As most of you will know, Multiplay‘s  Insomnia 43 LAN in Telford was the largest offline TF2 event ever!

If you have missed it then don’t worry, here’s the full video of the final, featuring the European top teams Infused.Tt and  Epsilon eSports. Enjoy!

With the start of the next seasons of Wireplay’s and ETF2L’s 6v6 Leagues approaching, Excello is announcing their next cup, this time sponsored by ZOWIE Gear. Like last time, two tournaments will be hosted – One Open Tournament and one Invitational Tournament. The winning team of the invitational cup wins 6 ZOWIE G-TF Speed Mousemats. By popular request we moved the bracket draw to an earlier time (19.00 CEST). Unfortunately, this means, that the check-in starts at 18.30 CEST and ends at 19.00 CEST. We are aware that this might cause problems for some teams because the owner might still be at work or busy. If you are 100% sure that you will be able to play an admin can check in your team, do not be afraid to ask! Another rule change is that from now on you are not allowed to play in the open tournament if you are playing in the invitational tournament as well (unless you win the open cup, of course). This caused some problems in the last cup.

Open Tournament

• Sunday, 11th September – Final until the following Thursday (15th September)
• 32 teams (14 signups already)
• Fixed maps for the first 4 rounds (cp_obscure_remake_b3, cp_snakewater UPDATE: Do not use the rc5 version but the final version!, cp_gullywash_pro and cp_badlands)
• BO3 final with the map pool + cp_granary
• The winning team is invited to the invitational tournament on the 19th September and gets the third best seeding (behind the two finalists of the last tournament).
• Please make sure that you have at least one representative of your team online on IRC and in #excello.tf2 at Quakenet to contact your opponents

Invitational Tournament

• Monday, 19th September – Final until the following Sunday (25th September)
• 8 teams (7 signups already)
• BO3 with the same map pool
• The winner gets 6 ZOWIE G-TF Speed Mousemats
• Only teams that are invited are allowed to play (obviously).
• The following teams are hereby invited. Because the tournament will only have 8 slots and the winner of the open tournament wins one, only 7 invited teams can sign up.

– Epsilon e-Sports – Dignitas – TCM Gaming – Infused.Tt – CKRAS – yoyotech – Team Thermaltake – myRevenge – Eternity – Mister

We are asking these teams to let know an admin as soon as possible if they wish to participate. If you feel that you can play at that level too and we overlooked your team, please contact an admin on IRC and we might reconsider. Teams that played in the last cup have a guaranteed spot in the invitational cup if they sign up until Saturday, 10th September. This includes Epsilon e-Sports, yoyotech, Team Dignitas, TCM Gaming, Infused and CKRAS. From Sunday onwards it will be “first come, first served” (of course the other invited teams can sign up before Sunday but they will be removed if their slot is taken by one of the mentioned teams). If the invitational cup is lacking teams, the next best team (or teams) from the open tournament can consider themseves lucky. They will get a chance to play with the Big Boys in the invitational tournament. The original newspost can be viewed here. In order to sign up for this cup, all of your players need to have an excello account and need to enter a valid steam id in the format STEAM_X:X:XXXXXXXX. Then, the teamowner can create a team and invite the players. Before the players are members of the team, they need to confirm the invite in their inbox. Please note that the Excello login only accepts small letters for your nickname! Admins for this cup are CanFo, Crasp, huhy, ipz and SonnyBlack. If any questions arise, feel free to contact one of them at #excello.tf2 on quakenet.

It brings us great relief to announce that the summer hiatus is almost at an end, and the time for our 10th season is at hand! With i43 practically over (Check it out!) and only 17 weeks until Christmas, we have a decent window to host what will be our 10th main season. So without further ado, here are the spicy details of ETF2L Season 10!

The MAPS!

The public has spoken! The  6 maps which received the most votes and form our Season 10 Map Pool are:

• Badlands (94% of votes)
• Gullywash (90% of votes)
• Granary (89% of votes)
• Gravelpit (66% of votes)
• Obscure (60% of votes) UPDATE: The rc1 version of cp_obscure_remake has just been released and will be used in the league (pending newer releases).
• Snakewater (59% of votes) UPDATE: The final version of cp_snakewater has just been released and will be used in the league.

Many thanks to the 1,475 who voted!

We welcome 2 new maps to our map pool. One is a familiar name, returning from the cold with a sunny new theme and various balance updates. From the mind of  Byte and the mapping skills of  Vince comes cp_obscure_remake_b3. Download it here. The second new map has gained a high number of dedicated fans and takes a well-deserved spot in the Season 10 pool. Be sure to download Chojje‘s amazing final version of cp_snakewater here.

Map schedule!

With those maps, the week-by-week order of them will be as follows:

Week 1: cp_badlands – cp_gullywash_pro
Week 2: cp_gullywash_pro – cp_gravelpit
Week 3: cp_gravelpit – cp_granary
Week 4: cp_granary – cp_obscure_remake_b3
Week 5: cp_obscure_remake_b3 –  cp_badlands
Week 6: cp_badlands – cp_snakewater
Week 7: cp_snakewater – cp_gullywash_pro

The Rule UPDATES!

