The provisional tiers are out but there is still much to discuss about the upcoming 23rd season of ETF2L. So join four players from this season of prem as they share with us their thoughts and maybe some juicy gossip. So tune in at 22:30 CET with Sideshow, kaidus, amppis, Dr. Phil and  DavidTheWin handling the production.

Season 23 powered by Tt eSPORTS: Provisional Tiers

Most if not all teams should have gotten the tier they requested, simply due to the fact that there was enough room in our pre-defined ideas of maximum tier sizes. If you will be contacted later today, it is most likely because your roster seems to be potentially stronger than the tier you signed up for, due to for example some of your players’ previous experience.

More information regarding maps and map rotation will follow later today.

BlackOut TV – Thursday 21st 21 CET / 3PM EST  –  The Bureau vs. Team Colonslash: Ambition

It’s the most wonderful time… for TF2! Get your ammo loaded and your grenades primed for the grand final of the High division of ETF2L’s Highlander Season 9 powered by marketplace.tf! If you have been hibernating for the last week our final match for High is The Bureau vs. Team Colonslash: Ambition, two very capable sides.   Team Colonslash: Ambition showed their “ambition” when they outplayed their sister squad of Team Colonslash: Express during the semi-final games despite losing mid-season to them.

On the other side we have  The Bureau who way back when in Week 1 (can you believe that was November 3rd?) defeated their opposing side on pl_upward 2-1. At the time of writing, the money is currently on  The Bureau to win (75% on saloon.tf) with  Team Colonslash: Ambition moping with the rest. The winner of this game will carry on to play in Premiership of Season 10 Highlander later this year while the losing side is doomed to play off against Stacked in the relegation playoff so potentially both teams we see tonight could be playing in S10 Premiership irrelevant of the outcome.

Tune in with Maxi, asadawarf & Jon on BlackOut TV from 21 CET for all the frags and results live!

Match Overview
The Bureau vs Team Colonslash: Ambition
Final
Thursday, January 21st 21:00 CET

cp_process_final

2 - 3

koth_product_rc8

3 - 1

pl_barnblitz_pro6

2 - 1

OVERALL
The Bureau [6:3] Team Colonslash: Ambition

Announcing Season 23 powered by Tt eSPORTS

After wrapping Season 22 powered by saloon.tf up and crowning Se7en as champions, we are happy to announce our next 6v6 Season. All the information regarding the coming Season can either be found in this newspost, or will be announced in the future!

>>> Sign up now! <<<

Sign-up process

Make sure to choose your desired tier when signing up. If you created a new team, feel free to apply for the tier you believe you deserve you should be in. To prove you are capable of the tier you applied for, we require you to submit screenshots of results from your recent practice matches or tournaments where you scored decent results against teams that play on the level you aim for. The quantity is not the most important factor in this case, it’s more of a helpful measure for us to figure out if your team will be able to keep up with the pace. There is no magical, minimum or maximum number of screenshots that you have to submit.

Sending links to logs on logs.tf or similar are fine if you include a short explanatory comment for each linked log, e.g. who your opponents are supposed to be and where they played last seaseon. We will not accept plain lists of logs without any comments!

If you want to be more specific about a tier you request, send an application to staff@etf2l.org (details listed below) with a suitable subject. Emails with subjects like “Hello”, “Hi” or anything else that cannot be identified as a team applying for a tier by mail may be ignored.

Additionally since it happens time and time again, you do not sign up by mail, you sign up on the site and apply by mail if you are a newly formed team playing in anything higher than Open.

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. The screenshots have to be uploaded to an online image storage service (for example, you can use imgur or Dropbox). Keep in mind that if you opt for a zipped archives with tons of pictures attached to an e-mail, your application will be ignored. Keep it clean.

Also helpful for us, but not a must however, is adding who the opposing team is in each screenshot (and maybe even the division they played in the last time). That makes it easier for us, because sometimes it can be quite hard (especially in the lower tiers) to figure out who the teams in the screenshots are.

If you are applying for Open (which is our entry division), you do not have to provide any proof that you are capable of playing at that level.

Please send your application to staff@etf2l.org. The tier assignment request has to include the following information in order to be considered. Incomplete applications will be ignored!

