Showing posts by core
Thread: Sixes Spring '23 (S38) - Whitelist/Unlocks
core League Director


WHITELIST/UNLOCKS


Whitelist/Unlock changes for Sixes Spring '23

See the Sixes S37 Post-Season Poll Results link on the league page for complete results, but we've put a summary of the whitelist questions from the poll below.

  • Beggar's Bazooka remaining unbanned.
  • Battalion's Backup remaining unbanned.
  • Cozy Camper remaining unbanned.
  • Detonator now unbanned.
  • Gas Passer now unbanned.
  • Loch-n-Load now banned.
  • Market Gardener remaining unbanned.
  • Quickiebomb Launcher remaining unbanned.

View the whitelist at whitelist.tf

New items added to the game during the season will be banned until the next season. Modification of weapons will be evaluated by the administrative team. Taunts that are silent and/or toggle-able have been banned. Please note, the Season number on the whitelist.tf page may not correctly indicate this season, but it will always be the most up-to-date version of the whitelist, the Season number is just somewhat as version tracking and to indicate when the last set of changes were made.

It is the responsibility of the player to not use these weapons in matches. The whitelist not loading or loading incorrectly is not an excuse for using banned items.


Thread: Sixes Spring '23 (S38) - Map Pool
core League Director


MAP POOL


Map Schedule

Round 1: cp_snakewater_final1 & koth_product_final
Round 2: koth_product_final & cp_sultry_b8a
Round 3: cp_gullywash_f9 & cp_sunshine
Round 4: koth_bagel_rc7 & cp_reckoner
Round 5: cp_process_f12 & koth_clearcut_b16a
Round 6: cp_sultry_b8a & cp_sunshine
Round 7: cp_process_f12 & cp_snakewater_final1

Map changes for Sixes Spring '23

There are no maps added this season, however Bagel, Clearcut, and Sultry have all seen version updates. Additionally, Reckoner has been changed to the official version now in-game by default!


Please note: cp_gullywash_f9, cp_process_f12, koth_clearcut_b16a, cp_sultry_b8a, koth_product_final and koth_bagel_rc7 are custom maps. If you don't already have these installed, please click the links above to download them, and then move them to your ..\Team Fortress 2\tf\download\maps directory.

The following commands can be used to change maps to the correct version. Type or copy these commands into your console to change to that map, as long as you have the correct RCON password.

rcon changelevel cp_snakewater_final1
rcon changelevel cp_gullywash_f9
rcon changelevel cp_process_f12
rcon changelevel cp_sunshine
rcon changelevel cp_reckoner
rcon changelevel koth_clearcut_b16a
rcon changelevel cp_sultry_b8a
rcon changelevel koth_product_final
rcon changelevel koth_bagel_rc7

Thread: Highlander S4 - Congratulations to our winners & runner-ups!
core League Director


Bet you weren't expecting to see this! Highlander winners!

Look, has it been a bit since Highlander Season 4 wrapped up, maybe - maybe more than maybe. But hey, the winner's post is here now, and as always we would like to congratulate the winners, the runner-ups, and everyone who participated. There were snags, and some changes will be made in Highlander Spring S5 to address those (signups coming in around a week by the way), but we'll talk about those at a later date!

If you haven't seen it already, please give our Post-Season Polls a look, we would appreciate as much feedback on the seasons as possible!

Highlander Post Season 4 Poll


Congratulations Premier winners Musos Deluxe!

To say this Grand Final was pure excitement would be an understatement. Both IFMD and Musos Deluxe were neck-and-neck all season long with all their hard work culminating in a stunning three-map conclusion. IFMD (an off-shoot of red pandas with quite a few of the same players) were the favourites to win the season. However, after Musos Deluxe won the Upper Page Playoff match, we were all unsure how the cookie would crumble.

The first map began with IFMD taking the first round dominantly on Product, but their efforts didn't prevent what many would consider an upset to IFMD's time-honoured legacy. Musos fought back, winning three consecutive rounds, and taking the first map. Stand-out players from this intense first bout were both teams' snipers, ohai and calski with the latter achieving a stand-out 30-kill game. Other players of note include IFMD's soldier robor (previously known as sheep) whose huge bombs on soldier allowed his team to take crucially needed space. remorse was also a stand-out player on this map, with his incredible surfs as well as his permanent use of the Kritzkrieg which enabled his players to farm massive damage and constantly apply pressure to the opposition, standing out amongst the two medics in the match.

