how much of the map advantage in a bo5/bo3 is influenced by choice of the players over the staff? im surprised players would prefer a map add over just a map veto pick/ban advantage. and don't tell me a map veto pick/ban advantage isn't enough when g6 was allowed to have a pick/ban advantage that allowed them to pick bagel vs. wg eu which is essentially a free map win

also i dont think for a mini season playing two extra maps would've detracted from the miniseason aspect. in fact it would benefit rgl by giving more ad/sub revenue lol

Honor to work with Witness. His countless amount of hours spent mentoring HL and 6s players in the NA scene is invaluable to sustaining this scene! Thank you for all you did. I think many know that he helped financially but the amount of money he put to bring Australia and Europe to Denver went to around $5k (probably more honestly). Also to mention the fact that he and a few of the Fireside people did help shuttle around both squads during their time in Denver (driving ~20 hours down to Denver in his own car just to make it happen). Working with him was one of the easiest jobs I ever had and his dedication and work in this scene will be sorely missed.

https://tfcleague.com/

Slick new website. What are our thoughts? Anyone had the chance to play in the new league?

https://tf2db.github.io/tf2database/records.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkrIgPAT5QI

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-cameron-access-lifesaving-cancer-trial

Gofundme link. Please spread the word thanks <3

thank you for the lan, it was very nice to put faces to names and see the recognition for supra and jmax's efforts for this lan. dare i reckon to say that europeans are easier to vibe with than americans

this blows any NA lan out of the water btw in terms of enjoyment

If you really liked poLANd.tf 2026 you should go on and DONATE (we are currently 700 PLN in the red) to help recuperate last minute costs and unexpected costs supra SPENT HIS OWN MONEY on to help make the production + LAN happen

https://ko-fi.com/polandtf/

i think your embed is not working

DONATE TO POLAND PLEASE GUYS supra is paying out of his own pocket and it would be great if we can lessen the burden on his pocket (he is DEEP in the red)

let's be clear on the charging + prices to host a lan event

while pc cafe culture is prominent across the world, in the USA it is not because, well, why go to a pc cafe when you can just play from your gaming pc at home

it is a losing venture on top of being a financial and logistical nightmare to try to host an event. from an organizer's perspective, you will be guaranteeing yourself in the red by paying extra to rent PCs on top of already paying the rental venue fee. so you want to have a venue that already has the amount of pcs you need to host an event. well... not many venues will have the amount of pcs to host a 16 team 6s event or a 8 team highlander event. That's 72 pcs minimum for players. But what about production? they need PCs too!

okay, that's out of the way... now you want your players to be able to go to an event. Well being in the USA doesn't help in that regard either. So why Philly? It's very easy to get from the airport to the venue. Literally just take the bus or train (SEPTA). so RGL is actually doing a favor to players attending the event by not needing to worry about getting a rental car. yes, the airbnbs are expensive. but the venue is within walking distance and you also have many catering/food options within walking distance too

i actually made a thread a while back looking for lan venues with the following criteria:

- has enough pcs for 16 teams of 6 + organizer/production pcs. meaning, no need to spend extra to rent pcs
- near an international/major airport hub
- within north america

of that i only found 3. now as of that post there is a 4th one in texas but i haven't really explored further to see whether it's rentable to the public. but it's a cool venue to host a potential texas lan at. and there's now a 5th which is the hyperx arena in las vegas, but talks with the people there have kinda stallwarted so it's not really worth a mention

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8YoC473z9E

re: why an open event and not the main event

players don't want to get smashed by the invite teams + lower online viewing quality. better to pay $80 to play against a concentrated group similar to ur skill level than be rolled in 10 mins

imo rgl's pricing structure for lan fees seems generous but idk how much they gain from their league fees due to lack of transparency (which was promised a few months back...)

re: why charge so many fees?

rgl actually does a good job at sustaining themselves to be able to host lan with fees. slight insider info but fragadelphia 19, which despite sponsorships and a hefty $35k prize pool, still ended in the red. that's even despite charging team fees, having staff work on a volunteer basis, and allat. so if a valve/vrs event featuring tier 2-3 talent from across the world in cs2 couldn't turn a profit despite its prestige, think about how hard it is to host a lan in a game with no sponsors at all. pretty rough aye
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sorry for derailing the thread just being clear on how costly lan is as an endeavor and why philly makes it easy to host rgl lan

Late ask but if you are NOT attending poLANd.tf 2026 but would like to join our remote stream broadcast of poLANd.tf 2026, join our Discord please and REACH OUT within

https://firesidecasts.tv/discord

Oh I do agree on this though, rgl definitely suffers from a too many chefs in the kitchen sort of problem. Or it's people having too much power in places they shouldn't have given their league title/position

not going to say that rgl should be trying to recruit new players given that they are operating under a volunteer basis. i'm not saying either that they are doing a good or a bad job with current decisions as i'm not well informed enough to make a judgement on that.

though it is very polarizing to see, what i could say, lack of initiative from the highlander community to create their own endeavors or initiatives for trying to lower the barrier of entry into highlander--it seems you guys instead expect rgl to try to do everything on a volunteer basis which is logistically infeasible as it seems they already have enough on their hands trying to run a league with a dying playerbase

not tooting my horn as most of my knowledge is within 6s but considering there is a place called "tf2 coaching central" that has managed to churn out a steady flow of new competitive players into rgl 6s over the course of a few years, it begs the question of how much are people willing to help rgl out given there is a literal ongoing example of a community initiative outside of rgl that has proven successful. of course highlander is a logistical nightmare given it's a 9v9 format, but you can't give and take if all you're really doing is taking.

that being said i tried doing hl production on fireside but there's a lack of volunteers versus 6s when it comes to casting and all that so i've seen only part of the struggle with trying to gather community volunteers from hl lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRX8Kz-QFbc

special episode in anticipation for poland!

MGE on LAN seems interesting. Considering matches go fast it would be nice if the matches were long