(GotFrag) - Well, last night's ESEA action turned out to be a flop thanks to a faulty ESEA client, which was maybe affected by yesterday's update? Either way, while I have yet to officially confirm this with an ESEA admin (ehFk & notor are mysteriously missing from IRC), my fellow canuck EG.destro has informed me that, as far as he can determine, everything is working fine and that tonight's matchup for them is a go.

All together now: HOOORAYY!!!

In case anyone forgot, this week's map is cp_gravelpit, an unforgiving place of mystery and death which rewards the fleet-of-finger and punishes those fail in the spam dance. It's one of the few maps where we, as fans, will occasionally see our heroic TF2 stars explore some of the other, less used classes of the Team Fortress Pantheon, with Engi, Heavy, Sniper, Spy, and even Pyro often finding their way into the lineup at some point. It is also a map-style that has, so far, remained unique in the rotation, as many of the gpit-clones out there fail to really capture the subtleties of a the 3-point stopwatch form.

Therefore, as a result, it's also a map our teams tonight have played time and time again, and where few (if any) surprises will be found.

UPDATE: So, I try and change things up and give a little love to the little guy, rather than constantly predding for the favourite... and sadly, the little guy ends up being little for a reason :/ EG rolls through HF 2-0, while 20id-[vg] probably won't be happening.

Evil Geniuses (8-1) vs Hostile Faction (5-4)
rk: HF has an opportunity tonight to crawl back into the playoff hunt should they knock off EG, who will only have pheLon tonight out of the pool of soldiers sporting the EG tag. I'm still waiting on word of what HF's lineup will look like, but if they can pull together some of their key fraggers tonight and come out hard and fast, this match could get very interesting.

Neutralizing destro will be the key for HF, who I lauded last round for blooming into a fragging force this season, but I could also see both CyZeR & sycknesS coming up big for EG in whatever roles they end up fulfilling (I've yet to see this lineup on gpit and am not sure who'll end up rolling as the utility). The last few EG matches I DO remember on this map weren't exactly the greatest, which really makes this choice a tough one for me.

UPDATE: It looks like HF will have their main roster for tonight (see below), which is actually going to make me change my prediction in their favour - the two names that pop out in particular to me are Phaser & cringe, who (depending of course on who EG's ringer is) I think could have a very big night tonight if they can keep St.Patty up and win the spam battle.

EG [ 1 : 2 ] HF





20ID (8-1) vs Vicious-Gaming TF2 (6-3)
rk: I've still yet to confirm if this match will go down tonight, but I can only echo what I said last round - if [vg] wants to secure a spot in the playoffs and show that they're for real, these Week 5 matches are the ones to do it on. There's been talk about the fact that 20ID hasn't looked like the super-juggernaut lately, which, coupled with the fact that at the time of this writing they also weren't online and scrimming, makes me wonder if they're going through the mid-season lulls.

That being said, there's still wayyy too much fragging power on that roster for me to legitimately pick [vg] - Seagull & Hong are as dynamic a duo as there is, and they'll be the force tonight which will carry 20ID to victory.

20ID [ 2 : 0 ] [vg]

Loaded (6-3) vs point and click (2-6)
rk: This match is actually going tomorrow night, but I figured I'd throw everything into the same news post. pac had a heck of a showing in their last match against 20ID, and very obviously suffered from sequel dropping mid-match (no offense to eckm, who had to come in cold), but whether or not this is the match for them to bounce back, I can't really say. Loaded has some quality performances on cp_gravelpit under their belt - most recently the 2-0 sweep of EG in the CEVO OCZ Finals - and memories of more than a few stellar performances by Jaeger & SoLIDSnaKE as they tromped through the B site is more than enough to lean me in Loaded's favour.

Loaded [ 2 : 0 ] pac.