With Season 1 being a huge success, getting over 300 sign-ups, it’s about time we came out with the next season of 9-on-9 action. Having won the Highlander Community Challenge last year, the superstars of  SNSD secured their position as grand champions of highlander by beating all opposition in Season 1 and the experimental cup that followed. We think it’s about time someone else claimed the throne. Or at at least won a single match against them… But let’s not get ahead of ourselves! After all, we have 6 divisions of varying skill level and commitment, and you are free to apply to any of them. Here is what you need to know:

Prizes

Yet again, we will be handing out medals to all participants that finish their season! And if Valve are pleased with our sacrificial goats, we might even hand out gold medals to all group winners!

Dates and Setup

Sign-ups are currently open and will close on March 11th, with week 1 starting on Sunday March 18th. The season will remain short and sweet, with a five-week regular season with a promotion/relegation system and play-offs to resolve ties for the first 3 places.

As always, non-European teams are welcome to participate. In order to ease scheduling and avoid server issues, teams will be grouped together as much as possible according to region, but there is no guarantee that all teams will end up in a convenient group. If that happens, please be reasonable and try to find a time and server that fits both teams. If such an agreement cannot be reached, non-European teams are expected to conform to European times and European servers.

How To Sign Up

To sign up to the league, you first need to be part of a highlander (9v9) team with a minimum of 9 players and a maximum of 20 players on the roster. You can find or form a team in the highlander recruitment forum. Once you are in a team, your leader or deputy can sign your team up to the competition here.

Your team can request a division and skill bracket when signing up. Division 5 and 6 are the best choices for most teams who are starting out with competitive TF2. Division 4 is good for those who already have experience with highlander, while division 3 is best for trained highlander teams and those with plenty 6v6 experience. Divisions 1-2 are meant for the top teams, so don’t sign up to those unless you are very confident in your team. Requesting a division is no guarantee to be placed in it; teams will be moved around at admins’ discretion. Teams can send result screenshots from highlander matches to [email protected], to prove that they belong in the requested division. Please do so before sign-ups close on the 11th of March.

For detailed information on how to create an ETF2L account, create a team and add players to the roster, please visit the FAQ page.

Map Schedule

This time around, we have decided to include some newer maps that were tested in the recent highlander cup. Another novelty is that payload maps are now to be played in a best-of-3 ABBA format. Read this for more specific info on how to play the various maps. Also note that 6 points will be awarded for each payload map won, while 3 points will be awarded for Foundry and Lakeside.

• Week 1: Badwater
• Week 2: Foundry & Lakeside
• Week 3: Upward
• Week 4: Lakeside & Foundry
• Week 5: Barnblitz

Unlocks

The following items will be banned this season:

• Everything released from now on, except skins.
• Set hats
• Bombinomicon
• Bootie Time
• Jingle Belt
• Holiday Punch
• Enforcer
• Spy-cicle
• Pomson 6000
• Phlogistinator

Additional Info

The merc rule has been slightly updated: You can still use 3 mercs (one by default, two more if opponents agree), but now all mercs must be presented on the match page (including the merc allowed by default!) in order to be valid.

Please read the rule page (especially the merc rule) to remind yourself of the exact highlander rules for next season. You also have to be aware of the general rules that apply. Make sure you read it through! As for the server configs, we will update the existing package and announce it at a later date.

If you want to learn more about competitive TF2, you can find good information in the Training & Tactics forum. Make sure you check out the player guide and the new team leader guide.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact an admin.

Feedback

As always, we love to hear any feedback you have for us. Please take a moment to to visit the unlock thread and the map thread and share your thoughts. If you wish to give feedback on anything other than what has been suggested by us, feel free to create a new thread. Your feedback is greatly appreciated and necessary to improve the league.

Good luck to all teams that sign up! May Connor MacLeod be with you.

Bball Fun Cup

You may believe your eyes. It is again time for a proper game of Team Fortress 2 basketball.

For those of you not familiar to the concept of bball: It is a gamemode (map) where 2 teams of 2 soldiers try to rocket jump with the intelligence to each others basket. Grab the best rocket scientist from your friends list you know for your 2on2 team (create one here) and sign up your team now.

All matches up to the semi finals are played best of one. The final is played best of three which means whoever wins two maps wins.

With 128 we aim for the following schedule:

1^st March

• Round of 128: 20.00 CET
• Round of 64: 20:30 CET
• Round of 32: 21:00 CET
• Round of 16: 21:30 CET

8^th March

• Quarter finals: 20:00 CET
• Semi finals: 20:30 CET
• Final (best of 3): 21:00 CET

Details:

• Signups open: NOW
• Signups close: Wednesday, 29^th February, 20:00 CET
• Start date: Thursday, 1^st March, 20:00 CET
• Map: ctf_ballin
• Slots: 128
• Timelimit 20 minutes
• Winlimit 25
• Windifference 0 (disabled)
• Unlocks: Only standard soldier weapons

Prizes for Season 11

Playoffs will be held between March 18th and March 31st. Write it down, cancel all other engagements, consider yourselves notified.

