Everyone knows kaidus. Whether you know him primarily through his prolific and historic achievements in competitive TF2 or rather through his recent return to streaming and casting at twitch.tv/kaidus. As the i65 and i61 champion, two-time Copenhagen Games champion, and with many ETF2L Premiership trophies under his belt, he’s a name that has to be brought up every time you consider the discussion of greatest of all time.
One of the first major events kaidus covered in his streaming re-debut was the Fullerton LAN in North America, in which the organisers experimented with a new shortened round timer and a creative win limit revamp. The time limit was set to 30 minutes and the round timer to 3 minutes with a win limit of 5; however, if neither team achieved 5 round wins after 30 minutes, the match would continue with the win limit changed to highest current score plus 1. After casting and viewing this event on his own Twitch.TV channel, kaidus has decided to host his own tournament for the European playerbase.
Poster by @RaosCometh on Twitter
The UNITY Cup 2022 is looking to improve on the Fullerton LAN formula and bring it to a European playerbase. The Cup will be played with win limit 5, time limit 30, and a round timer of 5. This is likely a response to the criticism of the Fullerton LAN round timer, where some players felt the round timer of 3 was too short and opened the door for teams parking the bus and letting the round timer run out. The UNITY Cup will also feature a “Continuous Overtime”, which simply means at the end of the 30 minute time limit if neither teams have scored 5 points, overtime will begin without resetting the round, dissimilar to ETF2L’s current Golden Cap system.
The rest of the ruleset for the Cup will mostly mimic ETF2L’s Season 41 ruleset and whitelist, but with one specific differentiation: the UNITY Cup will allow teams to differentiate between Technical and Tactical pauses. Teams will be allowed to call one Tactical timeout per game in between rounds, with a duration limited to 2 minutes. Technical pauses are limited to 5 minutes and are required to be requested 5 seconds in advance, and only during downtime: meaning no significant fight is currently taking place.
The UNITY Cup will also bring some Broadcasting Rules into place, to improve the quality of the streams covering the matches. Teams participating in broadcasted matches must have one player available for post-match interviews, and teams participating in playoffs must use a provided VOIP if requested by the event organisers. Finally, third-party STV streams are allowed and players are allowed to stream their POV with a 2 minute delay.
Moving on to the general details of the event, the map pool has already been announced, with maps most players will feel extremely comfortable with coming from ETF2L, with the exception of cp_prolands, which is making a return.
- cp_process_f9a
- cp_gullywash_f7
- cp_prolands_rc2ta
- cp_snakewater_final1
- cp_granary_pro_rc8
- cp_sunshine
- koth_product_final
The UNITY Cup 2022, which is sponsored by Witness Gaming and serveme.tf, will have a €1,000 cash prize, on top of €250 worth of Serveme Premium! The details for the distribution of these prizes are yet to be announced, but the current €1000 cash prize is a minimum, and may increase by the time of the actual event.
Finally, for those of you who would be interested in participating in the event, the UNITY Cup 2022 will take place on the 16th and 17th of April, and the event sign-ups are currently open, staying open until the 14th of April at 11:59 CEST. The Open Swiss tournament will run on the 16th of April from 14:00 CEST until late in the evening. Teams in the Open Swiss bracket should be prepared to play 6 rounds of Swiss, with the potential for the top eight teams to move into playoffs. Playoffs Round of 16 will run on the 16th at 20:45 CEST, with Quarter-Finals and the rest of the playoffs beginning at 13:00 CEST on the 17th.
If your team believes they deserve a place in the Invite Groups, please reach out to kaidus. Invite will run a round-robin tournament of two groups of four teams to determine seeding, with all eight teams advancing into playoffs.
If you want more precise info on the schedule, the exact ruleset, please consult this Google Doc, and the Toornament page for sign-ups.