Oh boy, it’s really happening. The rules have been rewritten, the ladder has been climbed (it works) and we nearly created our very own version of Valve Time, but now we are thrilled to announce that the Highlander Community Challenge is a go!

And what exactly is this, we hear you ask? Well check out our fantastic and visually pleasing Highlander Community Challenge Page! It contains all the basics about what exactly the Highlander format is, and essential (light) reading for all who want to get involved.

This tournament is meant for people who are new to competitive play, a competition to find the very best pub team. That said, we understand that many Division 6 teams are community teams, so they will be eligible to take part. Much like the World Cup, the tournament will kick off with a Group Phase designed so that all teams involved will have the chance to play some exciting games. After the Group Phase the best two teams from each group will engage in a straight knock-out cup as we progress on in our journey to discover, and reward, the very best Pub team in Europe.

But wait, there’s more! To launch the Highlander tournament, we’re offering a once in a lifetime opportunity to team up with some of the very best competitive players and some of the Valve TF2 staff to play in a special exhibition game, in what will be a thrilling example of the many exciting matches that we’ll see in the competition.

So When Is It Starting?

Good question! The tournament will start in September but the signups are open as we speak. These signups will be open for a month so there’s plenty of time to create and enter your team. The exact dates are as follows:

Signups open: Now (Your team leader will have to sign your team up – for more info check out the FAQ)

Signups close: Thursday 26th of August

Final divisions announced: Sunday 29th of August

Schedule deadline for week 1 matches: Sunday the 5th of September

Week 1 start: Sunday the 12th of September

You said something about a Ladder?

For those of you who can’t wait to play some Highlander games we have created an exciting ladder competition where you can find and play all kinds of opponents. Of course you can organize practice matches against future opponents for the Highlander challenge, but there’s also the option to challenge the very veterans of competitive TF2 as every team will be free to join the ladder. Sign up now everyone!

Update: We’re thrilled to have received such a fantastic response from the public community, thanks! The 160 slots we had for the competition filled up so quickly that we’re looking at expanding the tournament so more and more teams can play, so please keep signing up! Check back on ETF2L for more news coming shortly.

Huh, ETF2L?! How does this work?

For those of you who are new to ETF2L and our community, please allow us to introduce ourselves! We’re a friendly bunch of players who all share a similar love of playing TF2 competitively. The ETF2L is run for the community, by the community. We hope our website is intuitive to use, but let us help you get started.

To sign up for the tournament you will need to be part of a complete Highlander team of 10 to 14 players. Your leader can then sign your team up for the tournament. For detailed information about the website and ETF2L or Highlander rules please head over to the Rules Page. The FAQ section will explain everything about making accounts, teams and signing them up for tournaments. On the Rules Page you will also find the full list of maps you will get to play, and includes all time favourites like Badwater, new maps like Upward and solid competitive maps like Gravel Pit.

The Forums are great way to talk about TF2, competitive play and the upcoming tournament. To discuss anything about the tournament you can check out the Highlander Section of our Forums. Don’t have a team yet, or are you looking for more players to join your team? Be sure to check out the Highlander Recruitment Section.

Even though this is an European league we will welcome players from other regions with open arms. We will even try to place you into the same groups to ease the process of scheduling matches with your opponents. Against European opponents however, you will have to play on European servers at European times. The usual playing time for ETF2L matches is Sunday’s from 20:00-21:30 CET. Make sure you are willing to (and can!) play at such times and on European servers before you sign up.

If you still can’t find the answer to a question or if you have any problem, then the quickest way to get into contact with an admin is to join our IRC channel #etf2l, and type “!admin highlander” to get hold of someone who will help out. A guide to using IRC can be found here.

A word of thanks

Many people have assisted in making this great tournament possible by supplying us with translations, advertisement and many other things. We would like to express our thanks to all of them. A special highlight goes out to the following people who have put a lot of time in realising this tournament:

Populus89 – Creator of the medals

Populus89 – Creator of the medals Flsh – Designer of the Highlander Landing page

Flsh – Designer of the Highlander Landing page Ashkan – Manager of the ‘Highlander Team Leaders‘ steam community group

Ashkan – Manager of the ‘Highlander Team Leaders‘ steam community group Joe – Co-writer of the landing page

That’s all for now, be sure to keep checking ETF2L.org for the latest updates on The Highlander Challenge and many other interesting news posts. You can also get all the updates by subscribing to our RSS Feed and by following us on Twitter!