Moving on to Steel, it was a tight-knit ABBA series that started with Musos Deluxe scraping in a win on the first round by the skin of their teeth. With them being one round away from losing the finals, IFMD kicked it into gear and came back strong, taking the second round with less than one minute left on the clock. Carrying that momentum into the final round, IFMD had a dominant offensive run - leaving Musos Deluxe unable to even up the series, leaving the results out at one map per team and moving onto the third map. The success IFMD found on this map came from two of IFMD's strongest players, the first of whom was Doge.exe has stopped working. Doge led the charge for his team, taking constant space and checking the aggressive players from Musos Deluxe. Both he and Sexy Turtle were the keys that allowed IFMD to completely lock Musos Deluxe out of the map, preventing them from taking the match in what would have been unparalleled historically in our region. Even though his team lost the map, JP had a fierce performance, keeping the other team's flank in check, while also staying on top of the spy across all three rounds.

It all came down to Ashville, the last map of the series, a map that Musos Deluxe had actually won in their Round 5 match against IFMD in the regular season, but then also lost in their Upper Page Playoff match against IFMD. Similarly to Product, the map started out with a strong showing from IFMD, picking up the first round without much contestion. robor bombing Musos Deluxe's battlements on cooldown resulted in their flank perishing respawn after respawn. With robor providing death from above, nurf capitalized off of his soldier's pressure and distributed death from below. Constantly flanking and spraying huge damage from under the point and from the crate, nurf had a huge showing on this map and was a significant cog in the initial domination IFMD had shown. However, determined and unphased, Musos Deluxe refused to roll over and die. With RAZE taking charge, Musos Deluxe came back swinging, making use of the Loch 'n Load, RAZE enabled Musos Deluxe to take space across the point constantly resulting in him top damaging the map. Taking two rounds back from IFMD Musos just needed one more round to close it out. krollic came onto the map running the Soda Popper of all weapons, but combined with its high burst damage and 'hype meter', krollic used and abused the weapon - wreaking havoc and chaos on the IFMD combo and back lines. With that, Musos Deluxe took the final round, winning Ashville 3-1 and closing out the series in historic fashion. Musos Deluxe are the only team within ozfortress Highlander history to dethrone IFMD/red pandas, and one of only two teams to ever dethrone an iteration of red pandas. It is with that, we congratulate Musos Deluxe for their success in Highlander Season 4!

Writeup authored by Sperkle.

Placements

- Musos Deluxe
- IFMD
- rascals
- peepBURGER

Series Score

2 - 1
Match

Awards

Best Scout: miffy
Best Soldier: max & JD
Best Pyro: peep
Best Demoman: gooseman
Best Heavy: aino
Best Engineer: trash
Best Medic: raina
Best Sniper: bill
Best Spy: henwe

Most Improved Player: bill
Most Valuable Player: calski & BONKITUP456
Most Improved Team: peepBURGER
Friendliest Team: peepBURGER
Best Dressed Team: Musos Deluxe & rasgals

Best Caster: Rainy


Congratulations Intermediate winners GARDEN OF EDEN!

GARDEN OF EDEN APPLE PICKERS' UNION came out on top this season with a dominant and oppressive presence. Only dropping one game during the season, they were the clear favorites coming into finals. They showed no mercy as they cleaned up the finals in a neat 2 – 0. Their opponents Ducks in the Park, certainly put some doubt into this experienced team, taking a map off them way back in the first round of the season, and with a team comprised of up-and-comers, had done their very best to prepare to take on the titan. A quick heads up, we'll be referring to GARDEN OF EDEN APPLE PICKERS' UNION as just GARDEN OF EDEN from here on, just to save you some reading.

As the teams entered the first map, Ashville, we saw Ducks in the Park flying from the start line, winning the mid fight with Nomie giving them some breathing room on sniper. Unfortunately, the spearhead of GARDEN OF EDEN, Doctrine, rained explosives on the enemy team, causing massive damage and giving plenty of opportunity for their flank, freaky and Pride, to come in and clean up kills, this space also allowed cooleverest some extra breathing room, managing to get strong picks across the board. This allowed GARDEN OF EDEN to pick up the first round. Going into the second round, we once again see Pride and freaky showing dominate performances, cleaning up kill after kill. A rough round for Ducks in the Park’s medic, Kai, dying 4 times, although praise must be given for their survivability against such an aggressive team, managing to maintain a strong heal presence during the round. With cooleverest getting a final medic pick in the post uber, the second round went the way of GARDEN OF EDEN. On the third and final round of Ashville, the GARDEN OF EDEN spy Daggerman worked off of Doctrine's imposing presence to hammer the final nail in what was quickly looking like the coffin of Ducks in the Park, getting two medic picks and a whole handful of sniper picks, severely limiting Nomie’s presence on the map. Both Bobo and Lain on the flank managed to rack up a few kills, trying their hardest to try make space for their combo but ultimately the map was won by GARDEN OF EDEN.

