so!

If you're new around these parts, the format I had managed to distil over many failed attempts was to get other Premiership players to comment on the Premier Division fixtures for any given week. Over time it became clear that this was a classic case of the blind leading the blind; these clueless Prem reprobates have even less insight that you drooling fuckwits!

So then I tried to jazz it up in Season 8 with some pearls of wisdom from the gargantuan cranium that sits atop the shoulders of the gaming Adonis you see before you; yours truly picking a match of the week from the ether. That lasted all of one week before I fell off the face of the earth again and coverage bottomed out.

Season 9? Didn't even bother, but turns out we didn't miss much what with three quarters of the teams dropping out; I'll take that one as a small victory for my better judgement. So ends a short history of my failed attempts at league coverage. This season I'm just gonna fuck it all in the mixer and see what comes out...

The Match of the Week

Looking at the Week 1 fixtures there is definitely one game that stands out from the others, featuring the two teams with a long heritage of producing excellent games, two teams who have been nigh-on-inseparable in their encounters in the last twelve months.

Jesus H. Christ, I can't be arsed to pour over the same shit about Epsilon eSports and Team Dignitas again. So we look to the leftfield for something a little less obvious, and anyway, you can Epsi vs Dig in the Excello ZOWIE Final on Tuesday.

Why did I pick this fixture? It could be because it was the only one that was actually scheduled. It could be because both Infused and CKRAS believe that Gullywash is their best map, their home turf, their stomping ground. It could be the stylistic differences in how both teams play; the prospect of Infused's raw deathmatching ability clashing with the cohesive tactical play of CKRAS is an interesting one.

It is all of the above by the way, but ultimately I think this fixture is going to be season defining for both teams. Infused have the massive expectations of an ever-growing fanbase weighing down upon them, not to mention their own glorious aspirations; these guys genuinely believe they can be number one - the pressure is on.

CKRAS on the other hand are dangerously underrated by the community at large, with roster turbulence and some shameful results since they finished a close second to Team Dignitas at Assembly Summer 2011, they must surely be the underdogs on paper? Indeed on paper CKRAS don't really look like much to talk about at all, but M0re has created a synergy with his players whereby they are worth more than the sum of their parts. I asked the Finnish mastermind for some pre-match banter and here's what he had to say...

"I'm very confident going in to Week 1 and all I can say is that all your base are belong to us."

Sure, they don't have a numlocked or a MGE Mike or a Quad pistol, but what they do have in spades is discipline and teamwork, and if Infused think this will be a walk over they've got another thing coming. The Finns are great at taking teams out of their comfort zone with an interesting playbook that sees the full complement of utility classes being employed as well as a plethora of well-conceived mid-fight strategies. This fixture is a microcosm of competitive Team Fortress 2; the battle of brain vs aim; discipline vs aggression.

I will concede that it is equally likely that CKRAS crumble under the intense damage output of Infused's all-star line-up; when they fail they seem to do so spectacularly. The memory of that ten minute 0-5 Granary spanking in the second map of the Assembly Summer Grand Final is a painful one, and even more recently 0-5 0-5 against Epsilon eSports in August's Excello Bigfoot II competition. The Epsilon result may be even more telling as it was on Badlands and Gullywash, the two maps on the billing against Infused.

Equally, Infused are a team prone to spiralling downwards when things aren't going their way. Will heads be quick to drop if CKRAS manage to get a few rounds? With Greg and Boomeh less active of recent it will fall to numlocked to steer the ship through stormy seas; can he keep the teenage drama queens Mike and Quad in check? I offered the boy Barton a penny for his pre-match thoughts and here's what he had to say...

"We've only played CKRAS once before, and with holidays and uni starting we've played very little as a team since LAN, so we're coming into this game a little unprepapred. That said, we're going to give our best and prove why we're contenders for the #1 spot. Should be a good game!"

The Rest of the Fixtures

CKRAS Gaming's Henrik 'Honky' Lindström thinks...

"If the Finnish boys can keep their cool, there will be blood and guts.
The game can go eitherway.
P.S. I <3 turtles"

Epsilon eSports' Tim 'GeaR' Glöckler thinks...

"This match should be a sure victory for Relic. Playing them lately showed that they're a really strong opponent and the fact that Tt are probably still searching for new scouts supports my prediction. Players to watch: kaidus, ryb and larsa."

Infused.Tt eSports' Joshua 'Boomeh' Smith thinks...

"Haunter leaves his national friends to chase victory, what a scumbag.
Jokes I love Haunter!
Looks like a kind of boring game, can't imagine Equilibrium putting up a fight... especially without Haunter... 5-0 5-0 I bet."

Same time next week? You should be so lucky...

ETF2L Season 10 Week 1 Fixtures