The groups have been released and all matches have been set to the respective times. Make sure to play them on time. If you have a dropped team in your group, just disregard all matches against that team. We’re looking to fill all gaps with waiting teams, but there’s only so much we can do. Sorry. Make sure to check shortly before the appointed match time, if any dropped teams have been replaced! We will not replace any dropped teams after 19:30CEST. If you want to be put on the waiting list, feel free to contact an admin on IRC.

>>> Groups <<<

To guarantee a smooth cup tonight, everyone on your team has to have ctf_turbine_pro_rc4 downloaded and ready to use. Your server needs to have the correct map and s18 configs too, which you can find our League Configs page (the correct map has been uploaded to the serveme.tf servers, too).

Each team should have at least one representative in #etf2l on IRC at all times to contact your opponents; if you don’t usually have an IRC client running, you can use our webchat plugin.

Make sure you verify your match results swiftly, before the end of the night, so we can move on to the Knockout Stages smoothly.

Please forward all map related feedback towards the feedback thread.

Prizes

  Top Bracket winner: 6x Tt eSPORTS Pyrrhus Mousepad 

Top Bracket runner-up: 12 keys

 Higher Bracket winner: 12 keys

Higher Bracket runner-up: 6 keys

All keys are courtesy of Arie of serveme.tf (you should check it out – excellent servers by the community for the community!).

Season 18 powered by Tt eSPORTS: The Final Divisions

Teams have now been seeded into groups. Please note any teams with 4 or less members were removed, if you still wish to join the waiting list you can sign up once you have 6 members. Teams with 5 players were still seeded into the season, however you only have until Week 1 begins ( May 10th 23:59) until we may replace you with a team from the waiting list. Without further ado;

>>> FINAL DIVISIONS <<<

banner by stuntz

ETF2L user names are now locked

From today onwards, user profile names on ETF2L can only be changed by admins. This change allows us to simplify the nickname rule and improve certain site features. If you wish to change your ETF2L profile name, please contact an admin using the support page.

Season 18 powered by Tt eSPORTS – Rule Updates

We’ve been busy discussing some rules that need updating, here are the revised rules;

1.4 Every team has 1 Wildcard per season

Every team can use one wildcard in a season.

4.1.3 Golden Cap: Decider round in case of a draw

If the score is tied after the timelimit has been reached, a decider round (golden cap) will have to be played. The golden cap will be played with winlimit 1 and timelimit 0. The winner of a map that ended with a golden cap round gets 2 points, the loser gets 1 point.

1.10.2 Premiership players must use their real nicknames

All players who play a match in the Premiership division must play with their nickname on ETF2L. Team tags and sponsorship additions are allowed but the nickname must be the same as the nickname on ETF2L letter for letter. If a team uses a player who uses a different nickname the team gets a minor warning per player.  

Please note the updated Golden Cap and Nickname rules do NOT affect the Highlander Season 6 Playoffs and Tiebreakers. For the remainder of Highlander Season 6 matches, the old rules are still in effect. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact an admin for clarification.

Season 18 powered by Tt eSPORTS – Prizes

We here at ETF2L are also working hard to provide you with the best environment for competition possible. If fighting for the European crown is not enough for you, you will certainly be thrilled to hear that Season 18 will again provide money prizes for the best teams!

Players in all divisions will receive in-game medals for winning the group, as well as participation medals for finishing the season.

In addition to the cash prize, we have top quality hardware prizes for the best team in the Premiership thanks to Tt eSPORTS by Thermaltake. Please make sure you go and visit their website and Facebook Page to find out more about them!

•  Premiership winner: €500 + 6x Tt eSPORTS Cronos Gaming Headset

•  Premiership runner-up: €300 + 6x Tt eSPORTS Theron Gaming Mouse

•  Premiership third place: €200 + 6x Tt eSPORTS Black Element Gaming Mouse

•  Division 1 winners: 6 x Tt eSPORTS Pyrrhus Gaming Mousepad

In addition to these prizes, thanks to a donation from TF2Pickup.net we have the following prizes to hand out;

•  Division 1 winner: €100

Season 18 powered by Tt eSPORTS – Provisional Divisions

The Provisional Divisions have been released! You can find them here. 

