The brackets for the Monday Night Madness cup have been generated and we are ready to have a good look at the new custom 5cp map Snakewater!

>> Snakewater B9 download <<

High Bracket: Click here
Low Bracket: Click here

Round 1: 20:00 CET
Quarter Final: 20:45 CET
Semi Final: 21:30 CET
Final: 22:15 CET

STV highlight: Team Fruit vs. Twistedplay BoX2 – connect 85.236.102.65:27315

TF2TV will cover some interesting matches of this cup, be sure to check it out if your team is not participating!

The teams that have been so unlucky not to get a spot in one of the brackets should nevertheless stay tuned in #etf2l. In case a team drops we will announce it in IRC and the first team to query us will get the free spot.

Some reminders:

Please contact your opponents in #etf2l on IRC, so ensure at least one of your team is in there at all times. If you have any problems with contacting your opponents, please talk to an admin. There will be servers with sourceTV’s (hosted by Multiplay) available for you to play on, request them by talking to an admin.

• All teams must have 1 player ready on #etf2l (quakenet) to find their opponent and schedule the match.
• If your match starts more than 10 minutes late, please reduce the map time to 15-25 minutes, depending on how long you have left before the next round starts. Bear in mind that if the map finishes in a draw, there will be a golden cap period to follow.
• If your match finishes in a draw, you must play a golden cap round to decide the winner. Please reset the config and play a 5 minute golden cap round. The first team to cap in this round, wins. If neither team caps within 5 minutes, the team that holds cp3 at the end of the 5 minute period wins.
• The regular ETF2L Season 8 rules apply. Use of polycount/Australian christmas weapons is not allowed.
• Teams can use 1 merc by default, multiple mercs are allowed if the opponent agrees.

Season 8 playoffs

The main weeks of season 8 have passed and we can look back at some exciting weeks with lots of close action in every division. But before season 8 comes to an end it is time for the playoffs and tiebreakers. Epsilon eSports gave the best performance in the Premier division which means they will get to pick their opponent from the top 4 teams going into the Premier division playoffs. Other divisions will have plenty of action as well, with tiebreakers and several promotion playoffs. Be sure to have a look at the schedule and matches below.

Tiebreaker Matches / Premier playoff round 1: (map elimination)
Schedule deadline: 09/01/2011
Match deadline: 16/01/2011

Playoff Matches / Grand final: (map elimination)
Schedule deadline: 17/01/2011
Match deadline: 23/01/2011

Tiebreakers

• Premier division 7th place:  FakkelBrigade vs. Gamerzone vs. Yoyotech
• Division 1 3rd place: MTF.Gaming – Paroxysm vs. vye.tf2
• Division 4F 2nd place: Team OS vs. Team Versus
• Division 5A 2nd place: Pointless vs. Team Colonslash
• Division 5C 2nd place: GFM Clan vs. Elite nile Gunners
• Division 6F 2nd place: Racked.eu vs. moustache Gaming

Playoffs

• Premier division playoff #1: Team Refuse vs. Eternity
• Premier division playoff #2: Loser of Prem div tiebreaker vs. Division 1 3rd place
• Division 2 promotion playoff: knock0ut vs. n2o-gaming.TF2
• Division 4 promotion playoff #1: Anger Management vs. Blood is Good
• Division 4 promotion playoff #2: renoB vs. Flai Gaming
• Division 4 promotion playoff #3: Winner of div4F tiebreaker vs. Casus Belli
• Division 6 promotion playoff #1: Harmful Hamsters vs. Vier – A. M. Edition
• Division 6 promotion playoff #2: Elite Nile Gunners #2 vs. Who Dares Wins
• Division 6 promotion playoff #3: Loser of div6F tiebreaker vs.  Cant Shoot The Medic
• Division 6 promotion playoff #4: Green Syndicate vs. Nineteenth Century
• Division 6 promotion playoff #5: Team Extreme vs. Who Dares… Grins
• Division 6 promotion playoff #6: New Kids vs. Colorz.mTx

Highlander Community Challenge

The Tournament moves on and we have already seen some exciting matches. We have now arrived at round 4, the last round before the top seeded European and American teams meet. Be sure to check out the Cup Tree for an exciting endgame with matches like wat? vs. TwistedPlay. You will find the round 4 deadline and deadlines for subsequent weeks below. Good luck to those still participating!

