The event is going live now,  head over to www.vanillatv.org to follow the action!

The final event, taking place tonight (Thursday the 28th), is the Free-2-Play Invitational Tournament! Four top teams from other known competitive games will battle it out on cp_badlands in an action-packed one-night tournament, with all teams playing each other once to decide which team can handle competitive TF2 best. The teams will be supported by a TF2 top division medic. The teams are CKRAS from CSS (mentored by  F2), Xotic from L4D2 (mentored by skeej) and the Epsilon eSports teams from both Brink (mentored by  Admirable) and CoD4 (mentored by  KnOxXx).

You can also follow things from the ingame SourceTV by entering the following info in console:
STV 1: connect tf2.team-thermaltake.com:27102
STV 2: connect tf2.team-thermaltake.com:27100

Round 1 – 20:00 CEST:
CKRAS CSS vs Epsilon CoD – STV 1
Epsilon Brink vs Xotic L4D2 – STV 2

Round 2 – 20:30 CEST:
CKRAS CSS vs Xotic L4D2 – STV 1
Epsilon Brink vs Epsilon CoD4 – STV 2

Round 3 – 21:00 CEST:
CKRAS CSS vs Epsilon Brink – STV 1
Xotic L4D2 vs Epsilon CoD4 – STV 2

Final – 21:30 CEST:
(top 2 teams with the most wins) – STV 1

The champion will get to play a team with the endbosses of TF2, at a later date:

• Robin Walker (head of TF2 development)
• Jon Lippincott (TF2 Replay system development)
• TotalBiscuit (of YouTube commentary fame)
• Dr. Gonzo (Editor of Cadred)
• TheSucker (medic for ETF2L highlander champions, SNSD)
• Macisum (top division demoman)

ESL Country Championship Grand Finals

With 3 competitions drawing to a close and another just beginning, the next two days will have some truly exciting matches!

The first match provides an all-too-familiar country rivalry, from world wars to world cups, in the ESL Country Championships grand final: United Kingdom vs  Germany. The German team has taken a 2-1 victory against the UK earlier the cup and are still on a undefeated streak in the tournament. That does not mean the result will be predictable though, as Team UK’s has a strong record in this tournament as well, beating many favourites and proving their critics wrong.

The match will be played tonight at 21:15 CEST.

Casts are available in English (VanillaTV: stream and mumble comms), German (ESLtv), French (HiScore.tv) & Russian (Team-Fortress.ru).

I43 Online Tournament Moving To The Next Level

Before that (as in now), however, the i43 online competition to win tickets for the upcoming I43 LAN is taking place, with the lower brackets concluding today! You can find the tournament brackets here (in the TF2 section). For more information on I43 and how to be a part of it go here!

20:00 CEST – Lower tournament semi-finals (on cp_gullywash):
UV-Gaming EU vs  illegal. SourceTV: connect 188:138.56.35:37415
RAGE.eSports vs Vier RED. SourceTV: connect 188:138.56.35:37515

The finals between the winners of the 2 matches will be played at 21:00 CEST on cp_gravelpit (SourceTV: connect 188:138.56.35:37415).

Tonight the first ever Excello Team Fortress 2 Tournament, the Bigfoot TF2 Challenge, will come to an end. The finns from SG-1 (former Power Gaming) and the European all-star team Epsilon e-Sports will meet at 21:15 CEST on the maps cp_badlands and cp_granary (decider map: cp_gravelpit) to determine who will get six Bigfoot Killer 2100 network cards.
There will be at least three casts for this match. One in English, one in German and one in Russian. Do not miss it!
Even if the finals have not yet been played it is safe to say that this tournament was a success! I want to take this opportunity to thank all participating teams, our Sponsor Bigfoot Networks, VanillaTF2.org, ETF2L, VanillaTV, n2o-TV, TF2.Pro.Ru, Martndemus’  TF2 and all casters and viewers for their great support.
tomahawk, managing director at Excello, agrees: “I’m here – I want TF2 to become a mainstay at excello.net as long as you wish to do so“. Looks like a bright future lays ahead of competitive Team Fortress 2.

