Our official partner SteelSeries announced a new Facebook lottery! Have a read and good luck winning :)

The indian summer conditions and massive heat waves have finally caught up with us here at the HQ office, and you should be happy for that!

That basically means that we’ve dedicated the upcoming month to giving away gaming gear on our Facebook site for free – on a (close to) daily basis. All you have to do is sign up as a SteelSeries fan on Facebook, and you’re in the draft for an insane number of give-aways coming up.

During the first week of this month-long craziness, we’re introducing the SteelSeries Sunstroke Days, giving away products worth of over $850 as three daily prizes.

Following that, we’ve got giveaways coming up of some very unique items, signed by a bunch of very interesting gamers and industry icons. More info will be posted on our Facebook site and on Twitter in the following days.

–> Sign up as a SteelSeries fan on Facebook <–

Season 5: Winner

The regular week phase of our 5th Season is over! 25 divisions have found their winner. Big Congratulations goes to:

Division 1

• Team Dignitas
• Team Coolermaster
• Team YoYoTech

Division 2-6

• Division 2a: I Don’t Know?
• Division 2b: Afterlife
• Division 3a: OverGame e-Sports
• Division 3b: Oh My God It Is
• Division 3c: Clones-Inc
• Division 3d: Precursors of Death
• Division 4a: plan-B
• Division 4b: Smart Move
• Division 4c: Northwave
• Division 4d: #paradox
• Division 4e: NeXt Century esports
• Division 4f: Nobody’s fault but mine
• Division 5a: Team Future
• Division 5b: dA-Gaming
• Division 5c: Deathless Gaming
• Division 5d: VIER-Clan
• Division 5e: The Good Guys!
• Division 5f: Timmy And The Fratellis
• Division 6a: The Real Warriors
• Division 6b: nicey-tf2.
• Division 6c: ze Dummkopfs
• Division 6d: flashpoint
• Division 6e: Pocans In Fortress
• Division 6f: New Force

Season 5: Awards

Like every Season we will distribute some Awards to accentuate impressive accomplishments. Besides the regular Season Awards which are decided by communities nomination and poll results, two new awards were added which will be given away directly.

The Domination Award will be awarded to all teams who finished Season 5 with a perfect streak; ETF2L is our home Award is for all teams who managed to complete all five regular Seasons. Congratulations!

Schedule

• Nomination Phase: Tuesday, 14th July till Sunday, 19th July, 23:59 CET
• Poll Phase: Monday, 20th July till Sunday, 26th July, 23:59 CET

Overview

• ETF2L is our home Award – teams who completed all five Seasons
• Domination Award – teams who finished with a perfect streak
• Most Surprising Team – [Nomination Thread] – top 5 will be included to public poll
• Fairplay Award – [Nomination Thread] – top 5 will be included to public poll
• Division 3 team of the Season – all division 3 winners nominated
• Division 4 team of the Season – all division 4 winners nominated
• Division 5 team of the Season – all division 5 winners nominated
• Division 6 team of the Season – all division 6 winners nominated
• Most Underrated Player – [Nomination Thread] – only players from Div3-6 can be nominated – top 5 will be included to public poll
• Demoman of the Season – [Nomination Thread] – top 5 will be included to public poll
• Heavy of the Season – [Nomination Thread] – top 5 will be included to public poll
• Medic of the Season – [Nomination Thread] – top 5 will be included to public poll
• Scout of the Season – [Nomination Thread] – top 5 will be included to public poll
• Sniper of the Season  – [Nomination Thread] – top 5 will be included to public poll
• Soldier of the Season – [Nomination Thread] – top 5 will be included to public poll
• Player of the Season – all separate class of the season winner + most underrated player will be nominated

ETF2L is our home Award

• 9 Men
• clanda
• Die Philosoffen
• diamondZ (former account name: Plan-B)
• jAgarna
• LOL Team
• Northwave (former account name: FADER)
• Team Dignitas (former account name: 4 Kings)

Domination Award

• New Force (Division 6f – stats 18-0-0)
• nicey-tf2. (Division 6b – stats 16-0-0)
• Northwave (Division 4c – stats 14-0-0)

Nations Cup: Announcement

What’s the most requested competition in the European TF2 scene? Another Nations Cup! Today we are happy to finally announce our second ETF2L Nations Cup which will take place from September to October 2009. Every national team is invited to participate as long as you are fine to play on European servers and at regular European times.