• Do not use HTML in your e-mail. If you want to add a link, just paste the link in the e-mail as you would enter it in your browser.
• Team name
• Team link on ETF2L.org
• Tier/Division you apply for
• Link to the online photo album
• Reasons why your team deserves to be placed in the tier you applied for (optional)

Season 23 powered by Tt eSPORTS Promotions/Demotions

All Open and Mid playoff teams will receive a promotion to the next highest tier, unless their starting roster changed by more than half of their players. Foreskings will be promoted to the Premier Division after winning the High Tier in Season 22.

Additionally the bottom 20% of the remaining teams in the High and Mid Tier will not have a guarantee to stay in their respective Tier. This affects the places 23-28 in the High Tier and the places 37-45 in the Mid Tier. The Open Tier does not have demotions.

Season Schedule

• Signups: January 7 – January 21, 21:00 CET
  
• Publishing of Provisional Divisions: January 21
  
• Publishing of Final Divisions: January 22
  
• Pre-Season Playoffs: January 19 – January 21
• Main Season: January 24 – March 10 (7 Weeks)
• High/Mid/Open Playoffs: March 13 – March 27
  
• Premiership Playoffs: March 17 & 20
  

If you intend to sign up for the Premier Division we encourage you to do so as soon as possible. Due to the Pre-Season Playoffs happening while signups are still open, we will only consider teams for the Pre-Season Playoffs that signed up before January 18th 21:00 CEST. Additionally we expect teams without a guaranteed Premier Division spot to be able to play at the 3 provided Pre-Season Playoff days.

Premiership Playoffs

We’ve implemented a new system for Premiership Playoffs, this time we will include 4 teams in the playoffs and we will also extend the playoffs by one day more. Until then the full schedule for the playoffs will remain as follows:

March 17th

21:15 CEST – 4th vs 3rd

March 20th

20:00 CEST – 3rd vs 2nd

22:15 CEST – Winner vs 1st
(If there are only 2 maps played in the “3rd vs 2nd”-match, the Grand Final will be scheduled to 21:45 CEST)

These days  may be changed to a day before Sunday March 20th if all affected teams agree.

Unlocks

We have released a provisional whitelist for testing within the S23 Preseason Cup and TF2Pickup.net. This whitelist is not final and is subject to change before the season officially starts. Please provide any feedback to the cup and new weapons allowed in this feedback thread. The whitelist can be found here.

Maps, Prizes & other changes

Everything else will be announced in the future, we just wanted the schedule and the signups to be available to you all as early as possible.

92 teams signed up and gave it all in the group stages. 48 of them are still left standing and ready to fight for their bracketwins! Fixtures are up now, so go ahead and check out your first opponents!

Schedule: a reminder

We have already meantioned it previously, but we are nice folks here at ETF2L.org, so here you go:

Thursday, January 14th: Knockout Stages

The schedule for the Knockout Stages of High, Mid and Open brackets will be as follows:

• 19:00 CET: Quarterfinals on cp_logjam_rc2a
• 20:00 CET: Semifinals on koth_coalplant_b7
• 21:00 CET: Finals on cp_gravelpit + loser’s pick (out of the cupmaps). The remaining map will be the decider of the Best-of-3 maps final.

Top bracket:

• 19:00 CET: Semifinals – BO3 maps, higher seat picks first, then loser’s pick.
• After Semifinals are done: Finals + 3rd place match – Same mappick system.

For the K.O.-Stages of High and Open #3, delir1um, BackGet Foolery,  Midnight 6s and  The Essentials, received a bye in the first round.

THERE IS NO 3RD PLACE MATCH FOR ANY DIVISION BUT TOP. You can go ahead and play this match inofficially, but it will not have influence on the standings.
This is a single-elimination tournament: You lose a match, you are kicked out!

Make sure you submit scores right away, as we have to create the fixtures on the fly!!! We will create the fixtures as fast as we can after each round. If they are not done by the time you have finished your match, you can already go on with the tournament, if you know what team to play against in the next round. The fixtures and matchpages will be up by the time you are done for you to submit the scores.

You can check your knockout-tree clicking the tab “Preseason Cup K.O.” on the ETF2L homepage.

Coverage: BlackoutTV

BlackoutTV will be covering the top bracket’s matches. Make sure to check their stream at 19:00 CET/ 1 pm EST to catch all the action!