emir

As we all know, Team Fortress 2 has been free-to-play for over a month now. One way or another, we've all been affected by the F2P update, which has seen boatloads of new players frequenting and filling up our beloved Starhub E-Club servers. Prior to the update, the public servers would only almost fill up at peak hours; now, it's not uncommon to see these same servers already packed in the late afternoon. Starhub E-Club have even had to provide more servers to meet the increasing demand. So yeah, it's no secret that TF2's popularity rocketed with the F2P update. With all the hype and publicity surrounding TF2 Masters, we're hoping that more pubbers, including new F2P players, will gain an interest in the competitive side of the game, and join our community. To help them ease into competitive TF2, I'm proud to present: While this guide is mainly targeted at new players who've never dabbled in the competitive scene before, some of the information is also relevant to players relatively fresh in the PUG scene. Do give it a look! If you've got any friends who are interested in going competitive, and can't be bothered to explain everything to them, just link them to the guide! Heck, just link everyone you know to this guide, and get them to join our community! If you've got any questions about the competitive scene that you'd like to ask, feel free to post in our General Queries thread. It's a thread specially made for newbies to raise their queries, do don't be shy!

i think you mean, what the author (Sirlin) means.

no questions yet though lol

here's my problem with the article: where do we draw the line between "being a scrub" and doing things for game balance? things like class limits, weapon bans, etc. is it still a scrub mentality when leagues ban supposedly overpowered weapons and limit strong classes like demoman to 1?

better yet, we need to publicise asiafortress. a link to this guide will be put on the front page, so (hopefully) whoever comes here can easily see this guide. as an individual player, what you can do is to send your friends who are interested this way. the least you could do is also to put asiafortress.com in your ign

Match Fixtures for Monday, 8th August Match Fixtures for Monday, 8th August Cataclysmic vs Nefarious cp_coldfront: Cataclysmic 2 - 2 Nefarious cp_granary: Cataclysmic 2 - 4 Nefarious Nefarious Wins Replays of the streamed match can be found at the following link: http://www.twitch.tv/gaming420tv/videos Asiafortress is not an official medium for the TF2 Masters Tournament; we merely provide coverage and publicity Any queries you might have regarding the tournament should not be posted in our forums as we're in no position to address any of them. Instead, you should write a ticket over at support.e-clubmalaysia.com.

