After the resounding success of both his regular PCW result compilations and the ELO ranking of active ETF2L teams  fraac‘s newest brain child is the 6v6 Off-Season ELO League – a small ladder-like competition for all 6s teams, including fun teams!

With fraac handling the ranking, the only requirement is that teams sign up via a post in this thread on our forums. The most up-to-date standings can be found at offseason.elo.tf.

€150 total prize pool for top three teams on May 1st, split 50-30-20.

Teams joining before 20th April start with 500pts, thereafter 400pts.

The prizepool has been generously donated by fraac & Sideshow!

banner by Yggdrasil

Choo choo, gamers! All aboard the Highlander Hype train for our next interview with the mysterious benefactor behind Fair Enough.

Last season was a mixed bag for Fe – losing to the top three of Tourettes Chessclub, PremTech and Highpander© during the regular season but taking all 6 points away from each other fixture and missing out on playoffs by a whisker. With a strong focus on teamwork and friendship, this is the hippy commune of Highlander. With one of the least changed lineups between seasons, that stability and positive atmosphere could lead them to the playoffs and beyond. Currently sitting pretty at the top of the table after 6-0 and 5-1 victories against Unpoppable and Stacked respectively, the time has come to sit up and take notice.

jakeowaty may have set aside his medigun for a while, but he’s still pulling the strings. We spoke to Jake before the start of the season to find out what Fair Enough will be bringing to Season 8.

How did you guys feel the last season went overall?

jakeowaty: We achieved all the goals we set for ourselves in the beggining of the season. Prior to the season we had some shaky roster issues, we lost some team members but we acquired some too. We stayed in premiership and that what was most important to as at the moment. Sadly we couldn’t reach playoffs, but by the end of the season we had really promising results which we hope to make our goal this season.

Can you talk us through the roster changes for this season?

jakeowaty: Basically I stepped down while last season was still rolling due to being burnt out with the game. Decided to take the position of a manager of some sort and let the team rolling it’s own way while HartzFartz took up the leader position. Obviously we got skeej on Medic, but we also got tonmas to play Scout. Team saw great potential and talent in him, so I am convinced he is going to be leading the flank in terms of damage. Lastly, Zimmer had to step down as well from the main position so we got it's Mint to fill his shoes which again is a great asset. Rest of the roster stays the same, as there is no reason to change what is already gelling well.

You seem to be one of the most stable teams so far.

jakeowaty: Yeah, a few times some teams tried to nick our players for themselves, but Fair Enough members said no to them without any hesitation. This really proves that the team we were forming for the past 2 seasons has worked out, with loyal and talented players all around!

How has preseason been? Have you been getting a lot of games in?

jakeowaty: We are trying to get as many as possible with Hartz pushing the team hard with scrims, but we also try to schedule so we don’t have many problems with attendance. So far we have decent results, but our goal is just to improve. We have synergy already, so working out the details is just a matter of time.

What are the feelings on the map pool? Do you think it could be improved in any way?

jakeowaty: I think adding both sunshine and warmtic is going to actually warm and freshen things up in a stale gamemode like Highlander. I’m still surprised maps like viaduct and gravelpit made it in the pool though, as gravelpit proved to be the most random out of all maps multiple times where a lucky Medic drop can decide the outcome of the match, and viaduct is way too cramped for Highlander. Lakeside would’ve been a much better bet here.

Who will your most important players be and why?

jakeowaty: It’s like asking me who my favourite child is! I can’t possibly say that, the whole team is great working together and that’s why we stuck together for so long! Everyone as as important as the other. tonmas, our newest member, has amazing results on all ends, top fragging on the flank and having insane DPS, which we really were looking for. Pair it up with HartzFartz, who’s been brushing on his Soldier skills ever since he joined our roster a year ago and his infamous Beggars’ strats and you have a force to be reckoned with. Following up with Death the death machine of the team, he’s never had a bad day with us, constantly throwing sticks like apples in an orchard at little kids. I still preach that Poland spawns the best Pyros around, and Lex is doing everything to confirm that. Our permamerc for the season, it's Mint, already has a reputation he earned in Kill Switch, so filling Zimmer‘s shoes wasn’t THAT hard for him (love you ZimZam!). And obviously I can’t forget about our core here, skeej and Qnai who both have been irreplaceable. skeej has plenty of experience from past seasons and has slipped easily into the hard position of a Medic on Fair Enough, and obviously, Qnai, without whom the team wouldn’t probably exist this long! And, top that off, you have Blooddrunk and Villdjack. Need I say that BD has been pretty much confirmed best Sniper by multiple people in premiership? And Villdjack – this kid is way too modest. He says he has bad days, but even on his bad day he always finds a Medic drop in the most ridiculous and unimaginable situation.

