The most painful two hours of my life was spent making the pot-addled ramblings of Exfane into something that is worthy of human consumption. Enjoy.

FakkelBrigade is seen as a “friends team,” for obvious reasons – founded by real-life friends, core of the team comprised of those people for most of its existence. How do you balance the aspect of friendship with the desire to win? You moved up pretty rapidly from the lower divisions into your current standing as a division 1 team, and at some point you had to have sacrificed to get into that position, surely? Have the friendships behind the team ever been harmed in search of a win?

[FB] The Insane Exfane: Holy shit. What the fuck is this?

[FB] The Insane Exfane: Well, I wouldn’t really say it harms friendships. But there’s been a couple of situations where all of these friendships don’t make it easier. In the end, you gotta have fun with your team period. But if someone is lacking some obvious skill compared to the others, it won’t do your friendship or teamplay any good. So maybe just to keep your friendship you have to make some cuts, no matter how hard they might be. Friendships are based on a lot of trust and honesty, of course. In the end, it’s just a game and real life friendships will never collapse because of that. Most people will reward honesty above trying to be nice.

Stemming directly from that is my next question. Last season, one of the biggest transfers of the season was Byte joining FakkelBrigade. He was replacing emptynoflow/Paver, a long-time member of the team. While I do not know the full story as I’ve been given many conflicting reports, my impression is that he was performing under the expectations or standards placed on him, and thus was replaced or “forced out” or whatever loaded term you would like to attach to it. Was this a tough decision to make in the end because of the friendship involved? Looking back on it, would you have preferred to play last season out with emptynoflow starting instead of Byte?

[FB] The Insane Exfane: It wasn’t that emptynoflow was underperforming. Instead, he asked us to play less. Now, I don’t know how it happened, but some communication errors resulted in: Paver wanting to play one match a week. So we took on Byte, he would fit right into our schedule and didn’t mind dropping the random game so that we could get noflow playing. We only took on Byte for one season, and also, noflow got a girlfriend in that period who he was spending a lot of time with. When we got all the facts together after hearing noflow’s reaction, we all felt really sad because we thought this was what he wanted as well. Obviously, he was pissed off as well because nobody really understood what he wanted. In the end, if noflow wouldn’t have asked to play a little less, this situation wouldn’t have taken place, and we’d all live happily ever after.

Last season, Byte was with you and there were some “quarrels” with Vale/YoYotech. As far as I understand it, they were making some rather rude/disparaging remarks towards you after games. I know not the specifics, but it was a general attitude of “had to pick up Byte to carry you, huh?” If you could, elaborate a bit on what the real issue was that created these tensions.

[FB] The Insane Exfane: Since the time of FakkelBrigade vs. Rasta in season 2, there have always been tensions between us. It’s never been real hate or anything, but the Netherlands vs. Belgium fight must go on. Nowadays, obviously, they don’t like seeing us “noobs” in division 1. We can’t deny Byte has helped us a lot, but really… carried?!

The claim I most commonly heard thrown at FB was “Team Byte,” from Skinnie on a few occasions.

[FB] The Insane Exfane: Every team with Byte, since wotr, was called Team Byte.

Does it feel weird to you that, after having given you so much grief over having Byte “carry,” they decided to pick him up? I mean “weird” more from the standpoint that, they weren’t just being demeaning to FB with whatever silly little comments they made. It’s definitely aimed at Byte as well, when they’re doing it. It just seems strange to me that they’d devote energy to getting laughs out of Byte being on FB, but pick him up after that mocking.

[FB] The Insane Exfane: Byte is an awesome player, and we only picked him up for one season. Obviously they were jealous of us having him for that season.

Jealous of you having Byte, a well-mannered, intelligent demoman, while they were stuck with… A fine young gentleman.

[FB] The Insane Exfane: So what’s the question?

I just wanted to call numlocked gay.

FB have always contributed pretty strongly to the community, its growth, its coverage – there’s the community Mumble, you provide several servers, the SourceTV relays, you ran a Summer Fun Cup to get some new maps into the ETF2L pool and one of your joint leaders is an ETF2L admin. And, also, you have FakkelBrigade.eu, which serves as a site for news, gossip, just a very general approach to TF2.

Considering all you and your clan have contributed, do you think it has been “worth” it? TF2 is considered by plenty of people as dying, and by many more as already dead. You’ve presumably spent real money to provide these things, how do you justify the time, effort, money, etc. when all you get back is a group of generally unpleasant, cuntish division 6 players asking for a handout?

[FB] The Insane Exfane: At some point, you make the choice to try and do everything you can for a game you love. Seeing all of the people who want to use the Mumble, and having to use two 255-slot STVs on matches, helping people out in general with voice comms and tactics. In my opinion, it’s all been worth it.

