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tips for the next TF2 tournament!

thr4sherthr4sher Registered User regular
edited November 2010 in PAX Archive
Hey guys,

thrasher (dan) here, you guys might remember me from pax east 2010. I was the captain of "team snuggie", who won the TF2 tournament. I'm also the guy who was on the microphone organizing that "pros vs. pubs" match after the tournament (thanks again to all the awesome pax admins who let me help out!).

I'll be coming to pax again this time around, altho I doubt it will be with all the same teammates as last year. Last time I heard a few people say things like "random crits are off?" or "can't we just use 6 engineers?"

As a competitive TF2 player I'd like to give everyone some information, and tips for getting ready for the next TF2 tournament.

Last year the tournament used standard league rules (ESEA league rules to be more accurate). The main rules are as follows:

6v6 play
class restrictions (1 medic. 1 demo. 2 of any other class)
Banned weapons: sandman, natascha, new weapons from the pollycount update (altho this may change)
maps: cp_ maps mainly, with the occasional koth_ map thrown in
Win conditions: 5 rounds, 30 mins (2 halves)... Whichever happens first

Some tips for the tournament. Most competitive teams run a standard rollout of 2 scouts, 2 soldiers, 1 demo, 1 medic

Sometimes (depending on the situation/map) one of the scouts might want to switch classes and go sniper/engy/heavy/pyro, but this is usually not for an entire match.

With the 2 soldiers one should be the "pocket soldier" and the other is the "roaming soldier". The pocket soldiers main job is to protect the medic, and he should stay with him pretty much all the time. The medic/soldier together is known as the "combo". The roaming soldiers job is to be more aggressive and put lots of pressure on the other team.

Your 2 scouts CAN work independently, however they are going to ne more effective when sticking together to take on enemies 2:1 when they engage. Scouts should also play smart. Don't just charge into the other team. If you can, try to flank to kill a medic or key player. Even if you only manage to make the enemy medic use an uber early, you have done your job. Scouts are also great for cleaning up after the enemy team takes a lot of spam damage from your soldiers and demo. Be sneaky and wait for the rest of your team to deal a lot of spam damage. When they tell you the enemy is weak, pop out and get a quick 1 shot kill.

The demo has a lot of options as far as play style goes. He can play very agressive and jump on the enemy team with the roaming soldier, he can stay back and do a lot of spam damage with pipes and sticks, or he can even assume the pocket role to allow for 2 agressive soldiers. If your medic is using the kritzkrieg, a demo is his new best friend :)

The medic is the most important person on your team. Keep him alive! Your medic should know when to run away and when to stay in a fight healing his team. If both teams engage and your team loses 3 guys or something, the medic needs to get out asap. Even if his remainig teammates are about to die he needs to live to hang on to whatever ubercharge he has built up at that point.

Some general tips: at the beginning of each round (on 5 point cp_ maps like badlands/granary) you want to get to the mid point as fast as possible. This means your demo and soldiers need to rocket/sticky jumping on the way to middle. This requires the medic to know the proper healing order to allow people to get there as fast as possible. The medic needs to heal the demo first, start healing as soon as the round starts, before you can even move. The demo should be able to sticky jump out of the medics range pretty quickly so it's important to give him the first buff. Also leave the health Packs for him. One soldier should shoot the walls/floor before he can move to get low on health, and then just run to mid with his equalizer out to move very fast. The medic should quickly heal each scout before they get out of range, and then focus on one soldier. When you get close to middle one of your soldiers should have max health and that's when the soldier with the equalizer switches back to his rocket launcher and quickly gets a full buff from the medic.

Also,a tip for the soldiers and medic... You build an uber faster if you are healing someone who is not at max buff, so have your soldiers "grind" ubers by shooting the walls when possible.

Finally check out the site www.tf2lobby.com

It's free, just register and hop on to play games with these league rules to get a feel for it. If you guys have any questions for me feel free to ask, I'd be happy to give more advice or answer any TF2 related questions you have :)

Looking forward to another great tournament this year!

thr4sher on

Posts

  • GentlemanneGentlemanne Registered User regular
    edited November 2010
    Not really played TF2 properly or kept up with it for a while, so im curious as to why Natascha was banned, i remember the drama with the sandman, but was Nat buffed or something?

    Gentlemanne on
  • thr4sherthr4sher Registered User regular
    edited November 2010
    Natascha was banned mainly because at last seasons ESEA LAN finals in Dallas every team, when pushed back to their last point, started running 2 Natascha heavies and causing huge stalemates. Just about everyone complained. There was talk of limiting heavies to 1 or at least nataschas to 1 but the powers that be decided it was for the best to just ban Natasha. If valve nerfs it at some point it will likely be allowed back in.

    thr4sher on
  • flatlineflatline Registered User regular
    edited November 2010
    I plan on playing TF2 (and L4D 1/2) but I'm a casual player. I can't sticky or rocket jump to save my life, not fast enough at harassing or double jumping to play a scout, and I am pretty sure I'm not aware enough to play medic in this type of situation. Why no sandman? Why is competitive play limited to 6v6? It's a class-based game, why play only 4 classes? I'll stick to my 16v16 charlie foxtrots...

    flatline on
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  • thr4sherthr4sher Registered User regular
    edited November 2010
    The sandman was originally banned because when it was first released it's stun prevented u from moving, or attacking, even while ubered (hey these rockets don't hurt at all! OUCH, a baseball!). Even after the nerf just about every player in the competitive community wanted to keep it banned.

