couple thoughts about IM s22

First off, this blog will be mostly dedicated to ESEA open s22, but there will be bits of other NA gossip... like right now.

Secondly, because of the nature of this blog I'm probably going to hurt people's feelings every time I post.  And yes, I am worse than many of you at tf2 but that doesn't make it not true.  Cry about it.

Saam and Rikachu, the two least reliable (to put it nicely) players from dog1 s21, are reforming the team.  Saam says they are aiming for top IM, which is going to require some damn good offseason pickups.  Ranga, Liko and Cookiejake carried the shit out of them last season (though not enough).  Rikachu in particular is streaky, performing worse than expected in the grand finals where they got smoked by el classico/netflix and chill yourself.  So far they might have picked up Knuckles, who despite Whymeo sucking his dick all season wasn't even good enough with Kapoww's help to carry relatively experienced mid open players into playoffs.  I'd be glad for them to prove me wrong but unless IM is particularly weak or they pick up 1-2 invite players to carry them, I don't see them in the top 4.

Pseudo superteam dog2, featuring Cookiejake from dog1, ex and blues from Young Hunters SocialClub, rolling from Snailed It, Froot from Slammin Salmon and Mae from Chubby Ducks, looks much stronger than the remaining dog1 if they end up in IM but they are confirmed for Invite.

Durex looks on the verge of death, with only 3 players confirmed for s22.  IIRC they only won like 2-3 games (other than ffw) last season anyway so maybe it's for the best.  Little Chubby Ducks (now Six Guys Off) are also on the rebuild, with Mae gone and Pie_Hero looking for an invite team.

The Blanc Esports rebuild, so far including Radeon, Meus, SpaceCadetHX, and Displace, should be good if they round off their roster.

Of the open moveups, Baddies will probably have the roughest time considering their 2 best players left.  Depends who they pickup. Baddies are dead now.

Yin Yang Yompies roster taken over by diexxxtracrispy.

Decent Dudes and team name tbd not looking promising for next season, might be dead.

Pocket soldier Ry is a solid pickup for Hot Dads.

Wood Pig Black roster taken over by saam's new team

Obvious playoff contenders from last season in IM, assuming they remain intact, are Ravioliii Ravioliii, Slammin Salmon, Snailed It, june's newly sponsored team LuX Empyrean (formerly Sparkle Gang), and Don't Slip (who picked up dmlord pocket Marmaloo in the offseason).  Royal E-Sports (formerly SYOPS)  died.  My guess would be maybe 4 of those stay at a playoff level for s22 (others will either break up or have a weaker roster).  Personally I like Don't Slip's roster a lot.



I likely won't be blogging much more about IM, it's only really relevant here because of the open moveup teams.

Shoutout to all the barely mid open players with LFT IM threads, keep deluding yourselves.