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Well, here we are again! Starting the summer off with another highly anticipated 6s season.We welcome you to ETF2L 6v6 Season 52 (Summer 2026). Signups are now OPEN!
As always please check out the rest of this post about the upcoming season.

Schedule

• Signups: NOW! – May 28th at 18:00 CEST (late joining is possible until the end of the first week of the Group Stages, in Prem & D1/D2 this is possible if there is space)
• Provisional Tiers: 28th/29th May
• Final Tiers: 31st May
• Main Season: 1st June – 19th July (7 Weeks)
  • There will be a one week break for poLANd.tf 2026 Highlander if this gets confirmed
• Playoffs: 20th July – 3th August (3 Weeks)

Setup

Roster Lock

We will be maintaining a roster lock starting on the 28th of May (after sign-ups close), after which players can only join through admin requests instead. This will be possible up until the start of the last week of the regular season after which no new players will be able to join teams.

For all divisions players cannot be more experienced (in accordance with rule 2.7) than the tier of the team they want to join. Experience in other leagues is also included.

Between the signup deadline and the season start we might be more lenient when it comes to players, however adding higher skilled players will affect your team’s seeding.

We are currently in the process of looking at changes to the player experience and late joiner rules. So stay updated to any potential rulechanges ahead of the season!

Class Restrictions

Outside of offclassing (see below), we will try to avoid class restrictions at the start of the season, however based on feedback from previous seasons we will be applying limited restrictions on specific players. This means that teams might have large skill gaps between its players but we’re trying to put a bit more emphasis on allowing people to play with their friends on the class they enjoy playing the most. For this purpose we are also employing Division helpers for Season 52 as we did in the previous seasons. Outliers may still be restricted.

Are you interested in being a division helper for 6s Season 52? Sign up below!

Offclasses

We will be applying restrictions on the following offclasses:

• Sniper
  • Players who have played this class in Highlander High and above will be restricted from the class in Mid and below.
  • Players who have played this class in Highlander Mid and above will be restricted from the class in Open.
• Pyro, Heavy
  • Players who have played these classes in Highlander High and above will be restricted from the class in Low and below.

Proposed restrictions will be announced during the provisional tiers.

Playoffs

Playoff information will follow at a later date. For Premiership, and potentially Division 1 teams (2nd highest division), we will be employing a double elimination bracket where the top 4 teams make playoffs. The top 2 teams will enter the Upper Bracket Final and the 3rd and 4th place teams will start in the Lower Bracket Semi-Final.

For Playoffs we will be using the progressive config for 5CP in Premiership, High, Mid & Low.

The Progressive Ruleset incorporates this plugin that creates a dynamic win condition. The 5CP round win limit gets reduced to the current highest score +1 when the match timer runs out. For example, if the score is 1-2 when the map timer runs out, the win limit will be set to 3 and round continues.

The specifics of the progressive ruleset playoffs will look like this:

• The map timer for 5CP maps will be 25 minutes.
• The round timer for 5CP maps will be 4 minutes.
• If a team scores a total of 5 rounds before the end of the map timer, they win the map (winlimit 5).
• If neither team has scored a total of 5 rounds once the map timer runs out, the round winlimit is set to the current highest round score +1. The match continues until one team reaches the new round winlimit.

You can activate this ruleset by exec’ing etf2l_6v6_5cp_prog.cfg.

Map Pool

The following maps are confirmed:

Premiership, High, Mid, Low

• cp_sunshine
• cp_process_f12
• cp_gullywash_f9
• cp_metalworks_f7
• <Winner Pre-Season vote>
• cp_subbase_b3a
• koth_bagel_rc12
• cp_granary_pro_rc17a3
• koth_product_final

Open & Fresh

• cp_sunshine
• cp_process_f12
• cp_gullywash_f9
• cp_metalworks_f7
• cp_subbase_b3a
• koth_bagel_rc12
• koth_product_final

As you can see we will not be playing snakewater this season to make room for one experimental map in the map pool. You can vote on this map below:

• koth_govan_rc2– tf2maps
• cp_sanctuary_b3 – tf2maps
• cp_passage_a14b – tf2maps

Map Rotation

The map pool each week will consist of a mix of “core” maps, “experimental” maps, and/or KOTH maps.

