“Nothing stokes my ire like a cheater. Deception, duplicity, murder — these are merely tools in a toolbox one can use to ensure a job done well. But cheating? I cannot even wrap my head around the point of it. Wouldn’t you know you had cheated? How on Earth could you maintain crisp certainty of your superiority to all others? And if you’re unable to do that, what’s the point of anything?”
Text Source: https://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=6679

Why we are publishing a Transparency Post

Every now and then we receive questions about how the ETF2L Anti-Cheat team operates and how we have operated in the past. As most of these questions revolve around the same topics, we want to give the community a chance to gain a better insight by explaining some of our workflows as well as describe changes that happened over the years. This post was written by Head Anti-Cheat Admin Samus with the help of former Head Anti-Cheat Admin quintosh, who also had the main idea for a post like this, and former ETF2L admin ashkan.

We will start with the question that we probably receive the most:

“The ETF2L Anti-Cheat team has wrongly banned innocent people for cheating before, why should we believe that they can’t be wrong now too?”

Whatever your opinions on the more recent ban decisions may be, ETF2L unbanned BeaVerN in 2011 after a new set of Anti-Cheat admins re-opened an investigation into the case. They believed the evidence was insufficient and did not prove with any certainty that he was in fact cheating. After that case, actions were taken in an effort to minimize the likelihood of reaching an incorrect cheating ban verdict again for all future cases. If you want to read up on the staff response at the time you can find it here.
In order to understand what exactly happened and what changed after that event in 2011, we need to take a short look at the history of how the admin staff of ETF2L operated. Due to it being more than ten years since then, some things cannot be recounted with 100% accuracy, but the general progression seems clear.
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No Premiership Qualifiers

For the Season 39 we received 8 Premiership applications. Therefore there won’t be any Premiership Qualifiers. The teams going straight to Premiership are:

• ★★★½
• Witness Gaming
• Garda Panteri
• gceu
• GREMLINS
• nunya
• Ora Elektro
• Vibrams

Prizepool

We’ll be having a prize pool for Season 39’s Premiership Tier. The split will be the following:

• 1st – 132 euros
• 2nd – 78 euros

Map Rotation

• Week 1: cp_process_f7 & cp_granary_pro_rc8
• Week 2: cp_granary_pro_rc8 & cp_gullywash_final1
• Week 3: cp_gullywash_final1 & cp_reckoner_rc6
• Week 4: cp_reckoner_rc6 & cp_sunshine
• Week 5: cp_sunshine & cp_snakewater_final1
• Week 6: cp_snakewater_final1 & koth_product_rcx 
• Week 7: koth_product_rcx  & cp_process_f7

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6v6 Nations Cup is almost over and we are on the brink of beginning the Highlander Nations Cup. Will Poland defend their Crown? Will we see the return of the USA?

The Cup will feature a Group Stage and a single-elimination Tournament, and will take place throughout July and August. Each country will be represented by one team consisting out of players of the same nationality, led by a Captain chosen through the applications process.

Schedule

• Captains Applications: 26th June – 14th July
• Announce Captains & Groups: 18th July
• Group Stage Round 1: 19th July – 25th July
• Group Stage Round 2: 26th July – 1st August
• Group Stage Round 3:  2nd August – 8th August
• Tiebreakers: 9th August – 12th August
• Round of 16: 13th August – 16th August
• Quarter Finals: 17th August – 21st August
• Semi Finals: 22nd August – 25th August
• Grand Finals and Bronze Match: 26th August – 29th August

IMPORTANT! We do encourage teams to make use of their roster of up to 20 players. Mercs will not be allowed! (Although we may be more lenient regarding the verification time.)

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As the start of Season 39 gets closer and closer, it is time to finalize to map pool and whitelist.

Quick reminder of the current map pool: 

• cp_gullywash_final1
• cp_process_f7
• cp_snakewater_final
• cp_sunshine
• cp_granary_pro_rc8

On top of these already confirmed maps, the following maps will also be a part of this season’s map pool:

• koth_product_rcx
• cp_reckoner_rc6

Whitelist

The only change to the whitelist will be the removal of the Quickie Bomb Launcher.

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Welcome everyone to the conclusion of the 24th season of ETF2L Highlander. As there are still matches to be played for Division 2 and Prem tomorrow their respective playoffs will be added later tomorrow.

We hope you enjoyed the matches, and for the teams that made it through, congratulations.

All tiers will have playoffs, all playoff matches will be using the Map Elimination system. Note that all dates are estimates and teams are able to negotiate other days by scheduling with their opponents.

If you find yourself on the list of these teams expect an admin to add you and request your availability, if there is no information or insufficient information given we will have to decide your match dates for you. Keep in mind that we will try and accommodate both teams, but the match date may still vary from your provided days, if for example none of the days match with your opponent, but your opponent offered more days than you did. Deadlines listed for the matches are flexible and may be changed in certain situations if admins are contacted about allowing extensions on these.

Schedule

For Division 2, Mid, Low and Open tiers, the schedule for the playoff matches will be the following.

• Quarter final matches will be played from 20th – 24th June.
• Semi Finals will be played from 25th – 30th June.
• Grand Finals will be played from 1st – 4th July.

For Premiership and Division 1 we are going with single elimination bubble bracket, the schedule for the playoff matches will be the following.

• Semi Finals will be played from 20th – 26th June.
• Grand Finals will be played from 27th– 4th July.

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