Over the last few weeks the ETF2L community have been able to nominate your favourite candidates for the AFS Season Awards. All nominations were counted and the 4 most popular candidates are continuing to the Final Vote phase. Polls are now open, so get voting to decide who can claim the following titles:

• Medic of the Season
• Demo of the Season
• Soldier of the Season
• Scout of the Season
• Sniper of the Season
• Upcoming Talent of the Season
• Best Team of Each Division
• Frag Clip of the Season
• Fragless Clip of the Season

— Vote Now —

Instead of the Fair-Play Award (which unfortunately did not receive enough nominations) we will present the one and only CantfitmyN Award to all teams who lose all their games but still finish their season! (LAN’s don’t count obviously!)

CantFitmyN Award: Phrozen Gaming   Cavaliers RED   SdX98 Gaming   Who Dares… Grins   Harmful Hamsters   Initium Novum   KillerInstincts   Animals   Kiez-Clan Hamburg   Coffee

Some Highlander Updates

With the incredible amount of teams to be placed the provisional seedings are slightly delayed, but don’t worry! Stay tuned to ETF2L.org and we’ll have them ready shortly. Please remember that your team will need 10-14 players and can only have 1 (Great) Buddy or you will not be eligible.

There has been a great response to the promo match and several casters have already confirmed their presence including ETF2L Radio and TGBF.  Matthijs ‘A_spec’ Hoving will even be travelling all the way to Copenhagen just to give you a videostream of the event, so be sure to give him a hug on the blog of the travel challenge he is competing in. The Highlander Mix-up Match will also happen this Thursday, so stay tuned!

The Grand Final: Team Dignitas -v- Epsilon Esports

16.30BST

Stv: 85.236.102.16:35715
Multiplay Stream: [link]

Live from LAN!

As many of you will know, this weekend the competitive TF2 community has descended on sunny Newbury to compete in the largest offline tournament the European game has ever seen. i40 has already produced some fantastic games throughout the Group and Knockout stages, with a variety of teams showing both brilliant examples of LAN crumbles and LAN success.

Now however, we’ve reached the serious stages. This morning, Team Dignitas and TCM-Gaming will meet in the Upper Bracket Final to determine who will proceed with a clean sheet of victories to the Grand Final, whilst down in the murky depths of the Losers Bracket, FakkelBrigade battle eMpathy and Epsilon fight one of the biggest surprises of the tournament, TwistedPlay. Keep up with the results of these games by following the one and only James “Admirable” McDonnell’s Cadred coverage.

The Grand Final

Update: The Grand Final is, as usual(!) delayed by at least half an hour, so will be starting at around 16.30BST. I have also been told by the Multiplay staff that they have installed crowd mics around the stage, which basically means we have to be loud!

The Grand Final is all set on the main stage for 16.00 BST, so make sure to tune in and support the TF2 community! At i39, Multiplay admins were amazed as the stats went through the roof with thousands of spectators watching on Source TV and through Streams. All the details will be posted here when we get them, so lets try and break the record from i39!

The Community Photo

Update: Due to the Lower Bracket Final being a Bo3, the community photo will be pushed back to after the Grand Final!

As is tradition, we will be having a community photo outside the Grandstand on the steps at 2.30pm. This is a fun way to bring our community together and a record of how we’re growing at the iSeries, so make sure you’re there!

The Community Highlander Challenge has seen an astonishing popularity so far. We are really glad to be able to unite communities and players from all over the world in such a way and provide so many people a view of competitive TF2. To kick off this tournament, Ashkan and ETF2L will bring you an event that defines the spirit behind this tournament. On Thursday the 2nd of September 21:00 CEST, pros, pubbers and Valve staff will team up in a special exhibition all-star match, to bring you a taste of the great highlander games yet to come. The pubbers will be randomly chosen from the participants of the tournament (excluding buddies), so that everyone gets a chance to play. The competitors will be divided into 2 teams of 9 and face off on pl_badwater and cp_freight.

The game will be viewable through SourceTV and shoutcasts, and hopefully through livestreams as well. Be sure to check back on September the 2nd, for exact details on the game and how to watch it.

A big thanks to Larolaro, who by making this poster for us, put his previous creations (The Homewrecker and Tankbuster Pack) to shame!

Important Highlander Tournament Info

The signups will close in 2 days, be sure to have  your roster signed up and being in accordance with the rules. Remember, players will have to be new or have only the lowest division experience [link]. Teams can have one (and only one) higher level player to help them out as buddy, and all buddies will have to be marked as ‘buddy’ or ‘great buddy’ on their roster, so a team can only have a maximum of one player marked as such or they will have to be dropped. Additionally, a team will have to consist of a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 14 players when the signups close or they will not be eligible.

We would also like to stress everyone to have a look at our rule section, it’s the best way to get to know how ETF2L matches are played. You can find info about playing etf2l matches on our General Rules page and Highlander specific rules like the map pool can be found on the Highlander Rules page.

We also added an official config to be used for non-5cp maps so that to prepare your server you would only need to load the config on your server to have your server ready for your game. The config for Payload, attack/defence and King of The Hill maps can be found Here. For 5cp maps please use the regular config which can be found Here. Information about winlimits and playmodes can be found on the highlander FAQ.

That’s right, it’s Sunday Night Ban Time.

Cheating in TF2 is always a bad idea, but cheating on deathmatch servers also shows a case of missing the point. Obvious hacking on several servers and tf2lobby can’t go unnoticed and thus we are glad to remove another cheater from ETF2L. Make sure you do not make the same mistake of using hacks, we will catch you.

Nextsound – Aimbot & Wallhack – 1 Year Ban

After TLR’s display versus TCM-Gaming in the ESH cup, I think it would be fair to say not to underestimate this team. Out of no where TLR have risen and become a worthy contender to compete versus the top teams. With Epsilon not practicing as much and -Jh- rustier than the anchor used for the titanic (he’ll prove me wrong I hope xD), we should have an epic match to watch!

We are almost near the end of the “off-peak” Team Fortress 2 season, and we hope this match will kick start TF2 back into gear! I hope all you enthusiasts can make it and listen to etf2l.radio!

Join us tonight for a etf2l.radio cast for the game Epsilon vs TLR. The maps played are cp_badlands, cp_granary and the decider being cp_obscure_final (:D?) So here’s hoping we get a very intense and close match that goes to the decider! :)

Co-hosting with me (Byte) tonight will be the newly recruited co-caster Pledge!.

Follow the action live on ETF2L Radio

• Starting Sunday, August 22nd at 21:10 CEST
• Hosted by Byte, Pledge
• SourceTV: fakkelbrigade.eu:27100, fakkelbrigade.eu:27101, fakkelbrigade.eu:27102
• Mumble cast: fakkelbrigade.eu / port 64740
• Join #etf2l.radio for shoutouts

See you there!