Premiership, High, Mid & Low

Map Pick/Ban Rotation (Premiership, High, Mid, Low)

• Week 1: cp_process_f12, cp_metalworks_f7, cp_sunshine, cp_granary_pro_rc17a3, koth_bagel_rc12
• Week 2: cp_metalworks_f7, cp_subbase_b3a, cp_granary_pro_rc17a3, koth_bagel_rc12, koth_product_final
• Week 3: <Winner Pre-Season vote>, cp_gullywash_f9, cp_subbase_b3a, cp_sunshine, cp_process_f12
• Week 4: cp_gullywash_f9, cp_subbase_b3a, cp_metalworks_f7, <Winner Pre-Season vote>, cp_granary_pro_rc17a3
• Week 5: cp_sunshine, cp_process_f12, cp_gullywash_f9, <Winner Pre-Season vote>, koth_product_final
• Week 6: cp_subbase_b3a, cp_process_f12, cp_metalworks_f7, koth_bagel_rc12, koth_product_final
• Week 7: cp_sunshine, <Winner Pre-Season vote>, cp_gullywash_f9, cp_granary_pro_rc17a3, koth_product_final

Map Pick/Ban Order during the Regular Season (Premiership, High, Mid, Low)

A Heavy fist fight can be used to decide teams if necessary.

Team A bans a map
Team B bans a map
Team B picks a map
Team A picks a map
The remaining map is not played.

Open & Fresh

Open & Fresh Map Rotation

• Week 1: koth_product_final & cp_gullywash_f9
• Week 2: cp_gullywash_f9 & cp_process_f12
• Week 3: cp_process_f12 & cp_metalworks_f7
• Week 4: cp_metalworks_f7 & koth_bagel_rc12
• Week 5: koth_bagel_rc12 & cp_sunshine
• Week 6: cp_sunshine & cp_subbase_b3a
• Week 7: cp_subbase_b3a & koth_product_final

Fresh Division

We will determine if this division will be used based off of signups. After gathering feedback from Fresh players, we will be more strict on which players are eligible to participate in this division. Players who meet any of the criteria below are not eligible to play in the Fresh division:

• played more than 10 matches in ETF2L Open
• played in ETF2L Open playoffs or above (this does not include cups)
• participated in the playoffs of a previous Fresh season or Fresh Meat Challenge
• played more than 10 matches in RGL Amateur
• participated in RGL Newcomer playoffs

6v6 experience will be considered. Any previous experience from leagues not listed above will be judged on a case by case basis.

Sign-up Process

First and foremost, you must sign your team up here: 

Then, if you are applying for Division 6/Open/Fresh (which are our entry divisions), you do not have to provide any proof that you are capable of playing at that level.

Otherwise, we encourage you to send in an application through the ticket system in our Discord or by directly contacting a league admin, with the following information:

– Team name, Division you apply for and ETF2L team link
– Roster
– Recent results and logs associated to them
– Reasons why your team deserves to be placed in the tier you applied for (optional)

e.g.
– Team BIG EXPLOSION, Premiership, https://etf2l.org/teams/1/
announce the roster with the classes
– 5-2 vs Team Aoshi’s All Stars (Prem) : https://logs.tf/012345

Teams that do not contact the admins risk losing their spot in the division they are asking for. If your team is signing up for the High division, we strongly recommend that you tell us if you are looking to play in Division 1 or Division 2; the same goes for Mid teams that have a preference for Division 3 or Division 4.

Please note that the success of your request also strongly depends on the free slots in the tier you aim for. Established teams will be favoured over new teams or teams that request to jump a tier.

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