Announcing Highlander Season 33(Spring 2025)
March 3, 2025
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OezR
Springtime is just around to corner so lets play some Highlander! Now, we are going to try something a bit different and play around with the season structure. For that read on further below.
Season Structure
As this season is going to be a bit more experimental we’ll try to accommodate to all players and scenarios to the best of our capabilities. However, as this system is also new for ourselves we can’t predict all scenarios that will pop-up. Expect us to make snap decisions when we see issues arise and to potentially find certain elements missing in the rules pages.
Be sure to read the following information adequately in order to prepare your team for the changes in the schedule. And due to the stricter roster locks to have your players on your roster ON TIME!
Definitely make sure to read the rule-adjustments section towards the bottom of this post.
Schedule
- Signups: NOW! – March 20th 18:00 CEST (Including Premiership/Division 1, there are no qualifiers)
- Late signups will be possible up until April 11th.
- Provisional Tiers: March 20th/21st
- Group Stage #1: 23rd March – 13th April
- Finalization of Second Groups: 20th April
- Group Stage #2: 21st April – 11th May
- Playoffs: May 12th – 27th May/1 June (Depends a bit on the groups)
Group Stage #1
Group Stage #1 will be a swiss style group consisting of 3 rounds. With each division having a minimum of 8 and maximum of 16 teams. This group stage will determine a teams initial placement and see how they fair up against one another based off of admin seeding.
“Break Week”
After the first group stage divisions will get reseeded based off of placements of teams during the first group stage. This to avoid miss-seeding, account for issues with rosters as well as allow for fresh teams to fully-revamp themselves if they fell apart during the first group stage.
To make it at least somewhat rewarding for teams to end the top of this first group stage. Playoff Medals are getting revamped to Group Winner Medals. These will be handed out to these group winners (the team(s) that end on a shared first place of their group)
By default roughly the top 25% teams of a division will move up to the division higher and the bottom 25% will move a division lower. (The highest and lowest will have their respective top/bottom teams stay the same). If teams decide to make heavy roster changes during the break week, when the rosters aren’t locked, they might get switched around regardless based off of admin discretion.
Group Stage #2
With the groups reseeded teams are going back at it with another 3 weeks of head-to-head match-ups in Swiss. This new group stage will determine what team goes to what playoffs. Each team is going to playoffs. This to also accommodate for teams moving up and not wanting to ruin their playoff chance.
Playoffs
The groups have finished and the fighters remain. From each division the top 50% fight it out with the bottom 50% of the division above them if applicable. This means if you moved up a division for group stage #2 you might still get playoffs with your original division.
As all participants go to playoffs, you can somewhat see this as an unofficial 7th play week (7 week highlander back ??😱)
All of these playoff apart from premiership will be in single elimination.
Example
We made a poor thing in google sheets. Lay thine eyes upon it and hopefully understand a little bit of what we’re trying to accomplish. Remember, its a bit experimental but try to have fun with it!
Map Pool
Here is the list of maps for the season:
Rotation:
- Week 1: koth_product_final
- Week 2: pl_vigil_rc10
- Week 3: koth_proot_b5b
- Week 4: cp_steel_f12
- Week 5: koth_ashville_final1
- Week 6: pl_upward_f12
Changes to koth rule set
As we’re trying to avoid draws we’re running 1 koth map rather then 2 in the koth weeks. For this we’ll be using the same system as RGL.
Each half in KOTH concludes when a team wins two rounds within that half or reaches a total of four round wins to secure the match. At least two halves will always be played.
Here’s an example of a KOTH match extending into a third half:
| Halves | Score | Total Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1st Half | 2-1 | 2-1 |
| 2nd Half | 0-2 | 2-3 |
| 3rd Half | 0-1 | 2-4 |
- First half: Team A wins 2 rounds, and Team B wins 1. (2-1)
- Second half: Team B wins 2 rounds, while Team A wins none. (2-3) The score now stands at Team A: 2 | Team B: 3. Since neither team has reached 4 round wins, a third half is required.
