I recently had a chance to talk with Bryan "kb" Curtin after their first-place finish in the TGL Roughneck Challenge and ask him about the current CEVO Professional season and some various other issues on the minds of many in the community right now.

Though Team Fortress 2 is a relatively new game, how do you think the competitive community is growing?

The competitive community isn't growing in the eyes of the teams that play 6v6. It actually has diminished quite a bit since the first CEVO tournament. I think pangu talked about it in his interview that there isn't a definite rule set on how the game should be played. That meaning should it be 6v6 or 8v8? It all comes down to personal preference. I have played in a few 8v8 matches and it has been fun, but those leagues don't even have a class restriction set and is even more of a spam fest. So it really comes down to all the leagues coming together and making one unified rule set. I really wish the 8v8 teams would play in the 6v6 leagues. The amount of teams in CEVO would double if not triple if some of the 8v8 teams would come over.

Most gamers now want to attend lans and prove there skills in a real life setting and remove all the doubts or suspicions of other players about their true abilities. I just would find it extremely hard for a venue to hold 8v8 tournaments. I know BF was a big 8v8 game and from my memory I don't remember hearing about any big lans that were a 8v8 setting. Plus how hard would it be to get 8 people to attend a lan? I mean its hard enough to get 5 or 6 to attend.

At a high competitive level the game isn't growing, which is really sad to see. This game has so much potential to be a very popular competitive game, but Valve didn't really add any new features after the beta and I think really made some people lose interest. I mean they didn't even release any new maps or unlock any cool features or achievements or anything for that matter.

What do you think the game needs, if anything, to become even stronger competitively?

First off, there needs to be a standard rule set that everyone could agree on or come close to agreeing on. I hear a lot of people talking about a pro-mod, which would be really nice. Then comes the question of crits being turned on or off? You are going to get all kinds of different views on this situation. I really can't give you a definite answer. Also, I believe if the sniper was as useful as it used to be the game would be much better off.

I think the biggest problem is people arguing between 8v8 or 6v6. If the leagues ran a consistent setup the game would grow or at least the teams playing 8v8 or 6v6 would finally all have one place to play. It comes down to the rules set forth by the leagues on what type of setup 6v6 or 8v8 and what type of class restrictions. If there was more of a consistent rule set among the leagues, I believe we would still have a lot of the teams that have left for COD4 or went back to CS:S.

As for the class restrictions TGL and CEVO, from my knowledge are the only leagues placing a class restriction. I had signed up my demoman team (#class4) in STA and we run 6 demoman and 2 medics. Now you tell me whether or not that is ridiculous? I mean the team we played last week quit half ways through the match because they couldn't even get out of their spawn on dustbowl. I think 8 people is a little too much for the maps that Valve had created and even most custom maps. I truly believe this game was meant to be played 6v6, more than that it becomes a huge spam fest with people dying all over the place and makes the game a lot easier for the team defending.

Even though it's still early in the season, what teams are looking like they could win the Grand Finals?

First off, we have to give it up to The Doctors as they are the reigning CEVO Champs and are the champs until someone knocks them off. They still have the same core set of players that won it for them the first time around and with the addition of pangu, it makes them even stronger. It's really tough not to consider them the top team in TF2 with their lineup.

Another team is The Experiment with their 3rd place finish in the CEVO tournament and runner-up in the TGL Roughneck Tournament. However, they did lose pangu so that is tough as he is a good player and is going to be interesting to see who's going to fill his shoes. But with the addition of oPlaiD it makes them even more dangerous. Expect them to be placing in the money if not taking it all for Season 1.

I can't leave out my own team [20ID], but I am not going into detail why because it will only be biased. However, we still have the same lineup that won the TGL Roughneck tourney for us and we still feel we have something to prove.

Look out for some upsets though. There are going to be quite a few this season........