Highly anticipated newcomers, teddybears, finalise their roster with another potent addition; enter Robin “wltrs” Brinkestål

After a season scattered across the divisions of the ETF2L, like diamonds in the rough, the remnant players of the previous Team Coolermaster squad have banded together once more under the sadistic leadership of Duncan “dunc” Wraight and his puppet president Seb “numlocked” Barton. The new team first appeared from the shadows in December, under the moniker teddybears, to the intrigue of a scene short of quality sides and still smarting from their abrupt departure prior to last season.

Two months have passed and several name changes down the line these guys are still turning heads, most recently securing tenth place in Cadred’s Top Ten European TF2 Rankings. With a collective top level experience spanning over various iterations of Team Coolermaster, Ubersexuals, Weapons of the Rebellion, 4Kings, The Imperial, Team YoYoTech and more, it would be foolish to ignore them. You can add Power Gaming to that list now as the final piece of the puzzle, Swedish meatshot maestro, Robin “wltrs” Brinkestål, falls in to place completing an all-star line-up.

Robin has been making waves in Team Fortress 2 since rising to fame with coolclan over a year ago, and subsequently joining Power Gaming with his long time team mate, Tuomo “vaxjo” Havo. His fearless aggression on the field of play makes him a fan favourite and has lead to a plethora of “what the fuck” clutch moments, which will come as no shock to any of you have played Half-Life 1 modification Natural Selection, where he has long be regarded as one of the all-time greats. His critics may contest that wltrs is “all aim, no brain” but I have witnessed his growth as a player and can only see good things coming from his move to teddybears, where his play style may be more welcome than his previous team.

Being too lazy to write any more, I tracked down the angry Geordie they call “dunc” to fill out my word quota.

Q&A with Duncan “dunc” Wraight

It seems like your roster is complete now with the acquisition of Robin “wltrs” Brinkestål. Did you make the first move? Flowers? Chocolates?!

It was a case of excellent timing actually. When Moose's Power.TF2 first formally acknowledge they no longer had any interest in playing together as a team, we were 6.5 players with a solid lineup and no intention of changing that. The day after, nubonamission told numlocked that he just wasn't going to have time for TF2 for various work/personal reasons.

I'm glad he was so honest and up front about it, rather than just mucking us about (sup aves), as it gave us the opportunity to grab wltrs before one of the other top teams did. We had already played with wltrs for a couple of PCWs while nub had gone AWOL for a day, so numlocked just asked outright if he wanted to join... et voila!

That all seems quite serendipitous, but how do we know you won’t just break our hearts again this season? What has changed in the last few months since your TCM squad folded?

When we eventually decided to fold, the state of the TF2 scene was pretty pathetic. Haza only wants to play competitively if the scene has good players to play against and at that time the only team playing actively were Vale and a newly formed illegal who weren't particularly amazing early on.

I was getting a business off the ground and found little time for anything and to top it off, aves decided he didn't want to play anymore. There were no other good scouts around at that time and it was a good month or so before any came available.

All in all, there was too much negativity, on the back of some pretty poor results. None of us were particularly happy in TCM and it felt like the last time we had fun in the game was back with Ubersexuals.

The many differences now are that we've all had a break, we all missed TF2, the scene has come back better than ever and we've got two new motivated, talented players. Anybody that has played with me knows I'm a very bipolar TF2 player - when the team spirit is there and we're motivated, we play well. When we're not... it's painful.

Your roster is giving me an aggressive vibe; you’ve got a lot of players who excel in attacking play. Is that all part of your master plan or should I expect to see you “springering” this season?

I find this "springering" term quite ironic, I still think I'm much more of a pansy than him! You're right of course, we've replaced a defensive, positionally excellent scout with a much more aggressive player. In the long run there's no doubt in my mind that it'll improve our team, but right now it's taking some getting used to, as we're all aware.

wltrs adds another dimension to our team, some excellent scout co-ordination that we were previously lacking, on top of his raw aggression and skill. When we get to know each other a bit better I think everyone will see a totally different style of play to the one we'd previously been exhibiting.

We still have so much to learn, which for me is part of the fun. We have loads of potential; it's just cracking on and achieving it that will be the difficulty. Personally I only enjoy playing in an aggressive manner, partially because I'm so impatient, but making it happen requires confidence in your co-ordination and individual ability.

What sort of goals have you set yourselves for this upcoming season? Do you see yourselves attending any LAN events in the near future? Are you shopping for an org?

I don't see any point in forming a team with players of this individual quality only to aim at achieving 6th place in ETF2L D1. We'll be going right for the top. I'd be disappointed if we couldn't prove ourselves as a top team this season, sorely disappointed, because I know just how much potential we have.

We'll always look for an MGO for two main reasons. Firstly we want to attend LANs, they make the game so much more than just a point and click online geekfest, but a few of us will struggle to make events if we don't have the support of an organisation. We're definitely attending i39, a few of us have booked already, though we're not sure if poor wltrs will be able to make it unless an MGO steps in and helps out. Secondly, it's just great for the scene. I've always thought it important that TF2 has top MGOs involved, as it improves our relatively unfortunate standing as a competitive eSport. It would be fantastic if we could get some orgs like Reason Gaming involved.

Saying that, I've had little luck with MGOs in the past; Trademark Gamers amounted to literally nothing and for various reasons my personal enjoyment for the game dwindled severely when we were part of TCM. Regardless, it's something I'd not even have to consider to get back involved with, especially now that numlocked is essentially running the team instead of the majority pressure being on me.

Ok time to wrap it up. My parting question... who would win in a no-holds-barred fight to the death: Haza vs the entire TF2 community?

I don't even really have to think about that question. Who could possibly challenge Haza? Maybe SKiNNie could bore him to death? Haunter would take a dive and claim foul play. I heard Torden tried to cock-size up to Haza but turned out roughly 2.13metres short. Actually, I've found a near-match. The sommie. There's a lot of mutual respect between these two beasts of the TF2 community, if you could label sommie as such. Sommie might be fairly small and appear reasonably timid but he's made of pure ballsack with lightning wit and huge ninja Kendo skills. They would never fight each other though, so maybe we should consider the question "Who would win in a no-holds-barred fight to the death: Haza and sommie vs the entire TF2 community?". That's an easy question. I'd bet my Mum on the entire TF2 community, knowing I'd finally be rid of her.

teddybears are:

Duncan "dunc" Wraight
Seb "numlocked" Barton
Paul "Evil" Doyle
Alex "ajones" Jones
Murrough "Predz" O’Brien
Asko "Haza" Hasu
Robin "wltrs" Brinkestål

Sam "nubonamission" Parsons (inactive)

ETF2L roster replete with name history
Army Of Wltrs Natural Selection frag movie
Team Dignitas define "springering"