Round 4 (1. Gravelpit 2. Upward 3. Viaduct)
Schedule deadline: 09/01/2011
Match deadline: 16/01/2011

Round 5 (1. Steel 2. Goldrush 3. Viaduct)
Schedule deadline: 23/01/2011
Match deadline: 30/01/2011

Quarter finals (1. Gravelpit 2. Badwater 3. Viaduct)
Schedule deadline: 06/02/2011
Match deadline: 13/02/2011

Semi final (map elimination)
Schedule deadline: 20/02/2011
Match deadline: 27/02/2011

Final (map elimination)
Schedule deadline: 06/03/2011
Match deadline: 13/03/2011

Monday Night Madness #8 – Snakewater

For those of you not playing in the playoffs or the Highlander challenge there is a nice surprise in the form of the Monday Night Madness Cup #8. This time the one day cup for custom maps will feature cp_snakewater by   Chojje. He spent quite some time on fine-tuning the map for competitive play, so be sure to check out more about his map in this forum thread.

>> Snakewater B9 download <<

The Eighth edition of the Monday Night Madness will be held Monday, 10 January at 20:00 CET. The signups will open on Sunday, 9 January at 17:00 CET. We will have several servers (provided by Multiplay) available to play on. the cup will use the familiar format: Teams will be seeded into groups of 16 according to their skill. When signing up, you will be placed on the waiting list at first, and then seeded into the correct group. The finals of each bracket will be held at 22:15 CET. Be sure to check them out.

Happy 2011!

And finally, the staff at ETF2L would like to extend our best wishes to you, your family, and your teammates this New Year. Thanks for a great 2010, and let’s work together to make 2011 an even better year for Team Fortress 2!

Be sure to give your feedback here

It is time for the first Experimental Ordnance Cup for the TF2Beta! Using the familiar setup that was previously used to try the many new unlocks and setups in competitive play, we hope to be able to get proper playtime and feedback for the TF2beta project. Since match servers are still a bit rare in TF2beta, we will focus on the two newly modified maps cp_granary and cp_5gorge (both can be downloaded for the regular TF2 version). The cup will follow the same format as the usual one-day cups. Teams will be seeded into groups of 16 according to their skill.  The games start today Wednesday the 8th at 20:00 CET and the finals of each bracket will be held at 22:15 CET. For those of you with beta servers, we encourage you to try to play the matches on your server if both teams agree. You are allowed to use the variant 1 and variant 2 Natascha versions in this case.

>> Sign up now <<

Stv highlight – The final: Quarantine vs LagTastic Gaming -connect 85.236.102.65:27315

Map downloads: cp_granary_beta & cp_5gorge_beta

Round 1: 20:00 CET (5gorge)
Quarter Final: 20:45 CET (granary_beta)
Semi Final: 21:30 CET (5gorge)
Final: 22:15 CET (granary_beta)

The Details:

Please contact your opponents in #etf2l on IRC, so ensure at least one of your team is in there at all times. If you have any problems contacting your opponents, please talk to an Admin. There will be servers with SourceTVs (hosted by Multiplay) available for you to play on. Request them by talking to an admin.

• All teams must have at least 1 player ready on #etf2l (QuakeNet) to find their opponent and schedule the match.
• If your match starts more than 10 minutes late, please reduce the map time to 15-25 minutes, depending on how long you have left before the next round starts. Bear in mind that if the map finishes in a draw, there will be a golden cap period to follow.
• If your match finishes in a draw, you must play a golden cap round to decide the winner. Please reset the config and play a 5 minute golden cap round. The first team to cap in this round, wins. If neither team caps within 5 minutes, the team that holds CP3 at the end of the 5 minute period wins.
• The regular ETF2L Season 8 rules apply. Use of polycount weapons is not allowed. Natascha versions 1 and 2 are allowed if games are played on a TF2beta server.
• Teams may use 1 merc by default, multiple mercs are allowed if the opponent agrees.

