Highlander Season 29

banner by soda | written by Refleks

We’re done with spring, and soon we’re done with summer. This means that the Highlander Spring Season 2023 is over! We would like to thank everyone for participating in this season!

Highlander Winter Season 2023 Winners!

The winner of the Premiership Division is Super Dickmann's KANNONEN!! Big congratulations to SDCK for scoring their 11th championship in a row! SDCK has a total of 14 Premiership Championships under their name, making them stay the most-awarded Highlander team in ETF2L History!

The winning squad is composed of:

• Mayh
• JackyLegs
• GardenFungus
• buddy
• anni
• Clark
• gedu
• laiky
• mezzo

DIVISION PLACEMENTS

Premiership
1.  Super Dickmann's KANNONEN!
2.   TWICE
3.  inVision

Division 1
1.   Cult of 256
2.   BAD DRAGONS
3.   Trouble Shooters

Division 2
1.   Double Clutch
2.   Rat Gang: Bricked Up
3.   Complete Guesswork

Mid Division
1.   MONKEY MODE 23
2.   Goofy Goobers Inc.
3.   Hungary4Blood GIGA VOLUME
3.   Bed Bug Gang

Low Division
1.   Enclave
2.   QYARTU DEATH BRIGADE
3.   1DayOff
3.   Древние русы

Open Division
1.   Jacobins
2.   Caky´s European Opossums
3.   Paradise

PREMIERSHIP AWARD WINNERS

Below are the players that you voted for as players of the season:

• Best player of the Season: broken
• Scout of the Season: menex
• Soldier of the Season: JackyLegs
• Pyro of the Season: grip
• Demo of the Season: samii
• Heavy of the Season: anni
• Engineer of the Season: Clark
• Medic of the Season: gedu
• Sniper of the Season: broken
• Spy of the Season: mezzo
• Debut of the Season: menex
• Caster of the Season: CeeJaey

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Rule Changes

It’s time for an update of our rules! Some are new, others are are being modified to make rules more clear how they work and fix loopholes. All-in-all this rule set will apply for the upcomming Highlander Autumn Season 2023 and for all future 6v6 and Highlander Seasons. Additionally we updated our configs used for matches.

Config Updates:

Server Configs Changes (1.0.9)

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• Updated whitelists for August

Modification of general variables to the config:

• tf_enable_glows_after_respawn from undefined (1) to 0

The respawn outline glows has been disabled, since it gives an unfair advantage.

Modification of TwiiKuu ‘s plugin variables to the config:

• change sm_deterministic_fall_damage  from 0 to 1

It came to our attention that sm_deterministic_fall_damage was disabled in our config, this has been fixed now.

New Rules

General Rule 2.7

2.7 Player Experience

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A Players experience is determined by their last 3 active seasons, seperate for both gamemodes. A season counts as a “active season” if the player played at least 3 matches of the same tier in that season.

Playoffs matches in any tier count towards the tier above.
Participating in a Grand Final of any tier, whether the player won or lost it, will automatically count as a tier above the tier of the Grand Final.

For players participating in the lowest tier of a season, all previous experience is taken into account.

Note: Cups (pre-season cups, one-day cups, nations cup etc.) do not count towards a players experience.
Note: Highlander and 6v6 experience are valued equally between gamemodes.

We decided to anchor the way we value experience for players in certain rules with an own rule.

General Rule 3.14.

3.14 Teams must wait out the SourceTV broadcast delay in all matches casted by an organisation

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Teams must wait out the SourceTV broadcast delay before changing maps in all matches casted by an organisation (tv_delaymapchange_protect 1). If the server was rented, the reservation may not be ended early before the cast has finished covering the last round. The team responsible for an early map change or a reservation being ended early will be punished with a Minor Warning. Repeated violations of this rule will be punished with Major Warnings.

Rule Changes

General Rule 2.2.1

2.2.1. Nickname changes allowed in total

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You are allowed 4 name changes in total. A single exceptional permission will be granted to revert your name to a previous version if you have not changed your name in 2 years and that you have not enacted that right before.

