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Overview

With the conclusion of both qualifying brackets, 8 players have risen to the top and qualified for the Monthly Final!

The qualifiers from Bracket #1 are:

• MightyMe
• Croogah
• Zebbosai
• Mike

The qualifiers from Bracket #2 are:

• empty
• avenue
• Fischkopf
• TviQ

All 8 qualifying players have automatically been added to the competition. If you cannot play, please let an admin know as soon as possible!

The bracket has been drawn and is now live!

Monthly Final Bracket

TviQ will also stream his point of view. Tune in below!

Watch live video from tvique on www.twitch.tv

Prizes, Schedule and Rules

Don’t forget you are fighting for

1x AVerMedia Live Gamer HD C985

Additionally and as usual, pixel trophies will also be handed out to the top 3 finishers of the monthly final. Every top 4 qualifier will also get a golden trophy for his bracket, no matter if they participate in the monthly final or not.

Reminder of the rules:

• Single elimination knockout tournament
• Only players who finished in a top 4 position in one of the two previous qualifiers get direct entry to this cup
• Players who finished within the top 8 of their qualifier bracket, but not the top 4, have qualified to join a waiting list for the overall top 8 monthly final.If a top 4 player does not sign up, the first player on the waiting list will be allowed entry. This continues until the bracket is filled with 8 players. Please remember that the reserve placements are on a first come first serve basis!
• The matches are Bo5
• For all matches that require more than one map, the 1st map is set and then it is loser’s choice from the rest of the available map pool. No map can be played twice in the same round!

The Monthly Final schedule:

• 18:00 CET Wednesday – Reserve signups closed
• 19:30 CET Wednesday – Brackets Posted
• 20:00 CET Wednesday – Ro8 Starts – First map: Viaduct Middle
• 21:00 CET Wednesday – Ro4 Starts – First map: Gullywash Middle
• 22:00 CET Wednesday – Final & Consolation Final – First map: Badlands Spire

Season 14 powered by Twitch award results

You voted. You waited. You wanted to see the winners for the Season 14 powered by Twitch awards. And here they are:

• Best Player of the Season: schocky
• Upcoming Talent of the Season: Hycz
• Pocket of the Season: Zebbosai
• Roamer of the Season: Mike
• Carry of the Season: kaidus
• Most Surprising Team of the Season: broder
• Off-classer of the Season: TviQ
• Scout of the Season: schocky
• Demoman of the Season:  numlocked
• Medic of the Season: Mirelin
• Caster of the Season: Admirable
• Best Premier Division Debut of the Season: Mitsy

Nominations were selected by a panel of high-level (mainly Premiership) players under the supervision of the Pirate Radio crew, and the winners have been chosen by the public. Many thanks to Pirate Radio for taking care of the nominations during the show, and congratulations to all winners!

Staff Updates

We are happy to announce that four trial admins have successfully completed their trial and are hereby promoted to full members of staff. The new recruits have been instrumental to the recent seasons’ success, and we are glad to have them on board!

Congratulations to  reservoir_dog,  kkaltUu,  Black_Bob and  JohnnyBambo!

At the same time, we have to announce the departure of skeej and wrock. We thank you for the time you invested into the league, and wish you best of luck in your other hobbies.

Bans

The following player has been found guilty of cheating and is now banned from all ETF2L competitions for one year:

tms – Wallhack

qsb – Alt account of nečum

Season 4 matches involving these players have been changed to default losses, but may be replayed if both teams agree.

In addition, one player has been spotted with a recent VAC ban affecting Team Fortress 2, and is now banned from the League as well:

Neoxyde – VAC ban

As the player has not been caught cheating by our AC staff, his team’s results will not be affected by his ban.

Any attempts to bypass a League ban will result in an even longer ban on all accounts associated with the player. Don’t do it.

This weekend from 17.00 CEST on the best North American teams will clash to conclude the Invite Division of ESEA’s Seaon 13 in Dallas, Texas. Let us show the ESEA that TF2 still generates more viewers than Counter-Strike!

The attending teams are:

•   High Rollers Gaming
•   Classic Mixup
•   Chess Club
•   Fully Torqued

Saturday, the first matches will start at about 17.00 CEST and conclude in the lower bracket final. The Grand Finale will start on Sunday at about the same time. Your list of casters and streamers for this event has not been finalised yet but will most likely include  cbear,  djc,  Lange,  Slin,  Bloodsire,  sigma,  truktruk and  bl4nk on the official ESEA Orange stream.

enigmaenigma has written a more resourceful post over at TeamFortress.TV with more links and information.

This is a general post to update our community about some recent and upcoming changes concerning ETF2L and the game we all love, Team Fortress 2.

