The Highlander Open 2, sponsored by essentials.tf & whitelist.tf
June 22, 2016
The Highlander Open #2
Banner by 
Yggdrasil
If you are confused or need help in regards to signing up, check out the guide written by 
kKaltUu!
>>> Sign up now! <<<
Fun teams can enter as well. If you are currently in a normal Highlander team and want to create a team with you as the buddy, go ahead and make a Fun Team (ignore the 6v6 part)
Introducing The Highlander Open #2, an introduction for non-competitive players into the comp scene or for those wanting to get into league-style competitive TF2 in a simple manner sponsored by essentials.tf & whitelist.tf.
And what exactly is this, we hear you ask? Well check out our fantastic and visually pleasing Highlander Open Page! It contains all the basics about what exactly the Highlander format is, and essential (light) reading for all who want to get involved.
This tournament is meant for people who are new to competitive play, a competition to find the very best pub team essentially.
If you are a lone player wanting to get into a team or if you want to get more players for your own team, check out the Recruitment Section or the Recruitment thread. If you are a team looking to get a buddy, load up the forum and ask away.
Rosters may only have a maximum of 2 player with experience in Division 5/Open Playoffs or higher HL and 6v6. That person is your ‘buddy’ and can only play as a medic. For more info on this check the HLO #2 FAQ.
Resources
- Comprehensive competitive highlander guide written by kKaltUu and Wiethoofd. Russian version translated by
irfx these might contain outdated information! - Play some TF2Center or TF2Stadium lobbies and gain great insight and experience in highlander gameplay
- Find more out about Competitive TF2 as a whole at comp.tf
Sponsors
- Serveme.tf – For helping provide gameservers
- Essentials.tf & Whitelist.tf – Donating TF2 items for prizes
Format
The tournament will kick off with a swiss Group Phase designed so that all teams involved will have the chance to play some exciting games. After the Group Phase from each group will engage in a straight knock-out cup as we progress on in our journey to discover, and reward, the very best Pub team in Europe.
Prizes
Players that complete all their games will receive participation medals and those that finish in the top 3 at the end will receive:
1st Place – Medal + 9 class-specific Specialized Killstreak kits.
2nd Place – Medal + 9 class-specific Killstreak kits.
3rd Place – Medal + 9 class-specific Strange weapons.
Schedule
- Signups open: Now (Your team leader will have to sign your team up – for more info check out the ETF2L FAQ)
- Signups close: Thursday 7th July
- Final divisions announced: Friday 8th July
- Week 1 start: Sunday 10th July
Maps
- Week 1 – pl_badwater
- Week 2 – koth_product_rc8 & cp_process_final
- Week 3 – pl_upward
- Week 4 – cp_gullywash_final1 & koth_lakeside_final
- Information about maps during the single elimination playoffs will be posted when final groups are created.
Unlockable Weapons
The full list of banned weapons is as follows:
- Reserve Shooter
- Crit-A-Cola
- Air Strike
- Pomson 6000
- Vita-Saw
- Darwin’s Danger Shield
- Diamondback
- Red-Tape Recorder
A visual representation can be found on whitelist.tf.
Servers
For competitive, you will need play on a private server (password protected) with a special Highlander config file and weapon whitelist (provided) on the server used to set the competitive environment. We understand not everyone will have access to their own private server so you have a couple options in that case. You can rent a server using serveme.tf (courtesy of Arie & providers).
Also, your team needs a way to communicate with one another right? Well in the competitive scene we mainly use Mumble or Discord as our voice chat client. If you wish to use mumble you can rent a free mumble server here, located in either Moscow, Germany or Virginia. Or if you wish to use discord, launch the app and create a room, see the official guide for more information.
Huh, ETF2L?! How does this work?
For those of you who are new to the ETF2L site, to sign up for the tournament you will need to be part of a complete Highlander team of at least 9 players. Your leader can then sign your team up for the tournament. We will be adopting ETF2L’s ruleset for General and Highlander rules as well as the Highlander server configs and weapon whitelists. The FAQ section will explain everything about making accounts, teams and signing them up for tournaments.
The Forums are a great way to talk about TF2, competitive play and the upcoming tournament. Don’t have a team yet, or are you looking for more players to join your team? Be sure to check out the Recruitment Section.
Even though this is a European centered event, we will welcome players from other regions with open arms. We will even try to place you into the same groups to ease the process of scheduling matches with your opponents. Against European opponents however, you will have to play on European servers at European times. The usual playing time for ETF2L matches is Sunday’s from 19:00-21:30 CEST. Make sure you are willing to (and can!) play at such times and on European servers before you sign up.
