#2 - eMazing Gaming - (13-3)



Eligible roster, as listed by CEVO:
Evan "GluE" A
Mithun "animeman" Balachandran
Jason "ashenhaste" Pittman
Mike "tarheels" Grant
Hong "Electricity" Cheung
Clint "saber07" Appleseth
Bryan "bLackstar" Johnson
Daniel "carnage" Sturdivant
Brad "Doze" Herrlinger
Kyle "relic" Mims

Mithun "animeman" Balachandran's answers to rk's questions:

1. What have you been doing in the down time between the end of the season and now? What have you been doing to prepare for the playoffs?
Well after the cgs playoffs ended, most of us were pretty burnt out on tf2, plus we had a few members who decided to leave so we had to do some recruiting. The cevo season and playoffs seem to be too drawn out for us to get motivated to play for ram. We played 2 games a week in cevo and had to play for 8 or 9 weeks just to get to the playoffs. I mean, I could understand that if it were for cash prizes, but honestly I really dont think any of the clans care about ram, maybe the cevo-a teams who get ddr2 ram, I think i am the only person on my team who could even use the dd3 ram, and its sub-par to the dd3 ram i already have. This cevo season has been pretty crappy, much like last cevo season.

2. Has it been tough to get motivated for these playoffs? Do you feel like the team is ready to go?
I don't think anyone is motivated to play these playoffs. The cgs is probably going to be the last major tournament for tf2 realistically, I don't see any other league stepping in and offering up what cgs did for online play. I can only hope tf2 has another decent lan coming up in the future, but with the instability of teams, and other games coming out and taking some wind out of the tf2 community it remains to be seen. I think our team is always ready to go, practice or not.

3. How well do you think you guys will do?
I cant really comment on how I think we will do, I dont think any of us are going to take these coming playoffs seriously. Look for us to run a pyro and spy, possibly an engineer on every map. I think these playoffs we are playing to have fun, not necessarily to win.

4. Any shoutouts? Comments? Compliments on rk's haircut?
Shoutouts to bradford, team pandemic, and all the negros that were at nvision and partied with us. My only comment is that cevo needs to do pay to play next season or tf2 is done, and rk needs to get his wig chopped.

Preseason Prediction:
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.

Playoff Prediction:
Obviously, with the recent changes we all know about, some of the names on that roster won't be showing come match time - but they are still technically eligble. Either way, as you can see below, the combination of Mithun's words & my own personal questions about the team lead me to believe that we will not see an eMg-Pandemic rematch come the Grand Finals on December 18th. I think an Upper Bracket Finals clash is a likely possibility, but after that loss, eMg will have had enough and simply play out their final match and do away with these seemingly-pointless playoffs. From the tone of his comments, anime's seems to have his eyes on what's coming next - be it the next CEVO season or a future LAN - with the hopes that a cash prize will be there waiting for his squad, and until that happens, eMg will play this game for the simple pleasure of it.

Predicted placing: 3rd