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ETF2L Season 15 powered by BlackOut Gaming: Epsilon vs LMS

Date May 9, 2013

ETF2L Season 15 powered by BlackOut Gaming: Epsilon vs LMS

Epsilon have been the favourites to win for the past two seasons, so its only fair they get the easy games out of the way first:

Match Overview
European Epsilon eSports vs Russia Last Man Standing
Week 1 (Premiership Division )
Date Thursday, May 9th 21:15 CEST

cp_badlands

cp_badlands

5 - 0

cp_gullywash_final1

cp_gullywash_final1

6 - 1

OVERALL
European Epsilon eSports [6:0] Russia Last Man Standing

Read the rest of this entry »

AVerMedia MGE Monthly Cup [hub page draft]

Date May 8, 2013

COMEATMELAD
Banner by European accless

Overview

With the previous AVerMedia MGE Cup being a great success back in December, ETF2L has again partnered with AVerMedia to host a monthly MGE cup to sort the men from the boys and find out who reigns supreme!

Not only will you have a glorious pixel trophy boasting of your MGE prowess, you will also be able to get your hands on one Live Gamer HD C985 streaming card per month, generously provided by AVerMedia!

Every month a different combat class will be chosen. Two qualifiers with 128 slots each are held, leading up to the monthly final in the following week. Fight your way to the top 4 of one of the qualifiers and you qualify for the finals, where you will battle it out to win the Live Gamer HD C985 streaming card! More information on AVerMedia streaming hardware for gamers can be found on the Live Gamer HD minisite.

The usual schedule for this tournament series is as follows:

  • 1st Qualifying Bracket: 2nd Tuesday of the month
  • 2nd Qualifying Bracket: 3rd Wednesday of the month
  • Top 8 Monthly Final: 4th Wednesday of the month

For those of you not familiar to the concept of MGE: it is a gamemode where players play 1 vs 1 matches to practice and improve their deathmatch skills. More info about MGE…

June’s Cup!

In the month of June, we will be focusing on the demoman! Prepare those pipes and practice those air shots as you take on the best of ETF2L to claim your title of the best demoman in Europe ! Should you fail, never fear! This is a recurring cup, meaning once we have gone through the three combat classes, then we shall go through them again… and again, claim as many titles as you can!

As a special rule for this cup the Sticky Jumper will be allowed, however the Sticky Launcher, along with all other unlocks, will be banned!

Signups

Signups for Qualifier #1 are open now and will close at 22:30 CET the night before the bracket is due to start!

Signup Now!

Signups for Qualifier #2 will open once Qualifier #1 has been played.

You’ll need to be the leader of a 1v1 team to be able to sign up. You can find a step-by-step guide on team creation on the FAQ page. Only 1v1 teams with exactly 1 player will be accepted. Mercs and backups are obviously not allowed in a 1v1 tournament.

Brackets

-[ Qualifier #1 | Qualifier #2 | Monthly Final ]-

Prizes

Winner of the Monthly Final:

1x AVerMedia Live Gamer HD C985

Additionally and as usual, pixel trophies will also be handed out to the top 3 finishers of the monthly final. Every top 4 qualifier will also get a golden trophy for his bracket, no matter if they participate in the monthly final or not.

Cup Format – Qualifiers

  • Maximum signups per bracket: 128
  • Single elimination knockout tournament
  • Players can sign up for both brackets (exception below)
  • All matches have to be played on the night and if a match is holding back the bracket, a coin will be flipped to decide the winner
  • The qualifier brackets do not have to be played out. The top 4 from each bracket automatically qualify for the top 8 monthly final
  • A player who already qualified in the first qualifier of the month is not allowed in the second one
  • Qualifying brackets are Bo1

Cup Format – Monthly Final

  • Maximum Signups: 8
  • Single elimination knockout tournament
  • Only players who finished at a top 4 position in one of the two previous qualifiers get direct entry to this cup
  • Players that finished within the top 8 of their qualifier bracket, but not the top 4, qualify to join a waiting list for the overall top 8 monthly final. If a top 4 player does not sign up, the first player on the waiting list will be allowed entry. This continues until the bracket is filled with 8 players. Please remember that the reserve placements are on a first come first serve basis!
  • The Monthly Final matches are Bo5
  • For all matches that require more than 1 map, the 1st map is set and then it is loser’s choice from the rest of the available map pool. No map can be played twice in the same round!