Bigfoot Networks decided to sponsor another cup and is donating another 6x Bigfoot Killer 2100 network cards (each worth around 80-90 €) so it is now time to announce the next tournament. To create a better competitive atmosphere, we will host two tournaments this time – One Open Tournament and one Invite Tournament.
One new rule for both tournaments is, that you can use one mercs if your opponent agrees but you are not allowed to add new players after the seeding is published. Also, please note that you have to reduce the timelimit if you are starting late.

In the Open Tournament, a maximum of 32 teams can sign up and every team is welcome. The first 4 rounds will have fixed maps (cp_snakewater_rc4, cp_gullywash_pro, cp_granary and cp_badlands) and have to be played on the 8th August. The final has to be played until the following thursday and is a best of three match (map pool + cp_gravelpit).
The winner of this tournament wins… nothing. However, he will be allowed to take part in the Invite Only Tournament on Sunday, 14th August and gets the third best seeding (behind the two finalists of the running tournament).

In the Invite Tournament, only teams that are invited are allowed to play (obviously).
The following teams are hereby invited. Every team that reached at least the quarter finals in the last tournament is invited. Because the tournament will only have 8 slots and the winner of the open tournament wins one, we can only take 7 out of these 11 teams:

– SG-1
– Epsilon e-Sports
– Dignitas (Mix?)
– Infused
– Monster Munch
– SNSD
– Anexis eSports
– Famestars
– Team Thermaltake
– K1ck eSports
– TCM Gaming

Teams that played in the last cup, will be treated preferential. The better they were – The higher their chance of getting in. This means, that SG-1, Epsilon, Dignitas and Infused have a secure spot (if they choose to sign up). The rest has either to be better than the other teams that are signing up or have to sign up faster than their competitors.
We are asking these teams to let know an admin as soon as possible if they wish to participate.
If the invite cup is lacking teams, the next best team (or teams) from the Open Tournament can consider themself (or themselves) lucky. They will get a chance to play with the Big Boys in the Invite Tournament.
This tournament will be played in the “Best of three” format from the first to the last round with map elimination from the previously mentioned map pool. The quarter- and semi-finals are played on Sunday, the finalists have time until the following thursday to play the final match.

The original newspost can be viewed here. In order to sign up for this cup, all of your players need to have an account at excello.net and need to enter a valid steam id in the format STEAM_X:X:XXXX. Then, the teamleader 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.
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.

5v5 Cup

edit: Our plans to make some improvements to the team types (hopefully reducing clutter at profiles) conflicted with the early signups. Apologies for the miscommunication. Read below for juicy updates!

It’s time for the awesome annual summer fun cup. This year the flavour will be 5v5 classlimit 1, a format that is certainly fresh and interesting. This cup will allow signing up with your “fun team” (former koth/3v3) or your 6v6 team (a player should be in only one team that’s signed up). If things work out we will use the option for future cups as well, so be sure to get a lineup ready for this cup! Signups will open when the maps and schedule are announced, most likely next Sunday.

The guidelines for this cup are as follows:

• Teams: 5 of your finest combatants versus 5 of theirs.
• Classlimit 1 for all classes. As usual this won’t be enforced in the configs, so that teams may have a little more flexibility during the game. Shoutout to Moose for suggesting this format.
• Strictly no unlocks. Standard weapons only for this, the focus of this cup will be on the team structure and classes.
• If you really need it, you can have one merc allowed by default. If, somehow, you only have 3 member ready, you may have a maximum of 2 mercs, with the second merc requiring opponent’s permission.

The maps for the cup are still up for discussion, you can see the current list in the forum thread. If you want to see arena style, please add if you want to see the medic class included.

It’s worth emphasising that there is no limit to the amount of teams in this cup. If you feel like entering, go for it! New players are just as welcome as veterans, and their feedback is just as valuable to us as anybody else’s. If things works out you might see more of 5v5 classlimit 1.

Multiplay i43 Online Tournament – Win tickets to Insomnia 43!

Our good friends Multiplay are holding a competition to win free tickets to i43! This competition is split into two brackets; an upper bracket for teams from Division 1 and above, plus a lower bracket for teams from Division 2 and below. This is a great chance for teams from all skill levels to try and win tickets to the event which promises to be another big LAN for TF2. The online tournament will run on Tuesday 26th July and Wednesday 27th July. More information including details on how to sign up can be found here.

