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6v6 Season 51 (Winter 2026): Home Page

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Schedule

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  • Signups: NOW! – January 8th 2026 18:00 CET (including Prem & Div 1, late joining is possible until the end of the first week of the Group Stages)
  • Provisional Tiers: January 9th 2026
  • Group Stages (Premiership & Division 1): January 12th – February 18th 2026 (5 Weeks)
  • Group Stages (all remaining divisions): January 12th – March 8th 2026 (7 Weeks)
    • There will be a one week break for poLANd.tf 2026.
  • Playoffs (Premiership & Division 1): February 21st – February 22nd 2026 (Weekend Playoffs)
  • Playoffs (all remaining divisions): March 7th – March 29th 2026
REGISTER YOUR TEAM HERE

Setup

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Roster Lock

We will be maintaining a roster lock starting on the 8th of January (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.

Class Restrictions

Outside of offclassing (see below) we will not be applying any class restrictions at the start of the season UNLESS if a team signing up explicitly asks for it. This means that teams might have large skill gaps between its players, but we are trying to put a bit more emphasis on allowing people to play with their friends on the class they enjoy playing the most.

Offclasses

We will be applying restrictions on the following offclasses:

Proposed restrictions will be announced during the provisional tiers.

  • 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 classes in Highlander Mid and above will be restricted 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

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Playoff information will follow at a later date. For Premiership and Division 1 teams, please be aware that we have scheduled a playoff weekend for February 21st – February 22nd 2026.

Config

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Premiership & Division 1 Playoffs ONLY

We will be introducing the progressive ruleset timer for the Season 51 Premiership and Division 1 playoffs.

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.

While we see a lot of interest for this config in the lower divisions as well, we will be testing the ruleset in the playoffs of the top two divisions first to gather player feedback.

The specifics of the ruleset for the Premiership and Division 1 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.

For premierhsip and Division 1: During the regular season, 5CP maps will be played with etf2l_6v6_5cp_4mins.cfg (30 minute map timer, 4 minute round timer, as well as a winlimit of 5) and Golden Cap rules will be used. KOTH remains as a Bo5 throughout the season.

Map Pool

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The following maps are confirmed:

Premiership & Division 1

Division 2, Dvivision 3, Division 4, Low

Open & Fresh

Map Rotation

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

Premiership & Division 1

Depending on signups we will either run a 5 week regular season or a condensed season with 7 rounds in order to have playoffs finish before LAN.

Premiership: Condensed 7 Rounds

  • Round 1: cp_sunshine, cp_process_f12, cp_gullywash_f9, cp_granary_pro_rc17a3, koth_product_final
  • Round 2: cp_metalworks_f7, cp_sunshine, cp_process_f12, cp_gullywash_f9, koth_bagel_rc12
  • Round 3: cp_granary_pro_rc17a3, cp_sunshine, cp_metalworks_f7, koth_bagel_rc12, koth_product_final,
  • Round 4: cp_process_f12, cp_gullywash_f9, cp_granary_pro_rc17a3, cp_metalworks_f7, koth_product_final
  • Round 5: cp_sunshine, cp_process_f12, cp_gullywash_f9, cp_granary_pro_rc17a3, koth_bagel_rc12
  • Round 6: cp_metalworks_f7, cp_sunshine, cp_process_f12, koth_bagel_rc12, koth_product_final
  • Round 7: cp_gullywash_f9, cp_granary_pro_rc17a3, cp_metalworks_f7, koth_bagel_rc12, koth_product_final

Division 1: Standard 5 Weeks

  • Week 1: cp_sunshine, cp_process_f12, cp_gullywash_f9, cp_granary_pro_rc17a3, koth_product_final
  • Week 2: cp_metalworks_f7, cp_sunshine, cp_process_f12, cp_granary_pro_rc17a3, koth_bagel_rc12
  • Week 3: cp_gullywash_f9, cp_metalworks_f7, cp_sunshine, koth_product_final, koth_bagel_rc12
  • Week 4: cp_process_f12, cp_granary_pro_rc17a3, cp_gullywash_f9, cp_metalworks_f7, koth_product_final
  • Week 5: cp_sunshine, cp_process_f12, cp_gullywash_f9, cp_granary_pro_rc17a3, koth_bagel_rc12

Division 2, Division 3, Division 4, Low

Map Pick/Ban Rotation (Division 2, Division 3, Division 4, Low)

  • Week 1: cp_sunshine, cp_process_f12, cp_gullywash_f9, cp_snakewater_final1, koth_product_final
  • Week 2: cp_process_f12, cp_metalworks_f7, cp_sunshine, cp_granary_pro_rc17a3, koth_bagel_rc12
  • Week 3: cp_snakewater_final1, cp_gullywash_f9, cp_subbase_b3a, cp_sunshine, cp_process_f12
  • Week 4: cp_metalworks_f7, cp_subbase_b3a, cp_granary_pro_rc17a3, koth_bagel_rc12, koth_product_final
  • Week 5: cp_gullywash_f9, cp_subbase_b3a, cp_metalworks_f7, cp_snakewater_final1, cp_granary_pro_rc17a3
  • Week 6: cp_subbase_b3a, cp_process_f12, cp_metalworks_f7, koth_bagel_rc12, koth_product_final
  • LAN Break: 23rd February – 1st March
  • Week 7: cp_sunshine, cp_snakewater_final1, cp_gullywash_f9, cp_granary_pro_rc17a3, koth_product_final

Map Pick/Ban Order during the Regular Season (Premiership, Division 1, Division 2, Division 3, Division 4, 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: cp_sunshine & cp_gullywash_f9
  • Week 2: cp_gullywash_f9 & koth_bagel_rc12
  • Week 3: koth_bagel_rc12 & cp_metalworks_f7
  • Week 4: cp_metalworks_f7 & cp_process_f12
  • Week 5: cp_process_f12 & koth_product_final
  • Week 6: koth_product_final & cp_snakewater_final1
  • LAN Break: 23rd February – 1st March
  • Week 7: cp_snakewater_final1 & cp_sunshine

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

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

We are looking into adding a “Fresh” option for our recruitment section on the website sometime soon. We will also be creating a Discord channel exclusively for Fresh players to help with any questions they might have about playing ETF2L officials, rules, configs etc. as we understand this can be hard to navigate for new players.

Sign-up Process

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

REGISTER YOUR TEAM HERE

Then, if you are applying for Division 6/Open tier (which is our entry division), 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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