Announcing Season 33!

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Welcome to our 33rd Season of 6v6 Gaming!

We hope you’ve had an enjoyable Preseason Cup so far! Without further ado, we are very happy to be able to announce that our signups are open right now until the 31st of May 21:00 CEST!

>>>> Sign up now! <<<<

Sponsorship

That said, we are also looking for additional sponsors that would like to chip into Season 33. If you are interested or know a company, an organization or an individual who is, do not hesitate to contact any staff member or send an email to [email protected]!

Season Schedule

• Signups: May 18th – May 31st, 21:00 CEST (Premiership signups will close early, on May 24th at 21:00 CEST)
• Publishing of Provisional Divisions: June 1st
• Publishing of Final Divisions: June 2nd
• Premiership Qualifiers: May 26th – June 2nd
• Main Season: June 2nd – July 19th (Roster Lock will be active starting from July 14th, 00:00 CEST)
• Playoffs: July 21st – August 11th
• Premiership Finals: August 4th

Schedule/Playoff Changes

We will be removing double elimination system from Premiership and Division 1 Playoffs at the end of the season, in place we will bring back a single elimination system in which the Top 4 teams will qualify for. The main season seeding will determine the placement in the Playoffs with 3rd and 4th seeded teams playing first, with the winner of that match playing against the 2nd seed team along with the 1st seed team getting an automatic spot in the Grand Finals. Additionally Premiership Finals will also return back to a single Best of 3 format again with this change.

We will not allow Premiership Finals to be played on any later date than 4th of August, however teams can choose to play multiple matches in a single day to ensure that they will be played in schedule. This change will only affect Premiership and Division 1 playoffs.

Other Changes

Map pool

As most of you have noticed we’ve had a preseason cup where we tested out some maps. We are using it to provide possibilities in expanding our map pool from 7 maps only to 9 maps, of which most will be played in the main season twice and some only once, all maps will be available in playoffs where maps can be picked and banned. If you would like to provide feedback on the maps played in the cup, we recommend posting your thoughts about them in our Feedback Thread for the cup. Expect an update on this shortly along with the whitelist.

Unlocks

We’re still finalizing some minor changes to the whitelist. Expect an update on this shortly along with the map pool.

Rule Changes

We will be bringing back the requirement to use correct nicknames in all Premiership matches, this will patch up a loophole caused by the General Rule 2.9 where teams could’ve not used their correct nicknames if their match was not casted. General Rule 2.9 will still be in place for all other tiers, this change will affect Premiership Tier only.

1.8.2 Premiership players must use their real nicknames

All players who play a match in the Premiership division must play with their ETF2L nickname. Team tags and sponsorship additions are allowed but the nickname must be the same as the nickname on ETF2L, letter for letter. The nickname should be easily recognizable at a glance. Each incorrect nickname will warrant a separate minor warning; a team can receive this punishment multiple times per game.

Additionally, we will be bringing back a timelimit to Golden Caps in 5CP maps with a timelimit of 15 minutes. This will ensure that matches do not last for a longer time than the regular map time could. This change will affect all tiers in all upcoming competitions, including Highlander.

4.1.3 Golden Cap: Decider round in case of a draw

If the score is tied after the timelimit has been reached, a decider round (golden cap) will have to be played. The golden cap will be played with winlimit 1 and timelimit 15, if neither of the teams manage to get a round in this time then the team to hold middle point will win the golden cap. The winner of a map that ended with a golden cap round gets 2 points, the loser gets 1 point.

As the last change, we will reduce the amount of conflicts caused by teams by updating our General Rule 5.1 in regards to playoff matches where teams may be tied in a 1-1 score in terms of maps and both teams have already played on their own servers. If neither of the teams manage to come to an agreement about a game server to play in, an admin will provide a server for them to play the last remaining map on.

5.1 Be reasonable regarding servers

Both teams can agree on the server which both maps are played on, or agree to play one map on each teams server. If a third map is needed to be played and neither team manages to come to a compromise with a server to play on, an admin will provide the teams a server to play on.

