Season 14 powered by Twitch Wrapup

ETF2L’s Season 14 powered by Twitch has come to an end last Thursday – and what an end it has been! Probably only a handful of people would have predicted that the Grand Finale would be such an exciting match, considering the contestants that faced each other there. The Season 14 championship title defenders,  Epsilon eSports, did not drop a single map since the Insomnia 46 LAN in August 2012, after all. Their opponents, broder, joined them in the finals after quite an upset they caused in the second round of the playoffs, to provide us with a nail-biter we haven’t seen in a long time. The VoDs of all playoff matches from VanillaTV and TeamFortress.TV are available on the Playoffs’ hub page and on their respective YouTube channels. We strongly suggest taking the time to watch them, if you have not already, as those last matches of the season turned out to be the best matches of the season and the casting only spiced them up!

It is our pleasure to announce that the reigning champions, Epsilon eSports, have emerged as the winners once again, securing €495 from the prize pool, courtesy of Season 14 title sponsor Twitch. The winning squad is comprised of:

• KnOxXx (Medic)
• numlocked (Demoman)
• Mike (Soldier)
• Mitsy (Soldier)
• basH. (Scout)
• schocky (Scout)
• wltrs (Scout)
• Slick (Manager)

On their way towards victory they managed to score some big wins to support their conquest:

• Week 1 vs.  Damage Control: cp_badlands 5-0 – cp_gullywash_final1 5-0
• Week 2 vs.  broder: cp_badlands 6-1 – cp_snakewater 5-0
• Week 3 vs.  Quarantine: cp_gullywash_final1 5-0 – cp_snakewater 5-3
• Week 4 vs. Pokeman: cp_gullywash_final1 5-0 – cp_process_rc2 5-1
• Week 5 vs.  Crack Clan: cp_process_rc2 5-1 – cp_snakewater 5-0
• Week 6 vs.  nerd party: cp_granary 7-2 – cp_process_rc2 8-3
• Grand Final vs.  broder: cp_granary 2-1 – cp_process_rc2 3-4 (golden cap) – cp_snakewater 3-2

This season’s silver medalists,  broder, will walk away with €297 in cash.

 Crack Clan, who secured the bronze medal this season, will take home €198.

In other news,  SOLAR 2013 have emerged victorious as winners of this season’s Division 1 and are advancing to the Premiership Division next season.

All pixel trophies have been given out. In case you spotted a mistake, please contact the admin staff. In-game medals will be distributed to all participants as soon as they are added to the item schema.
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Banner by  accless

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

Please note that the schedule for April 2013 slightly differs from this setup! More information below!

More up to date information about the cup series, including schedules and rules, can be found on the cup’s hub page.

Which brings us to…

April’s Cup!

In the month of April, we will be focusing on the soldier! Prepare those air shots and jumps as you take on the best of ETF2L to claim your title of the best soldier 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 are open now and will close at 22:30 CET the night before each bracket is due to start! Please remember that anyone who already qualified for the monthly final in the first bracket is not allowed to compete in the second bracket!

Signup Now!

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 map pool:

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

The overall schedule for April 2013:

• 1st Qualifying Bracket: Tuesday April 16th
• 2nd Qualifying Bracket: Wednesday April 17th
• Top 8 Monthly Final: Wednesday April 24th

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 – Viaduct 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 – Granary Last 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: Viaduct Middle
• 21:00 CET Wednesday – Ro4 Starts – First map: Gullywash Middle
• 22:00 CET Wednesday – Final & Consolation Final – First map: Badlands Spire (Soldier) / Badlands Middle (Other Classes)

Banner by  accless

Premier Division: colony vs SNSD

Tonight the Scandinavian Highlander stars  colony (now with a bit of added Dutch and French flavour) will take on last season’s champions  SNSD. This match-up was played last season on exactly the same map, so  colony will hope to make amends for last season’s 2-0 loss. On the other side of the field,  SNSD will be sure to bring their A-game tonight to be a step closer to getting their 4th Season title in a row.

