I agree with the decision to remove the ban on middle, I think that the Admins were wrong on their part and their overturning was needed. If efforts must be made to prevent people throwing in officials more work needs to be done to determine what 'throwing' actually means within ETF2L. Its clear in the past year or so the admin team has tried to be more proactive in reducing the amount of bad actors who play with their changes in harassment policy and increased number of bans for toxic behaviour. Which is a good thing. But this seemed to be a case of overcorrection and they seemed to have dealt with this respectably; no badmouthing, little hostility from the admins, and no public spectacle.

Having worked on a few weekend cups both good (DreamHack/Lockdown Throwdown) and bad (Essentials Monthlies) there are a range of lessons I've picked up so I hope that these answers are helpful. Also speaking for myself only, not Essentials as a whole.

1. Right now any prize pool should try to reflect the effort teams would normally put into their respective leagues. I think in the range of $200-300 would be reasonable for smaller tournaments not relying on external sponsors, can be higher with signup fees but that comes with its own considerations.

2. Most of the tournaments I've been involved with has featured separate Invite and Open brackets, where the top teams from Open qualify for a playoffs with the Invite teams. This is mainly for two reasons:

• A) Matches in the invite bracket can be casted for good stream content for the audience and potential sponsors
  
• B) Takes the best players out of the open pool, making matches a bit fairer

Note: You could also use the rationale in point B to create a Newbie only group to take the lower skilled players out of the main tournament if you so wish.

3. Mirroring regional league formats tends to go over easiest, but I recommend that you do timelimit 30 with a 10-15 min golden cap if needed. Doing so gives you a strong estimate for the longest a single map/match can take.

4. Ask around. It isn't particularly difficult to get something decent with a few friends and someone learning the basics of producing (Camera Binds, When to switch POVs, Casting Essentials, etc.). Most of the more experienced people involved with producing or casting tend to be quite keen if they are free.

5. There are a range of systems (both through tournament systems or externally) that allow signup fees, I believe both Challonge and ChallengerMode both offer it but I cannot say for certain.

I'll finish this with some advice, the existence of leagues makes frequent weekend/2-day tournaments not particularly viable, as people will get burned out or uninterested fairly quickly. Its tough work making yourself stick out from the crowd and there's a lot to think about when it comes to organising. I wish you the best of luck if you decide to go ahead with it.

The DreamHack Community Clash events that we have run over the past few months were originally for the Beyond event, but unfortunately couldn't sync our tournament with their expo. In short, we wanted to use Beyond to showcase different parts of the TF2 Community not typically covered by us or organisations like DreamHack. The social competitions (Clips and Fashion Show) were created to try and provide something that the entire TF2 community could take part in, not just the most elite and talented of us. The organisers of Beyond and the leaders at Essentials really wanted to promote the community aspect of TF2 and these competitions aim to do just that.

BTS has nothing to do with this event or DreamHack/DreamHack Beyond.

Hello Moderators, how do I change my flag on this website?

In all honesty, we need a platform like FACEIT. Trying to play 6s without a team right now (at least in EU) sucks for anyone who is below Div 2 because your options are limited to random mix groups which usually die after 3 months or are just filled with circlejerks, or you have TF2Center which is a toxic cesspool where top players will play against some pubber whos trying comp for the first time. They usually leave after 3 games cause some random middie who thinks they are god's gift to tf2 trashes on them. You also have to wait 20+ minutes for two people to go med.

FACEIT has a good opportunity to be a proper hop-in queue-based way of playing comp. Something we haven't had since...well, the last time they tried. Their first attempt was not ideal, as there was no role queue so it was a mad scramble for what roles you wanted and the points they award incentivised bad actors throwing matches. I think that their 6v6 mode shouldn't award points outside of their Missions (Do x amount of damage, Get x assists) otherwise people will abuse the system as we have seen from their 12v12 mode. Now that they have the capability to implement role/map queues this may be something that can actually work. In addition, their Hubs mean that groups can run matches for certain groups such as newbie-only or Rank 10 players.

It's worth a shot, I just hope that they've learned from their mistakes.

Hello all,

Over the past few months, we have organised and run four tournaments under the DreamHack Community Clash banner (NA/EU each with a Newcomer and Open tournament). Alongside the event, we ran numerous livestreams to provide coverage for the event. Now that we're all wrapped up and working on prize distribution we thought it would be a good time to hear your feedback on the production and event on the whole.

We would like feedback on:

1. Production
   
2. NA Clash Organisation/Structure
   
3. EU Clash Organisation/Structure
   
4. Event as a whole
   
5. Anything else you can think of

Here are some general details about the events we ran over the past 2 months.