What are your aims for the season? Where do you expect to be come playoffs?

jakeowaty: Definitely our aim is to get to playoffs. When that happens, we’ll see, but top 3 is our goal at the very least. Small steps got us where we are now, so we are going to keep the formula. Also, if I can, let me give a huge shoutout to HartzFartz and Qnai, both doing a splendid job getting scrims and leading the team just the way I would do it. Without them the team wouldn’t be where it is right now. And thanks to our sponsors TF2Pickup for their continuous support, be sure to check them out!

I can practically hear them singing round the campfire from here – it’s clear that these guys and gals really enjoy playing together. You can’t blame them with some of the performances they’ve been producing – Death top fragged and put out a fierce amount of damage over both maps in the game against Stacked, with new boy tonmas close behind. HartzFartz has been doing the expected amount of work with ye olde Beggar’s Bazooka (his koth_warmtic rollout is pretty damn cool no matter what you think of the weapon), but is equally impressive in a more conventional role alongside his Scout on the flank. Clark stepped in to play Soldier on Process and performed admirably, adding strength in depth to the growing list of reasons to expect Fair Enough to be contesting those playoff spots at the end of the season.

The next couple of fixtures are easier on paper. Prem newcomers UKIP and WASP should be softer opponents than Stacked – expect Blooddrunk to have a field day with any team that gives him any space. It’s difficult to see Fair Enough dropping any points before meeting Tourettes Chessclub in week 5 after the performances they’ve put in so far. Their results against the top three were ultimately their downfall last season – if they can take a result against one of the big names this time around, we could be seeing their name in the playoff bracket for the first time.

Thanks to jakeowaty for taking the time to talk to us! Next up in our series of interviews: Unpoppable.

• Scout: tonmas
• Soldier: HartzFartz
• Pyro: Lex
• Demoman: Death
• Heavy: Qnai
• Engineer: it's Mint
• Medic: skeej
• Sniper: Blooddrunk
• Spy: Villdjack

https://youtu.be/go2Xs9lAous
Season 8 trailer by Jack

Join Heavy Is GPS and Clark on BlackOut TV for some week 2 Highlander action!

Tonight’s teams are both coming in to this fixture off the back of a loss – UKIP were swept aside by Stacked while WASP went down 0-6 to PremTech. This is a game that both teams will be expecting to win, providing the possibility of clawing back some of the points lost to the playoff hopefuls. The Sniper duel between Burn and m0rg will be crucial – m0rg gave Season 7 Sniper of the season Tseini a run for his money during week 1, while Burn got outfragged by the lowly droso.

UKIP have lost their Engineer Condawg to exams for the second time, which could disrupt yak and the boys. Hank comes in to play Scout on the back of losing the High 6v6 finals, so expect him to take out his disappointment on the Russians. Up against him on the flank is Forsak3n, a prospect made only slightly less terrifying by the fact that he can’t offclass to Sniper in Highlander.

This is guaranteed to be a close game, with both teams out to prove that they belong in Prem ahead of sterner challenges ahead in week 3. Going into a game against Highpander© or Fair Enough will feel a lot better having taken 6 points off a fellow low Prem team. Anything could happen on koth_warmtic and cp_process, be sure not to miss out.

Match Overview
UKIP vs WASP
Week 2 (Premiership)
Thursday, April 2nd 21:15 CEST

koth_warmtic_b6

0 - 3

cp_process_final

0 - 5

OVERALL
UKIP [0:6] WASP

The clash of the titans is here – the REAL Grand Final of Season 20 will be fought tonight between ELOGURL and 1000 poops of the poopocalypse. Sideshow has led his team to Swiss supremacy, sitting pretty at the top of the table with a perfect record and the all-important first seed. Meanwhile Buttnose‘s crew took the longer route, finishing third in the main season before dispatching Lutuset and prtyboiz in the first two rounds of playoffs.

