Global Whitelist Update

After the cup has concluded and we collected your feedback we are announcing the Season 29 whitelist. Thanks to everyone for participating and a big shoutout to the cup’s sponsor whitelist.tf.
Also congratulations to our winners of the Global Whitelist Test Cup: got a point!!!!

As a reminder of what changed compared to last season’s whitelist and the tested whitelist of our previous cup, here is a quick rundown:

Multiple Classes

• BASE Jumper -> Banned
• Panic Attack -> Unbanned

Scout

• Sandman -> Unbanned
• Bonk! Atomic Punch -> Banned

Soldier

• Cow Mangler 5000 -> Banned
• Beggar’s Bazooka -> Unbanned

Pyro

• Dragon’s Fury -> Banned
• Backburner -> Unbanned
• Gas Passer -> Banned
• Thermal Thruster -> Unbanned
• Hot Hand -> Unbanned

Heavy

• Natascha -> Banned
• Second Banana -> Unbanned
• Gloves of Running Urgently -> Unbanned

Medic

• Vita-Saw -> Unbanned

Sniper

• Darwin’s Danger Shield -> Unbanned
• Machina -> Banned

For more information on the matter, click here.

Map Rotation Update

In order to keep the Map Rotation feeling fresh, it will be changing from season-to-season, starting now! Originally held back due to updates to some of our pro maps, we decided to go with the trusted versions of either map, namely prolands and granary_pro, while keeping the schedule change.

• Week 1: cp_process_final & cp_sunshine
• Week 2: cp_sunshine & cp_gullywash_final1
• Week 3: cp_gullywash_final1 & cp_granary_pro_rc8
• Week 4: cp_granary_pro_rc8 & cp_snakewater_final1
• Week 5: cp_snakewater_final1 & koth_product_rc8
• Week 6: koth_product_rc8 & cp_prolands_b3b
• Week 7: cp_prolands_b3b & cp_process_final

Rule Update

We will be adding a new rule to our 6v6 rules which will be valid for all tiers for their respective Grand Finals. This change was agreed upon in order to ensure that a team fields their main lineup in the final match of the season to prove their strength, while still allowing a single merc in case of any availability issues.

1.4.1 A team can use up to a maximum of 1 merc in Grand Final matches.

A team can use up to a maximum of 1 merc in a Grand Final match of any tier, even if the opponent would allow the use of more than 1 merc.

Premiership Qualifiers

Now to the more exciting news: We have decided on our qualifiers for the Season 29 Premiership division!
With nunya having superior results in their application and Se7en being a returning champion, both of the teams will be joining last season’s prem teams top5rocket and SVIFT, as well as last season’s winning high team Gardienii Fortei Mistice, without partaking in the Qualifiers.

The following teams will be fighting for one of three spots, with the seedings on their starting bracket:

Starting from the Upper Bracket, we have these 4 teams:

• Danger Dogs
• The Bus Crew
• wer das liest ist doof
• the bin BLACK

As well as these 2 teams starting from the lower bracket:

• Ora Elektro
• Professional Disney Fangirls

Here is how the brackets will work: Four teams will be facing off in the upper bracket, whose winners will move directly into Premiership. The losers of the upper bracket matches will drop into the lower bracket where the remaining two teams are waiting. Winners of the lower bracket matches will be fighting over the last available spot in the lower bracket final.
You can find a more visual explanation of the brackets here.

Update: Because of SVIFT dropping out of the season, we have changed the Qualifier bracket slightly

The playoffs will take place from Sunday 21st to Friday 26th January with each round having only couple days of time to be played.

ETF2L on social media:

Follow us on twitter!
Like us on Facebook!
Join our Steamgroup and invite your friends!
Use our Discord

Written by Domaytoe

Hot damn! It feels like we haven’t had packing Premiership Level Highlander Action since years! Well, or at least one year. Okay, since last year.

