Me: Is Rocket Jumper + Bison + Zatoichi a valid Soldier play style?
Anon_Player: Anything's valid in pubs.
After a while of playing TF2 and listening to the voice/text chats I've noticed that there appears to be a different way of playing TF2, in so called "competitive" games. Unless I haven't noticed it, there appears to be no automatic method to connect to these matches, besides (what I assumes is) connecting to specific servers via the server window. Based on players' conversation there appears to be a positive connotation towards playing on "competitively", that playing "competitively" indicates you as a better player. My question is, what differences are there between "competitive" play and "pubs" (public games), and where are these competitive games found.
tl;dr: What's competitive and where is it?