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With the opening match of Season 8 coming this Thursday, it’s time to take a closer look at another of our Premiership teams. This time we’re talking Highpander©. After finishing Season 6 as champions, a strong season ended disappointingly with a playoff loss to PremTech leaving them in 3rd place overall. With Heavy Piddox leaving the team shortly after the season, the team managed to win the Experimental Highlander One-Night-Cup #6 sponsored by scrap.tf using a much-changed roster that notably included Steve! on Medic and Kissakala playing Scout. We spoke to Hildreth to find out how the Pandas are shaping up for Season 8.

Firstly, how do you feel about how last season went for you as a team?

Hildreth: Obviously for us, coming anything less than second was unacceptable so to not even be in the final was beyond belief considering pre-season we felt invincible. Whilst many of the players were utterly disappointed in themselves and how we performed as a team, I can only praise our opponents for improving over the season and knocking us down.

Are there any roster changes the people need to know about?

Hildreth: We like to keep people guessing, the core of the roster will still be there, we may only have 1 or 2 new additions to the team in total. We’ve switched Kissakala back to Scout (his Season 6 role) as I felt the Medic wasn’t working, and picked up Spreijer. We may also pick up a new Heavy: Piddox, Polk and another Heavy are in the frame.

How has preseason gone? Have you been playing much or enjoying the time off?

Hildreth: You make it sound like it’s a job! It’s always a pleasure to play with my team, but a lot are busy with some aspect of their life either work, school or 6v6 so we’ve been playing once a week. We won the Experimental Cup and that was our first game since the defeat to PremTech, we did two pcws in two weeks since then versus Tourettes Chessclub, haven’t won a map yet but we’re not going overboard with practises at this stage, I want my team to peak during playoffs not during preseason like we did last season.

What do you think of the map pool? Is there anything you’d change?

Hildreth: Map pool’s fine really, a lot more thought has been put in this season than last season (lol reservoir), we got a few new maps to learn and some existing ones we can try and perfect, maps like Gpit are always the best to play, you can see unique strats and such, we may have lost every round last season but we were trying to play our own way. You’ll notice teams will do that, play their own style on a map like Gpit which is what I love about it.

Which players do you think will be the most important for you?

Hildreth: That’s easy – zoob and phromelo. Both are always big players for us, the stats don’t reflect it but zoob is the heart of our flank and is always making the right calls which as a combo we learn to play off, or he is learning to play off our combo. That’s why we’ve moved Kissakala back to scout, as they work together a lot, YanG "Пальмира" was more a solo DM heavy player who came into the combo. phromelo was a big miss for us versus PremTech, he is the sort of sniper that makes other teams afraid so when he told me he should be able to play this season I was excited, I just hope he sticks it out. The rest of our team has great players in every position, our combo will be solid and if I can maincall properly this season and keep ahead of the competition like I did in Season 6, we should win. We were confident last season and in S6. It changes when you win a season, the team expects to win more so I will keep reminding them of our defeats so they know we need to work hard and focus.

Who will be the biggest threat to your team this Season?

Hildreth: Well Tourettes Chessclub of course, I am not convinced PremTech will the same without ShaDowBurn, doesn’t mean they won’t be a threat but I don’t think they can win without him. Stacked have a stable roster this season, I can see them improving because they will practise a fuck ton, I don’t see any other team competing for the championship but Fair Enough will be able to pull off some surprise results.

Any shoutouts?

Hildreth: Shoutout to Arie from serveme.tf, to the HL admins except kKaltUu and to my team of course. foungi will get a shoutout for DeutschLAN as well, I hope we can go there in some capacity. Oh and BlackOut TV + Jon.

Fighting talk from the man in charge, but will his team come up with the goods to back up his confidence? With Steve! back to Pyro and Spreijer coming in, the focus will be on finding the right Heavy for the team. Zebbosai has joined the roster as a backup, but with the mystery Heavy still unidentified is Hildreth merely trying to throw us off the scent? No matter who the final piece of the puzzle turns out to be, the team are looking strong. Spreijer in an experienced Medic who put in some excellent performances for Chessclub last Season and Kissakala has been impressive on Scout. The unchanged flank and pick classes will provide stability and players like zoob and phromelo will remain the envy of the other Prem teams for their contributions.

The early weeks could prove crucial for Highpander©: A week 1 clash with Tourettes Chessclub followed by PremTech in week 2. Dropping points to their biggest rivals early in the Season could leave them under severe pressure later on, while wins could set them up for a dominant season. Only time will tell!

Highpander©

• Scout: Kissakala
• Soldier: zoob
• Pyro: Steve!
• Demoman: Hildreth
• Heavy: TBA
• Engineer: nijoonen
• Medic: Spreijer
• Sniper: phromelo
• Spy: Grenja

Big thanks to Hildreth for talking to us! Tune in to BlackOut TV on Thursday at 21CET to watch Highpander© take on Tourettes Chessclub on pl_upward to kick off Highlander Season 8 powered by Tt eSPORTS!

Join Highlander Season 7 Caster of the Season CeeJaey on BlackOut TV tonight at 22 CET with guests Hildreth of Highpander©, Scissors of Tourettes Chessclub, Qnai of Fair Enough, BAITO of PremTech and yak of UKIP for a night of Highlander hype ahead of Season 8, streamed by Jon.