With that mandatory comedic remark off the list we are glad to announce the culminate upcoming clash that is definitely no joke! Culmination? This isn’t the Grand Final! But it IS the final peak for at least one of the teams that will battle it out in a Best of 3 format, taking us onto the grounds of:

• Ashville’s carbonated derivative Coalplant!
• The sturdy gangways and ironed chokes wielding Steel!
• and Upward.

On that note, let’s move forward to the two Highlander titans that will be battling it out for a shot at the Highlander Season 14 Grand Finals.

Read the rest of this entry »

The fixtures for the Global Whitelist Test Cup knockout stage are now released! Remember to set your servers to the test whitelist before starting the game, the whitelist can be found here. To change the whitelist on a server running tftrue use the command rcon tftrue_whitelist_id competitive_6v6

The knockout stage will take place on Sunday the 14th of January. All knockout matches are single elimination, except for the grand final and third-place match, which will be played as a Best-of-three.

In case of a golden cap during the single elimination stage, the timelimit will be set to 10 minutes. The team holding mid will be the winner if neither team wins a round before the time runs out.

The brackets for top, mid and open can be seen within the playoffs tab in the menu.

As a reminder, here is the schedule for Sunday:

• 19:00 CET – cp_process_final
• 19:45 CET – cp_prolands_b3b
• 20:30 CET – koth_product_rc8, cp_process_final and cp_prolands_b3b

The aforementioned third-place match will only take place in the top group, as they will be batteling it out for our sponsored prizes.
Prizes for the top group will be provided by whitelist.tf, as they have generously donated 24 keys and several killstreak kits for the top 3 teams of the top group in this cup!

Remember to provide any feedback regarding the upcoming season in the relevant forum thread.

ETF2L on social media:

Follow us on twitter!
Like us on Facebook!
Join our Steamgroup and invite your friends!
Use our Discord

The fixtures for the Global Whitelist Test Cup are now released! Remember to set your servers to the test whitelist before starting the game, the whitelist can be found here. To change the whitelist on a server running tftrue use the command rcon tftrue_whitelist_id competitive_6v6

The knockout section of the cup will vary slightly between tiers.

The Premiership and high tier have been united for this cup and will form the top tier, of which all teams will move to the knockout stage. There will also be a third place match needed to play for this bracket.

As for the mid tier, the two top teams of each group will advance to the knockout stage. In the open tier, only top one team in each group will advance. There will not be a third place match played for either of these two brackets.

The knockout stage will take place on Sunday 14th starting from 19:00 CET.

Read the rest of this entry »

With the group stages drawn to a close at the end of 2017, it is the perfect time to go into depth regarding the outcome of Highlander Season 14. This season has seen some unlikely results.

Highlander Season 14 Group Stage Wrap-up

Starting from the bottom to the top of the tables we start at number six with Tourettes Chessclub. Most notably Tourette’s performance over course of the season could be summed up as something of a “late starter”. Despite a promising roster at the beginning of the season, players were being swapped, resulting in a different lineup every week for the first four or so weeks of the group stages. Despite clutching a Golden Cap Loss against leading team Strong Opinions, and perhaps finally having the stable roster needed to succeed in the season, it was to little too late. Tourettes Chessclub will seed last in the group stages, and thus be subject to relegation.

Coming in at joint fourth and fifth were the two debut premiership teams, inVision and Lucrosa. The decision as to which team is facing relegation is decided by the result of the match between them, meaning the loss of inVision to Lucrosa in the 4th week was a costly one. However both teams have had a surprisingly decent first season in prem; both teams took the edge over former Highlander giants Tourettes Frenchclub, with inVision also claiming points from current third place team Feila eSports. These debut teams were fortunate enough to pick up some former premiership veterans, namely thaZu for inVision and Spy legend chooper for Lucrosa. However, both teams also saw some debut prodigies come into play. Invision’s Heavy tuja and Pyro yugo both showed incredible performance during their season debut, consistently proving themselves against some of the veteran prem players. Similarly, Lucrosa’s soldier pickup Kosuke hit the scene as a force to be reckoned with. Who knows what these premiership newcomers could achieve in the future.
Read the rest of this entry »