The Enemy Down TF2 8v8 Spring Bonanzaaa league with final prize money of £1200 has now reached its final stage.

Out of the 24 clans that started, only two now remain. The final is fought between Clan United and Virtual Troopers, two Finnish teams with vast amount of experience. Both teams, Clan United and Virtual Troopers are QWTF veterans, and have known each other a long time.

This match will be played tonight, 22th of May at 21:00 CET. Maps to be played are cp_well, cp_pro_granary and cp_badlands as a decider if needed. Be sure to check out the bottom statements for further information about the final, the match itself is brought to you by SourceTV: 82.136.42.51:27020.

General information about the teams:

Established in 1997, vTroopers experienced various games, including at least QWTF, AQ2, CS, CS:S, DoD, DMC, CoD, RQ3, BF2 and ET. Their total membercount of the team is 70, however their TF2 section currently only holds 12 members with most of them being old QWTF veterans.

Clan United was founded almost a year later in 1998 and originally started out as Action Quake 2 clan (which they are still playing up to this day). Despite they are currently only active in TF2 and AQ2, they have also played RQ3, Q3Urt and ETF in the past, achieving a total sum of unbelievable 3000 official matches played. The current TF2 squad has 14 players and is mostly a mix of players from the ETF and AQ2 teams. Most of the players have a long QWTF history as well.

Their way to the Finals:

Both clans started the league in group D. In the group stage, Clan United won the head to head game of these two teams, but suffered a default loss against British Late Night Calm. Thus, Virtual Troopers were able to claim the group win with a better round difference.

In the playoffs, vT's first opponent was 4Kings, the current #1 clan in the 6vs6 TF2 scene. At the time, 4K had some lineup troubles and was forced to play the game undermanned. The 6vs8 game in cp_well ended as a default win for Virtual Troopers. The semifinal opponent for Virtual Troopers was Weapons of the Rebellion. The semifinal map was cp_gravelpit and wotr scored a 9-7 win after a tough fight. Unfortunately wotr broke the league rules and vTroopers were later on declared as winners and so the Finns made their way through to the final.

Clan United's first playoff opponent was mambDAC, a combination of two top 6v6 teams TLR and IDAC. This game offered the tightest match in the league so far, as UNi managed to score a 3-2 victory on cp_well with just 15 seconds remaining on the clock. In the semifinals, UNi fought against another Finnish team, H2. This was an easier game for them, with the final score of 9-3 on cp_gravelpit.

A statement from Mumsku, the vTrooper leader:

Well, what can we say, it's gonna be a tough match. United has many skilled players and it's gonna be a nice challenge to put them down. We know everyone (including ourselves :D) sees us as the underdogs in this one and it's fairly understandable. United are gonna have to put up one hell of a fight to get the big money home though, that we will guarantee. We might do a few prac matches, not totally decided on it yet. Getting ready will involve grabbing a case of beer while on the way home before match though. Should do the trick. It's gonna be fun to play against our friends/enemies at United, our fellow Finns. May the team with the most booze stacked next to their computers win!

A statement from Moose, the UNi leader:

I'm definitely expecting us to win the final game as well. We've played against vTroopers numerous times but so far they haven't managed to defeat us. It seems that we won't be getting the best possible lineup for the game, but I don't think that it should slow us down too much. I'm sure that vTroopers will fight back hard though, so we can't afford to underestimate them. We know many of the guys who play in vTroopers from qwtf and etf times, so I can say that they really have a lot of experience and skill in that team. Personally I was thinking that we should spend the price money (whether it's ~1000 or 800 euros remains to be seen) to throw a party together to celebrate UNi's 10th birthday, which is coming up in August. Hopefully I can get the others to agree with that. I'd also like to thank ED for organizing this event. Finding good 8vs8 games has been hard nowadays since the top teams only play 6vs6 games, so this was a rare treat for us. It's a bit of shame that there were quite a few match conflicts and such in the league, but I guess that's to be expected when money is involved.

And last but not least Fean0r, the ED Event Admin, was kind enough to give us a detailed statement regarding the upcoming Finals and future events. Check it out for yourself and dont miss the SourceTV information!

We are very excited about tomorrows 8 v 8 final as it will be our first TF2 cash final with £1200 (Winners £800, Runners-Up £400) up for grabs! Both teams are well placed to take the title and with less and less gaming sites offering the 8 v 8 format this is a great opportunity to show the community what can be done on 8 v 8.

The match will be played on our own servers:

Server: 82.136.42.51:27015
SourceTV: 82.136.42.51:27020

Everyone is welcome to watch the match via STV tomorrow night at 8pm (9pm CET).

Over the next few weeks we will be really busy with the 6v6 finals and launching 2/3 new events including a probable first for the European TF2 scene!

All in all www.enemydown.co.uk has big plans for TF2, so watch this space.