General Approach

• Newcomer & Open Tournaments
  
• Multi-weekend event
  
• Soft-region locks (w/ exceptions)
  
• Minimising downtime, both on stream and for players

NA Clash

• First weekend was planned for Invite Qualifiers if needed, second weekend was the main event
  
• Open Swiss and 8 Team Invite, following into a 16 team Single Elim Playoffs (all Bo3)
  
• Staggered schedule (Open, Invite and Newcomer run at different times)
  
• ~6-9 maps on Day 1, up to 12 maps on Day 2
  
• 9-10 Hours Day 1, with 7-8 hours Day 2

EU Clash

• First weekend was group stages, playoffs in second weekend
  
• Open Swiss and 6 Team Round Robin Invite, following into a 16 team Double Elim Playoffs (UB Bo3/LB Bo1)
  
• Synced Schedule (Group stages ran at the same time)
  
• 3 maps on Day 1, up to 4 maps on Day 2, up to 9 on Day 3, up to 9 on Day 4
  
• Around 4 hours per day for Weekend 1, and 6 hours for Weekend 2

Thank you to everyone who took part, and special shoutouts to ArchRhythm, Jon and Kirsty for setting this all up. Additional thanks to all the staff involved in the behind the scenes operations of this event. Couldn't do it without you.

To keep it brief I'll limit myself to 3 each.

Absolute Must Gets

• Role Queue (Pretty much a given)
  
• Hub-Centered Queues (Slightly less important, but could help make Newbie-Friendly Groups for example)
  
• Community Discussions (It should be possible to arrange and run community nights independent of Faceit's team)

Need To Change

• Balancing (If their 12v12 mode is anything to go by, balancing matches is shocking)
  
• Their confusing focus on Casual. (Comp is by far and away a more consistent audience, even if numbers are lower)
  
• In-Game Reporting should be available, possibly implementing some subbing system (Opt-in on queue)

Absolute Must Nots

• Not leaving the community to figure out the system for themselves
  
• Using bizarre community events (WTF was Clan Wars?)
  
• Listen to random content creators for legitimate advice.

The last point touches upon the second part of the question. They should be receptive to all feedback, but understand who exactly is making those points. Whilst an Invite/Prem player may have some ideas on how to organise the queue, are they the ultimate authority on how to run a matchmaking system? If there must be some 'council' or 'illuminati' it would make sense for that sort of thing to involve people who have tried this before or at least have notable experience in organising for competitive tf2. Now that comes with a caveat that even those organisers will be biased and have their own views which may be misaligned with the attitudes with the community, but by bringing enough on you should have something reflective of the competitive scene. Again, all feedback should be given weight regardless of whether its a player, professional or organiser but if you want the most robust arguments on how to manage competitive play, its best to hear from those who have been doing it for years.

Due to there being 6 teams signing up and 2 teams automatically qualifying for various reasons (nR & forfeiting euros prize money) we will be running Qualifiers over the next week. Details for these will be sent out shortly, team leaders make sure you are on the EssentialsTF Discord.

I will be upfront, this playoffs format we've chosen is very experimental and is inspired from other games. One of the most frequent complaints we get from all three parties we take feedback from (Players, Viewers, and Staff) about all our tournaments is the extended breaks between rounds leading to significant downtime both during the tournament and on the stream. This problem is much more prevalent in double elimination, as in a LAN setting we usually do some part of playoffs over all 3 days simply because it takes so much time.

The Lower Bracket being BO1 condenses the bracket into a manageable two-day setup whilst giving teams who lose early on in the bracket the opportunity to make it to Grands. Running a BO3 Lower Bracket extends the schedule by an additional 4 hours on days that are already over 6 hours a piece. Obviously this would be amended if we simply ran a single elimination bracket, but for a team to turn up for a second weekend only to lose their first BO3 and end their run there seemed somewhat unfair for people who will dedicate multiple weekends for this event.

In short, the decision to run a BO1 Lower Bracket is to maximise games played whilst minimising downtime for the players, viewers and those on production. I won't claim that this is the ideal setup nor that the reasonings I have given have any weight. But rather than running a tired, flawed format these online events have given us an opportunity to try new ways of organising competitive tournaments going forward. Things will work, some things won't. Unfortunately, changing the schedule/format dramatically (outside of moving some matches forward or back 15-30 mins) is not really possible now given parts of the event are due to start next week. I will welcome any and all feedback on this, as per usual.

We're happy to be working with TFNew on this team drive. We hope that this will be a great opportunity for people new to competitive and encourage you all to let people know and if you can to contribute to coaching were possible. This sort of thing is really useful for new players and with EU Newbie Mixes starting up soon, things are looking quite promising for them in EU.

Schedule (CEST):

Community Clash
12th June

• Round 1 - 17:00
  
• Round 2 - 18:15
  
• Round 3 - 19:30

13th June

• Round 4 - 17:00
  
• Round 5 - 18:15
  
• Open Round 6 & Invite Tiebreakers - 19:30
  
• Open Tiebreakers - 20:30

19th June - Playoffs (Double Elimination):

• UB Round 1 - 15:00
  
• UB Round 2 - 17:15
  
• LB Round 1 - 18:15
  
• UB Round 3 - 19:30
  
• LB Round 2 - 19:30
  
• LB Round 3 - 20:30

20th June

• UB Finals - 15:00
  
• LB Round 4 - 15:00
  
• LB Round 5 - 16:15
  
• LB Finals - 17:30
  
• Grand Finals - 19:30

Newcomer Clash:
12th June - Open Swiss:

• Round 1 (Gullywash) - 17:00
  
• Round 2 (Metalworks) - 18:15
  
• Round 3 (Snakewater) - 19:30

13th June

• Round 4 (Sunshine) - 17:00
  
• Round 5 (Process) - 18:15
  
• Tiebreaker Round (Granary) - 19:30

19th June - Playoffs (Single Elimination):

• Semi Finals - 17:15
  
• Grand Final - 19:30

Hello again!

