TF2 will once again feature in the exhibition area of DreamHack in Sweden, this time at DreamHack Summer in June 2016. The LAN tournament will feature four teams, and you have a chance to earn one of those invites, along with €1000 from TFCups and Razer, in our qualifier cup series.

Last year at DreamHack Winter, nerdRage, swedeRage, Publiclir.se, and LEGO fought it out for their share of the $4000 prizepool. Esport United will be hosting us again after a successful tournament at DHW 2015; although the details of the tournament this summer are still being finalised, the booth is going to be larger with a better area for both the stream and tournament, and the overall experience at the world’s largest LAN is fantastic. The key difference, however, is how the teams qualify for a place at this tournament.

Qualifiers

Four online qualifier cups will be held, starting on Saturday and Sunday, 9th & 10th of April and running every other week from then on (23rd & 24th April, 7th & 8th May, 21st & 22nd May). The winner of each Sunday tournament will receive €1000 and an invitation to the TF2 tournament at DreamHack Summer 2016. Winners from previous cups cannot enter future qualifiers, ensuring a different winner each time and new competition each weekend. These games will be held on the Razer Arena system and the prizepool, a cool €4000 just for the qualifiers, is sponsored by TFCups and Razer. A link to sign up to the first of these tournaments is provided below - you must have a team on Razer Arena and list your roster before the tournament begins!

Format

Saturday features an open single elimination tournament for any team to enter. The teams will be seeded randomly and play BO3 matches until four teams remain. These teams, having secured their spots as the 5th to 8th best teams in Europe for this cup, move on to fight on Sunday.

The four teams who make it out of the open tournament on Saturday will join four invited teams on Sunday in the closed tournament. The winner of the Sunday single elimination tournament receives an invite to DreamHack Summer along with €1000. The four invited teams to the first cup on Sunday, 10th April are Perilous Gaming, Publiclir.se, dd+5abs, and LEGO.

The winning team will not be able to enter following qualifiers for DreamHack Summer, and the teams who place 2nd-4th will receive invitations to the next closed qualifier, along with one final team based on ETF2L seeding. At the end of the cup series, the best four teams will each have €1000 and an invitation to the tournament at DreamHack Summer this June in Sweden.

Schedule

Saturday 9th April:

17:15 CEST - Ro32 - Gullywash Granary Process

19:30 CEST - Ro16 - Process Snakewater Badlands

21:45 CEST - Ro8 - Badlands Granary Product

Sunday 10th April:

17:15 CEST - Quarter Finals - Gullywash Granary Process

19:30 CEST - Semi Finals - Process Snakewater Badlands

21:45 CEST - Final - Badlands Granary Product

Rules

Rules mirror the ETF2L Season 23 ruleset and whitelist unless specified on the Razer Arena rule page. Maps are fixed for each fixture, but later cups may feature a map veto system if implemented in time. For the invitation to DreamHack Summer to be valid, your LAN roster must contain at least 3 of the players you used to qualify.

Sign Up!

Sign up for the open tournament on Saturday, 9th April on Razer Arena here.

Bear in mind that results from this cup would also be useful to prove your tier or to apply for Premiership in ETF2L, as well as providing official practice in the off-season. Future planned weekly cups will also use seedings from these qualifiers to determine allocation of points. I hope we see a lot of you in there! Good luck, have fun.