The catch-up week has finished! All catch-up matches must have their results submitted by midnight CEST tonight if they are to be counted. Tomorrow, outstanding matches will be dealt with accordingly.

Now that the main body of the Season is out of the way, we move on to Playoffs! There will be three tiebreaker matches, in Divisions 6C, 4E and 2B, which will take priority over the proper Playoff matches the winners of those tiebreakers will have to play. The other playoffs for Divisions 4 and 6 will go ahead as planned.

The Division 1 promotion Playoffs will be cancelled, since they aren’t necessary.

Tiebreaker Matches: (map elimination)
Schedule deadline: 12/06/2011
Match deadline: 19/06/2011

Playoff Matches: (map elimination)
Schedule deadline: 12/06/2011
Match deadline: 19/06/2011

Playoffs for Divisions 2, 4E&F, 6C&D: (map elimination)
Schedule deadline: 19/06/2011
Match deadline: 26/06/2011

Tiebreakers

• Div. 2B 2nd place: vier // red vs Dont Shoot the Medic
• Div. 4E 2nd place: Crucial Team vs PunchLine!
• Div. 6C 3rd place: [OOC]Team vs Lost in the sky

Playoffs

• Premier Div. Prize Playoff #1: K1ck eSports vs Team Thermaltake
• Premier Div. Prize Playoff #2: TCM-Gaming vs Winner of Prem. Playoff #1
• Div. 2 promotion Playoff: UV-Gaming EU vs Winner of Div.2B Tiebreaker
• Div. 4 promotion Playoff #1: LagTastic Gaming vs Unstoppable
• Div. 4 promotion Playoff #2: Elite nile Gunners vs BAd neWS
• Div. 4 promotion Playoff #3: Winner of Div.4E Tiebreaker vs Crack Clan // Blue
• Div. 6 promotion Playoff #1: That’s What We Want! vs Six Silly Somethings
• Div. 6 promotion Playoff #2: Winner of Div. 6C Tiebreaker vs True loboQ team
• Div. 6 promotion Playoff #3: Newunionists: Green ogc.hu vs Buy More
• Div. 6 promotion Playoff #4: No Toilet Breaks vs FAKE.tf2
• Div. 6 promotion Playoff #5: 9 Team vs Dutchnet Familiars
• Div. 6 promotion Playoff #6: Stage Team vs The Project

Season 9 Award Nominations

Around now, one would expect the Season 9 nomination threads to be appearing on the forums. This Season though, we thought about doing something a little different. While we obviously value your opinion very highly, this Season we will invite respected members of the ETF2L community to make nominations for each category. They will make their recommendations, then the official polls will be held here for you to vote on. More details on this will be available soon!

As a special treat, we are adding a new category to the Awards this Season: The ETF2L People’s Choice Award. This can be awarded to literally anything you like, be it a player, team, division, video, site, abstract concept, limb, weather system, anything, as long as a reason for their nomination is provided! As per the traditional nominations, we will put the top 3 nominations up in a poll to decide the winner.

Summer 2011

We have decided to not run a league season during the summer of 2011. It didn’t really work last year, and we don’t think that a summer league this year would fare any better.

We do however have other plans. We read our forums and do our best to consider your feedback. Over the course of the summer months, we will provide a number of smaller tournaments for teams to play a little more light-heartedly than a normal 6v6 Season.

The first event we have planned is a Kritzkrieg-only cup, in which the Medigun will be banned from play and the focus will be on the use of the kritzkrieg in different skill levels (more on this in a news post soon!).

After 2 fun cups and the great success of our Highlander Challenge, we have decided to continue hosting highlander games. We will have more details on a new event soon, that will offer some great games for everyone in a relaxed environment.

Admin changes

With great joy we wish to welcome RaCio back to his Head Admin position. Additionally, Crasp is promoted to a Head Admin position, where he replaces Dave.
We would like to thank Dave for the efforts he has put in. Congratulations and the best of luck to Crasp!

Season 10 – September

The next ETF2L season will take place after the summer, with a number of improvements over Season 9. One such improvement is the map pool, which will be changing with the help of community votes and high level input. We have yet to finalise almost every other aspect of Season 10, for various reasons. We’ll do our best to keep you abreast of developments in that regard.

We’re also working on some other improvements, as well as keeping an eye on the ideas put forward in the forums.

Extension Week

In order to give teams the chance to play all their games, we have decided to add an extra week onto the end of the season. This means that all regular season games must be played by 5th June. However Week 9 Default Dates will still be given on Monday for the period of Week 9 if the game hasn’t been scheduled by then. No one will be forced by default date to play in the Extension Week, it will only be used if both teams agree to play in it.

