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Playoffs and Tiebreakers

For most teams, Highlander Season 4 powered by BlackOut Gaming is over. However for a small percentage of teams, there are still the all important Playoffs and Tiebreakers to be played! The full list of tiebreakers:

• Division 2A relegation tiebreaker:  Kritzkast: Distinguished Ducks vs  Raw Deal
• Division 3A promotion tiebreaker:  Partyvan vs  Hycz-eSports
• Division 6E promotion tiebreaker:  Brotherhood vs  Put a Keep Are You
• Division 6O promotion tiebreaker:  Super Secret Monkey Mafia vs  Weekend Warriors

Premiership
 DAROUTOUTOU vs  Parrot Gapers

The winner of this match will be in the Grand Final where they will face  SNSD for the chance to be crowned Season 4 champions!

Division 1/Premiership
 Kill Switch vs  Legolas’ Wrath

The winner of this match will have a guaranteed spot in the Premier Division for Season 5.

Prizes

As a reminder of what’s at stake, here is a list of prizes for Season 4, generously donated by BlackOut Gaming.

Premiership playoffs:

• Winner: €500
• Runner-up: €350
• Third Place: €150

As in previous seasons and thanks to Valve Software and Ruskeydoo, players in all divisions will receive in-game medals for winning the group, as well as participation medals for finishing the season. The Premiership Division will have gold, silver and bronze medals for the first three places.

Schedule

All Tiebreakers must be played before Sunday May 12th. Matches without results will be coinflipped.

Here are the deadlines for each round of the playoffs:

Tiebreakers:

• All Tiebreakers must be played before Sunday 12th May 23:59 CEST.

Premiership Playoffs:

• Semi Finals: Sunday May 5th 23:59 CEST.
• Grand Final: Sunday  May 12th 23:59 CEST

Maps

All Tiebreakers and Playoff matches will be played in a Best of 3 format. However note that Badwater, Gravelpit, Barnblitz and Upward should be played only one round each. Gullywash and Lakeside will be played with the usual rules.

The maps for each tiebreaker and playoffs match will be decided by map elimination. A step-by-step breakdown of the process can be found on the Rules page

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Overview

Having fought through the qualifying bracket, and then through the monthly final bracket, a huge congratulations to Mike who came out victorious in the finals and is now the proud owner of:

1x AVerMedia Live Gamer HD C985

But let’s not forget the pixel trophies! These bad boys have be given to the top 4 in the finals bracket. The 4 qualifiers of each bracket will also receive a gold trophy! Here are the top 4 finishers from the final bracket:

• 1st: Mike
• 2nd: TviQ
• Joint 3rd: MightyMe
• Joint 3rd: Croogah

If you have any suggestions or feedback on anything from the map pool to the rules, please post your thoughts here!

Thank you to all those who took part in the cup, the admins that ran it, and finally a massive thank you to our sponsor AVermedia as without them, none of this would have been possible!

Next months edition of the AVerMedia MGE Monthly Cup is rumored to be for the scout, so keep your eyes out for that!

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The Provisional Divisions

The signup count for Season 15 powered by BlackOut Gaming is 312 teams with a few on the waiting list to compensate early drops. The divisions are still subject to change, there is no guarantee for anyone except those teams who earned promotion or stayed comfortably in the middle of their division.

Provisional Divisions

If you are not happy with the division that your team has been placed in, please contact an admin in IRC as soon as possible. Keep in mind that much like during the signup process, you must provide evidence of your ability to perform at the level of the division you wish to enter. This means, at minimum, a screenshot album displaying performance of your team against other similar-skilled teams. These pictures can be taken from PCWs, scrims, cups, other leagues and so on.

The divisions will be finalized and divided into groups on Sunday night.

Reminder: Every team with less than 6 players by May 5th may get replaced. So make sure you have enough players in your roster and also make sure that everyone has their SteamID entered.

Qualifiers

Much like in the previous two seasons, we had more applications than slots for our two top divisions. Because it worked so well in the past and to give you all some pre-season TF2 action, we will again host qualifiers for the Premiership Division and Division 1.

One spot is up for grabs in the Premiership Division.  Furbo Pandas ,  Last Man Standing and  Revoluzion la metagame will compete for this one slot in a Round Robin style tournament (2 matches à 2 maps each). You can play these matches from Sunday 28th – Wednesday 1st (Thursday 2nd is reserved for a tie-breaker if needed) The team with most points joins the big boys in the Premiership Division, the 2nd and 3rd team enter Division 1.

In Division 1, two spots are up for grabs. This means, only the loser of the Round Robin style qualifier between  d-d-Did I Stutter?,  feenix and  Trick17 Black goes down to Division 2 and the other two teams get a shot to prove themselves in Division 1.

Map Update: cp_process

Scorpio Uprising has released an updated version of his map cp_process. In any Season 15 officials, teams will have to use the new version cp_process_rc3. Get it here!

Statement regarding Third Party Plugins

From now on, any third party client plugins that alter any game variables are banned in ETF2L, and their continued use will be will be treated as cheating. Server-side plugins that have gameplay-altering functionality can only be used if said functionality is disabled. Loading third party plugins on servers that change game settings to unusual values may lead to major warnings and forfeit losses (and possibly bans too?).

An exception from this rule is the plugin TFTrue by AnAkkk. Using a server that allows higher FOV values is allowed if, and only if both teams agree. The hosting team must inform the visiting team about the increased FOV before the match starts.

Upcoming site maintenance

The ETF2L website and forums will be going down for maintenance this Friday evening, around 21.00 CEST. We are expecting this downtime to last up until Saturday evening.

During downtime, you will still be able to contact admins in #etf2l and reserve ETF2L gameservers. If you have a match scheduled for Friday or Saturday, you should add the other team’s leaders on Steam before the site goes offline, and submit match results once it is back up.

We will keep you updated on the ETF2L Facebook page and VanillaTF2.

Update: The site is back up, but email is currently offline. For the time being, please contact admins in #etf2l instead of sending emails.

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Overview

With the conclusion of both qualifying brackets, 8 players have risen to the top and qualified for the Monthly Final!

The qualifiers from Bracket #1 are:

• MightyMe
• Croogah
• Zebbosai
• Mike

The qualifiers from Bracket #2 are:

• empty
• avenue
• Fischkopf
• TviQ

All 8 qualifying players have automatically been added to the competition. If you cannot play, please let an admin know as soon as possible!

The bracket has been drawn and is now live!

Monthly Final Bracket

TviQ will also stream his point of view. Tune in below!

Watch live video from tvique on www.twitch.tv

Prizes, Schedule and Rules

Don’t forget you are fighting for

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.

Reminder of the rules:

• Single elimination knockout tournament
• Only players who finished in a top 4 position in one of the two previous qualifiers get direct entry to this cup
• Players who finished within the top 8 of their qualifier bracket, but not the top 4, have qualified 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 matches are Bo5
• For all matches that require more than one 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 Monthly Final schedule:

• 18:00 CET Wednesday – Reserve signups closed
• 19:30 CET Wednesday – Brackets Posted
• 20:00 CET Wednesday – Ro8 Starts – First map: Viaduct Middle
• 21:00 CET Wednesday – Ro4 Starts – First map: Gullywash Middle
• 22:00 CET Wednesday – Final & Consolation Final – First map: Badlands Spire