yet i was the one who posted it up

Nefarious (NFR): A team dating back to 2009, NFR, led by Nata, is the team to beat. Their dedication to constantly scrimming with a full lineup has paid off, as this team has forged some really solid teamwork; coupled with great deathmatch skills, NFR look to be tournament favourites this time. Their roster features some relatively new players like ATX and k1infran, who've picked up the game at an impressive speed to be among the best at their class. Between their insane jumper Xe and meatshotting machine LALJ, opposing teams will have one hell of a time trying to keep their medic alive. Their weakness, however, seems to be player availability, as seen in their Mercs Cup 2 match against dizziness, which they played and lost possibly due to the heavily altered lineup. Cataclysmic (#cataclysmic): Yet another old team, Cataclysmic was most active in 2009 and have since disbanded and reformed more times than Bolts drops uber. For the TF2 Masters tournament, they appear to have reformed with a slightly different lineup, picking up bigfoot, a solid soldier/demo player who won Asiafortress' first Ultiduo tournament. Individually, Cataclysmic's players are all very talented and flexible, doing well at almost every class; how they fare as a team with this new lineup, however, is yet to be known. Of special mention is Bran's sniping; be sure to spectate him for some sick headshots. Insider information also tells us that some of their players' bedtimes tend to get in the way of scrims. How far they go in this tournament will surely depend on how much playtime they put into practice scrims with a full lineup. Fifth Company (-V- Co.): After successfully emerging as WCG 2009 TF2 Champions, Fifth Company became inactive as a clan, with many of their players having to deal with "real life" and National Service. Nonetheless, they're back for TF2 Masters, and are training hard to regain their past glory. Time has taken its toll on their deathmatch ability and positioning, but their teamwork has remained telepathic even after a 3 year break. Noteworthy players are Malice, who's an excellent pocket soldier, and Fei101, their really smart medic who's got some great dodging moves and surprisingly accurate needles. Fifth Company will have to put in a lot of work though, if they want to do well in this tournament. Will they reclaim their place as Kings of Southeast Asian TF2? Masterful (m.): Masterful is, in some ways, the complete antithesis to Fifth Company. Individually, their players have great deathmatch ability (unsurprisingly, as most of them eat, drink and sleep in MGE) but together, they tend to falter against stronger teams due to their poor communication and coordination. (For a comprehensive list of Masterful's flaws, listen to Yukari's casting of the Mercs Cup 2 match between Masterful and Choice on Youtube.) Scout partners Emir and Nasty make for a strong pair, but they often play too independently of their combo to be fully effective. Summer's pipes make for some high damage output, but his Leeroy Jenkins style of play, though entertaining, tends to limit his effectiveness. This team will really have to get their act together and work as a team to live up to their fullest potential. Missing in Action (MiA`): A team consisting of relatively new players spread across the region, MiA used to be led by airshotnic before he quit TF2 to play basketball to no end. Nonetheless, showing determination that's scarce in our community, the team refused to disband and are back with a moniker dedicated to their ex-leader, seeking to make a name for themselves. Although inexperienced, some of their players show significant potential; Yooog, for one, has remarkably good aim and fragging power as a scout. Having recently picked up Kig as their medic, it may take MiA awhile to get used to each other and iron out their teamwork. Azf, having played with NFR, has a lot to teach this team, and in particular his fellow soldier Halu, who's a bit lacking in the firepower department. MiA will have to play intelligently and make the most of any advantage they have in order to do well in this tournament. Play and Enjoy (pAe.): This team's lineup is almost entirely comprised of experienced players who've been playing competitively for a significant amount of time. Ripple and Astatine are both reputable soldier players, having been around since 2008. Their demo, Shuggy, has been out of action for some time; only time will tell if he's still got the moves that made him a great demo back in the day. This team will also see Cobalt and Haruhi reunited, both having played scout/soldier for XGN when it won Div 2 of AFL Season 3. Their familiarity with each other's style of play may just be what pAe needs to pull them through this tournament. All in all, this team looks rather promising, but everyone knows great individual ability does not necessarily create a great team. Seeing as to how they're a team cobbled together solely for TF2 Masters, pAe will definitely need to put some time into playing several practice scrims so that they may get used to each other. Derp Crew (ĐC): We're gonna be honest here, none of us at Asiafortress have ever seen any of the players in Derp Crew playing in any of the servers. As such, there's really nothing we can say about this team and their players. We'll just have to wait and see how they do. Spanish Sausages (ÉL): Again, this team's players have never set foot in a PUG, and we've hardly seen them in public servers. Nothing to comment about this team. Extreme Revolution (ExR²): Not much is known about this team, save for the fact that many of their players seem to be pub players who've put in a small amount of time into competitive TF2. Antacid plays a decent scout in PUGs, although he's been inactive for awhile. Sud and Kungfu_Ark are both pubstars in their own right, but time will tell if their pub skills will help in their matches. FIR supposedly plays Medic for a European team, but we'll let you guys be the judge of his ability. Come to think of it, no one has ever seen them scrim together as a team; we'll definitely have to wait and see what this team has in store for us. TROLLS: Yet another team cobbled together for the Masters Tournament, TROLLS seems to be entirely comprised of pub players. We're in no position to speak of their ability, since we've never seen them in-game before, so we'll let their matches speak for themselves.

