Despite tradition, the most competitive format of TF2 so far is undoubtedly 6v6. For whatever reason, the best players on the best teams have gravitated to this form - helped in no small part by the breakout tournaments of CEVO and the TGL Roughneck Challenge (not to mention the European leagues). There is no denying that there is a competitive advantage to 6v6 - fewer players required means a team will scrim more, honing both player and team skills to a finer level, and an overall more elite team will be result.

This is by far the main bonus in the eyes of the 6v6 players, such as REK's Nemenik: "I hate to say it but its a LOT easier to scrim 6v6 as well - in TFC we'd have to schedule scrims days in advance because it would be 8v8 or 9v9."

The format also allows individual skill to shine out more: "I believe talent is diluted when you involve that many people in a game. If 8v8 was implemented I wouldn't even bother playing anymore, because I really feel this game was meant to be 6v6 and not 8v8." - [20ID]kb

The 6v6 format is more attractive to what ultimately makes a real, competitive eSport - LANs - not only for a better payout, splitting just 6 ways instead of 8, but fielding a team is logistically easier and more likely to be a success. Not to mention, the LAN centers themselves being able to have a larger field with more teams, needing only 12 PCs for each match rather then 16 (which is a bigger difference the bigger the scale).

6v6 can offer a faster game play, with the potential for chain-captures much higher as well as avoiding lengthy, spam-oriented battles that can swing wildly from one side to the next with the random crit-factor. 6v6 also gives a sense of familiarity to the average TF2 players of CS, DoD and CoD backgrounds - although this fact does nothing but galvanize the 8v8 purists.

Of course, not all TFC-descendants, such as Nemenik, are rabidly anti-6v6, and are more concerned with finding a way to bridge the gap between these two camps: "6v6 seems to be in right now, and I can only hope this 8v8 / 6v6 division of tf2 ends soon. When the game first came out, I hated the idea of 6v6. Maybe because

I always played TFC 8v8 or 9v9, but I couldn't quite understand why everyone insisted on 6v6. After having played 6v6 and more than a few 8v8s, I've found that 6v6 leaves no room for error (even though a crit can change the situation a lot) while 8v8s degenerate into too much spam and horrible imbalance when there aren't any class restrictions, like in STA (c4's 8v8)."

In the previously mentioned interview with GotFrag, 20ID's kb expressed similar feelings concerning class restrictions: "I had signed up my demo man team (#class4) in STA and we run 6 demo men 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."


So what's the solution? Opinions are almost as wide ranging as the pros and cons of the two formats themselves - from trying 7v7 to going all-out 9v9 Highlander to trying 8v8 with restrictions. There are the stubborn players, who won't budge from their preferred format - though more often then not, such fans are 8v8 supporters.

But there's hope for compromise: "If there was a league with decent class restrictions for 8v8, I would be interested." says Nemenik. "As far as the rest of REK, I can't say. And now I see there is this shotgun shootout tourney which for some reason has made its rules 5v5 - I don't understand."

Still more think there's no reason why we can't have both - 6v6 and 8v8 ladders - and such sentiments are supported by leagues like TFL, who have plans to open up a 6v6 ladder. CAL itself runs different formats for other games like BF2142, and should CAL TF2 ever get off the ground, some feel there's no reason why they couldn't have a similar system for TF2.

But one must wonder if the idea of splitting the community into 6v and 8v niches won't harm TF2 in the long run. Still, there are some who are optimistic: "My prediction is that the 6v6 leagues will take a huge hit as these teams either move onto another game or something else, but in time the community will be replenished, say 5-6 months, with new blood. [Even if] the new push is 8v8 dominated, I would be down." - scoff[REK].

For a game that is so uniquely new and different from most other things on the competitive gaming circuits, and one with such potential to be both rich in gaming lore and eSports ingenuity, one can only hope leagues like CEVO and the upcoming CAL open up communications with STA, TFL and UGC and that something comes out of those talks that satisfies players on both sides of the divide.

In the end, the one strength TF2 has to weather almost any storm - aside from being a great game - is its popularity; "I think [teams] fail to realize how new this game is and that there are in fact a lot of pubbers - checking out the stats that Steam provides is a [proof enough]." - scoff[REK]