Pocket Scout
In a similar vein to medic the most difficult part of pocket scout is staying disciplined, composed and consistently hitting shots during chaotic moments. Games will get messy and it’s your job to help form the back bone of the team alongside the medic.
Pocket scouts were one of the most competitive categories, with strong performances across the board, at different times at i58 you could of said any of these players were the best but ultimately the player that turned it up the most when it counted was the best pocket scout of the tournament .
4. Yui
One of the stand out Australian’s at this event. He impressed throughout the group stage and continued into the upper bracket, capitalising on the damage Geoh and Paulsen were putting out. However faded in the crucial elimination match against Full Tilt, he in no way played badly but was out shined by Astt. Unfortunately playing well was not enough at this event as everyone else took it to another level. Leaving this Australian with another fourth place.
It’s a shame we did not get to see more of Yui, he certainly has the talent to compete and at any other event would of been ranked much higher but the competition in this category was fierce.
3. b4nny
One of the highest profile players going into i58, two time world champion, three time European conqueror and the biggest Twitch personality Competitive TF2 has ever had. He started with a strong performance in groups, unbeaten until the final game. For a man playing on borrowed gear, it certainly did not show.
The biggest issue b4nny seemed to face was the lack of impact and drive he could have for his team from the pocket scout position. A support role by definition, for a while now the b4n m4n has been trying to play essentially a pocket soldier role from scout, peaking chokes, leading pushes and all over trying to initiate for his team. Most of you will remember his stand out performances as the pocket solider for Froyo at i55 but the scouts reduced hp makes him a squishy target when moving through a choke as he cannot use his movement advantage to kite damage. I believe this ultimately led to tensions on the Froyo comms and left b4nny in a tough position where he cannot spear head his team the same way he has done in the past. This is most likely the reason we saw the uncharacteristic mistakes in the all-important Lower Bracket final. Probably b4nny’s least impactful performance at an i-series but still the outstanding display of individual talent we have come to expect of TF2’s most decorated player. Part of me thinks it’s crazy for him to play so well yet to rank him as the third best pocket scout at the tournament but the other two remaining pocket scouts stepped it up when it mattered and kept their composure which is what this role is all about.
2. Astt
Other players talk about how good Astt is a lot and what an asset he is to the team, when tek- merced for Full Tilt at DreamHack Summer his Overwatch team mate Hidan told him that Astt was the best scout he had ever played with. Throughout his career we have seen flashes of this from Astt but many a time in the biggest of games Astt would become anonymous, not bad but not impactful.
As this event started Astt was good, kept up with all the scouts and helped maintain Full Tilt’s unbeaten LAN run, even switching with Thalash and playing flank scout for several maps. Role on Day 2 and Full Tilt were bent over and pounded to the lower bracket by Crowns, followed by a struggle past Xenex in the their first Lower Bracket game. Then something happened, everyone on Full Tilt stepped their game up but Astt seemed like a player reborn, finally off the leash he was able to demonstrate, on the biggest stage of them all, why he is regarded as one of the best scouts to have on your team. He dominated Yui in the Lower Bracket game vs Jasmine Tea and from there he just got better. His synergy with Silentes and Mike’s aggression was key to how far and how close Full Tilt got to the title. Astt was the player who stepped up most at LAN and it was a joy to watch and in the later stages of the tournament he was as good as any scout at the event, which is saying a lot with the quality of scouts we saw.
1. Hafficool
Hafficool has been one of the most consistent players in the world since he broke in to the top scene and linked up with Kaidus and Kaptain, the core that so many top teams have been built on.
Moving into this event and Hafficool spent most of his time taking a Haffistool all over everyone. We have not seen anyone fulfil this hard-core pocket scout role this well since SMZI was at his prime. Disciplined positioning throughout intense series after intense series and his aim was as good as it has ever been. The same way Raymon’s great mechanical skill gives the rest of the team confidence going forward, Hafficool’s overwhelming sense of responsibility and care for his medic can help give Raymon this confidence, knowing Haffi always has his back.
Hafficool was consistent at all times, never looking out of his depth and never letting his team down, to put up such a great performance while every soldier at this LAN was playing so well and to give such great support to his entire team was remarkable. Hafficool undoubtedly proved he was the best pocket scout in the game this event.
Final Thoughts
I feel like that was quite brief for what was the category that was closest across all four players, so I want to delve a bit more into how I decided who ranked above who. I talked about the key factors being composure, consistency and discipline as the ideal characteristics for a Pocket Scout. This was the basis I used to separate all the outstanding performances we saw from Pocket Scouts at i58.
After Yui the remaining three scouts were very hard to separate and cases could be made for ranking these top three in any order. To clarify more why I put Astt and Hafficool above b4nny it came down to the overall impact I felt they had on their teams performance. While b4nny is a fantastic player and a fantastic scout, I feel he is wasted on the pocket scout role and his ability to influence and dictate engagements is diminished. Compared to Astt whose looser style of pocket scout at this event helped elevate his team to a new level of play. Again with Hafficool he performs the role in such a way that benefits his team tremendously. I feel b4nny’s need and desire to do his all resulted in him trying to do too much, attempting pushes that were not ideal and this ultimately led to many failed pushes and to a degree hindered the other players on his team.
This is not to say b4nny played badly or even worse than the other pocket scouts but he tried to make the role into something it was not, and in attempting to cover other weaknesses across his team this ultimately put him in a position where he was at the front of these failed pushes and misplays. Obviously on the flip side of that you have to wonder if he played the role more to traditional definition if this really would of helped Froyo perform better or place higher, a question we wont get an answer to. Unfortunately in a more support based role it is harder to shine without the rest of the team firing on all cylinders.
Hafficool and Astt complimented the rest of their team better in this regard. Is Astt a better pocket scout than b4nny? At this tournament , yes. Is b4nny a better pocket scout than Hafficool? No. Would b4nny have been as good as Hafficool or Astt if he was in Crowns or Full Tilt instead? Almost certainly. These supportive roles are more about helping your team shine than shining individually and at this event b4nny was not as good at that as Astt and Hafficool. While still one of the best players in the world, i58 was a blip on b4nny’s illustrious record.
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haffi and kaptain have actually been playing together since div4, kaidus got them as a set
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