There has been a tremendous amount of debate regarding the unlocks. To put the whole thing behind us, and hopefully allow us to focus on more important things, we will be adopting a “vanilla” ruleset.

• Allowed unlocks: Blutsauger, Kritzkrieg, Übersaw and Crusader’s Crossbow.

• Reskins of stock weapons (Lugermorph, Holy Mackerel, Frying Pan, Iron Curtain, Golden Wrench, Big Kill, Enthusiast’s Timepiece) are also allowed.

• All other non-stock weapons are banned, including the Original.

Other Rule Updates:

• We have updated the rule on requesting demos from opponents –
  Demos can be requested by an admin or any player of the opposing team.
  Admins may request demos up to 14 days after the match was played. They can request as many demos as they require.
  The opposing team can request demos up to 48 hours after the match was scheduled to start. They can request demos from up to 2 players for each map.
  A player whose demos have been requested has 72 hours to upload the demo, starting from the time the request was made.
  Failure to supply a requested demo will be punished.
  

• We will also be creating a forum thread that allows team leaders to post if their team has folded. This will give teams a new way of informing the admins and the community about a drop from the league, and optionally the reason behind it. Only admins and team leaders will be allowed to post in the thread, and such a post will be enough for admins to implement the drop. However, teams that wish to request a drop in private can still choose to do so by contacting an admin on IRC.

The SCHEDULE!

In the past, our weeks started on a Monday. Most of our teams, however, are known to play their games on Sunday-to-Fridays. This season, ETF2L weeks will start on Sunday and end on Saturday (match deadline). The schedule deadlines will now be the Thursday before the week starts, on 23:59 CEST. We hope this will make scheduling matches, as well as default dates, easier to deal with. Feedback on this in particular would be appreciated.

As mentioned earlier, the playoffs and long season can make fitting the schedule between holidays quite difficult. In an attempt to remedy that, Season 10 will feature divisions of 8 rather than 10. This meanz only 7 match weeks, so we have a bit more time to run the season smoothly. Please let us know what you think about this in the schedule feedback thread.

Signups will close on Monday, September 12th 23:59 CEST. Divisions will be announced on Sunday the 18th and Week 1 will start on Sunday, September 25th.

SIGNUPS!

What are you doing reading this when you could be signing up? Do it, sign up now!

You can apply for a specific division when signing up, between Divisions 1-6 and “unknown”. Teams applying for the Premier Division should contact us on IRC or on the email address below. If your team wants to request a higher division seeding, be sure to send us an email with an explanation of your case and screenshots of some good, recent results. Mention your team name and the division you are aiming for and send it all to staff@etf2l.org. Please collect all screenshots under one link, for example using imgur.

FEEDBACK!

We are always interested in hearing what the users have to say about ETF2L. You can give your opinion on the map pool, the unlocks, the rule changes and the scheduling system in their respective feedback threads.

There is still information to come regarding Season 10. Keep an eye on the front page for news on prizes and more!

UPDATE: Matches finished. Congratulations to Call of Duty Gamers UK for winning and Cardinals for coming 2nd.

6 matches are left in the tournament, all of them to be played 1 after the other tonight! The schedule is as follows:

• 19.00 CEST: Call of Duty Gamers UK 2-0 ql?
• 19:30: M&M 0-2 bunchiez
• 20:00: Cardinals 2-0 Dark Angels (default win)
• 20:30: virile unhumen 0-2 CoDUK
• 21:00: Cardinals 2-0 bunchiez
• 21:30: CoDUK 2-0 Cardinals

The SourceTV, courtesy of VanillaTV, is connect relay.vanillatv.org:27100 or relay.vanillatv.org:27101. Build-up to the finals is here, good luck to all teams!

ETF2L Summer Seasons Awards!

After a week of voting the time has come to announce the winners of the Summer Seasons Awards. A big thanks to everyone who voted and our congratulations to the winners!

• Medic of the Season:  Mirelin (Team Thermaltake, 33% votes)
• Demoman of the Season:  Kaidus (Team Thermaltake, 28,8% votes)
• Soldier of the Season:  Exfane (Team Thermaltake – 31% votes)
• Scout of the Season:  .Stefan ( ButtonBashers / Epsilon – 37% votes)
• Sniper of the Season:  Cookye (SG-1 / Team Dignitas – 31% votes)
• Upcoming Talent of the Season:  TheSucker (Team Yoyotech – 46% votes)
• Frag clip of The Season:  Taimou (2stroNg, 45% votes)
• Special Recognition Award: Torden (Creating / running vanillaTF2, 48% votes)

• Fairplay Award:  Team Thermaltake (37% votes)
• Most Surprisingly Good team: Team yoyotech (43% votes)
• People’s Choice Award:  VanillaTF2 (Providing epic TF2 coverage, 43% votes)

You can have a look at the full Award History and medal count of all seasons here!

ETF2L Season 10 Map Pool Vote

With season 10 approaching quickly, it is time for you to let your opinion be heard. And we are very curious how your Season 10 map pool would look. In the poll below you will be able to create your Season 10 Map Pool with the 6 maps you would like to see.  If there is a map that you are not familiar with yet,  be sure to give it a try with your clan or on tf2lobby, or check out the forum-thread for the map. We will use your opinions to decide on the maps that will be in Season 10, so be sure to make your opinion known!

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