Rosters Locked, Wildcards Disabled on Monday

As part of standard season policy, the rosters are locked and wildcards no longer count at the start of Week 9. This means that you cannot add new players to your roster, any player you wish to play who is not on your roster by Monday 23rd May will be counted as a merc with the standard merc rules applying. The rosters will remain locked until the end of the playoffs. Any wildcard used will be ignored and the original scheduled match date will still stand.

Playoffs

After the catchup week, playoff fixtures will be generated. The first batch of fixtures will be for teams that finished on equal points, to decide final positions (only where these positions are vital to decide who is promoted / relegated). After that, any playoff games from one division to another will be played, together with the Premiership playoff mini-tournament to decide the overall season winner.

Custom Map Cup – cp_grack_b9 Roundup

After a hectic evening, the winners of Wednesday’s Cup were Spam Effect. Congratulations to them! For everyone who took part, please leave feedback on the map thread regarding what you liked/disliked about the map. These competitions are crucial in getting map makers the feedback they need to improve upon their maps.

ETF2L Ladders Temporarily Closed

Finally, we are shutting down the 6v6 and Highlander Ladders to allow coding work to be undertaken on them. Once these improvements have been completed, the ladders will be re-launched.

i43 Prizes Announced, Venue Changed

ETF2L Partners Multiplay have announced the details for the TF2 Tournament at this summer’s i43 LAN. The Lan promises to be a big one for TF2 and to show their support Multiplay have pledged a minimum of £5,000 in prizes, with up to £13,500 available depending on the number of signups!

In order to increase overall capacity, Multiplay have moved the LAN to Telford. Remember to check out our LAN forums for all information on travel and much more. Don’t forget to get signed up as soon as possible to show your support for TF2!

cp_grack_b9 Custom Map Cup Starts

Signups have now closed and the first round fixtures have been drawn and are viewable here. Remember to play your first round games on time at 20:00 CEST on Wednesday and submit the results as soon as possible to keep the night running smoothly. Each round lasts 45 minutes to allow for delays. We expect the final to be played at 22:15 CEST, delays permitting.

You should always have a member of your clan in #etf2l on irc.quakenet.org to assist in teams/admins contacting you and to let us know if you are running late. If you don’t have your own irc client you can join the channel through webchat here.

Reminder – This is a vanilla unlock tournament. Only the Ubersaw, Blutsauger and Kritzkrieg are allowed.

Ban – Melonz / Fearny

Regretably another former cheater has returned under a new account. Fearny’s original ban for will be extended for a year and the new account  Melonz will be banned for the same duration. Please do not attempt to circumvent ETF2L bans.

ESH: Tt eSPORTS Challenge Grand Final

This Thursday sees the latest ESH cup reach its climax with what looks to be a thrilling clash between Power Gaming and TCM Gaming! Both teams have performed exceptionally to reach the final, beating the likes of Anexis, Team Thermaltake and even Dignitas to guarantee themselves prizes.

The match will likely start around 21.15 CEST, with TF2TV providing coverage of every awesome minute!

ETF2L Public Server

It’s been gone for a while, but it’s back! The official ETF2L public server is now live for ETF2L members only!
You can find the server here:  217.23.9.184:20100
Play fair and enjoy!

Admin Changes

For various reasons, the following players will be leaving the admin team:

mvp.
mihalch

We would like to thank them for their efforts and hard work and wish them all the best in their future endeavours.

Subsequently, the following players have been added to the staff:

huhy – League Admin
Spike Himself – League & Site Admin
konr – Anti-Cheat Admin

We welcome them and wish them the best of luck!

Additionally, Dave and RaCio have been named Honorary Head Admins for the time being. This means anyone requiring a Head Admin should contact SnowiE. We hope to see RaCio back shortly and wish him and his family all the best.

League Bans

It is with great sadness that we announce the following bans;

WT -Triggerbot
Just you – Triggerbot / possible aimbot
/ Exteel– Second account of O_oPs* (the original ban will be extended by another year)

All league games involving these players will become Default Wins for their opponents.

One Night Cup – cp_grack

Update: There are still some empty spaces for this cup! You can sign up on the Competitions page.

As part of our continuing efforts to support map-makers, ETF2L is pleased to announce another One Night Cup on a community made map! These cups are a useful tool for map makers to see their maps played in a competitive environment and draw feedback from it.
This One Night Cup will be run on Wednesday 18th May, featuring cp_grack, a map created by Vince.
You can find more information about this map in the forum thread.
Signups are open now and close at the end of Sunday. The first round of fixtures will be announced before the end of Tuesday 17th May.

Please note: This cup will run under the vanilla ruleset. The only unlocks allowed are the Blutsauger, the Übersaw and the Kritzkrieg.