i55 nerdRage: The Whole Picture

i55  nerdRage will be remembered for performing the impossible, halting the unstoppable force of 2015  froyotech in the Upper Bracket Final, albeit temporarily. They were the only team to ever win a LAN BO3 against froyotech. Their play up to that point in the iseries event was consistently good, featured some insane individual talent, and was at times breathtaking. That success eclipsed the record of their European rivals  Reason Gaming, despite losing to Reason consistently before the LAN and performing at an arguably lower level than them on the final day of i55. Before Insomnia55, nerdRage were not performing like the world's 2nd best team. If we look at nerdRage’s overall performance as a team, and weigh the iseries tournament performance against their other more mediocre results, what picture does it actually paint of the team?

BUILDING FOR LAN

nerdRage was a team built by  Stark in the spring of 2015, combining the Swedish old-school gods  ryb and  Zebbosai with the French trio of  Bulle,  tek, and  Flippy. The players Stark chose to accompany him on this journey heavily defined their playstyle, leading to both strengths and flaws, and their reason d’etre was clear: they were built to contest froyotech for the title of the best TF2 team in the world.

Stark had originally wanted to play with  Mike, but at this point the Welsh pocket had decided to take a break from playing at the top, while tek and Bulle came as a package deal with Flippy. There was deliberate thought put into the decision to field Flippy as elite sniping talent, and they believed it was an obvious exploitable weakness of froyotech’s. i52 froyotech had no counter-sniper to directly mirror the strategy without moving  clockwork away from his exceptionally strong scout role, and historically North American teams had issues dealing with snipers. Add to this some of the best deathmatching players on their classes in tek, Zebbosai, and Stark, and nerdRage felt this would be enough to go toe-to-toe with the current number one team.

ONLINE SCHMONLINE

Before they could be in a position to face froyotech, they had to work on their own play for a period of months, which meant signing up to ETF2L Season 21. Their main opponents were  TLR (  Serotone,  HYS,  AMS,  ShaDowBurn,  Herr_P,  NiCO) and  Reason Gaming (  skeej,  kaidus,  kaptain,  zoob,  Hafficool,  wltrs). nerdRage had both of these opponents in the last two weeks, a happenstance that worked out badly for Stark’s team. They narrowly avoided losing points to  4-25 in an extremely close fixture on Viaduct and Process, but obliterated  Danger Dogs without losing a round just the week before the rabid canines bit Reason Gaming for 4 points. By the time Week 6 came around, nerdRage had not dropped any points to the low- and mid-Premiership teams, but now they had to face TLR and a revamped Reason Gaming with  KnOxXx,  Mike, and  schocky.

By the time i55 came around, nerdRage were the best team in the world on Sunshine. Not so during Season 21. Zebbosai was still trying to roam on this map, and against the double Black Box / Concheror strategy from ShaDowBurn and AMS they were caught between aggression and defense. The double soldier play won TLR the midfights and allowed them to break the stalemates with Concheror re-pushes, and Zebbosai’s aggressive roaming led to them bleeding players with their desynchronised flank. On Granary they squeaked out a win against TLR, 3-2 against the same double Black Box strategy.

Taking on Reason Gaming a week later, they got destroyed. They were lacking a huge amount of firepower and calling, as  nukkye subbed for Stark, but getting win-differenced on Badlands after securing 0 rounds on Granary is not a result that hints of i55 greatness. nerdRage looked significantly weaker than Reason, bolstered as they were with the old triumverate of i49 Epsilon players. nerdRage finished the regular season seeded 3rd; their loss to Reason was repeated a week later in the semi-final of ETF2L playoffs, where they got beaten albeit more closely 2-1 on Process and 5-4 on Badlands.

nerdRage also struggled in the first Razer Arena cups against a newly formed Perilous Gaming, losing maps to them on Sunshine and Gullywash, along with losing and being knocked out in the GGG cup. Domestically there was no hint of nerdRage being the best European team, although a few analysts thought they would match up well specifically against froyotech.

QUEL ETAIT LE PROBLEME?

The team struggled constantly with effective communication, especially between their vocal flank and quiet pocket and demo. There was something of a language barrier there as well, limiting their ability to adapt and respond on the fly - and this was very much an on-the-fly team, with players who put faith in their mechanical skill to rescue them from any situation rather than carefully thought-out timings or strategy. They had never gelled in a way their roster indicated they could have done, perhaps lacking forceful guidance and a single leading figure calling from the front.

