(GotFrag) - The Preseason is a thing of the past, and the Sennheiser Open is nothing but a distant memory as the start of the CEVO TF2 Season 2 finally arrives. 16 teams have been hand-picked to duke it out in an 8-week season with two matches per week, before moving on to playoffs and glory (or not) later this fall. Quickly now is a rundown of all your favourite squads - who they are, how they'll do, and what their chances of not dieing are (in some cases, don't hold your breath).


Pandemic
http://www.teampandemic.net // #pandemic
Adam "Reptile" Dopko
Samuel "oPlaiD" Lingle
Ryan "scknsS" Mitchell
Nick "TheFragile" Leon
Dan "REP" Nunez
Paul "newby" Turner
Alex "alex" Anthone
Eric "hubris" Dean

Without a doubt, the favourites to win it all yet again. Pandemic comes into Season 2 in total control of the North American TF2 scene, firmly entrenched in their #1 spot. Having won pretty much everything up till now, there's really no end in sight to this pain-train - and no signs of the team getting bored with winning, either. Anything less than 1st place will be a setback for these guys - actually, anything less than 1st with a perfect record will be a shock, the way things look now.

Eximius Sports
http://www.teameximius.com/ // #exsports

Evan "glue" A
Mithun "animeman" Balachandran
Jason "ashenhaste" Pittman
Hong "Electricity" Cheung
Clint "saber" Appleseth
Bryan "bLackstar" Johnson
Daniel "carnage" Sturdivant
Brad "Doze" Herrlinger

If there's any team that has the slightest glimmer of a chance to take down the Pandemic crew, it's Eximius. They're the only team in recent history that's even taken a map off Pandemic - a 5-0 cp_granary win at GeForce LAN, with pokey ringing as demo. Exi has undergone a bit of a facelift recently, reuniting Jason "ashenhaste" Pittman & Bryan "bLackstar" Johnson, who at one time were one of the best soldier duo's around, as well as aquiring Evan "glue" A from Devastation, who is also one of the top medics in the game today (albeit one risky bugger, lol). These moves seem like nothing short of genius for the Eximius squad and might prove to be that little extra something they need to finally knock off Pandemic.. but we'll just have to wait and see.

Devastation
http://www.team-dev.com // #devastation

Rene "reen" Escobar
Brad "pure" Ross
Brenden "pokey" Johnson
Victoria "Apoc" H
Tony "pheLoN" DiDomenico
M "rem" Barry
John "punisher" Ecks
Paul "cyzer" Sandhu

To say the loss of glue hurt Dev is a bit of understatement, not to mention somewhat surprising. A stalwart Devastation member from all the way back to their Saget In Tights days, glue was no doubt a tough piece to replace from that lineup, if someone like that can ever be fully replaced. Yet, the team has moved on, and the Devastation roster now sports the new name of Rene "reen" Escobar, who was recently linked to the revamped Experiment before leaving. Dev's road to a 2nd place finish in the Sennheiser Open was a long one, narrowly avoiding elimination a few times before kicking it into gear and beating out the rest of the Lower Bracket. If that tournament taught me anything, it was not to bet against Dev, but their road doesn't look any easier this season with Pandemic still as strong as ever and Eximius stealing their key player. I still see them as a top team, but there are a lot of hungry clans just below them ready to take their place.