With just one more day to go before Highpander© and Tourettes Chessclub duke it out in the first match of the season this is the perfect chance to catch up on all the pre-season roster changes and hear what the players at the top of the League have to say about each other, unlocks, maps and everything TF2.

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With Highlander Season 8 just around the corner, it’s time to take a look at how our Premiership Division teams are shaping up. What better way to begin than with Season 7 Champions Tourettes Chessclub? Chessclub proved themselves as the best team in Europe with a victory over PremTech in the Grand Final and they’re back once again to try to defend their title. Big hitters like BreakfasT_Jr and inso are returning to top the logs, but elsewhere in the lineup there have been whispers of change. We caught up with leader Scissors to find out what’s in store for Chessclub in Season 8.

How do you feel about your title-winning performance last season?
Scissors: It was a good season, we played consistently well and had a good time.

How is your roster for the season looking?
Scissors: Well, all our baltic players are gone. Which means uubers, atomic- and Spreijer. We have found a new scout, moved quintosh to solly and picked cherryrendezvous up on engie. We just need a demo and medic now.

Can we push you for the identity of your new Scout?
Scissors: We added him to the roster already. Lazybear is back baby.

What are your thoughts on the Season 8 map pool? Are you sad to see koth_reservoir dropped?
Scissors: Not really, honestly Reservoir was a trash map, we just happened to be good at it. Personally, I am disappointed in the maplist, Gullywash is gone and Gravelpit is still here, so that sucks. Sunshine and Warmtic are both decent, so it’s not too bad, and people seem to be happy overall.

Which players do you think will be the most important for you this season?
Scissors: Hard to say, since we haven’t finished the roster yet. Since we need a demo and a medic, two of the most important classes, it will depend a lot on who they are going to be. But I still think BreakfasT_Jr will be our major ace compared to the other teams overall.

Finally, what are your aims for Season 8? Are you looking to retain your title?
Scissors: Of course. I am happy with the developments I am seeing, and I think that if we figure something out with our current trials, our roster will be even stronger than last season. So we are definitely aiming to win it all.

With quintosh managing to get himself banned from ETF2L for the whole Season, it looks like a new Soldier is going to be top of the list for Chessclub. Away from the drama, it will be interesting to see if there’s any rust to be shaken off for Lazybear after some time away from TF2. cherryrendezvous completes the flank overhaul having impressed last season with his performances for the sadly departed Voodooh. If they can complete their combo in time, Chessclub look set to be a force to be reckoned with once again. The recent addition to the roster of roban (formerly known as Yes) looks promising, with the Finnish medic looking to make the step up to Prem after an impressive Season 7 in Division 1. Meanwhile, 6v6 superstars huhystah and blub look set to take on sticky spamming duties.

Tourettes Chessclub

• Scout: Lazybear
• Soldier: Definitely not quintosh
• Pyro: Scissors
• Demoman: huhystah (unconfirmed)
• Heavy: BreakfasT_Jr
• Engineer: cherryrendezvous
• Medic: roban
• Sniper: inso
• Spy: Khazul

Thanks to Scissors for taking the time to talk to us and good luck to Tourettes Chessclub in Highlander Season 8!

https://youtu.be/go2Xs9lAous

Bans

We regret to inform the public that a former anti-cheat staff member has been found releasing confidential information to the public. ETF2L does not tolerate this kind of behaviour, and he will be banned during Highlander Season 8:

• quintosh

The following player has been found guilty of manipulating screenshots and will be banned for the duration of 6v6 Season 21:

• Sonny

The following player has been found guilty of non-permitted acquisition of profits and will be banned for the duration of Highlander Season 8:

• CreatiVe

These players have been caught with VAC bans affecting TF2, and will be banned from the league for one year:

• Corzix
• herpaderpy

As these players have not been caught cheating by our staff, their match results are not affected.

The following players have been caught cheating by our Anti-Cheat team. They will be banned from ETF2L for one year:

• Puppy – ESP
• Dasboumis – ESP, aimbot
• aka_game – Aimbot
• SwagRune – Aimbot

The following players have failed to upload demos twice, and will be banned for two weeks:

• Arma

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We will start Season 8 as of today, so let’s go over a few things as a reminder.

Because we’re using the swiss system, you don’t know which opponents you will face in the next week(s), so please keep in touch with your team to discuss which days (and times) suit best for everyone. The system will keep the preferred days in mind when creating the fixtures.
Your team is REQUIRED to enter time windows. If both teams lack a time window, don’t expect a reasonable default date.

>>>>>>Set your time windows here<<<<<<

Congratulations to UKIP and  Unpoppable  for winning the premiership preseason playoffs. They will be competing with 5 other teams from last season premiership and WASP, who won last season’s division 1.

Premiership fixtures have been generated. Please keep in mind that premiership is different from the other tiers. For all new premiership teams please make sure you’ve read the rule page before playing your first match.

As a reminder for everyone planning to play this season, everyone is required to create a POV (point of view) recording of their games. twitch or youtube recordings are not a substitute for this. Please look into using P-REC or manually record your match.
Admins may request demos up to the end of the competition the match was played in (until the wrap up post is published). They can request as many demos as they require.