The brackets for the Monday Night Madness cup have been generated and we are ready to have a good look at the new custom 5cp map Bazillion!

High Bracket: Click here
Low Bracket: Click here

Round 1: 20:00 CET
Quarter Final: 20:45 CET
Semi Final: 21:30 CET
Final: 22:15 CET

STV highlights:
UB finals: Blight vs The MIPC Organization – connect 188.40.102.206:30000
LB finals: Quarantine vs TFPortal.de – connect 85.236.102.65:27315

Some reminders:

Please contact your opponents in #etf2l on IRC, so ensure at least one of your team is in there at all times. If you have any problems with contacting your opponents, please talk to an Admin. There will be servers with sourceTV’s (hosted by Multiplay) available for you to play on, request them by talking to an admin.

• All teams must have 1 player ready on #etf2l (quakenet) to find their opponent and schedule the match.
• When your match starts more than 10 minutes late, please reduce the map time to 15-25 minutes, depending on how long you have left before the next round starts. Bear in mind that if the map finishes in a draw, there will be a golden cap period to follow.
• If your match finishes in a draw, you must play a golden cap round to decide the winner. Please reset the config and play a 5 minute golden cap round. The first team to cap in this round, wins. If neither team caps within 5 minutes, the team that holds cp3 at the end of the 5 minute period wins.
• The regular ETF2L Season 8 rules apply. Use of polycount weapons is not allowed.
• Teams can use 1 merc by default, multiple mercs are allowed if the opponent agrees.

MNM#7 signups now open! [Link]

Yesterday, the official TF2 beta project started. Naturally, we love this update which focuses on gameplay improvements and we think it would be great to have the ETF2L and its community supporting the project. To start off, we have opened a TF2 Beta Forum Section. This forum section will be heavily moderated and will hopefully provide a good representation of (high level) competitive play. At first the forum will be limited to a select few threads. Remember to add the section to your forum preferences in your profile if you wish for threads in the forum to show up in “recent posts”.

Additionally, we are looking to run The Experimental Ordnance Cup #3 next Wednesday,  8th of December. The exact format of the cup is still being worked out, as beta match servers are still rare. The full details will be published next Tuesday, but we can already say that Granary will definitely be played as (one of the) map(s). The signups will also go public on Tuesday. However, teams who have their own beta server to play on can already sign up here.

Monday Night Madness #7 – Cp_Bazillion

But first it’s time to try out and see the new map created by Arnold, the designer of the popular custom map cp_gullywash. His new map is a 5cp map called bazillion and features even more more mind-boggling originality with capture points. Be sure to check out some screenshots in his forum thread about the map.

>> Bazillion_b5 download <<

The Seventh edition of the Monday Night Madness will be held next Monday, 6 December starting at 20:00 CET. Signups will open tomorrow on Sunday, 5 December at 17:00 CET. We will have several servers (provided by Multiplay) available to play on. Teams will be seeded into groups of 16 according to their skill. When signing up, you will be placed on the waiting list at first, and then seeded into the correct group. The finals of each bracket will be held at 22:15 CET. Be sure to check them out.

Sign up now!

For other map designers looking to get some playtesting and feedback, send a mail to staff@etf2l.org and with a little luck (and some mapping skills) you will motivate one of us enough to get a one-day cup hosted for you.

Community Call and the Recruitment section

In other news, some players from the community have recently started a nice petition to get our beloved game  played at the internationally prestigious Dreamhack LAN event. Rally your friends and clanmates and show what the TF2 community is made of. -Sign here-

The ETF2L recruitment section has been updated to work with divisional skill rating. Be sure to have a look and post your future 6v6 recruitment posts through the system. Topics in the old forum recruitment section can still be viewed and receive replies.