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Insomnia 49 Fundraiser

Everybody who was on site or who followed the coverage of last August’s Multiplay Insomnia 46 LAN in Telford, UK, will probably agree that funding two American teams to attend the first ever international TF2 LAN was the most amazing thing the community of our favourite game has achived so far. I am saying “so far” because we now have a chance to better the i46 experience!

For Insomnia 49 (August 23 to August 26 2013), Australia’s reigning champions Team Immunity have expressed interest in attending and the chance that it is going to happen is looking very high right now. But this is not the main reason for this post. TeamFortress.TV is organising a fundraiser to send one North American team over the pond once again to compete for the £5,000 guaranteed prize pool at i49! Over $4,500 of the goal of $10,800 have already been reached, every little bit helps to make i49 a truly international TF2 LAN!

If you happen to have some money lying around on your PayPal account from your last shopping spree in the Steam Store, we ask you to consider donating whatever you can spare to the fundraiser. Think about how you would feel if the fundraiser is that one dollar short of its goal at the end and the American team does not fly over to play some of the finest TF2 you would have seen because of you? Let it sink in for a moment and then get yourself some more information on the fundraiser at TeamFortress.TV or head directly over to the donation page at indiegogo to donate for this great cause, and receive some nice bonuses as a thank you!

While rushing to donate, don’t forget to purchase yourself a ticket! There 20% early bird discount is still in effect. Head over to the i-series’ site to purchase a ticket or get more information on the greatest gaming festival in the UK.

Wildcard Bugs

Some teams participating in Highlander Season 4 powered by BlackOut Gaming have been reported to be able to use two wildcards, although every team is supposed to only have one wildcard total. If you encounter this issue, please refrain from using a second wildcard for your own team and report the issue instead, so we can add the exceptions to our bugtracker.

If a team uses a second wildcard that it was not supposed to have, the original schedule will be reinstated by an admin. Please help us doing that by reporting any use of a second wildcard you come across. Regardless if a second used wildcard is reported or not, the wildcard is considered invalid, and teams should be prepared to play on the original match date.

Bans

The following players are now banned from all ETF2L competitions for 1 year:

bestsniperworld – Triggerbot/VAC ban
Horizon – Triggerbot

Any attempts to bypass a League ban will result in an even longer ban on all accounts associated with the player. Don’t do it.

Matches in recent seasons that involved these players will be changed to default losses.

Interested in what is coming in Season 15? Check this out – comment on this post with a prediction for the number of frags of the top fragging player on the 2nd map and win a Club 3D Radeon HD 7850 royalKing graphics card!

Edit: schocky was the player with the most frags on the second map (cp_process). He had a total of 33, not counting the golden cap round. 8 people predicted that number, the random winner is filip. Congratulation!

In case two or more people predicted the same number or are equally off the mark, the winner will be picked at random. Only comments made until the second map starts are eligible.

In other news…

It’s finals time!

2308 players in 328 teams over 74 days comprising of 2000 matches boiling down to the ETF2L Season 14 Finale. There has been an eager sense of anticipation within the European community towards the potential match of the season, a heroic battle of uncompromising European titans, showing everybody that they are the best of the best. Six  flawless soldiers on one side, six  Viking-spirited warriors on the other, fighting for glory and fame – tonight will see them taking each other head on. There is a real uncertainty present; will David overthrow Goliath or the big fish swallow the little fish? Are the Swegians ready for what’s coming for them, or is it going to be just another performance of dominance? Ladies and gentlemen, ETF2L proudly presents:

VERSUS

Epsilon eSports have the obvious edge tonight, but with a slightly unfamiliar roster and a tempered resolve as of late, its not unimaginable that Broder could have it all. Who goes home with the bigger share of the total prize pool of €990?

The VoDs of the Grand Finale can be found on our playoffs hub page (scroll down)!

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