Premier Division Playoffs

• 4th vs 3rd: March 18th – March 24th
• Winner vs 2nd: March 25th – March 31st or sooner
• Winner vs 1st: April 1st – April 7th or sooner

Tt eSPORTS generously provides us with hardware prizes for our 11th 6on6 season. The distribution is as follows:

Premiership winner:

6x Tt eSPORTS MEKA G-UNIT Keyboard

6x Tt eSPORTS Battle Dragon Bag

Premiership runner-up:

6x Tt eSPORTS THERON mouse

6x Tt eSPORTS LADON mousepad

Premiership third-place finisher:

6x Tt eSPORTS SHOCK headset

Division 1 winner:

6x Tt eSPORTS DASHER mousepad

Updates on the banner contest

As mentioned in our previous post, we are holding a banner contest! Design a fresh new banner for our header, submit your piece of art to [email protected] and the best submissions will be placed for a public vote. We already received some interesting submissions, keep it coming!

There are few conditions we have on the banner that must be met before we will consider it for our site:

• It has to be 1000×210 pixels in size
• It must contain the Tt eSPORTS logo (logo pack available here) and Multiplay logo (logo pack available here)
• The Tt eSPORTS logo may not be edited (it must be the same colour and form as the ones in the logo pack)
• It must contain a “powered by Multiplay” image (download link if/when we find one)
• It must contain the letters E, T, F, 2 and L (in that order)

The deadline for all submissions is Sunday, March 11!

As a little incentive, our new sponsor Tt eSPORTS will provide a Tt eSPORTS SHOCK One headset for the winner.

Bans

Again something new on the ban front. Firstly, the recently announced ban of IV will be shortened from 45 days (i.e. the rest of the running season) to one match (i.e. the next match his team is playing). The reason is that after revising his case, the punishment was seen as too harsh by the admin staff under the circumstances.

Unfortunately, we have to announce another ban as well. BLinK is sidelined for the next match of his team for making racist remarks about his opponents.

Also, after some time, we can announce another cheater ban! Frappe puts shame on the Swedish community. He is banned from all ETF2L competitions for one year and all matches of the current season he played in will be set to a default loss.

• IV – 1 match – heavy insults and threats of violence
• BLiNK – 1 match – Racist remarks
• Frappe – 1 year – Wallhack, aimbot

ETF2L Partners with Tt eSPORTS

We are delighted to report that Tt eSPORTS have agreed to supply us with prizes for the next 3 seasons!

“Tt eSPORTS are very happy to confirm our brand new partnership with ETF2L, who are undoubtedly the world’s biggest competitive Team Fortress 2 league with over 300 competing teams registered for this season alone.

For Tt eSPORTS it’s very important to support gamers as a whole and we feel that an established league like ETF2L was the ideal partner to reach out to the Team Fortress 2 community who are very dedicated and passionate about gaming.

It’s very exciting to be able to be involved with the organisers at ETF2L and we plan to work closely when it comes to supporting the league over the next 3 seasons and together Tt eSPORTS and ETF2L hope to bring you a lot of great competitions and prizes throughout 2012.”

Andrew “Vanq” Christoforou
Tt eSPORTS European Marketing & Community Manager

Later this weekend we will be announcing the hardware up for grabs for Season 11! They are almost ready to go but we thought this post will be long enough as it is.

We hope to add an additional cash prize to S11, but that will take a little more time.

This does mean we say goodbye to our old friends SteelSeries, who have served us well for seven successive seasons. We are very grateful to have had their support in the past, and wish them all the best for the future.

ETF2L Banner Design Competition

As part of our new deal with Tt eSPORTS, they have asked that we include their logo in the ETF2L header image at the top of the page. After a few minutes of experimenting with Paint we realised it would be a much better idea to open the design to you!

Tt eSPORTS have generously agreed to provide a prize incentive for this competition! Details will be released later this weekend.

There are few conditions we have on the banner – as long as it is 1000 pixels wide and 210 pixels high, has the unedited Tt eSPORTS logo (logo pack available here and Multiplay logo (logo pack available here), you may not change colour or form of the logos in this archive for the banner), a “powered by Multiplay” image (download link if/when we find one) and the letters E, T, F, 2 and L (in that order), we will consider it for our site. Heck, we might even put the candidates to a public vote!