System will be a classic World Cup mode: All teams will be divided into groups first. After the group phase is over, 1^st and 2^nd will continue at a straight K.O. phase. The big final will be played as Best of 5 Maps!

We also created a [Nations Cup Forum] for any related discussions or gathering of players for a National Team.

Schedule

• Sign Ups open: Sunday, 23th August, 20:00 CET
• Sign Ups close: Sunday, 30th August, 23:59 CET
• Group Phase – start: Tuesday, 1st September, 00:01 CET
• Group Phase – General Schedule Deadline: Sunday, 20th September, 23:59 CET
• Group Phase – General Match Deadline: Thursday, 1st October, 23:59 CET
• Playoff Phase: 2nd October till 1st November

Season 6: Dates

Surely many of you would like to know when our next Season will start. As mentioned earlier, we will have a summer break until we continue with a 6^th Season. Note down the dates if you don’t want to miss the Sign-Ups!

Schedule

• Sign Ups open: Sunday, 6th September, 20:00 CET
• Sign Ups close: Sunday, 13th September, 23:59 CET (or earlier if all spots are filled)
• [Pre-Playoffs: Sunday, 20th September till Monday, 21st September]
• Map Pick Phase: Tuesday, 22nd September till Sunday, 27th September
• Week 1 start: Monday, 28th September
• General Match Deadline: ~Sunday, 6th December
• Playoff Phase: Monday, 7th December till Sunday, 20th December

Mapping Contest: Final Phase

After some general organization problems about the end of the ETF2L Mapping Contest, there was an internal discussion about how to end the contest in a smooth way.

The final phase of the Mapping Contest will start with a public decision to reduce all submissions to a Top 3. Every map will get his own public poll where players will be able to rate it from 1-10. As everyone should have played a map before he rates it, ETF2L will set up a public server including all maps (hopefully done soon). Polls will open after everyone was able to test these maps on our server.

After the polls are over Top 3 will be included into an invite tournament with 8 top teams. These teams will be split up in two groups. First two of each group will go into the Semi Finals, winner of that will play the final. All participating teams do another rating of the Top 3 maps. Top rated map will be declaimed as winner.

The winner map will be included to the primary map pool of Season 6 and also be part of the next regular Cup final.

Map Overview

• [cp_afterdusk_b2b]
• [cp_gullywash_rc5]
• [cp_outlaw_b1]
• [cp_waste_final]
• [cp_yukon_rc4]

Ban: joske

Also another punishment has to be announced. After joske was banned in May due to excessive flaming, he created another account and joined a new team. Of course he got caught and his ban will be extended for another 7 months till February 2010. Well done!

Today is the official deadline for all regular Season 5 matches! About 1000 matches have already been submitted, still many important decisions will be made on the last day:

Who will become runner-up in Division 1? Which team will win Division 2a & 2b? The new TF2 news portal [Resupply.eu] published a nice overview about this last [ETF2L Super Sunday]. Go have a read!

Besides, the most important question was answered last Thursday: Team Dignitas profit from Team Coolermaster beating Team YoYoTech, the only team who still had a chance to tie up with Dignitas and win the ETF2L Season 5 title!

Congratulations for keeping up this amazing domination and gaining your 4th Season title & (another) six SteelSeries headsets!

Road to title

• Stats: 9 maps won, 2 maps drawn, 1 map loss – 28 points
• vs. FakkelBrigade – 6:0 (cp_gravelpit 2:0 | cp_freight 6:2| [Match Page])
• vs. Team YoYoTech – 3:3 (cp_granary 3:2 | ctf_turbine 6:12| [Match Page])
• vs. Team Coolermaster – 6:0 (cp_badlands 6:3 | cp_well 5:2 | [Match Page])
• vs. coolclan – 6:0 (cp_badlands 6:1 | ctf_turbine 6:5 | [Match Page])
• vs. Crack Clan – 6:0 (Default Win | [Match Page])
• vs. The Imperial – 2:2 (cp_gravelpit 1:1 | cp_badlands 4:4 | [Match Page])

Watch out for the next newspost if you are interested in the playoff phase, the season awards, all division winners, Season 6 dates & two new competition announcements!

