North America - The inaugural CEVO TF2 season has finally wound its way to playoff time, though the road was anything but smooth. In the Pro ladder, it seemed like every new map brought with it the news of another team dropping out, as the once-strong field of 14 teams withered away to just 7. In retrospect, between the call of CoD4, the debate over class restrictions/format and the growing frustration over crits, the decline of the league seemed almost unavoidable. In fact, if not for the success of the Amateur ladder, the death of CEVO TF2 would almost be a foregone conclusion.

The Amateur ladder, which started out with 22 teams, had its own share of troubles, but the advantage of a week-by-week schedule helped mitigate the free-fall in team numbers. Combined with the ultra-competitive run towards the end of the season, where every win was crucial to the eventual 8 playoff-bound teams, the season overall was much more successful then CEVO-P and bodes well for the combination of the two divisions next season.

In the end, what really gives hope for a strong, successful Season 2 is the step taken by both the CEVO admins and the teams themselves to eliminate crits, which has proven to be the ultimate kill-factor for competitive teams. In the face of such a widly successful TF2 scene in Europe - a crit-free community - the teams took it upon themselves to play crit-free, and they were eventually supported by a declaration by CEVO (not to mention the CVAR option by Valve).

The future looks sunny for CEVO as the playoffs take front and centre.

CEVO-P Preview is on page 2 and page 3, while CEVO-A Preview is on page 4. For Merlino's CEVO-A Round 1 Preds, click here, and for rk's CEVO-P Round 1 Preds, click here.