The map pool:

  • MGE – EndIf
  • MGE – Viaduct Middle
  • MGE – Snakewater Middle
  • MGE – Badlands Middle
  • MGE – NoSplash / Directs
  • MGE – Granary Last
  • MGE – Ammomod

The overall schedule for June 2013:

  • 1st Qualifying Bracket: Tuesday June 11th
  • 2nd Qualifying Bracket: Wednesday June 19th
  • Top 8 Monthly Final: Wednesday June 26th

The qualifying bracket schedule:

  • 22:30 CET the day before – Signups Close for the bracket
  • 19:00 CET Qualifier Day – Bot Draw in #etf2l
  • 19:30 CET Qualifier Day – Brackets Posted
  • 20:00 CET Qualifier Day – Ro128 Starts – Badlands Middle
  • 20:30 CET Qualifier Day – Ro64 Starts – EndIf
  • 21:00 CET Qualifier Day – Ro32 Starts – Granary Last
  • 21:30 CET Qualifier Day – Ro16 Starts – Snakewater Middle
  • 22:00 CET Qualifier Day – Ro8 Starts – Ammomod

The Monthly Final schedule:

  • 22:30 CET Tuesday (the day before) – Signups closed. If not all of the 8 qualifying players have signed up, players from the reserve waiting list will fill in
  • 19:30 CET Wednesday – Brackets Posted
  • 20:00 CET Wednesday – Ro8 Starts – First map: NoSplash / Directs
  • 21:00 CET Wednesday – Ro4 Starts – First map: Viaduct Middle
  • 22:00 CET Wednesday – Final & Consolation Final – First map: EndIf

SERVERS

Cup matches may be played on any server running the latest version of the MGE mod and any version of the map mge_training_v8. The newest beta version of the map, mge_training_v8_beta4, can be found here. Locally hosted and public servers are allowed.

In case teams cannot agree on a server, the match may be played on one of the ETF2L league servers.

SPECIAL RULES

  • Status screenshots are not required
  • The only allowed unlocks are reskins of stock weapons and the Sticky Jumper. All other unlocks are banned. In addition the Sticky Launcher is also banned!
  • All players must record personal demos in case of disputes

Note: P-Rec will not work in MGE – you should record demos manually.

ETF2L MGE Hall of Fame

AVerMedia MGE Monthly Cup: May – Scout

Date May 7, 2013

Banner by European accless

May’s Cup!

In the month of May, we will be focusing on the scout! Prepare those flick shots and twitch reactions as you take on the best of ETF2L to claim your title of the best scout in Europe ! Should you fail, never fear! This is a recurring cup, meaning once we have gone through the three combat classes, then we shall go through them again… and again, claim as many titles as you can!

Prizes

Winner of the Monthly Final:

1x AVerMedia Live Gamer HD C985

Additionally and as usual, pixel trophies will also be handed out to the top 3 finishers of the monthly final. Every top 4 qualifier will also get a golden trophy for his bracket, no matter if they participate in the monthly final or not.

Signups

Signups for Qualifier #1 are open now and will close at 22:30 CET the night before the bracket is due to start!

Signup Now!

Signups for Qualifier #2 will open once Qualifier #1 has been played.

You’ll need to be the leader of a 1v1 team to be able to sign up. You can find a step-by-step guide on team creation on the FAQ page. Only 1v1 teams with exactly 1 player will be accepted. Mercs and backups are obviously not allowed in a 1v1 tournament.

Cup Schedule and Map Pool

The provisional map pool – post suggestions / changes in the comments:

  • MGE – Granary Middle
  • MGE – Process Middle
  • MGE – Snakewater Middle
  • MGE – Badlands Middle
  • MGE – Badlands Spire Viaduct Middle
  • MGE – Gullywash Middle
  • MGE – Ammomod Waste Middle

The overall schedule for May 2013:

  • 1st Qualifying Bracket: Tuesday May 14th
  • 2nd Qualifying Bracket: Wednesday May 22nd
  • Top 8 Monthly Final: Wednesday May 29th

The qualifying bracket schedule:

  • 22:30 CET the day before – Signups Close for the bracket
  • 19:00 CET Qualifier Day – Bot Draw in #etf2l
  • 19:30 CET Qualifier Day – Brackets Posted
  • 20:00 CET Qualifier Day – Ro128 Starts – Badlands Middle
  • 20:30 CET Qualifier Day – Ro64 Starts – Ammomod Waste Middle
  • 21:00 CET Qualifier Day – Ro32 Starts – Granary Middle
  • 21:30 CET Qualifier Day – Ro16 Starts – Snakewater Middle
  • 22:00 CET Qualifier Day – Ro8 Starts – Process Middle