So we have been working on bringing you the best possible Turbine experience and are proud to announce prizes for the winner of the highest bracket! Thanks to our sponsor Tt eSPORTS by Thermaltake we have hardware prizes to give out! Make sure to check out their website and Facebook page!

 Top Bracket winner: 6x Tt eSPORTS Pyrrhus Mousepad

There will also be an additional prizepool of 30 keys, courtesy of Arie of serveme.tf (you should check it out – excellent servers by the community for the community!). The exact distribution will be decided based on the sign ups and announced at a later date.

Rule Update

The cup will be using a new Golden Cap rule: mp_winlimit 1 and mp_timelimit 0! That means a Golden Cap round with no timelimit, and whoever caps intel first wins the Golden Cap and the map!

As a reminder as well, we’ll be using the RC4 version of this map, you can download the latest version HERE.

Please remember to give any feedback in the forum thread.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Highlander Open Cup

Banner by ninzja

If you are confused or need help in regards to signing up, check out the new guide written by  kKaltUu!

>>> Sign up now! <<<

NOTICE: Fun teams can now enter too. If you are currently in a normal Highlander team and want to create a team with you as the buddy, go ahead and make a Fun Team (ignore the 6v6 part)

Introducing The Highlander Open, a brand new initiative to introduce non-competitive players into the comp scene or for those wanting to get into league-style competitive TF2 in a simple manner sponsored by ETF2L.org and PurePings. After a few months in the works, we are now thrilled to announce it is happening!

And what exactly is this, we hear you ask? Well check out our fantastic and visually pleasing Highlander Open Page! It contains all the basics about what exactly the Highlander format is, and essential (light) reading for all who want to get involved.

This tournament is meant for people who are new to competitive play, a competition to find the very best pub team essentially. That said, we understand that many Division 6 HL teams are community teams, so they will be eligible to take part and those that have played in Division 6 6v6.

If you are a lone player wanting to get into a team or if you want to get more players for your own team, check out the Recruitment Section. If you are a team looking to get a buddy, load up the Steam Group page and check out the comments.

Rosters must only have a maximum of 1 player with experience in Division 5 and higher HL and 6v6 as that person is your ‘buddy’ and can only play as a medic.

Resources

• Comprehensive competitive highlander guide written by  kKaltUu and Wiethoofd. Russian version translated by irfx
• Play some TF2Center lobbies and gain great insight and experience in highlander gameplay
• Find more out about Competitive TF2 as a whole at comp.tf

Sponsors

• ETF2L – Hosting the cup with their extensive back-end system
• Hypernia.com – Providing the massive amount of servers required to let the event run smoothly
• TF2Pickup.net & Whitelist.tf – Donating TF2 items for prizes
• TF2Center – All-round service for those new to competitive to be able to partake in mix matches
• Team Colonslash – Providing the gigantic mumble server and a few extra TF2 servers

Format

The tournament will kick off with a Group Phase designed so that all teams involved will have the chance to play some exciting games with a final catchup week to play any outstanding matches or tiebreakers.

After the Group Phase the best two teams from each group will engage in a straight knock-out cup as we progress on in our journey to discover, and reward, the very best Pub team in Europe.

Prizes

Players that complete all their games will receive participation medals and those that finish in the top 3 at the end will receive:

•  1st Place – Medal + 9 class-specific Killstreak kits.
• 2nd Place – Medal + 9 class-specific Strange weapons.
• 3rd Place – Medal + 9 class-specific Cosmetic items.

Schedule

• Signups open: Now (Your team leader will have to sign your team up – for more info check out the ETF2L FAQ)
• Signups close: Thursday 26th June
• Final divisions announced: Sunday 29th June
• Schedule deadline for Week 1 matches: Sunday 6th July
• Week 1 start: Sunday 13th July

Please note that dates are subject to change due to tiebreakers and other unforeseen circumstances.

Maps

• Week 1 – koth_viaduct & pl_upward
• Week 2 – pl_badwater & cp_granary
• Week 3 – cp_gullwash_final1 & koth_lakeside_final
• Information about maps during the single elimination playoffs will be posted when final groups are created.

