December | 2017 | joekiller

I participated in a competitive Team Fortress 2 tournament, aka an e-sports competitive video games tournament. My journey took place over eight weeks with a scramble weekend to sign up plus seven weeks of the regular season. We did not make the post season. It was a journey in pan play beyond even what the great degroot_keep offers. With over 10,000 kills on my Golden Frying Pan this tournament meant I got to test my mantle of pan with champions.

The journey nearly was halted before I could even begin. My awareness of this tournament was brought forth around the 20th of October when an update came through saying, “Added Ready Stead Pan Season 3 tournament medals”.

TF2 Update Released

I was intrigued and googled the first image I saw was:

Oh no! Panicked, I read more and instantly was relieved!

After some hesitation of entering such a tournament I jumped into the forums and laid it all out to find a team. With my Golden Frying Pan there was no way I was missing out. The tournament was calling.

With just over 24 hours until the deadline and no one replying to my post, I hit the Discord chat and found my team. We were formed in the last seconds. A ragtag bunch looking for glory in the Fortress world.

The team was named “we exist guys“, team number 648. Literally the last team made. We existed only in the last moments before sign ups finished. Our team was completely formed in the extension of the signups.

Only time would tell how my newly found comrades and I would fare. Our roster was a colorful bunch: Team Captains: Diamond and “Carl, Good to see you” followed by spacy, Axie, Dell Conaghr RSP???, red box, joekiller (myself), – VH – SnakeFawdz, and Burnt Venom.

The first week was tense and fun. King of the Hill was the game mode. Matches were played until a side reached three wins. To win a team needed to hold the capture point, the hill, for three minutes. Lacking any offensive projectile weapons, the game played out curiously compared to other first person shooter environments. With five player classes allowed there was a variance on speed and health. Players took anywhere from three to six hits to take down and all combat was melee frying pans only. There were no lucky critical hits; only loud frying pan clanging engagements. Here you could stare down an opponent for seconds beckoning each other in awkward strafing dances trying to just bring the other’s hit box within one’s own range. Overwhelming numbers were the name of the game. With a frenzied start the game quickly gave way to one side but with health slow to get to people had to leave the point leaving opportunity for lesser numbered engagements, 1 on 1, 2 on 2, etc.

Capture

In the end our team was outmatched once however all the others, despite the final scores, were closely contested. We played 5 of the 7 matches ending up with a record of 3 – 4, 2 – 3 in matches plus one win and loss from forfeit, but it felt closer to 5-2. We vanquished what turned out to be the bottom two teams and were squashed by The Knights of Nye in a shocking 6 minutes and 6 seconds. Other matches took between 18 to 30 minutes. We held our own against the mid tier teams, even the Knights of Nye whom made the playoffs. The team improved over time and had fun.

RED_Tournament_Medal_-_Ready_Steady_Pan

But of course this was journey for championing the Golden Pan. How was it? For three of five matches I was in the top. Ending the season I had 155 kills, 43 assists,106 deaths, and put out a total of 35,189 damage (about 281 scouts). The road was hard but the Golden Pan usually rang more than any other each match. With a solid 2.06 Kill and Assists per death ratio the pan performed well. It was a great journey and in the end everyone will get a Tournament Medal. GG’s everyone.

Stats:

	Kills	Assists	Deaths	Damage	Damage/Minute	Kill and Assists / Death	Kills / Death	Damage Taken	Damage taken / Minute	HP*	Capture Point Captures
Week 1	20	10	25	6191	287	1.2	0.8	6061	281	28	3
Week 3	36	10	10	7227	385	4.6	3.6	4985	266	55	4
Week 4	45	13	40	9649	364	1.4	1.1	9084	342	63	9
Week 5	2	2	8	1170	190	0.5	0.3	1952	317	7	0
Week 7	52	8	23	10952	371	2.6	2.3	8169	277	76	9
Totals or Average	155	43	106	35189				30251		229	25
Averages	31	8.6	21.2	7037.8	319.4	2.06	1.62	6050.2	296.6		5