The Monthly Final schedule:

  • 22:30 CET Tuesday (the day before) – Signups closed. If not all of the 8 qualifying players have signed up, players from the reserve waiting list will fill in
  • 19:30 CET Wednesday – Brackets Posted
  • 20:00 CET Wednesday – Ro8 Starts – First map: Process Middle
  • 21:00 CET Wednesday – Ro4 Starts – First map: Gullywash Middle
  • 22:00 CET Wednesday – Final & Consolation Final – First map: Badlands Middle

Rule Updates, P-REC and Admirable Interview / kaidus’ Interview Outtakes

Date May 5, 2013

6v6 and Fun Team Rosters caps

6v6 teams should not have more than 13 players listed on their rosters, starting the day they play their first official in Season 15 powered by BlackOut Gaming. Please make sure your 6v6 rosters do not exceed 13 members, otherwise your most recently added players may be removed.

Future competitions involving Fun Teams will have a maximum roster size of 20, same as the Highlander roster size.

The point of this change is to ensure that a team’s ETF2L roster reasonably represents the line-ups they may freely use in a competition, to opponents and admins alike.

P-REC has been updated for Steam Pipe

Ukraine Orange has released a new version of P-REC, a client plugin that allows players to automatically records POV demos in TF2’s tournament mode.

To install the plugin, simply extract the content of the archive into your …tf/custom folder. Do not forget to say thanks in the P-REC forum thread!

Important note: The earliest release of the new version contained a version of OpenPlugin, a third party tool that is banned in ETF2L. This may only affect about 50 people, chances are very high that you downloaded the later release. Please make sure the archive you installed the new P-REC version from only contains the following files:

  • …/prec/addons/prec.vdf
  • …/prec/addons/prec.dll
  • …/prec/addons/prec.cfg

You may have to delete the following files from your …/tf/custom folder:

  • …/prec/hfx.dll
  • …/prec/hfx.pdb
  • …/prec/addons/prec.dll_
  • the …/prec/sound folder (This folder will be recreated with your next game launch)

All requested demos should be uploaded to ETF2L

It is now possible to upload demo files up to 60 MB in size, which should be more than enough for most demos.

If one more demos are requested by an opponent or an admin and the individual demos do not exceed 60 MB in size, the demos must to be uploaded to ETF2L – demos uploaded to third party hosting will no longer be accepted.

ETF2L Season 14 Premiership Interview with kaidus – Outtakes

Lithuania huhystah has stitched together some funny outtakes of Ireland Admirable’s Season 14 Premiership interview with UnitedKingdom kaidus. Additionally, our Premiership Ambassador himself gets interviewed by TeamFortress.TV’s Azerbaijan djc. Enjoy!

ETF2L partners with Hypernia!

Date May 1, 2013

ETF2L partners with Hypernia

It is a great pleasure for us to announce a new partnership between ETF2L and Hypernia, one of the largest global providers of gameservers, voice servers and web hosting!

Hypernia has provided web hosting for ETF2L, as well as eight 20 slot game servers for ETF2L matches (5x Frankfurt, Germany, 2x London, UK, 1x Buffalo, New York) and a 400 slot public Mumble. You can find the IPs for the new Mumble and gameservers on the Servers page.

About Hypernia

Hypernia is an online service provider for game servers, voice servers, web hosting, dedicated servers, custom solutions and enterprise services. They mostly deal with server provision for large companies, providing excellent customer support and strong service.

Hypernia is supporting Team Fortress 2 communities all over the world, such as KritzKast, ozfortress and TF2 Mix-Up. Hypernia is also partnered with Gamers United, who are providing a broad range of servers and a community for gamers worldwide.

If you use our referral link, you support ETF2L with every purchase. Keep an eye on Hypernia’s Sales & Specials site for weekly promotions with significant discounts.

Upcoming changes to ETF2L services

Everyone who currently has a channel on the ETF2L Mumble has to request his channel on the new Mumble server. The old ETF2L Mumble will be taken offline shortly.

The new gameservers are located in completely different datacenters: if you’ve had bad pings to ETF2L match servers before, this may no longer be the case.

The site should now be more responsive during peak times, you can now upload much larger demos and expect new features to be added in the coming months!

We are looking forward to working with Hypernia to continue providing the best experience in competitive TF2. Last but not least, we would like to thank our previous partner Multiplay for supporting ETF2L for the past two years, and hope they continue supporting competitive TF2 in the future.