ELOGURL have reclaimed Scout nukkye after a brief flirtation with Ze Knutsson Rollerbladers in Prem, where he showed his true worth as a top level Scout. Astt also continues to put up fierce numbers, with evokje doing his best to undo all of Sideshow‘s throwing. Despite having to carry him on their backs, ELOGURL are strong favourites with over 80% of betters on saloon.tf trusting the Northern clown to deliver a return on their precious items. There is one potential spanner in the works – Demo Spary may be unavailable, with Se7en cheerleader huhystah approved to merc in the event of a no-show.

Meanwhile, over on team poop, Pocket Soldier ondkaja has proved himself a master of the uber game, out-stratting (© Thalash 2015) his opponents time and time again with Hat pumping out the heals as his players run riot. repu and Hank have also been on fire – this is a game that could well be decided by the Scouts. Smirre will once again be stepping in to merc Demoman, with the man himself Buttnose roaming.

One thing is for sure – this is going to be a nail-biting contest. After squeezing into the slim 4-team playoff brackets, neither of these teams will be going down without a fight. Join CommanderX, kaidus and DavidTheWin on TeamFortressTV from 21CET to watch the action on cp_process, cp_snakewater and cp_sunshine!

Match Overview
ELOGURL vs 1000 poops of the poopocalypse
Playoffs (High)
Wednesday, April 1st 21:15 CEST

cp_process_final

4 - 2

cp_snakewater_final1

4 - 2

OVERALL
ELOGURL [6:0] 1000 poops of the poopocalypse

banner by Yggdrasil

Here it is, boys and girls. The big one. An interview with a man who needs no introduction, but he’s getting one anyway. In the words of asadawarf:

how about interviewing the king of highlander, the creme de la prem, gaben’s prophet and chief wizard of the highlander illuminaerty?!

yeah i want to hear from BEEP

tell us how STACKED, the punter’s favourite, is doing!

One guy asked and we listened: b33p is here to give us a tour of his newly renovated French Château. It’s time to talk Stacked. After a major roster revamp for Season 7, b33p and the boys missed out on playoffs by a nipple hair thanks to some missing demos and a tie-breaker loss to PremTech. Despite this, the team successfully bedded in a new wave of Prem talent with strong debuts from SUZY on Heavy, NULL on Spy and asadawarf on Medic. The team also caused a couple of upsets – notably taking all 6 points from Highpander© on Gravelpit and edging out Tourettes Chessclub 3-2 on Viaduct. Let’s see what their main man has to say.

How happy were you with last season on the whole?

b33p: Towards the end of the season we really were playing fantastically, almost unbeatable in scrims for the week leading up to our playoff game. As for ETF2L, they did a good job last season with the map pool and scheduling, as far as I can remember. Losing lakeside was the right choice, though reservoir may not have been, nevertheless it was a move in the right direction for the highlander league in my opinion.

b33p: sorex left the team to ‘make a mid team with friends’ yet ended up in a Lego-centric team with Dr. Phil in High. We’d been using NiCO god's hand since last season anyway, so we’ve got him rostered. However, wltrs is most likely going to be main with NiCO god's hand playing when he cannot.

We made the poor decision to attempt to play and somewhat help revive UGC, and to get a roster for UGC we got a bunch of Frenchies as a bit of a package deal to keep some of last season’s players, so long story short, DeGuN is our main soldier. Hidan was part of the UGC lineup and we’ve got him rostered. He’s a bit like NiCO god's hand, he’ll play when our main demo cannot – main being Exon. Two absolutely fantastic demomen who take to highlander quite easily, though Exon. is the more vocal of the two and we’ll be using him to relieve asadawarf of some maincalling duties.

rouHe quit TF2 and it has been very, very hard to find a replacement. After some trialling we got droso on board. He hasn’t sniped in highlander in a while but we’re all coming together as a team quite nicely. He is already in Salty Frogs with many of our players, so he fit in very easily and is performing very well.

