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.

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Welcome to a new season of Highlander. We’ve reached the sign-up deadline with 148 joining us. We will make a few small adjustments to the tiers and teams. Because we’re moving to a new and fancy Swiss system it means teams will be matched with other teams within their skill bracket.

>>>>>>Provisional Tiers<<<<<<

Swiss System Changes: How to prepare for Week 1

We’re ready for teams to submit their available playing days for Week 1.

Every team signed up for Highlander Season 8 (except for Premiership teams) needs to submit their available playing days by Saturday 23:59. You can do that through this page and selecting Edit Availability for your Season 8 team.

• Select between 1 and 3 consecutive days through the dropdown.
• Select a preferred time and time window for each day.
• Click Save Changes! You’re done!

That’s all there is to it for now, this should get you started for Week 1. There will be a “Swiss System FAQ” page listed on the site sometime when the system is 100% completed and we can guide new players through in-depth.

Premiership Fixtures will be created after the playoffs. Please schedule the games as you would normally with the Week starting this Sunday. (Because of the late notice, default dates will be delayed so it would be much appreciated to add the enemy leader asap and get it scheduled fast!)

Final Tiers will be released tomorrow night, and fixtures will be created on Saturday at 23:59!