And in other news

• To copy from a comment Crasp made elsewhere:

  “S10 will allow at most: Blut, Ubersaw, Kritz, Quick Fix, Crossbow and Equalizer. At minimum: standard weapons only. S10 will hopefully start in early to mid September, and finish before Christmas like S8 was supposed to. […] The map pool was to be 6 maps decided by a nifty public vote system.”

• Aliens are invading our TF2 maps!

• Do not miss the ESL playoff match between K1ck eSports and TCM-Gaming! It will start around 21.15 CEST today. For more info on SourceTV, streams and casts please head over to VanillaTF2.

BRACKET UPDATE: Cup’s starting, no spare slots

Tomorrow (Sunday) we will have the second attempt to play day one of ultiduo cup #7, with the very first 4 rounds being played (in theory that is) . They will be on the same timetable as last week:

• Round 1: 20:00 – 20:40 CEST
• Round 2: 20:40 – 21:20
• Round 3: 21:20 – 22:00
• Round 4: 22:00 – 22:40

It is very possible that you will finish a lot earlier, if you are able to play your round 2 game at 20:00 CEST that is absolutely fine, but it is not compulsory for any team to play round 2 until 20:40.

Last chance to sign up

There are still places left in the brackets (even if it doesn’t look like it). Any team who wishes to re-join please contact me(Imperium) on steam as soon as possible. There is at least two spots. 6 other spots are possible to be open, depending if the following teams reply to me to confirm their spot (since they did not check-in last week).  These teams are:

• PIERCE THROUGH THE HEAVENS, Dsk, kanelsnurr, Burzuje, Two Men Army and Tea Cups.

If you have a place in the bracket but you did not check in, please contact me (I may have missed out one or two teams on the previous list). You can contact me on steam here.

Other important details

• All teams need to have 1 representative in IRC (#etf2l) during the cup period to contact their opponents.
• Brackets should be edited by about 16:00 CEST tomorrow (this is an estimate), or at least well in advance of tomorrow’s play.
• Teams do not need to check-in again this week. This was to ensure that only people who were able to play last week were in the brackets. Since all the teams in the brackets now are (in theory!) able to play, this is no longer an issue.
• Rescheduling is allowed for round 4 (any more than this could severely delay the cup) if teams agree. Try to avoid this, however, since it lags the cup. Teams signed up expecting to play on this Sunday, so they are expected to play. Rescheduling is for the next round, however, is allowed next week – more on this when we know the final 8 teams!
• Also, since we are on ETF2L please take screenshots, both status (type “status” in console and take a screenshot) and of the scoreboard and upload them to etf2l.

Feel free to ask about any other issues, but I think we might(!) have a full set of games done tomorrow. Here’s hoping.

Steps:

1) Make checkin 1 hour for over 100 teams – my error

2) Give the bot 10 minutes to do what takes 40 – my error

3) Seed the teams so somehow it differs from the actual etf2l page (which somehow added 6v6 teams!) – ‘no idea’ error

4) Not setup the page itself before the cup – communication error

Let this be on my head – several errors compound into 1 mess. If you take any negative impressions of etf2l as a result of this cup, put simply don’t – it is entirely my responsibility. Credit to many admins who helped solve the issues, who really should not have been expected to do this (SnowiE, CanFo, Gubbins). We apologise for all the many inconveniences  caused during this cup, but let it be known that the errors are learnt, and the next cups will be better!

For the current cup, it will be postponed by a week, so it’ll start on Sunday 17th July. If you played round 1 results, they are valid, as long as you played against the correct team (the correct opponents are in the IRC draw). Those fixtures are here. Feel free to tell an admin your results over the next week so we can enter them. If you got a default win, this will NOT count, since many teams quit because they simply didn’t understand what was happening (unsurprisingly!).

Also, 4 quick updates:

1) All teams must have a representative with their etf2l nickname in IRC (#etf2l). This will make it easier for players to find their opponents.

2) Next cup will be seeded with enough time to do it.

3) Teams do not need to checkin again next Sunday

4) Some teams who did not checkin are in the brackets. If you are still unable to play next week, let an admin know over the next week (and any new teams who want to sign up, also talk to me).

Sincere apologies to anyone and everyone affected by the mess. We know our errors. Let the QQ commence!