Unlockable Weapons

The full list of banned items is as follows:

• The Vita-Saw
• The Enforcer
• The Pomson 6000
• The Phlogistinator
• The Holiday Punch
• The Cleaner’s Carbine
• Pretty Boy’s Pocket Pistol
• The Red-Tape Recorder
• Bombinomicon
• The Jingle Belt
• The Bootie Time
• High Five Taunt
• Darwin’s Danger Shield
• The Crit-A-Cola
• The Short Circuit
• The Diamondback
• Baby Face’s Blaster
• The Reserve Shooter

Servers

For competitive, you will need play on a private server (password protected) with a special Highlander config file and weapon whitelist (provided) on the server used to set the competitive environment. We understand not everyone will have access to their own private server so you have a couple options in that case. You can rent a server using serveme.tf (courtesy of Arie & providers). If that is not possible or you’re in an emergency situation, we will have official match servers available (provided by Hypernia.com & Team Colonslash).

Also, your team needs a way to communicate with one another right? Well in the competitive scene we mainly use Mumble as our voice chat client so to benefit you lovely players more, we have a 10,000 slot mumble server set up (courtesy of Team Colonslash) for you to join and have a channel for your team, it couldn’t be easier! Details about the mumble server will be released at a later date.

Huh, ETF2L?! How does this work?

For those of you who are new to the ETF2L site, to sign up for the tournament you will need to be part of a complete Highlander team of at least 9 players. Your leader can then sign your team up for the tournament. We will be adopting ETF2L’s ruleset for General and Highlander rules as well as the Highlander server configs and weapon whitelists. The FAQ section will explain everything about making accounts, teams and signing them up for tournaments.

The Forums are a great way to talk about TF2, competitive play and the upcoming tournament. Don’t have a team yet, or are you looking for more players to join your team? Be sure to check out the Recruitment Section.

Even though this is a European centered event, we will welcome players from other regions with open arms. We will even try to place you into the same groups to ease the process of scheduling matches with your opponents. Against European opponents however, you will have to play on European servers at European times. The usual playing time for ETF2L matches is Sunday’s from 19:00-21:30 CEST. Make sure you are willing to (and can!) play at such times and on European servers before you sign up.

If you still can’t find the answer to a question or if you have any problem, then the quickest way to get into contact with an admin is to join the QuakeNet IRC channel #etf2l, and type “!admin highlanderopen <messagehere>” to get hold of someone who will help out. You can use the webchat plugin to connect to the IRC channel here.

Where you can help

You can help us with advertising too.

• Do you run a TF2/gaming news website? We’d love it if you announced the cup to your readership.
• If you’re a creative type with ideas for promoting the tournament – be it propaganda posters, a competitive play survival guide for new teams, etc – feel free to contribute.

If you’re an easy-going person who cares about helping the TF2 scene, we’d like to invite you to become a HLO buddy!

• Buddies will be the representatives between HLO and the community teams. You’ll join their roster, be responsible for answering their questions, making sure they schedule their matches properly, and depending on how good a buddy you are, organising and helping them out with practising and tactics.
• Buddies will also be eligible to play in the Highlander games themselves. But you can only play medic to keep it fair!
• Buddies will be assigned to teams on depending what language they speak. If you have a link to a particular community, you can request to be their buddy.
• Buddies will also be awarded with a medal like the rest of their team.
• You can put yourself forward to become a buddy simply by joining the new Highlander Open Buddy Group. Please make sure that your Steam page has the correct country information posted on it.

Special Thanks

Many people have assisted in making this great tournament possible by supplying us with advertisement, images and many other things. We would like to express our thanks to all of them. A special highlight goes out to the following people who have put a lot of time in releasing this tournament:

• Queenie – Organising logo creation, SFM stills and promotional video (coming soon)
• Raizio – Providing crucial TF2 servers for the event to run
• Permzilla – Supporting the tournament with ETF2L’s back-end and overall guidance

Have fun and good luck to all that participate!
–  Jon