Stevepander
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Stevepander
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Stevepander is a Polish-English pyro main, currently playing for Strong Opinions in ETF2L Premiership and UGC Platinum. He currently studies Undergraduate Mathematics at the University of Nottingham.
Early TF2
The Highlander pyro main started his TF2 career on a Polish community server, Stajnia Ogarów. He has been playing in both ETF2L and UGC since some of their earliest HL seasons. In 2012, Stevepander joined Max-Play Highlander Team, where he went on to play and win in UGC's Platinum Season 8. Max-Play continued on to play ETF2L's Experimental HL Cup #3 where they lost in the final against SNSD's fun team. This landed the team a spot in ETF2L's Prem in season 3, although they were knocked out in relegation matches against DAROUTOUTOU and colony. After a disappointing season of straight loses in Div 1, MPHT disbanded and Steve was left team-less.
Highpander and Awards
In the summer of 2013, Stevepander got in contact with Hildreth. After reviewing some demos together and speaking briefly, Hildreth decided Stevepander would be a good potential fit for his new HL project. The team was originally supposed to include sad panda, though that partnership ultimately failed. Stevepander and Hildreth continued to try and complete the roster, which resulted in the creation of Highpander.
Despite having limited experience at the top of highlander, Stevepander quickly made a name for himself. On Highpander, he's reached playoffs in every season they competed in, and Stevepander himself was a key puzzle piece in achieving this feat.
Stevepander made an appearance at DeutschLAN 2015, playing for LANpander, Stevepander and Hildreth coming from the Highpander roster. The team did well in the group stage, winning 7 games and losing just one, but lost out in the playoff match to end up finishing in 3rd place.
After DeutschLAN, Stevepander decided it was time to move from Highpander, and was invited to join Strong Opinions by CeeJaey. S-O went on to do well in their Premiership debut season on the back of some strong performances from Steve, and finished in 2nd place in the regular season. They beat Steve's old team in the Semi-Finals, and went on to defeat defending champions Tourettes Chessclub in the final, for Steve's 2nd Premiership winner's medal. They would go on to repeat the feat in Season 10, this time defeating Fair Enough in the Grand Final, for Steve to make it a hat-trick of Premiership titles.
ETF2L hosts an award show after each season, and for the last 6 seasons in a row he has taken home the Pyro of the Season award.[1][2][3][4][5][6]
Playstyle
Stevepander is known as one of the most aggressive pyros. He often claims that just being a pocket pyro, focused on protecting the medic and combo, is a flawed play style that doesn't allow for unlocking the pyro's full potential. Instead, Steve opts to often go for small, short flanking bursts where he tries to engage in fights with his team mates, in order to quickly overwhelm the enemy's flank. Staying with the combo only when it's useful, for example when there's about to be an über exchange, or the team has an über advantage and they're expecting suicide waves. Stevepander pretty exclusively uses Degreaser, Shotgun and Powerjack as his loadout. This is mostly due to personal preference. The main benefit he will argue in the Secondary Weapon debate, is that Shotgun allows for greater flexibility in medium range fights, while also allowing for a respectable enough amount of short range burst.