    As for you not being able to rocket or sticky jump... It takes practice. Last year i had a talk with some of the admins about helping out with some of the planning for tf2 related events at this years pax east. One thing I would really like to do is host some sort of TF2 workshop on the first day (would obviously be 100% free) to help introduce people to competitive style play. Answer questions, give tips, demonstrations, advice from other players... that kinda stuff. If that happens you should sign up for that :)

    thr4sher on
  • yockyock Registered User regular
    edited November 2010
    I also play TF2 in my own little intramural league through Reddit and I think that these ideas are are great. Although I would say we can keep the Pollycount pack for now and then decide later towards the event.

    EDIT: Ask BigRed if you want to help out for this, I would also be interested in working with people to teach them the basics of competitive TF2, I bet we could also do some Highlander matches as actual competitions or for fun in BYOC and in Free Play.

    yock on
  • WuShockWuShock Lawful Good South BrownbackistanRegistered User regular
    edited November 2010
    Having never played competitively before, I have some questions about the experience. First, with regards to playing in the tourney at PAX, do you sign up with a specific team or can you come in as an individual player and get 'drafted' by a team?

    Secondly, I've heard of 'Highlander' matches (9v9 - one of each class firm) but not ever competitive Payload matches. Do these even exist?

    Thank you for the 6v6 primer. It was enlightening.

    WuShock on
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  • Goose!Goose! That's me, honey Show me the way home, honeyRegistered User regular
    edited November 2010
    As a member of the 2nd place team from last year's tournament, I would hope to never see Gravelpit in competitive play again, especially when it totally breaks the continuity of other maps that had been played.

    Goose! on
  • thr4sherthr4sher Registered User regular
    edited November 2010
    @WuShock
    Im sure you will be able to find a team when you get there. I will also be trying to help people find teams on the first day, id like to see a lot of teams having fun!

    As for the highlander games... there is no such thing as compeitive highlander matches, and no competitive match uses payload maps. The only time highlander and/or payload comes into contact with standard 6v6 competitive play is during exhibition matches, like the "pros vs. pubs" games that valve sometimes runs, where they pick a 6 man team of competitive TF2 players (running standard league rules for class restrictions) and put them up against a 9 man highlander team of "pubstars".


    @Goose!
    Most competitive players also tend to go "ugh, gravelpit" whenever we have to play it. All the main leagues keep gpit in the map rotation for a few reasons.

    1.) to change up the gameplay a bit from the standard 5 point push map (also the reason why they run KOTH or sometimes... CTF)

    2.) it forces team to think and play differently. The same type of tactics that work on 5 point cp maps wont work on gpit.

    3.) it gives other teams a chance. Most teams dont practice gpit, and when it comes up in league play a lot of teams are so used to playing 5 point CP that they dont want to practice gpit. If a top ranked team gets lazy and doesnt practice the map, a lesser team who spent time working on it might have a chance for an upset.

    Its really there to just change up the game play style tho. For the longest time it was only 5 point cp, and gipt. Leagues tried to work in other attack/defend maps like gpit, but they were all bad. Some leagues attempted to run a CTF map to change things up, and that failed. KOTH has been pretty well accepted by everyone, and gpit keeps hanging around as well. While it would be on the map list for sure, it would be up to the admins what maps we play.

    thr4sher on
  • Goose!Goose! That's me, honey Show me the way home, honeyRegistered User regular
    edited November 2010
    I would rather have gotten destroyed in the same map we'd been destroying others before than get destroyed in gpit :P

    Goose! on
  • benswimmingbenswimming PennsylvaniaRegistered User regular
    edited November 2010
    haha, I sat right across from Team Snuggie, got used to them all yelling BOOM HEADSHOOT, or something along those lines lol. Hope to hear Team Snuggie tearing up the competition again, as long as that competition isn't me!

    benswimming on
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  • Goose!Goose! That's me, honey Show me the way home, honeyRegistered User regular
    edited November 2010
    I think we were just "Team Poop"

    Damn you, rakuen.

    Goose! on
  • thr4sherthr4sher Registered User regular
    edited November 2010
    Haha all that yelling was actually just one guy on our team. During one of our matches we were all yelling to each other because we couldn't get mumble or ventrilo working and the in game voice chat is laggy, so we just talked loud to communicate that game. As for the one guy yelling it was a mix of "boom headshot" and "airshot"

    thr4sher on
  • GeodGeod swim, swim, hungryRegistered User regular
    edited November 2010
    WuShock wrote: »
    Having never played competitively before, I have some questions about the experience. First, with regards to playing in the tourney at PAX, do you sign up with a specific team or can you come in as an individual player and get 'drafted' by a team?

    Secondly, I've heard of 'Highlander' matches (9v9 - one of each class firm) but not ever competitive Payload matches. Do these even exist?

    Thank you for the 6v6 primer. It was enlightening.

    I went with 2 other friends last year, and we just asked people as we went into the convention the first day if they played TF2 and managed to recruit the other 3 needed :) We did decent too, beat the first 2 teams or so. Then got crushed. But it was still fun!

    Geod on
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