Our Croissant Cup came to an exciting end yesterday with several final ties being very close. Huge thanks to the teams that participated and our congratulations go to the following winners of the highly coveted pixel trophies:

Highest Bracket
LagTastic Gaming
Please Shoot the Medic
 International Secret Intelligence Servic
Insane Dutch Killers – Dynamic

High Bracket
n2o injection
Team Colonslash: Fest!
Dont Shoot the Panda
Don’t be Custard, IDK

Mid Bracket
Insane Dutch Killers – Cookies
Splendid Gaming
Death or Glory
Digital Playground

Low Bracket
Croissant Mixture
Subreddit
isaninja
Chill it

Feedback

If your team participated in this cup we are sure the creator of the map would love to hear your feedback on it. You can do so here.

Tomorrow our latest one night cup will take place for which signups are now closed. It will have all matches played on the map cp_croissant which should provide some interesting gameplay for all. If you have not seen or downloaded the map yet, be sure to check it out. Croissant can be downloaded here.

Brackets will be announced today at 19:30 CET in #etf2l so be sure to see who you are drawn against!  If you did not make it into the brackets but still wish to play then please be in #etf2l when the cup is due to begin, as you may be able to replace teams that do not show up.

Highest Bracket: Click Here
High Bracket: Click Here
Mid Bracket: Click Here
Low Bracket: Click Here

Round 1: 20:00 CET
Quarter Final: 20:45 CET
Semi Final: 21:30 CET
Final: 22:15 CET

Feedback

If you are a competitor in this cup we are sure that the creator of the map would appreciate your feedback. You can do so here.

Details for this cup

• Please contact your opponents in #etf2l on IRC, so ensure at least one of your team is in there at all times. If you have any problems contacting your opponents, please talk to an admin. There will be servers with SourceTVs (hosted by Multiplay) available for you to play on should you need them. Request them by talking to an admin.
• All teams must have at least 1 player ready on #etf2l (QuakeNet) to find their opponent and schedule the match.
• If your match starts more than 10 minutes late, please reduce the map time to 15-25 minutes, depending on how long you have left before the next round starts. Bear in mind that if the map finishes in a draw, there will be a golden cap period to follow.
• If your match finishes in a draw, you must play a golden cap round to decide the winner. Please reset the config and play a 5 minute golden cap round. The first team to cap all points in this round, wins. If neither team caps within 5 minutes, the team that holds CP3 at the end of the 5 minute period wins.
• For most other issues the regular ETF2L Season 10 rules apply.
• Teams may use 2 mercs by default.
• All rounds are to be played on the cp_croissant_b8 version of the map.

Our tenth season is now drawing to a close, after around 1,200 matches, and it is now time to showcase the Season 10 Playoffs!

A small number of teams have not managed to play all of their games within the time given and we have to move on, so unfortunately for them we have to enter a result of 0-0 for those matches. However this now allows us to publish the playoff fixtures!

The Premiership playoffs follow the trusted format where the top 4 teams fight for the title. The 4th placed team will play the 3rd placed team. The winner of that match will then have to play the 2nd placed team to decide who enters the grand final against the 1st placed team, and who goes home with the 3rd place prize.

Premier Division Championship Playoff

• Epsilon eSports vs  Relic
  
• Winner of above vs  Crack Clan
  (Loser places 3rd and receives 6x SteelSeries 9HD)
• Winner of above vs  Infused.Tt in the Grand Final
  (Winner receives 6x SteelSeries Sensei; Loser receives 6x SteelSeries Siberia V2 Green)

• broder vs  Team Yoyotech
  (Winner receives 6x SteelSeries 4HD, and promotes to premiership)
• Loser of above vs equilibrium 
• exotic island vs  I Don’t Know
• Winner of above vs  Team Dignitas

Division 3a Tiebreaker

• Forced Anal Penetration vs  Crack Clan // Blue

Division 4e: 3-way Tiebreaker!

• Domination vs  ScS Gaming.PL
• Domination vs  Eccentric Kunoichis
• ScS Gaming.PL vs  Eccentric Kunoichis

Division 4f Tiebreaker

• Who Dares Wins vs  üBearz

Division 4g Tiebreaker

• nervousENERGY BLU vs  Harmful Hamsters

Hopefully most of the playoffs can be played within the next week or two! Please try to have the matches scheduled by this Thursday.

