Highlander Showmatch

As you probably already know, tonight sees the Highlander Showmatch featuring the players of  Team Infused, Epsilon eSports and Crack Clan. This crackling infusion of epsilonic bravery is going to be casted by VanillaTV, starting at 20:00 CEST. Tune in to see which motley crew will earn themselves a handsome £450, and keep an eye out for the viewer competition to be in with a chance of winning £50 yourself!

A few changes to the teams:

• Team A – TviQ replaces KnOxXx on Heavy and TheSucker replaces Royze on Sniper
• Team B – Thy replaces Retshock on Sniper

Highlander Nations Cup

The following players have been approved as captain of their national team:

•  Hildreth
•  beef
•  Haunter
•  TheSucker
•  Zoob
•  Thy
•  skeej
•  irfx
•  erebus
•  esk
•  Netsky

Applications for these countries are now closed.

We have also received applications for following nations, but they are still being reviewed: Belarus, Estonia, France (2), Poland (2), Latvia (2), Israel (2), USA (2), Romania, Croatia, Turkey & Italy. We still accept applications for these countries and all the others that are not listed here. Send yours to staff@etf2l.org

Please note that only national team rosters of captains approved of will be considered official. All other rosters created to this point will not be considered national team rosters. To decide the remainder of the details of this cup, the captains will be invited in a private etf2l-subforum where they can take part in our discussions.

As for the setup of this cup we will not be allowing mercenaries, there will be no restriction on the amount of players from one team and the matches will be played at fixed dates or at semi-fixed dates where only a limited amount of time slots will be available for scheduling. This should ensure a timely finish of the cup and make for a better experience for the spectators. Additionally this will make the combination with the 6v6 nations cup feasible. We therefore encourage the captains to make a large roster and will probably set a high minimum player count (15) on the rosters. These rules are all not set in stone yet, feedback is welcome in the feedback thread.

Most likely we will only be running the group stages in June, with a playoff stage at a later time.

Dignitas Alienware Cup!

This Sunday, 29th of April, marks the start of the cup. £100 will be given to the winner, followed by £50 for the second place and third and fourth both receiving £25 each. Signups are open for everyone. At this moment 14 teams have already signed up. Up to 32 teams can take part. What you have to do exactly and other relevant information can be found here.

S12 Tables

The Season 12 division tables are live! You can find them here.

Week 1 starts this Sunday, April 29th. Default dates will be handed out on Friday April 27th, so please start scheduling your week 1 match right away!

Highlander Nations Cup Captains – We Need You!

We have in fact contacted some people we considered the obvious choice to be captain. But we have yet to make a final decision on any captain, and applications for most countries are still open (some captains have been chosen, we will announce them later). You can apply by sending an email to staff@etf2l.org, explaining who you are, which country you represent and why you think you are the right choice for captain.

Those interested in the 6v6 Nations Cup fear not, we should have some details soon! We are currently considering a similar captains system, and will announce the final setup when we are happy with it.

Also…

We have a Facebook page, give us some love!

Highlander Showmatch

Last but not least we have the final rosters for Wednesday’s upcoming Highlander Showmatch!

• TEAM A
• TEAM B
• randa – Scout
• Mike – Scout
• longas – Soldier
• dunc – Soldier
• flisko – Pyro
• schocky – Pyro
• Pescanova – Demoman
• F2 – Demoman
• KnOxXx – Heavy
• matnuN  – Heavy
• GeaR – Engineer
• basH – Engineer
• numlocked – Medic
• wltrs – Medic
• Royze – Sniper
• Retsh0ck – Sniper
• Greg – Spy
• cookye – Spy

Season 12: Provisional Divisions

First of all of course the topic everyone was waiting for: The provisional divisions! Complaints should be directed to an admin in private, praise can be posted in our public forum, as usual. Please also note that the divisions are still subject to change and the final divisions will be released on Sunday, when more information about the upcoming season should also be released.

Season 12: Map Schedule

Week 1: cp_badlands & cp_gullywash_final1
Week 2: cp_gullywash_final1 & cp_granary
Week 3: cp_granary & cp_snakewater
Week 4: cp_snakewater & cp_gravelpit
Week 5: cp_gravelpit & cp_badlands
Week 6: cp_ badlands & cp_obscure_final
Week 7: cp_obscure_final & gullywash_final1

Staff Changes

ETF2L has always tried to have more than one active Head Admin on staff, so that no important decision could pass with just one person’s approval. Sadly due to RaCio‘s ongoing inactivity it has become time to assign a new Head Admin to fill the gap. It is no secret that CanFo has been crucial in keeping the wheels of ETF2L turning, this very post announcing him as the new Head Admin is a testimony to that. He had to be the one pushing for someone to write some kind words about him, to quote himself: “[…] and someone needs to write a little text that praises me in an appropriate manner”. Congratulations on the promotion!

500 Pound Sterling for the Highlander Showmatch

You may have heard about the Highlander Showmatch on April 25 that features all players from Europe’s top 3 6v6 teams  Team Infused,  Epsilon eSports and Crack Clan. If you have not, you can still take part in the decision process for who plays which class.