Prepare for Steam Pipe

The Team Fortress 2 game files will be converted to Steam’s new file distribution system called “Steam Pipe“. The conversion is scheduled for Tuesday, April 30th (Valve time), and is a one time event that may take a little bit longer than the usual download of the whole game. We advise you not to schedule any matches for that night because problems and long delays may occur.

Below is a list of the advantages Steam Pipe will bring with it.

• Faster and smoother downloads
• Faster game boot times and map load times
• Easier distribution, installation, and management of mods
• Smoother dedicated server distribution and update rollover

Because the game directory will change, you should make sure to backup all your customised game files like HUD, configs, game menu, etc. AnimaL has written a little guide on how to best prepare. We strongly recommend to take the suggested measures before April 30th.

Running Unsigned Plugins and Bypass -insecure mode May Lead to VAC Bans and ETF2L Bans

Yesterday’s update brought the following patch note with it:

• Disabled plug-ins that would allow users to connect to secure game servers even when -insecure is specified on the command line
• Continued use of such plug-ins will risk your Steam account getting VAC banned

This concerns the popular OpenPlugin that allowed lower mat_picmip settings and higher fov_desired values. We would like to remind you that every VAC ban that affects Team Fortress 2 on a Steam account that is registered at ETF2L also leads to a one year ban from all ETF2L competitions. There will be no exceptions.

Additionally, we would also like to remind you that using server plugins that enable unusual alterations of any game variables will be considered cheating in matches. This includes server plugins that allow higher FOV values than normal. This point is currently being discussed by our staff, however.

Site Updates

Below is a list of recent changes to the site.

• The infamous team avatar bug is fixed. Team avatars are grabbed from the linked Steam groups and should now again update over night.
• Are you missing your country’s flag in the ETF2L database? You can now request it in this thread and it might get added soon. Please make sure to read and understand the opening post, before requesting a flag.
• As of November 2012, ETF2L user profiles list all ETF2L matches the player participated in, based on uploaded status screenshots. This does, however, not work, if the Steam ID of your ETF2L account got changed before Novemer 25th, 2012. If you want your old Steam ID to be displayed as well, you may request it in this thread.

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Games are over, time to claim the prizes!

After quite a few weeks we managed to get the fifth edition of the ETF2L BBall Cup done. There we had some hard fights during the group stage and they got even more impressive as we hit the playoff stage. Teams started to knock each other off the tree and eventually we came to the final games.

In the consolation final we had  Internet download manager beating  de Monet Family, while over at the grand final  Honey, I Shrunk the Kids was shown how this game works by ASSBANGERS!
Both finalist had to fight quite a few teams before their final showdown, so let’s quickly take a look who attempted to defeat them.

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids

Honey, I Shrunk the Kids 3 – 0 STIERNACKENKOMMANDO
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids 3 – 0 BY&H
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids 3 – 0 team tovim
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids 6 – 0 HIV
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids 6 – 0 NeuTronas ir kompanijonas cappzas
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids 6 – 0 I feel everything I know everything
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids 6 – 0 badijs spele bballu
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids 6 – 0 de Monet Family
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids 0 – 6 ASSBANGERS!

ASSBANGERS!

ASSBANGERS! 3 – 0 Taikatytöt
ASSBANGERS! 3 – 0 Guruball Team
ASSBANGERS! 3 – 0 NeuTronas ir kompanijonas cappzas
ASSBANGERS! 3 – 0 Brennen tuats guat
ASSBANGERS! 6 – 0 NiggahChu
ASSBANGERS! 6 – 0 Team Fuck You Antton!
ASSBANGERS! 6 – 0 Eliyahu Ha Navi
ASSBANGERS! 6 – 0 Rocket Dragons
ASSBANGERS! 6 – 0 Internet download manager
ASSBANGERS! 6 – 0 Honey, I Shrunk the Kids

As you can see, none of the finalists dropped a single games and this gives us the following outcome:

• 2 x Keyboard  – Tt eSPORTS Knucker goes to Mike and Forsak3n!
  
• 2 x In-Ears – Tt eSPORTS Isurus-Dub goes to Operaattori_ and Simonine!
• 2 x Mouse Mat – Tt eSPORTS Pyrrhus goes to T-Mac and Tek!

Thanks to all teams and players who participated in the cup and a special thanks to Tt eSPORTS for showing TF2 some love – even in small cups!

However hoooooold on – didn’t we forget something? Yeah that’s right! The additional Knucker Keyboard!

Complete the following survey to enter the draft! You will have to answer all the questions and have the three first answer correct to get the chance to win the keyboard!

The survey will be closed April 28th 23:59 CEST