- Third half: Team B wins the first round, reaching 4 total wins and ending the match. (2-4)
Important Note: Once the match is finished, make sure to re-exec the KOTH config. This will stop the match and make sure the logs are correct and do not have an extra round.
If the scoreline ends up being 3-4/4-3 please mark your result as golden cap win. Due to the map being so close we’ll treat these as golden caps.
Rule Changes (For HL S33)
Class Restrictions
Admins will not place class restrictions on players unless if explicitly asked for by the team. If your team has some heavy hitter players on the roster, expect your entire team to be moved up a division instead.
Roster Lock
Roster Lock will go into effect AT THE CLOSING OF SIGNUPS. While we will allow for late joiners to rosters, you’ll always need a very good reason and admin approval. Do not bank on getting this approved.
During the break week, the rosters will be open for changes. This being between the 8th and 12th of April. You have 5 days, make them count.
Hijacking & Skill Contribution
Due to the roster locks, we will not be applying hijacking/skill contribution limitations upon teams.
Medals
In order for players to be eligible for medals, they need to participate in a minimum of 4 matches and be on that roster they played for, which has not dropped by the end of the season.
Playoff medals will not exist and, instead we’ll hand out group winner medals to teams ending at the top in the first group stage. Placement medals will get priority over the group winner medals.
This means the following priority order is present.
Placement Medal(1st-3rd) > Group Winner Medal > Group Stage # 2 participant medal
This change might delay medal distribution a bit.
Sign-up Process
First and foremost, you must sign your team up here:
Then, if you are applying for Division 6/Open tier (which is our entry division), you do not have to provide any proof that you are capable of playing at that level.
Otherwise, we encourage you to send in an application through the ticket system in our Discord or by directly contacting a league admin, with the following information:
– Team name, Division you apply for and ETF2L team link
– Roster
– Recent results and logs associated to them
– Reasons why your team deserves to be placed in the tier you applied for (optional)
e.g.
– Team BIG EXPLOSION, Premiership, https://etf2l.org/teams/1/
announce the roster with the classes
– 5-2 vs Team Aoshi’s All Stars (Prem) : https://logs.tf/012345
Teams that do not send an email or contact the admins risk losing their spot in the division they are asking for.
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 favoured over new teams or teams that request to jump a tier.
JOIN AND FOLLOW US ON OUR SOCIAL MEDIA!
Posted by ETF2L Staff in Highlander, League
content rss
enough to make a grown man cry
you must have 4 university degrees to understand this
Imectus: not reading alldat
man where tf is the goat soda
can someone post tldr
new banner looking good af
LF translator
killed it
this aint it
(nt tho)
that’s an incredible banner
that banner goes hard asf
What is all this
the end of etf2l:
rosterriding is dead
subbing is dead
playoffs work i dont even know how
group winner medals that look like gold medals
add a 6s season between week 1 and 2, and quarters and semis
Roster lock at the end of signups?????
my brain ain’t working here guys
can u put it in spanish
This is NOT IT. Stop trying to have quirks and just outline the season as NORMAL.
????????¿
since we are feeling experimental, how about we remove cp_steel?
TL;DR
Season split into two. Promotions/Relegations after first half.
Rosterlock happens at the start of the season with a transfer window-like period midseason.
Playoffs straddle divisions. Bottom half of a division plays the top half of the division above them [apart from “Prem” and “Open” where the top/bottom 50% play amongst each other only].
KOTH ruleset changed. One map per KOTH week; first to four; 4-3 is Golden Cap.
Players must play at least four officials for a team to receive a medal.