Make sure the server is adequate before you start – complaints cannot be made after the match.

Sign-up process

We will continue to have Division 1 and 2 in place of High Tier once again for Season 33. Teams looking into playing in either of these divisions will need to sign up to High tier when signing up for the season. If teams would want to specify to which of these Divisions they want to be placed in, we strongly encourage teams to send in an application to us with the said method below.

Make sure to choose your desired tier when signing up for the season in the sign-up process. If you created a new team, feel free to apply for the tier you believe you deserve you should be in. To prove you are capable of the tier you applied for, we require you to submit screenshots or logs of results from your recent practice matches or tournaments where you scored decent results against teams that play on the level you aim for, send an application to [email protected] (details listed below) with a suitable subject. Emails with subjects like “Hello”, “Hi” or anything else that cannot be identified as a team applying for a tier by mail may be ignored. Teams signing up for the high division are advised to send an email whether they have a preference to either play division 1 or 2. If no email is sent by a team signing up for high they will get placed by admins based on the roster of the team.

Additionally, since it happens time and time again, you do not sign up by mail, you sign up on the site and apply by mail if you are a newly formed team playing in anything higher than Open.

The quantity of screenshots or logs is not the most important factor in this case, it’s more of a helpful measure for us to figure out if your team will be able to keep up with the pace. There is no magical, minimum or maximum number of screenshots or logs that you have to submit.

When sending links to logs on logs.tf or similar it is highly recommended that you include a short explanatory comment for each linked log, e.g. who your opponents are supposed to be and where they played last season. Also helpful for us, but not a must, however, is adding who the opposing team is in each screenshot or log (and maybe even the division they played in the last time). That makes it easier for us because sometimes it can be quite hard (especially in the lower tiers) to figure out who the teams in the screenshots are. We will not accept plain lists of logs without any comments!

Please note that the success of your request also strongly depends on the free slots in the tier you aim for. Established teams will be favored over new teams or teams that request to jump a tier. The screenshots have to be uploaded to an online image storage service (for example, you can use Imgur or Dropbox). Keep in mind that if you opt for zipped archives with tons of pictures attached to an e-mail, your application will be ignored. Keep it clean.

If you are applying for Open tier (which is our entry division), you do not have to provide any proof that you are capable of playing at that level.

Please send your application to [email protected]. The tier assignment request has to include the following information in order to be considered. Incomplete applications will be ignored!

• Do not use HTML in your e-mail. If you want to add a link, just paste the link in the e-mail as you would enter it in your browser.
• Team name
• Team link on ETF2L.org
• Tier you are applying for
• Link to the online photo album with comments
• Reasons why your team deserves to be placed in the tier you applied for (optional)

Season 32 Promotions/Demotions

All Open and Low playoff teams, finalists of Mid tier and Division 2, as well as the winners of Division 1, will receive a promotion to the next highest tier unless their starting roster has changed by more than half of their players.

The bottom two teams in Premiership will be demoted and will not have a confirmed Premiership spot. This means that they might have to compete with any potential premiership teams in the preseason playoffs if they wish to stay in Premiership. Additionally, the bottom two teams of Division 1 and 2 groups will also be demoted to the next lowest Tier.

All promotions and demotions are open for admin discretion. This is in order to make sure the tiers are as good as they can possibly be. If you are uncertain about being promoted or demoted you can follow the above mentioned sign-up process to give additional information about your team.

If you intend to sign up for the Premiership Tier we encourage you to do so as soon as possible. Due to the Premiership Qualifiers happening while signups are still open, we will only consider teams for the Premiership Qualifiers that signed up before May 24th at 21:00 CEST. Additionally, we expect teams without a guaranteed Premiership Division spot to be able to compete on the provided Premiership Qualifier dates.

We expect all aspiring Premiership Tier teams to send either us an email or directly contact a league admin on Steam or Discord with at least your intended roster. You must also include evidence of your ability to compete with premiership level teams.

Teams that do not send an email or contact admins risk losing their spot in the Premiership Qualifiers.

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