The playoffs are right upon us and will end Season 6 in the next few weeks. This means the summer-break is about to start, but the staff has other plans. In fact we want to offer you guys as much NS2-activity as possible.

So, we decided to give you a peek into our schedules:

The Off-Season Ladder (June 15th - September 15th)

As announced in one of the previous posts, we are experimenting with an Off-Season Ladder this summer. This is to test the concept and get some experience in. We admins delve deep, by even fielding our own team. This allows us to see the ladder from each angle. Don't worry, though. The only "Abuse" will be, that some of the members play in two teams. You will not see the adminteam partaking in any "serious" competition in that fashion.

The ladder is going to start in less than 2 weeks on 15th of June and runs a full 3 months. So go, form up a team (even if it's temporary) and sign in. The more the merrier. I shamelessly cite Zefram's explanations on how to register your team here:

To create a team, register an account and go to Agenda -> Create a new team Get your players to register and tell them to Join your team in their Agenda. To accept your players on the team, go to Agenda -> Click your team name -> Edit (scroll down) -> Members -> Change their status from Joining to Member, Leader, or Deputee. To join the tournament, go to Agenda -> Click your team name -> Edit (scroll down) -> Contests -> Join Off-Season-Ladder. Check the Contest page for your team name to see if you've done it correctly.

Do not forget to create a team-page for your team, after you signed in, so other teams can appropriately throw their glove in front of you.

Draft Tournament (June 27th - 19 CEST)

Especially suited for all those players who got left by their less active teammates: we bring a Draft to you on June 27th EU time. Players need no team to register for this event. From the pool of registered players captains will assemble their team in a draft fashion.

Depending on participant numbers this event might overboard into the evening time of June 28th or July 4th. We will know more about this, as players start registering.

Speaking of which, follow the below link to register yourself to the Draft Tournament:

Register for Draft Tournament here!

If response is well, we will probably squeeze in more Draft Tournaments over the summertime (especially on NA times).

Skulks with Shotguns - Capture the Gorge (July 4th + July 11th - 19 CEST)

In the beginning of July we are trying something completely new. A tournament for the Skulks with Shotguns mod, specifically the "Capture the Gorge"-mode. If you haven't played Skulks with Shotguns, yet, you should definitely give it a go.

We hope to get everything in place for this completely new event. There is a thread open for discussions on this event. I look forward to see this new format of competition in our community and hope you share my excitement.

A registration for the SWS-Tournament will come up shortly. Note that teamsizes are reduced to 5, so even if some of your team-buddies spent their time outside or in vacation you can partake in this frantic event.

Custom Map Cup (July 18th + July 25th)

Test how flexible your team is on lesser known and new maps in the Custom Map Cup. This helps the mappers to improve and balance their creations and make them suitable for competitive play. By helping them, we help ourselves in playing NS2 with more variation.

Tell us in the comments which maps you would like to see in the Custom Map Cup!

Newcomer Tournament (August 8th, 9th + 16th)

In February we saw 12 new teams struggling for the title of the best Newcomer Team. Most of those teams continued to play and joined us through entire Season 6. Half a year later we will promote the ENSL again and bring in as many players and teams as possible.

The Newcomer Tournament in February had been a very large and very exciting project and it will be again. If you want to help out in any fashion (Casting, Reffing, Organising, Forming a Team, Training a Team, Promoting the event on your servers, producing intro-clips...): contact the staff! Your help will be very appreciated.

Bringing new members in, is the lifeblood of each community.

Summer Cup (September 5th + 6th)

As the Off-Season lends to its end, we will slowly come back to the "usual" business. The Summer Cup is a simple tourney, where you can shake off the rust or test the potential of your new team.

Start of Season 7 (Mid of September)

We can't say or know how Season 7 is going to look like, but the kickoff time will be in September. We might think of some opening-shenanigans, like an All-Star-Game or Off-Season-Ladder finals to get you people into the mood.

This concludes our plan for the summer. Dates, times and even events might still change, while we try to fit everything to the community's needs.

As you see, we have a lot to offer for this Off-Season. Now it's up to you to prove, that a summer-break doesn't need to be an NS2-diet. Each tournament lives by its participants and the more show up, the better it will be.

You can start now, by registering your team for the ladder or signing into the Draft Tournament.

Stay tuned for more updates on the upcoming competitions!