To change your nickname you must contact League Admins on [ETF2L’s Discord server]. and not be rostered in a team actively playing an ongoing competition.

Note: Nicknames must be at least 2 characters long and some characters are not allowed.

General Rule 3.6

3.6. Hijacking teams is not allowed

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Definition:
Players who have joined the team before the Provisional Tiers have been published are considered verified by the league. Any player joining after that is considered new and unverified by the league.

Provisional tier publishing time will be announced ahead of time, players added anytime after this will count as a late joiner for hijacking purposes.

Standard:
In 6v6 it is allowed to play with 2 players counting as new.
In Highlander it is allowed to play with 4 players counting as new.

Breaking the rules:
– Teams breaking the hijacking limit by 1 will receive a Minor Warning for the first offense. Further offense will be followed by a Major Warning.
– Teams breaking the hijacking limit by 2 will receive a Major Warning for the first offense. Further offense result in a default loss.
– Teams breaking the hijacking limit by 3 or more will result in a default loss.

Appeal:
In order to allow leniency for teams that are forced to change their lineups, team leaders are required to contact League Admins on Discord when facing extreme roster changes.

Each case will be dealt with individually and all factors will be taken into account.

3.7 Skill Contribution

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Definition:
A team’s active line-up may only consist of a limited amount of higher skilled players that joined after the Provisional Tiers were published. A point system is used to determine this restriction. A player will be given one point for each tier of experience higher than the division of the team the player joins. Highlander and 6v6 experience will count as equivalent between gamemodes.

A player’s experience will be determined in accordance with rule 2.7 Player Experience

Standard:
In 6v6 teams have a limit of +1 point.
In Highlander teams have a limit of +2 points.

Breaking the rules:
– Teams breaking the skill limit by +1 will receive a Minor Warning for the first offense. Further offenses will result in a default loss.
– Teams breaking the skill limit by +2 or more will have their match results reviewed. The circumstances of the rulebreak will be considered when the deterimining punishment.

Appeal:
Please contact League Admins on Discord if you need your case to be reviewed. The lengths of inactivity will be taken into consideration when making decisions.

Note: Cups (pre-season cups, one-day cups, nations’ cup etc.) do not count towards skill contribution.

6.1. Bug-Using is not allowed

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[…]

Examples of banned exploits:

• Reverse Quantum Crouch (https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Source-1-Games/issues/2195) or any similar methods that bug hitboxes, visually or non-visually
• Bugging player model animations (e.g. entering civilian/reference poses)
• Bypassing the server sv_cheats setting to enable any in-game cheat command like showing wireframes, removing map fog, thirdperson mode etc. (punishable with a Cheating ban if used anywhere in TF2, see 6.4. Game Modifications)
• Damaging/Killing players during setup time
• Abusing record;stop to see invisible Spies
• Pyro: Any methods that extend crit or invincibility times when using the Phlogistinator.
• Pyro: Methods that massively extend the range of any flame thrower fire particles via exploits, e.g. by tricking the game to calculate that you are currently in a high velocity movement state while actually being stuck in the air.
• Pyro: Storing the stomp ability with the Thermal Thruster.
• Engineer: Exploit that allows you to double hit players, buildings and sappers with your melee weapon in a single attack.
• Sniper: Crouch Sniper Peeking / Cornersniping
• Sniper: Any method that allows for a faster re-zoom in order to use the time gained during the reload animation to negate the headshot delay, allowing you to hit headshots as soon as the weapon is able to fire.
  As an example: cl_autorezoom 1 and jumping is allowed; however it is not allowed to take advantage of it in an impactful way via a combination with special movement (e.g. c-tapping) or the usage of map terrain (e.g. doorways or low ceilings or higher elevated areas/props) with the intent to negate the headshot delay.
• Using weapons with bugged names to exceed their intended symbol limit and being able to hide crucial information in most HUDs.