On December 5th CAL released the map rotation for Season 4 Open Division. As is becoming a tradition for Hardfought we’ll be fielding a team made up from members of the community. We’ve made a few pickups in the off-season. Swoop who played with Eminence last season and Loki. Both are strong players who’ve shown commitment to improving their mad skills.
Like any serious team we’ve set goals for ourselves for the coming season. And like any CAL-O team that goal is to make the playoffs and earn the right to play in CAL Main. We’ve been practicing hard and regular since the close of Season 4. We’re working on all league maps and practicing exclusively with CAL-M+ teams. Sometimes we lose but most of the time we win.
CAL has made some major changes this year. First they’ve dropped de_prodigy and de_aztec. I can’t say I’m sorry to see de_prodigy go but we rocked de_aztec in Seasons 2 & 3. They’re replacing them with de_cpl_fire and de_nuke. Both of these will be played in the pre-season as well as the regular rotation. CAL is also implementing a new 10-map season. For the first 6 weeks only one map per week will be played, but they’ll be adding a map in the last two weeks. So teams will be playing two maps per week for these final weeks. CAL has done this for several reasons.
1. The 10-match proposal will help root out the people with the easier schedules and gives more “underdog” teams a chance to prove their worth. This will hopefully make for a more exciting playoff experience and for a lot closer match-ups.
2. The RPI system will be taken into more consideration due to the better match-ups. The easier scheduled teams will be able to prove themselves by beating even recorded teams and earn better RPI standings.
3. This will also cut down on the amount of teams dying each season. Instead of having teams giving up and dying after getting 2 or 3 loses, this will urge them to simply win out the last two weeks and still be allowed to make playoffs.
4. One last point, and also one of the main focuses, this will start preparing teams for the CAL-Main match format of two matches a week. We are hoping to show the Open teams that they are going to need to show more dedication and availability in order to be a qualified team for Main.
We’ve got a strong team who’s practicing hard and we’re going all the way this time. I’m looking forward to rocking CAL-O in Season 4.