UPDATE: In a match that stretched over 3 maps, Pandemic has defeated 20id and takes the CEVO TF2 Season One crown!

UPDATE: My apologies on behalf of GotFrag.com, rk had to take off for a couple hours tonight.. and 5min after he left, the match started between 20id & Pandemic. Luckily, our friends at Pwnage.TV have a cast going on the match, to make up for the lack of SrcTV.

North America - We come at last to the end of this wild ride known as the CEVO TF2 Season 1. In the Pro division, the ride was quite the rocky one, with less then half the teams making it to the end of the season and even less to the end of the playoffs. But the teams came on strong in the end; the final matches of the playoff run were by far some of the most exciting and entertaining TF2 we've seen all season as the number of teams was winnowed down to just two.

The Amateur division faired a little better as far as team drop-outs go and had a pretty exiciting run to the playoffs themselves. A few teams in particular - teams yours truly didn't exactly give proper credit to - have risen above the rest and shown to be worthy additions to the Pro division of season 2. Only time will tell how they fair against the big dogs, but for now two of them - $hot and Legacy - will duke it out for the Amateur crown.

Predictions
Money Shot v Legacy - CEVO-AMATEUR GRAND FINALS
I remember pred'ing some mid-season match for moneyshot (I, obviously, predicted they'd lose cuz I'm nub like that), and seeing a comment in the post-game writeup stating simply "$hot rising". Now, at this time, I wasn't particularly impressed with $hot - they hadn't beaten anyone big, and I was still feeling my way through the CEVO-A teams. But when I saw the comment, I remember thinking it be funny of $hot kept "rising" right to the finals, over a whole bunch of teams (dm, SAC, NEF, DANCE) I considered better. Who'da thought that shit'd come true? The ironic part is, my relative indifference to $hot was mirrored almost exactly by my indifference to Legacy. Blame it on oversightedness or being too lazy to hunt down some demos, but L| just failed to impress me early on.. until they started rolling everyone. The list of teams Leg took down is pretty impressive.. and one of them happens to be their opponents.

At any rate, while both teams have made me look plain silly, only one of them is gonna come out on top tonight.. and possibly make look silly again. I'd like to go with the $hot-underdog in this one, but from what I've seen these playoffs, Legacy is just too good a team to go un-picked. I think they'll sweep through both maps and take the crown.
$hot [0:2] Legacy

Pandemic v 20id - CEVO-PRO GRAND FINALS
Well, for a while it looked like Eximius was the #2 team, and I personally saw Devastation pushing their way through to the end.. but somehow, someway, Motard and his crew have silenced the critics (me) and showed again just how talented a team they are. In a rematch of the TGL Roughneck Challenge (which 20id took), the two titans of North American TF2 are at it again, like 3D v coL.. or Zt. v |{ :)

But a lot has changed since that match.. 20id has lost some big names (such as kb) to RL while Pandemic has made some solid additions (such as oPlaid) during the interim, and in all the matches since TGL, Pandemic has proven to be the better team. The Upper Bracket Finals on cp_dustbowl was a washout, with Pandemic easily prevailing on the backs of Reptile's rockets and dummy's stickies (..and I suppose Dion's timely ubers, lol). Map choice will be an interesting one.. 20id will probably want to avoid dustbowl, while the only real weak map I see for Pandem is cp_granary.

To be honest, I don't see 20id having much of a chance this time around.. unless alex plays out of his mind again like he did against Eximius, and Reptile forgets how to aim, the 20th might have a chance.. but I don't think Pandemic's gonna let $3500 slip through their hands.
Pandemic [2:0] 20id

UPDATE: Well, it looks like Pandemic went and picked what I reasoned was their "weaker" map.. is that epic-fail on my part, or epic-fail on theirs? O_O!

CEVO-A Best of 3 Grand Finals

CEVO-P Best of 3 Grand Finals


Previous rounds can be found here for CEVO-P and here for CEVO-A. GotFrag Brackets are on the following two pages.