So you basically end up with the satisfaction of a Job Well Done and that has been enough for you?

[FB] The Insane Exfane: Yeah, but we’re not done yet. We’re going to keep at our chill/relaxed point of view towards TF2 and keep supporting the community. Until December, we have at least doubled the server power – two dedicated boxes from i3d.

In season 5, your first in division 1, you were not expected to do much and you about met those expectations, maybe slightly exceeded them. I remember when you won your first map in division 1 against coolclan on Granary, there was a pretty good atmosphere surrounding you guys, lots of enthusiasm and hope. Going into season 6, it looks much worse – bleak, even. The loss of Byte, trials having failed so far, Fragga’s retirement to play Modern Warfare 2. From what I have seen, LoopeR has been trialling for you as demo and seems likely to wind up playing with you. So how do you feel going into this season? Hopeful, worried? How do you avoid folding?

[FB] The Insane Exfane: That’s what our discussion today was about, we hope to take LoopeR on and are still considering our lineup for this season. We might look scrambled, but we’re just gonna play and have fun. rcon tf_birthday 1, rcon sv_partymode 1.

Two questions coming out of this – you have been searching for a medic (though the length of time for which you have been looking is up for debate) for a while. What about AnimaL is it that has not worked out or has become a problem?

[FB] The Insane Exfane: We still love Animal but his chemistry with the team is totally gone. It’s me being very stubborn and him being stubborn. Clashes between two people who are stubborn in-game do not work out. Outside of the game, we are friends, though. It is very demanding to play between me, Byte, and Fragga.

So with AnimaL, when you originally were searching for a medic after Cook’s departure, there really were not any other options. AnimaL almost feels like a pick out of necessity and not something you really wanted to. How true is this? In fact, the only other medic to come along since was Admirable once coolclan folded, but he has now joined TCM… as a backup. Does that feel like a burn to you at all? You spent a week or more trialling him, a significant amount of time for both of you to put in, and he ditches you for so-called greener pastures… where he will not even start.

[FB] The Insane Exfane: We can’t blame Admirable for his choice because he doesn’t wanna be a full time player. We need a full-time medic and in the end, he didn’t want it.

So, this season will be, safe to say, rather difficult for you. New demo, medic who either lacks chemistry or is coming into a new situation. Most people think you are going to fold, or at least most of the people in that awful poll I ran do – 23% of 400+ votes think FakkelBrigade will soon be no more. If it really does look like it will be tough to compete, if not impossible, in division 1 – why not drop to division 2? There are teams like DCSB who seem more than capable of holding thier own in division 1, and if you really are taking a for-fun approach, wouldn’t fun be best had in division 2?

[FB] The Insane Exfane: We are still going to be competitive and we are still going to be a challenge for the “lower” division 1 teams: rockit, IDK?, LOL Team and eSrael. eSrael, especially, having lost their demo recently as well. IDK? are using a “new” teammate, and rockit and LOL are both new to the division as well.

Having to replace your demoman and medic is, in any circumstance, going to be tough to overcome. Do you see yourself finishing all nine weeks of this season? Will it be AnimaL or someone else there at the end?

[FB] The Insane Exfane: We will finish this season, but we are still considering our lineup for it. It’s going to be close. Vice is the best engie in the world and BvD’s sniping sucks!

You proposed to the admins before the idea of a premiership division. You went to the admins with the proposal for new maps in the map pool and expanding the game, but they shut you down. Did they give you any reason for why this happened? Does it feel rather off-putting that the admin team essentially told you to fuck off?

[FB] The Insane Exfane: That’s not exactly right, as I didn’t include the map proposal – I still want it though, along with the Premiership division. I didn’t hear much from the admins, I only heard it through Jonni. Premiership division would be good, and if you wanted to play with the Premier teams, you could just schedule a PCW.

In general I just think that the ETF2L admins, save one or two, are handling situations rather poorly and I’d like to stress it by finding evidence in other places for this (Moose’s comments, you being shut down on this, etc)

[FB] The Insane Exfane: ETF2L has done great work for the community, though personally, with the loss of DeNeusbeer, there’s not really anyone in the head admins that has a real, active bond with the TF2 community. Daykiller is not active in the community, for what I know. Maybe in the German community… I don’t really know how voting in the ETF2L goes, but I can understand that if the head admin doesn’t want it to go down, it doesn’t happen

You heard it here, folks – Exfane says “FUCK THE ADMINS.”

It was like pulling teeth, man. And I have to interview someone from Latvia next! Fuck my life.
Cheers, Mr. X