Season 5: Last regular match week!

The summer has already arrived in most countries; people start to go and don’t stay at the computer all day. It’s about time to finish the 5^th regular season!

As announced earlier, the general match deadline for Season 5 week matches is upcoming Sunday, 12^th July, at 23:59 CEST. All results will have to be submitted by this date. Unplayed matches will be defaulted. No more wildcards can be taken from now on.

The playoff phase will be skipped except for position deciders if two teams are tied in points. These matches will take place from 13th till 22th July. Details about the upcoming Season Awards phase and official Season 6 dates will be published in the next days!

Dates

• General match deadline: Sunday, 12^th July, 23:59 CEST
• Position decider matches – Schedule Deadline: Thursday, 16^th July, 23:59 CEST
• Position decider matches – Match Deadline: Wednesday, 22 ^th July, 23:59 CEST

Soldier Turris 1on1 Cup & Pyro Paintball 3on3 Cup: Rule change & schedule

Due to more requests about changing the winmode of the Turris Cup we decided to add an additional timelimit of 30 which will take place from Round 3 onwards.

If no one reached 4 points after 30 minutes, the player with the higher score wins. If the match is tied after the timelimit is over, it will continue with a Golden Cap rule – next captured point decides the winner.

Please also have in mind both cups are running with a strict 1-week-rhythmus. A single round consists of 7 days and always ends on Wednesdays at 23:59 CEST. Contact your opponent early to ease scheduling. Best method to get in contact is adding a match comment and clicking the Challenge Box.

Dates

• Round 2 – Match Deadline: Wednesday, 8^th July, 23:59 CEST
• Round 3 – Match Deadline: Wednesday, 15^th July, 23:59 CEST
• Quarter Finals – Match Deadline: Wednesday, 22^th July, 23:59 CEST

The Community LAN: Winners

The Community LAN, first official TF2 community Meet & Greet, took place this weekend. 10 teams with players from all over Europe came together in Enschede. Beside some beer and BBQ, a tournament with a group phase and a playoff phase was played to decide the winner of the Silver & Golden TCL title.

After a lot good, thrilling matches rockit like NeXt took the Silver title home by beating FakkelBrigade; the Golden Tournament and a prize money of 1000 Euros was won by Team CoolerMaster who defeated YoYomix in the grand final. Congratulations!

All regarding group tables, cup trees and results can be found in our [Hall of Fame].

TFPortal: Relaunch with ETF2L features

On a last side note we would like to inform you our partner [TFPortal] had a relaunch and is back with a complete new design and more features including an ETF2L [match ticker], a [result ticker] and a [transfer ticker]. Have a visit!

The biggest TF2 duel cup in history will come to an end today. 380 players tried to gain the title “best European TF2 duel sold” and win the complete prize money of 50 €. Two months and almost 400 matches later only two are left to fight for all the fame and money: YoYoTech.Coinz, winner of our [1st Soldier 1on1 Cup] in August 2008, will meet [SpA]cheetah who is a complete surprise of the tournament.

Will cheetah really manage to continue his amazing win streak against one of the most known soldier in Europe or will Coinz make this another easy win for him and have fun with the money? The big final will take place today at 19:00 CEST.

Coverage

Source TV: 84.244.189.238:27022

Road to Final

YoYo.Coinz

• Round 1: vs.  Axik – 30:2
• Round 2: vs. sweiny – 30:2
• Round 3: vs.  gK_ – 30:5
• Round 4: vs.  [FB]cook – 30:22
• Round 5: vs.  Nutz – 30:7
• Quarter Final: vs.  illegal.hocz – 30:22
• Semi Final: vs. codcrille – 30:16

[SpA]cheetah

• Round 1: vs. wonder – 30:14
• Round 2: vs. nvc – Default Win
• Round 3: vs. RobbaZ – 30:15
• Round 4: vs. [4K^daf] – 30:23
• Round 5: vs. SfynX – 30:26
• Quarter Final: vs. eLD.Dreadi – 30:23
• Semi Final: vs. Dignitas\TeoK – 30:21

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Match Details

— Friday 26 June 2009 19:00 CEST —

[Matchlink]

duel_duel2_pro

YoYoTech.Coinz [30:15] [SpA]cheetah

RIP Michael Jackson