Initial entries should be sent to [email protected]. Those that pass the basics will be placed in a public thread for your thoughts!

The deadline for the competition will be announced in a later post.

ETF2L in 2012

Our partnership with Tt eSPORTS is guaranteed to last for 12 months. As such, we have managed to come up with an outline of where we see ETF2L going this year:

• HIGHLANDER SEASON 2: estimated start – mid-March
• SEASON 12: estimated start – early April
• NATIONS’ CUP: estimated start – June
• SEASON 13: estimated start – September
• HIGHLANDER SEASON 3: estimated start – September

These main events will be spattered with smaller ones which are easier to arrange in short notice. We aim to keep the current routine of a cup on the first Thursday of each month, as well as Highlander cups and anything else we think you would be interested in.

It should go without saying that these dates are all subject to change. This is what we aim to provide you this year and we will do our best to make sure it happens, however we are but few and we are only human, so please be patient with us if it all goes tits up any unexpected hindrances arise.

Stay tuned for another post later today, with Season 11 prizes and details for this month’s cup!

Epsilon vs Infused

Gullywash

Freight

Highlander Experimental cup #1 winners plus prizes

Our first ever Highlander experimental cup has concluded with some great matches and feedback. We saw just over 40 teams fight it out in 3 skill brackets playing on pl_barnblitz, cp_foundry, ctf_turbine_pro_rc1 and cp_upland (created by  Mark). SNSD came from a map down to take the final of the highest bracket 2-1 and win 9 copies of DOTA 2 courtesy of gamersunited.net.au (big thanks again to them for sponsoring the competition). Full round-up of results below:

High Bracket
  SNSD
  Colony
ilita PoWeR
  turbopoop eSports

Mid Bracket
  GFM HIGHLANDER TEAM
  Free Fire!
  KOPRO multiGAYming
  Melkei Team OS

Low Bracket
  Gibs\’R\’Us
  The Lo-Fi High-Five Team
  After Dark
  Bulls17

Congratulations to all our winners and participants, watch this space for more news on Highlander Season 2 within the coming weeks and remember if you still have some feedback on the cup or for the preparation of Season 2 please share it with us on our forums in the relevant discussion topic.

Schedule your matches!

For some teams it has come as a surprise – as every season. If a match is not scheduled by Friday before the week start (which is on Sunday) admins will decide a default date. Save yourself and the admin staff some time and trouble and schedule the matches yourselves! Of course, you may still reschedule matches with a default date if both teams agree – but take care not to play later than the match deadline, which is Saturday. It is, however, still possible to play after the match deadline if both teams agree, of course, and you request an extension of the deadline at an admin on IRC. If you play after the match deadline and have not gotten an extension granted, both teams will get a minor warning.

The minor warnings for unplayed matches can be removed by an admin if the match has been played and a player of either team contacts an admin on IRC:

Remember that you are not allowed to use wildcards in week 7 (March 11 – March 17) and all matches have to be played until March 17 or will be nullified! To get an overview of the general ETF2L schedule, please use our calendar.

Team Fortress 2 on TV!

Team Fortress 2 and the ETF2L have been featured in the French television in a programme called “Skill”. The screening features the Grand Final of Season 10! between Infused eSports and Epsilon eSports, commentated by Pognon and Luzzu. The VOD should still be online for free for about two weeks, if you know French you should definitely check it out!

Season 11 Playoffs

Playoffs will be held between March 18th and March 31st. Write it down, cancel all other engagements, consider yourselves notified.

Premier Division Playoffs

• 4th vs 3rd: March 18th – March 24th
• Winner vs 2nd: March 25th – March 31st or sooner
• Winner vs 1st: April 1st – April 7th or sooner

VAC ban policy

Please be reminded of General Rule 6.5:

As of March 15, 2012, any player with a VAC ban on the Source engine will be banned for 1 year. Players with VAC bans that do not apply to Team Fortress 2 will not be affected. Players receiving VAC bans before March 15, 2012 will not be affected.

Ban

Sadly, we have to announce a ban again. Someone deemed it necessary to voice threats of physical violence during an official match accompanied with heavy insults. The player will be banned from all ETF2L competitions until the end of the Season 11 playoffs.

•  IV – Heavy insults, threats of violence – 45 days

Barnblitz

Foundry

Turbine

Staff Changes

Time goes by and people move on. This week, we say goodbye and thanks to zoob, and hello to irfx.

Season 11 Playoffs

Playoffs will be held between March 18th and March 31st. Write it down, cancel all other engagements, consider yourselves notified.

Premier Division Playoffs

• 4th vs 3rd: March 18th – March 24th
• Winner vs 2nd: March 25th – March 31st or sooner
• Winner vs 1st: April 1st – April 7th or sooner