If you still can’t find the answer to a question or if you have any problem, then the quickest way to get into contact with an admin is to join the QuakeNet IRC channel #etf2l, and type “!admin highlanderopen <messagehere>” to get hold of someone who will help out. You can use the webchat plugin to connect to the IRC channel here.
Where you can help
You can help us with advertising too.
- Do you run a TF2/gaming news website? We’d love it if you announced the cup to your readership.
- If you’re a creative type with ideas for promoting the tournament – be it propaganda posters, a competitive play survival guide for new teams, etc – feel free to contribute.
If you’re an easy-going person who cares about helping the TF2 scene, we’d like to invite you to become a HLO buddy!
- Buddies will be the representatives between HLO and the community teams. You’ll join their roster, be responsible for answering their questions, making sure they schedule their matches properly, and depending on how good a buddy you are, organising and helping them out with practising and tactics.
- Buddies will also be eligible to play in the Highlander games themselves. But you can only play medic to keep it fair!
- Buddies will be assigned to teams on depending what language they speak. If you have a link to a particular community, you can request to be their buddy.
- Buddies will also be awarded with a medal like the rest of their team.
- You can put yourself forward to become a buddy simply by leaving a comment in the sub forum.
Have fun and good luck to all that participate!
Posted by 
content rss
Glad another one is being started, the first one got me into comp :)
same here
\o/ highlander open \o/
Signups close: Thursday 7th June. Well, k then.
My friends tried to make a highlander open team but they refused to play with anyone we didn’t know irl so it flunked :(
@Ivanovsky, fixed to have the correct dates.
So glad to see another one of these up and going, memories :)
Can buddy.
Can buddy, contact me
Can buddy , add me ^^
Awesome!
Never mind i can’t buddy ;(
Question. My Team is still under HL S10 Roster Lock. Will that be off in time so we can add our new players?
I’ve lifted the roster lock just now. I’ll look into getting the wrap-up post going by the end of the week but I won’t make any promises.
Great memories. Guess I can mentor a team
Ahhhh, my first tournament now up for a second time. GLHF for everyone. Hope you can get a shiny medal like me ;) (2nd place HLO#1)
Free to mentor some people, may be able to play as well
Can you guys please try to get a TF2 blog post made about this?
Maybe some guys with a lot of youtube subs could put out a video about it too?
HLO #2, now with 60% less Jon :)
@woolen make a video
Will play as a buddy [medic] for a team. Add me on steam (and leave a comment, please) and I’ll get back to you. Sorry for posting this instead of a rec post – already have one up ^
Can be buddy for any team. Prem medic, maincaller.
@Scrambled: already on it
The extra quotes at the ‘more info’ link on the homepage makes it link to a 404
[quote]Rosters may only have a maximum of 2 player with experience in Division 5/Open Playoffs or higher HL and 6v6. That person is your ‘buddy’ and can only play as a medic.[/quote]
Shouldn’t this be 1?
Just 3 teams signed up for this, i wounder why
Can buddy for any Polish, English, Dutch or French team. Prem demo main, can play med and maincall.
@draltoady: You can only have 1 buddy playing per match. But I guess, you can have a sub buddy.
can i play in it if i have no etf2l matches played but have been registered in teams
@FireIronArm, yeah. You’re clear to play. Have Fun :D
yra lietuviu ? ;D galeciau heviu buti
I never played tf2 like this but i would like to try. I made a team and now looking for a soldier,heavy,medic,pyro, sniper or engineer.
@Juho Kuvaja, if you want some help to get started with the gamemode you can try asking one of the people that are interested in being a buddy or look at the general recruitment thread. Otherwise you can always make a post in Teams Looking for players/Buddy’s thread and leave that above comment there as more people will most likely see it.
Can buddy. Contact me!
Awards:
*2nd: Season 10! (Division 6k)
*3rd: Season 12 powered by Tt eSPORTS (Division 5B)
*3rd: Highlander Nations Cup #4 powered by Tt eSPORTS: Playoffs
how may i join highlanders
Great! i’ve been looking forward for events like this! finally me and my team can have the chance to get used to leagues and the competitive platform ^^
Too sad that i’m not in a Team and that I haven’t play the competitive…
But at least I have fun with 4 classes…
Is it still possible to enter the competition? Because, right now it tells me that I have no eligible team available, we got all 6 players in our team.
No offence, but i feel the way that this cup is set up, it is denying the potential of future medic mains, because most teams that will be taking it seriously will just get an experienced comp player to go med for them and main call. Med mains aren’t exactly in abundant supply, and this is only going to limit their development. Would it not have been possible to have the experienced player on a less vital class (because the game tends to revolve around ubercharge and heal spread, making medic important, not that other classes aren’t highly valued), or have the experienced player in a team version of spectators?
no solo q? welp, no tf2 for me then :C