CEVO Articles

Article by Sam Oplaid Lingle

One week ago the CEVO Sennheiser Open culminated in a clash between Team Fortress 2 titans, pitting the mighty Pandemic, champion of every North American TF2 event in which have they competed, against one of their perennial challengers, Devastation. With six Sennheiser PC 350 Gaming Headsets on the line and numerous other headsets awarded to the top four finishers, the end was intense, with Pandemic reasserting their dominance. The Sennheiser Open, though, was not just another tournament for TF2 – it served as herald of a new era of competition for the North American scene.

Since the end of CEVO Season One back in early April, the North American TF2 scene has trudged through a dearth of high level competition. A few teams, like Devastation, managed to keep busy in the myriad of amateur leagues while others, such as Pandemic, turned across the pond to Europe to get their competitive fix.

When CEVO announced the Sennheiser Open in early June, with matches starting on July 10th, it reunited a scene that had largely remained dormant for months before. With CEVO Season 2 and the CGS Pro Am now on the horizon, the Open served as a welcome reintroduction to the world of TF2 eSports, answering some important questions for the community.

Would Pandemic continue to dominate the field, or could challengers like Eximius and Devastation finally overcome the juggernaut? Would new blood finally emerge from the myriad of teams blossoming from the ranks of ? Who will establish themselves heading into the main tournament season?

Pandemic certainly answered any questions surrounding them and their new lineup, obliterating the competition on their way to an almost anti-climactic victory over rivals Devastation in the grand final. Over the course of the tournament, the perennial champions posted an impressive 33:2 Rounds For to Rounds Against ratio, only dropping one round in the group stage and marching through bracket play untouched until a slight misstep in the final – a far cry from the runner ups 33:22 mark.

Despite Pandemic’s near invulnerability, the tournament proved exciting right from the get go, starting in the opening bracket stage when Experiment, Devastation, and Eximius faced a battle where only one of them would survive. Despite falling to Experiment early in the bracket, Devastation would fight back and take their revenge in an exciting cp_gravelpit match that ran down to the final seconds, eliminating an Experiment with a clutch finish.

Ten teams advanced to the final bracket, and the action continued. Pandemic stormed through their half of the table, but a fated meeting with their biggest rival Eximius was not to be as they proved to be off form, falling to Xensity 5-3 on cp_badlands before suffering an even greater upset at the hands of TF2’s strongest up and comers, ferveNt (now Awakening), in the lower bracket on cp_gravelpit.

While Devastation eventually advanced to the finals, like Eximius they found themselves under siege by a plethora of surprising faces.

In their first game, Awakening, a team featuring a list of stars largely developed since the end of TF2’s last big competition, brought them to the brink of destruction by taking a 4-2 lead on cp_badlands before succumbing to their inexperience and emotion against the more seasoned Devastation. Next up, a Sway Gaming squad fielding a roster merged from two mid tier teams showed the vets they can’t on their old laurels any longer with a  2-1 upset win on cp_gravelpit.

Again in the lower bracket, Devastation managed to take revenge on their ousters, passing through Xensity before meeting Sway and posting a 5-3 win on cp_granary. As mentioned earlier, their efforts against Pandemic would seem pitiful, but after a herculean battle to make it that spot it’s not surprising they’d be emotionally drained against TF2’s unstoppable force.

Teams like Awakening, Sway Gaming, and Xensity showcased some of the new – or improved – talent in TF2, but they also showed their inexperience. The veteran Devastation team managed to pull out the wins through grit, determination, and teamwork. Awakening and Sway will need to learn from that to replicate their wins in the upcoming leagues.

While the race for first place may have seemed like a foregone conclusion in retrospect, that didn’t mean the tournament was without surprises. In fact, the frequency of upsets and off the wall results shocked a community that expected the powerhouses of past years – Pandemic, Eximius, and Devastation, to name a few – to continue their stranglehold on the upper echelon of TF2.

Leading in to the tournament, the theme was questions as the competition TF2 world laid largely dormant for months since the end of CEVO Season One. The Sennheiser Open, though, certainly answered the most important one: the TF2 community is still alive and kickin’. Whether Pandemic can be beat or the other juggernauts of old can shake off their rust will become questions for CEVO Season 2 and the CGS Pro-Am, but one thing is sure. Whatever happens, it’s going to be exciting!

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 11th, 2008 at 9:11 pm and is filed under Coverage Central. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.