As a little incentive to take the match a bit more seriously, a generous anonymous (and most likely mystical, maybe even a bit shadowy) person has donated £500 towards this match. We do not want to betray too much for now but we will include a viewer competition. More on the use of the prize pot in a later post!

Highlander Season 2: Catch-up week

We are approaching the last play week of the second ETF2L Highlander Season. With many matches still unplayed (ಠ_ಠ Division 1 teams) we are giving everyone one extra week to schedule and play their matches if both teams agree. The final deadline for all matches is May 6 06:00 CEST. Please note that no default dates are set to any day after the week 5 deadline (April 28), if you want to use the catch up week you need to schedule the match(es) yourselves.

As usual, wildcards are not allowed during the last play week, which starts this Sunday (April 22nd). If your opponent uses a wildcard, please either agree to a reschedule on the match page or make them aware that the old schedule is still valid, and that they should contact an admin to sort out the situation.

Highlander Nations Cup!

Some of you have noticed that we have added a new team-type, the National Highlander Team. The rumours are true, we are planning a Highlander Nations Cup that will most likely run in June. We are, as always, willing to experiment with this cup. For example we are thinking about running this with fixed playdates, so as to run similar to a real world cup – and make the combination with a 6v6 Nations Cup possible. Please direct all your comments on what the map pool, the unlocks ruleset and scheduling type should be to our feedback forum.

At the moment, we are looking for volunteers to become Team Captains of their respective countries. To be considered the true representative of your nation, you will need the approval of the Highlander admin team. Candidates should drop an email to staff@etf2l.org to claim captaincy. Players who have proven themselves in previous Highlander seasons as reliable leaders and have a good reputation in the scene will have priority over those who do not.

Wireplay 9v9 Season 1

Still not enough Highlander? The Wireplay Team Fortress 2 League is opening the signups for their very first Highlander League. Maps and unlocks are still to be decided and your feedback is appreciated.

• Deadline for signups: May 4
• Start of week 1: May 14

For more information visit the Wireplay page or ask the friendly admin staff around b0nes (not the one from the movies but not less awesome) on IRC in #wptf2l.

On Wednesday 25th April there will be a Highlander showmatch that has been in the works for a few weeks, it is a showmatch that includes all 18 players from the top3 teams in European 6v6; Team Infused, Epsilon eSports and CrackClan, if any of the players find out they cannot play then I will be talking to the former Yoyotech players to replace them.  This should hopefully showcase the top 6v6 players performing the different roles and classes of Highlander, while having as much fun as possible.  The 3 teams will be split in half and put on different teams, which means the teams will be integrated and playing against members of there own 6s teams, so expect a lot of focus fire and banter.  While this may not showcase top Highlander skill such as the recent SNSD vs Colony game, the match may give us something to expect from the top 6s players if Highlander was the only game mode.

The Teams:

Team A	vs.	Team B
Greg  flisko  numlocked         knoxxx  Gear  randa    royze  pescanova  longas	Team Infused              Epsilon eSports               CrackClan	cookye  mike  dunc    wltrs  schocky  F2    Retshock  matnun  bash

Some of you may now be wondering how the classes each player will play are decided, well they will be decided by you the ETF2L user base, there is a poll in this post where you can vote for each player to play any of the 9 classes, my only plea is that you look at the 9 players in each team and select a starting lineup for each team (don’t vote everyone to play Spy).  Each players class will be chosen by the highest number of votes, however if that players highest is lower than anothers, then none of those votes will count and we will look down the list to see which class is next appropriate.

As for maps the match will be run as a best of three, on badwater, viaduct and an undecided 3rd map.

The Votes:

Team A:

Season 12 Map Pool

The poll has been closed, the Season 12 map pool is as follows:

• cp_badlands
• cp_granary
• cp_gullywash_final1
• cp_snakewater
• cp_obscure_final
• cp_gravelpit

And for those who are interested, the full poll results are as follows:

• cp_obscure_final (the snowy one) – 496 votes (49.7% of voters picked this)
• cp_gravelpit – 428 (42.9%)
• cp_croissant (latest version) – 345 (34.6%)
• ctf_turbine_pro (rules tba) – 300 (30.1%)
• cp_foundry – 284 (28.5%)
• Total voters (and votes) – 997 (1853)

While we are relieved at avoiding the work of creating turbine rules, a number of us are surprised to see obscure make such an emphatic return to ETF2L. Stay tuned for the full Season 12 map schedule, we should have that finalised by tomorrow.

ESH Reminders

Signups are still open for the Velociraptor Challenge, starting tomorrow night. We are delighted to see that 39 teams are now signed up (with a further 4 pending steamids), which means that even if we don’t meet our target of 64, we will still run the cup! For more details on the cup, click here. To ignore those details and just sign up(!), click here. For  huhy‘s handy how-to-sign-up guide, click here.

Stay tuned for our next post, it should be enough to satisfy even the biggest poll addicts…