Last week’s matches on Granary set the stage for the rest of the season here in 1B – with competitive matches all around, great shoutcasts, and AI SourceTV relays for almost every game, it has been demonstrated that TWL has really put together one hell of a league.

This week, we play Follower – an incredibly open map that heavily favors scouts and snipers. A hot sniper could easily carry his or her team to several rounds here, if not a win. As such I’ll be focusing a little bit more on the matchups between the utility players.

Corrections from last week: TWL actually plays to 6 – woops. And Drone is the leader of Hostile Faction, not St. Patrick.

Hostile Faction vs. Knights of Goku
Can’t predict this one, but I’m looking forward to another incredibly evenly-matched game. I think HF gave a lot of people a loud wakeup call with their win over Strickland Propane, proving that they’re definitely a top contender in the division.

Lightning Bolt vs. Team Caboose
This game should be more exciting than LB’s match last week – Caboose is my dark horse to win TWL-I, or to at least come close to it. TLR and Clockwork are great, but like I mentioned before, Follower is all about your scouts – and LB has the definite advantage there. Stamjallyfish and Lopert are arguably the best scout pair at the TWL-I/ESEA-O/CEVO-F level, and both are great utility players as well. With Sherr and Sureshot backing them up with solid uber pushes, LB should have this one. 6-3 Lightning Bolt

UPDATE: TGBF will be casting the Lightning Bolt vs. Team Caboose match on Thursday at 9:30 EST.  Watch it at www.tgbf.tv!

Dejavu vs. Strickland Propane
Dejavu gave me a bit of a slap in the face with their victory over the Businessmen, when I predicted that they were overmatched – so good job! They’ll be riding high after that victory, and they’ll need all the confidence they can get against a strong Strickland squad. These teams match up almost identically in terms of the heavy classes – but Dejavu has `yay! and Oshnosh, both of whom are excellent snipers, and that should definitely tilt the fights in their favor. As long as DJV’s sniper stays hot and keeps getting picks, I can see them going 2-0 here. 6-4 Dejavu

pointandclick vs. Expertise
Expertise has lost both their starting demoman, Zeilo, and their star scout, KillZ – though even with those two, I don’t really think they’d have much of a chance against the monstrous force that is pac. Sequel and Chupa are both incredibly skilled, slardel is a fantastic sniper, and waar is just an all-around intelligent and experienced player – pac has the advantage in pretty much every department. I hate to say it, but I think Expertise might be in for a long and unpleasant season here in TWL-I. 6-0 pointandclick

Businessmen vs. Stackers Union
The Businessmen didn’t quite live up to the hype their roster was generating in their 3-4 loss to Dejavu, but I’m not entirely sure how seriously they’re taking this league (probably not at all). Much like the Ringers team that Animeman assembled for the GotFrag Invitational back in the day, the Businessmen are relying purely on individual skill and deathmatch ability – and I think it’ll work here against a newer team in the Stackers. Granted, I said the exact same thing last week, so, Jack, feel free to ridicule me on Steam when you win. Whizzlur and YMR will need to have pretty huge games if they want to even up their record this week. 6-4 Businessmen

Good luck everybody!