One thing these players did have, however, was LAN experience. The three French players had the benefit of a thriving domestic LAN circuit to give them experience alongside each other, and Flippy’s play at i49 was sublime. ryb and Zebbosai were no strangers to the feel of LAN either, with years of experience, and after a heartbreaking loss at i49 they were thirsty. Stark had also made a name for himself with beastly carry performances at i52 and i49, and could produce his best results at LAN. They were quietly confident going into i55, and despite their online results were still an obvious threat for the top spot.

WHAT HAPPENS IN COVENTRY, STAYS IN COVENTRY

At the LAN, it was as if the players had been unleashed. tek was able to sync up with ryb and Bulle more naturally, and the communication problems were alleviated. It’s easy to see where your team is if you can glance over at their monitors, and nerdRage took full use of the proximity to directly increase their coordination. It was also a huge step up individually; viewers will always remember the unreal plays being made during the Upper Bracket Final, but individual nerdRage players were performing at around that level in the majority of their group games and the early bracket. Every player was playing at a superb level, though not at the same time until the UBF, and even though Flippy wasn’t sniping at his i49 or online levels, his scout performances increased massively. This was a turbo-charged version of nerdRage.

In the group stages, their only loss was to froyotech on Product. During the online season they had been losing Product consistently but closely to Reason Gaming; nonetheless Zebbosai remained utterly confident that his team could perform at LAN on the koth map, when backed by Flippy sniping. Flippy had fps issues on the first day, and nerdRage chalked up their loss to Flippy’s poor performance compared to normal. They still believed that the Product sniper would work against froyotech, but froyotech were happy and had always been happy playing against snipers - they had not joined the other top teams in consistently banning Viaduct when up against i52  iM with  sheep, choosing to allow it as a decider. They never got to play it and show how strong they were, but their performances in the group stages and UBF proved their dominance.

Hindsight is 20/20, but the nerdRage decision to leave Product in the map-pool after their loss in the group stages, and then to pick Process (froyotech’s 2nd best map), was extremely questionable. Thankfully they stepped up hugely and their individual play was incredible during this BO3. Despite losing Product 3-1, they managed to push Process to a Golden Cap and clutched it with some ridiculous plays. It’s important to remember that they required these ridiculous plays to even push it to the Golden Cap win however;  shade dropped three times over Process and it required everybody on nerdRage to be playing at peak performance to take the map. They carried that over onto Snakewater to push froyotech down to the lower bracket. An incredible feat, but it required an equally incredible set of circumstances. It was an unreplicable performance.

In the Grand Final the following day, nerdRage players were incredibly nervous. Though these players had buckets of LAN experience, Bulle, Flippy, and Stark had never played in a fixture this large, and none for as much money. According to members of the team, Bulle was so nervous before the game that he vomited. There was certainly no level of confidence about repeating their win over froyotech, even after seeing them come so close to being knocked out by Reason. They came out of the gates well on froyotech’s 2nd worst map, but flopped shortly afterwards and were destroyed even on maps they had won the day before, Process and Snakewater. The map veto decisions were once again questionable, as nerdRage’s confidence on Product turned to delusion and they were left again trying to clutch victory on froyotech’s best maps.

THE WHOLE PICTURE

They had peaked too early, made poor decisions in the map veto, and were unable to win the tournament. Their performance in the finals compared to Reason was poor, and they were completely outclassed in the BO5. Reason themselves had choked at the beginning of the tournament, and due to their seeding had avoided their domestic rivals nerdRage throughout the entire bracket. Had they come face to face, we likely would have seen an end to nerdRage’s run based on previous data.

In nerdRage’s half-year journey as a team together, they had very few results against top European teams. They were consistently beaten online by Reason Gaming and had no tournament victories. Even their i55 day two performance was a flash in the pan, but the impact was maximised by making it to the finals in the most important tournament in the TF2 calendar.

Despite their shaky history, nerdRage will be remembered, for better or worse, as the best European team of 2015. Results like this make the case for requiring more LAN tournaments in TF2, but until we reach that point we will never know if stand-out iseries performances are flukes or true representations of these teams. Somewhere, in a parallel universe, i55 could easily have had froyotech finish third, or have seen nerdRage knocked out far earlier by Reason Gaming. Who knows how many other iseries placements would average out and change if we could replay them 5 times a year? Given how close each one of these tournaments is year after year, it’s almost certain we’d see different champions emerge based on their form.