everytime we play against nfr benny: lololol nata 2ez

oh shit- HIDE YO KIDS HIDE YO WIFE BRIGHT'S COMING BACK

who won

[align=center]Match Fixtures for Sunday, 7th August Replays of the streamed match between pAe and nfr can be found at the following link: http://www.twitch.tv/gaming420tv/videos[/align] Spanish Sausages vs Missing in Action cp_badlands: Spanish Sausages 0 - 5 Missing in Action koth_viaduct: Spanish Sausages 0 - 4 Missing in Action Missing in Action Wins PlayAndEnjoy vs Nefarious cp_coldfront: PlayAndEnjoy 0 - 5 Nefarious cp_badlands: PlayAndEnjoy 0 - 5 Nefarious Nefarious Wins Fifth Company vs TROLLS cp_badlands: Fifth Company 5 - 0 TROLLS koth_viaduct: Fifth Company 4 - 0 TROLLS Fifth Company Wins In other news, match threads for Rounds 3 and 4 have been created! Team captains, please head over to the TF2 Masters Sub-forum to arrange your matches for the next 2 rounds. Matches are to be played by Sunday, 14th August. Do note that uncompleted matches will have a "!" icon beside the match thread. Match and shoutcast recordings of some of the previous matches in Rounds 1 and 2 are now available on Youtube! Some great matches to watch there, particularly the match between pAe and MiA, so do visit the Asiafortress Youtube Channel and check them out! Asiafortress is not an official medium for the TF2 Masters Tournament; we merely provide coverage and publicity Any queries you might have regarding the tournament should not be posted in our forums as we're in no position to address any of them. Instead, you should write a ticket over at support.e-clubmalaysia.com.

credit to benny too, for doing part of the writeups

It'd be greatly appreciated if someone could translate the following text into Chinese, Korean and Japanese: Notifications will be sent out whenever there is a pickup game starting in any of the Asiafortress servers (either in HK or SG). You may also advertise pugs starting in other servers here (e.g. Garena, BFX etc.) Essential rule (ONLY APPLIES TO ASIAFORTRESS SERVERS): Once 6 people are on each team, players will race to spec. Last 2 players to join Spectator become a Medic captain and play medic for the duration of the pug. For more information on pickup gameplay and etiquette, visit the Guide to Pugging linked below.

Still in need of Korean & Japanese Translations! If anyone knows any koreans, please help ask them!

still a 5 point win diff, since all 5-0

Teams are requested to keep their details up to date. If your team has disbanded or gone inactive, please remove your post from this thread. Also, there's no Div 3 so please stop trying to be funny.

fuck that hawaiian > everything

come back bright

http://i.imgur.com/p7HAL.jpg[/img] If you're kinda new to our community, you probably won't know who's who in the competitive scene. As such, you might be wondering who to watch out for during this TF2 Masters tournament, and which matches you should spectate. To help the spectators learn more about the teams and players in this tournament, we've published short writeups about every team in this thread. Go check it out, and feel free to share your thoughts in the thread! Asiafortress is not an official medium for the TF2 Masters Tournament; we merely provide coverage and publicity Any queries you might have regarding the tournament should not be posted in our forums as we're in no position to address any of them. Instead, you should write a ticket over at support.e-clubmalaysia.com.

wow where's this team from??

slightly different rules for this tournament i guess.

From the rules on match scoring: MIRRORED CP MAPS The following scoring method will be used for mirrored cp maps. •First team to reach 5 points win difference or until the 30 minute time limit is reached. KoTH Maps The following scoring method will be used for king of the hill maps (koth_viaduct). • First team to reach 4 points. No time limit.

agreed, very intense game

The TF2 Masters Tournament, organised by E-Club and e-Sports Association Singapore, officially starts this weekend! Matches are expected to run from now all the way till September, culminating in the Grand Finals LAN event at The Games Xpo 2011, Singapore (TGX'11). Visit the official tournament website to see the match schedules, current standings and tournament progress. Match threads have been created to facilitate the arranging of matches between teams, so all team captains are advised to regularly check the match threads in this forum. Asiafortress will be providing comprehensive coverage of the matches and teams in this tournament, so do check our page regularly for the latest updates, news and scores. You can also follow the tournament through our Facebook page or on Twitter. We'd like to reiterate, however, that Asiafortress is not an official medium for the TF2 Masters Tournament; as such, any queries you might have regarding the tournament should not be posted in our forums as we're in no position to address any of them. Instead, you should write a ticket over at support.e-clubmalaysia.com. (You can check the progress of your query ticket here.) Here's wishing all the teams participating in the tournament the best of luck! We'd really love to C U @ LAN!