Excello.net presents the TF2 Pre-Season Showdown

With the start of the next seasons of Wireplay’s and ETF2L’s 6v6 Leagues approaching, Excello is announcing their next cup, this time sponsored by ZOWIE Gear. Like last time, two tournaments will be hosted – One Open Tournament and one Invitational Tournament. The winning team of the invitational cup wins 6 ZOWIE G-TF Speed Mousemats. By popular request we moved the bracket draw to an earlier time (19.00 CEST). Unfortunately, this means, that the check-in starts at 18.30 CEST and ends at 19.00 CEST. We are aware that this might cause problems for some teams because the owner might still be at work or busy. If you are 100% sure that you will be able to play an admin can check in your team, do not be afraid to ask! Another rule change is that from now on you are not allowed to play in the open tournament if you are playing in the invitational tournament as well (unless you win the open cup, of course). This caused some problems in the last cup.

Open Tournament

• Sunday, 11th September – Final until the following Thursday (15th September)
• 32 teams (14 signups already)
• Fixed maps for the first 4 rounds (cp_obscure_remake_b3, cp_snakewater UPDATE: Do not use the rc5 version but the final version!, cp_gullywash_pro and cp_badlands)
• BO3 final with the map pool + cp_granary
• The winning team is invited to the invitational tournament on the 19th September and gets the third best seeding (behind the two finalists of the last tournament).
• Please make sure that you have at least one representative of your team online on IRC and in #excello.tf2 at Quakenet to contact your opponents

Invitational Tournament

• Monday, 19th September – Final until the following Sunday (25th September)
• 8 teams (7 signups already)
• BO3 with the same map pool
• The winner gets 6 ZOWIE G-TF Speed Mousemats
• Only teams that are invited are allowed to play (obviously).
• The following teams are hereby invited. Because the tournament will only have 8 slots and the winner of the open tournament wins one, only 7 invited teams can sign up.

– Epsilon e-Sports – Dignitas – TCM Gaming – Infused.Tt – CKRAS – yoyotech – Team Thermaltake – myRevenge – Eternity – Mister

We are asking these teams to let know an admin as soon as possible if they wish to participate. If you feel that you can play at that level too and we overlooked your team, please contact an admin on IRC and we might reconsider. Teams that played in the last cup have a guaranteed spot in the invitational cup if they sign up until Saturday, 10th September. This includes Epsilon e-Sports, yoyotech, Team Dignitas, TCM Gaming, Infused and CKRAS. From Sunday onwards it will be “first come, first served” (of course the other invited teams can sign up before Sunday but they will be removed if their slot is taken by one of the mentioned teams). If the invitational cup is lacking teams, the next best team (or teams) from the open tournament can consider themseves lucky. They will get a chance to play with the Big Boys in the invitational tournament. The original newspost can be viewed here. In order to sign up for this cup, all of your players need to have an excello account and need to enter a valid steam id in the format STEAM_X:X:XXXXXXXX. Then, the teamowner 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. Please note that the Excello login only accepts small letters for your nickname! 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.