This is the event thread for the upcoming European Community Clash sponsored by DreamHack and organised by EssentialsTF. Details about the event will be posted here when available, so any questions should be placed here as well. We will try to answer all questions promptly. I would encourage any teams interested to check out the tournament pages which contains all the relevant details about the event, but also keep an eye on our twitter page as well as Clash.TF for updates: https://twitter.com/TF2Essentials

All matches are played using the ETF2L Config and Whitelists.
EssentialsTF Discord:
https://essentials.tf/discord

Invite Qualifiers:

• 6 Teams will make up our invite groups. If there is enough teams (aka more than 6) that want to play Invite we will run Invite Qualifiers from 7-11th June.
  
• Structure of the qualifiers will depend on signups but will likely be small round robin groups which you can play and schedule freely.
  
• Signups for this are live!
  
• 12 Team Cap
  
• Registration ends 6th June @ 1 am CEST.

Link: https://www.toornament.com/en_GB/tournaments/4625690475143643136/information

Main Tournament:

• Signups start 22nd May and end on 11th June @ 1 am CEST
  
• 12-13th June: Invite Round Robin and Open Swiss, around 6 matches over the weekend (incl. Tiebreaker Rounds)
  
• 19-20th June: Double Elimination Bracket (Bo3 Upper Bracket & Bo1 Lower Bracket)

Prize Pool

1. $1,200
   
2. $600
   
3. $360
   
4. $240

Link: https://www.toornament.com/en_GB/tournaments/4625601159333019648/information

Newcomer Clash:

• Signups start 22nd May and end on 11th June @ 1 am CEST
  
• 12-13th June: Five rounds of Swiss, with Tiebreaker Round if needed.
  
• 19th June: 4 Team Single Elimination Playoffs
  
• No player on the team must have played in the playoffs of the Open division in ETF2L or any equivalent league, or have exceeded 15 official matches.
  
• 16 Team Cap

Prize Pool

1. $60
   
2. $30

Link: https://www.toornament.com/en_GB/tournaments/4625649045352071168/information

There is a soft region lock, no teams can have more than 3 players from a region that isn't Europe without admin approval. As we are trying a more spread out format and structure, we are open to suggestions about the format and times of matches. Please don't hesitate to let us know on Discord or within this thread.

Quickly getting this out of the way, do not believe anything that comes from WAMO. Everything that they say relating to Updates etc is largely unsubstantiated. They legitimately thought that the Jill that contacted them was either THE Jill from Valve or at least closely affiliated with them enough to know that a significant update was coming. Second, they are trying to pass off Team Comtress as some sort of secret project or that they have insider knowledge. Finally they have a repeating track record of either misinterpreting or straight up lying about things for views and engagement.

The fact that Valve are working on a solution to the bots is not new information, we knew that this was the case back in June 2020. They did a series of updates limiting what the bots could do by reducing F2P functionalities and noted that they were doing ongoing work to address the problem:

"Work is ongoing to mitigate the use of new and free accounts for abusive purposes" https://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=62459

Hearing radio silence as the team works on ways of combatting cheating is nothing new and is in fact one of the things developers should do when working on anti-cheat measures. The more information is out there the more that the ones developing the cheats can prepare and work on countermeasures. From what I know (which I'll be upfront is not much), there is little evidence that Team Comtress as presented publicly will be added to the game. If I was to guess, some of the changes may have been sent to Valve and are being tested/implemented but essentially porting over Comtress to the main game is not happening.

This is nothing to be suprised or excited for. I don't think there is anyone within the tf2 community at this point who isn't aware of the bot crisis. Its ridiculous that people think that Valve are only just now acting upon it; that the delay is likely due to lack of manpower than ignorance of the problem. Hopefully it is a decent update, possibly in addressing the bots and optimisation issues, but at this point I'm keeping my expectations low.

TL;DR: YouTubers don't have a clue, an update was always going to come, don't get too hyped.
Edit: Some Grammar.

Signups for the NA Community Clash have ended. If you have signed up these are your next steps:

1) Ensure that your team captain is on the Discord;

2) Contact an admin letting them know who is your captain for your team, with their Discord Tag (Username#0000);
a) If you want a member of your team to act as a deputy captain, please let an admin know;

3) Check-in for the event starts on the 7th at 17:00. All teams must be checked in before the deadline on the 8th 1 hour before the tournament starts;

4) Keep an eye on the Discord for all updates to the event;

5) Ensure that you have read the rules on the Tournament Page.

48 Hours remaining till signups end, its your last chance to get teams together to play!

https://www.toornament.com/en_GB/tournaments/4539172956295323648/information
https://www.toornament.com/en_GB/tournaments/4539260879002624000/information