We’ve stuck with NULL (aka H.A.R.D.) as main spy for the season, even though he can’t play half as much as last season, because nobody is better. It’s a shame to have to use mercs for most scrims, however.

Mista, asadawarf, SUZY and I remain in our same positions as last season, despite the pretend roster I posted last week pending Exon. joining the roster which had many up in arms, people get so concerned about other people in this game!

b33p: Perhaps if I had killed more than 11 people during Season 20 in Mid, it would have been considered.

Has pre-season been going well? Do you think you’ve given yourselves an edge over the other teams by playing UGC regularly?

b33p: We only played officials in UGC really, and our roster changed every week, so that was of no advantage. Pre-season is going well on the basis we lost some extremely valuable players and we were unsure if we could recover, but we’re actually getting things together and can finally talk about strategies and team improvement now that we have a lineup of 9. We’ll be scrimming half as much as we were last season, which may be detrimental to winning the season. We’ll see what happens.

What do you think of the map pool for the season?

b33p: I was very active in the forum feedback thread on the map pool before it was decided/announced and if you’ve seen that you’ll notice the map pool from my point of view is almost perfect. I would have preferred ashville over warmtic, and perhaps croissant over sunshine. It’s a great improvement over last season, so the league is definitely heading in the right direction by continuing to evolve each season as new maps are created and play tested. Also, updating viaduct, barnblitz and (very recently) warmtic to their latest versions has been encouraging.

Who do you think your most important players are this time around?

b33p: To be honest, I don’t know. It’s not really about that. Consider our Season 6 roster, we had some of the best individuals in their respective classes in highlander ( sorex, huhystah, smziii, Admirable) and we still came 5th. Highlander is at the latter stages of the transition from star players and DM carrying teams, to true, highlander team play beating all else. You can see this from other rosters changing too, some players who have joined prem teams recently or in the past season may have been unexpected, but it’s because they fit well with their teams and contribute to the overall success of that team. Individuals stick out less now than ever before, unless a team is being carried or OverShaDowed by one player. But as we have seen, that still doesn’t come first.

What are your goals for the season?

b33p: We’re aiming to win.

Which team do you think will be the biggest challenge along the way?

b33p: PremTech for two reasons, neither of which is because I think they are the better team. The first is that we’ve fluffed two officials against them in the past, and the second is from a purely objective standpoint that they’ve changed their roster less than anybody else and that is a huge advantage to have over most other teams.

Any final thoughts or shoutouts?

b33p: I think this will be the most competitive season yet, points will be closer and more games will split points. Should be the best season for spectators. Shoutout to you and ETF2L for your time.

Big changes for Stacked, then. With the French staging their first successful invasion since… ever, these players will look familiar to any followers of the 6s scene here in the EU with big names from Awsomniac and Salty Frogs joining the Highlander party. Exon., DeGuN and Mista were all part of the DAROUTOUTOU team that managed to topple the mighty SNSD back in Season 4, so this is a group of players that should have no problems working together. The returning names from Season 7 lend Stacked a strong core to build upon and b33p‘s confidence in their ability to win the title could be well-founded. Their week 1 opponents UKIP were dispatched with a minimum of fuss, with droso dominating on Sniper. If they can take 6 points away from Fair Enough in tonight’s official and keep the wins rolling, last season’s top 3 could well be quaking in their boots come playoffs. The one cause for concern comes from their reduced scrim schedule – this has always been a trump card for Stacked over the other teams, will a lack of practice come back to bite them when the pressure is on?

Match Overview
Fair Enough vs Stacked
Week 2 (Premiership)
Tuesday, March 31st 20:30 CEST
SourceTV: fakkelbrigade.eu:27100

koth_warmtic_b6

3 - 0

cp_process_final

3 - 2 (golden cap)

OVERALL
Fair Enough [5:1] Stacked

• Scout: wltrs/ NiCO god's hand
• Soldier: TBA
• Pyro: DeGuN
• Demoman: Exon./ Hidan
• Heavy: SUZY
• Engineer: b33p
• Medic: asadawarf
• Sniper: droso
• Spy: NULL

Big thanks to b33p for taking the time to talk to us! Next up in our series of interviews: Fair Enough.

https://youtu.be/go2Xs9lAous
Season 8 trailer by Jack