Already starting to miss 6v6 action so soon in the wake of Season 10? No worries! On Thursday 1st December at 20:00 CET we will be hosting a one night cup! All rounds will be played on cp_croissant, a new map made by Arnold, the mastermind behind the official map cp_gullywash. It is also possible to enter this cup using a Fun Team which can be setup in the normal way using the page found here.

Croissant can be downloaded here.

Setup – Cups of 16, divided by skill levels
Merc rules – 2 mercs allowed by default
Bracket draw – Wednesday 30th November at 19:30 CET in #etf2l
Map – cp_croissant_b8
Sign-ups open – Now

It has taken a while, but we can now announce promotions and relegation critera for non-premier divisions! Please bear in mind that we have to consider the new Season 11 structure when deciding these spots, as well as factor in the madness that is the pre-season division seeding. We’d like to have just one group in Division 1 next season and see the skill levels in both Division 1 and 2 rise, so hopefully teams in Division 2 will understand not having automatic promotions. They are welcome to request a Division 1 spot when they sign up to Season 11.

Behold!

• Division 1: The bottom 4 teams from each group will be relegated.
• Division 2: No teams will be promoted. The bottom 4 teams from each group will be relegated.
• Division 3: The top team from each group will be promoted.The bottom 3 teams from each group will be relegated.
• Division 4: The top 2 teams from each group will be promoted. The bottom 3 teams from each group will be relegated.
• Division 5: The top 2 teams from each group will be promoted. The bottom 2 teams from each group will be relegated.
• Division 6: The top 3 teams from each group will be promoted.

BeaVerN ban overturned

As you may already know, we have been rebuilding our anti-cheat team from scratch for some time now. We currently have a small team of promising AC admins, which in addition to senior AC admin  octochris, includes the new admins  hys and Steve. After proving themselves more than worthy, they reviewed a ban which has been in question since it was issued, namely  BeaVerN’s case. After reviewing the demo and previous evidence, they unanimously concluded to that no evidence of cheating could be found. This means that BeaVerN is unbanned with immediate effect, and is to be considered a fully legitimate player.

The anti-cheat would like to say the following:

Let us start by apologising for how long this has taken. It is utterly indefensible that an innocent player and his team have been hung out to dry for two seasons having been convicted of an act that he did not perform. We are utterly disgusted by the conduct that we have seen from some members of the previous AC team, and we will not justify it for one second. This was a mistake, a big mistake, and there are no excuses for what happened, but the best that we can do is learn from it, and make things right again.

 You might say that it is very easy for us to criticise our predecessors, as we weren’t part of the team at the time, but we intend to make good on our promises of improvement. We are very committed to making sure that the process is much fairer and consistent for everyone that chooses to make ETF2L the place that they play TF2, for example, we are currently rewriting anti-cheat protocol, and we intend to shortly set up a documented system for reviews of existing bans.

A human-patrolled anti-cheat system can never be flawless, but we can certainly strive to be better.

BeaVerN wishes to state the following:

I want to thank my friends on Steam, all the people who have supported me, and a special thanks to my clan.

We are very sorry that BeaVerN and his team  Quarantine have been prevented from enjoying ETF2L for most of this year, and we offer our most sincere apologies for the time it has taken to have the case reviewed. In line with the BeaVerN review, the anti-cheat team will have a policy that allows appeals for future and past cases.

More Updates

First off, an update for highlander teams: Being released mid-season and affecting gameplay, The Bombinomicon is banned from the Highlander League. The Apoco-Fist skin is allowed.

We also have some updates from the land of exciting TF2 cups: Excello are hosting another ZOWIE TF2 Challenge, sponsored by ZOWIE. Signing up will help competitive TF2’s future, so be sure to have a look!

The Esports Heaven Sapphire Challenge Final between Epsilon and Relic is expected to take place at around a week from now. Unfortunately yoyotech are unavailable to play the third-place playoff, so Infused receive 3rd place, and thus £50.

On a lighter note, our lovely site coder has added an “add friend” icon to the user and team pages to make it easier to add people to Steam Friends. Enjoy!