Well, folks, it’s been a blast, but this merc is leaving. Sadly, ETF2L has lost another active player—courtesy of good ol’ admin shenanigans. Don’t get me wrong, you’ve built something really special here, but the constant season changes are like a bad uber disadd that just won’t ever build. On the bright side, I’m glad this all went down before I shelled out that 100 key donation I had tucked away, instead I will gamble it all away. Oh well, life’s unfair, seasons fail, medics drop, and we move on. Cheers to all my fellow mercs on ETF2L! Thanks for the cheese—catch ya on the flipside!~
Well, folks, it’s been a blast, but this merc is leaving. Sadly, ETF2L has lost another active player—courtesy of good ol’ admin shenanigans. Don’t get me wrong, you’ve built something really special here, but the constant season changes are like a bad uber disadd that just won’t ever build. On the bright side, I’m glad this all went down before I shelled out that 100 key donation I had tucked away, instead I will gamble it all away. Oh well, life’s unfair, seasons fail, medics drop, and we move on. Cheers to all my fellow mercs on ETF2L! Thanks for the cheese—catch ya on the flipside!~
chat are we cooked?
+rep smart way how to finally kill this abysmal dog gamemode
7 month off season for this
don’t listen to the haters admins this is goo
on paper it seems like a good idea to deal with over/underplaced teams mid-season and could work, even though im sure sandbaggers will find a way to avoid this
in practice, average 2-digit iq tf2 player probably wont be able to comprehend and this will end badly
We camped the whole time for THIS?
Very interesting. I like the concept of it but gotta see how it plays out on the season.
The medal change is really bad, 4 games is far too high and would for us last season disqualify 2 people who were critical to our playoffs & finals. If it’s desired to make more teams by reducing sub count it’d be better to limit roster size to 13. Requiring 4 games has a lot of potential to lower the quality of games and cause internal struggles with shbs on good teams demanding to play so they get a medal. Subs are too critical to Highlander given the diversity of classes
hell yeag :D
Guys add up to tf2center
???
The first season that I choose to be a sub this happens 🤦♂️
Noooo I can’t roster ride noooooooo😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
some good ideas (and some bad ones where I think the intention is good at least) in here but probably too little too late in the game’s lifespan to implement these either way
– requiring 4 games to be played by subs makes subbing completely pointless for most people unless they’re playing for the love of the game, if you are playing 4 games you are basically not a sub lol, reducing the size of rosters would be a better alternative imo or make it a lower amount like a minimum of 2 games played. I get the goal of lowering incentive to stack 11 subs on your roster but teams do need subs & this removes any reason for the subs to bother at all
– I am huge fan of 6/7 week season but this “everyone in playoffs” system looks kinda overcooked I won’t lie. Not everyone needs a cool looking medal. It’s worth giving a try I guess and coming back to it next season to evaluate it
– early roster lock is a bad idea straight up, should have announced the details of this season way earlier for that as well especially with the amount of changes you are already implementing
– please don’t do double elim for prem & just use single elim, you have messed up a proper double elim bracket on several occasions, absolutely no one trusts you to do it properly without another “Round 4” incident. Double elim = every team in the bracket can lose at least once & historically one team has always had a free ad here
on the flipside
– one map per week is a good decision
– koth changes are good, 4 rounds with a pause in between is nicer, also lets you focus on a specific map for the week
– no proplant & warmtic +rep
thank god i cant play this shit 🙏
everyone keeps saying free snacks but I’m still tryna find where they are??
mellow made good points
cringe
fuck is this shit
delete this
dont try to fix something that isint broken
☕
well now..
maximum beastly treatment of hl players
SUBBING IS DEAD, ETF2L HAS FALLEN
mellow made good points
quirky ass changes icl
Admins want to destroy HL
i thinknow is the perfect time for 27v27 superhiglander
clowns
Down for a changeup 🔥🔥🔥
took long enough
rosterride and sub players now: well, we are fucked
lower the sub games to 1 or at most 2, no sub will realistically play that much
roster lock is a weird change.
huge + for eliminating roster riders. mfs make fun of people playing for shiny pixel medals and then get mad when they won’t get it for literally doing nothing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frjtW6QY_mY
Instead of usefull changes you brought random things that do not make sense and further turn away players. Congratulations ETF2L, you’re a failure.
WUUÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
this terrible
pub season :D ?
kill this gamemode