Swiftwater... often considered a long and boring map, but instead this single map had some insanely hilarious moments. First and foremost, Daggerman getting a double telefrag at once will go down in the history books, destroying the mental of the defense and cementing itself as every spy main’s goal. hive with a massive Phlogistinator play through one-way, doing so much damage and getting five kills total. That’s some real pyro gameplay, no spy checking, or boring stuff like that. These two plays along with the first map win really strengthened GARDEN OF EDEN’s mental, playing as a cohesive unit they got a fast time of 5 minutes 14 seconds in the first half, with Ducks in the Park being unable to capture the third point. The second half also had some interesting plays, including but not limited to, the KritzKrieg on defense by GARDEN OF EDEN and Uncle Vinnie securing the cap with a Fists of Steel 1v1, taking down Exquisite’s final defense on the cart. Despite this funny play and Uncle Vinnie defeating the mountain, the round did go towards GARDEN OF EDEN, securing them the second map and the series.

Congratulations to GARDEN OF EDEN on their win, and a word of encouragement to Ducks in the Park for their resilience and tenacity.

Writeup authored by Rainy.

Placements

- GARDEN OF EDEN
- Ducks in the Park
- godsquad BLACK
- Anna and the Gripmunks

Series Score

2 - 0
Match

Awards

Best Scout: Pipelin12
Best Soldier: Pride
Best Pyro: hive
Best Demoman: Doctrine
Best Heavy: Exquizit
Best Engineer: voladile & strongman
Best Medic: Kurt
Best Sniper: annabelle
Best Spy: Daggerman105

Most Improved Player: hive
Most Valuable Player: annabelle
Most Improved Team: Anna and The Gripmunks
Friendliest Team: Anna and The Gripmunks
Best Dressed Team: Anna and The Gripmunks

Best Caster: freaky


Congratulations Main winners Significant Otter!

Otters are carnivorous mammals that have incredible aquatic abilities and are incredibly agile and intelligent. Towel animals are bath towels that are contorted to resemble animals... anyway. Significant Otter had a dominant Season 4 performance, only dropping one map throughout the entire regular season. With this in mind players, the cast audiences were probably expecting a fast and clean Grand Final. But to everyone's surprise, TOWEL ANIMALS didn't go down without a fight and proved to everyone why they were in the grand finals.

The first map of the finals was Vigil. After a speedy attack of 5:50 by TOWEL ANIMALS, Significant Otter was taken aback by the result, throwing them off course. Despite Vigil being their map pick, they struggled to push through the second and third points thanks to TOWEL ANIMALS scout reign, whose position combined with his aim halted the advance of Significant Otter. When it came to pushing last, Significant Otter were unable to break the TOWEL ANIMALS defense with Gus laying down stickies and pipes of plenty. Even despite Significant Otters' spy (Speedy) best efforts managing to consistently get the sniper and engineer picks, Significant Otters were unable to close the map up leading to an early series upset.

Heading on to the second map, TOWEL ANIMALS looked to close out the series here, carrying their momentum from the last map onto their own map pick. The first round of five went in the favour of Significant Otters, however, TOWEL ANIMALS responded quickly with not one, but two rounds of their own. Both teams' snipers (hobo and Reaps!) had fantastic sprees of kills on this map, ending with 39 and 31 kills respectively. Being just one round away from closing out the grand finals, TOWEL ANIMALS were foolhardy going into Round 4. But out of nowhere, the Significant Otters came out of the Ashville shutter like otters out of a flowing river and sunk their teeth deep into the preverbal catfish that are TOWEL ANIMALS. The result came from the aggression of the combo players CH and beats, taking tremendous space in ubers and team-fights, allowing them to flip the tide and end the map on top at three rounds to two.

The final map to end it all was Borneo, a map native to the hairy-nosed otters (Lutra Sumatrana) and not so much to the TOWEL ANIMALS (because they don't have towels in Borneo, well, at least not towel animals - maybe). Through a grueling offense, TOWEL ANIMALS led by Gus and reign once again trudged through, point after point, struggling to combat the pressure being laid out from their counterparts beats and Fresh101. TOWEL ANIMALS closed out their push with a comfortable time of 7:18 and were ready to set themselves up for a fantastic defense. However, Significant Otter's weren't having it. Straight out of the gate jv was causing havoc on the flank with constant projectile spam and perfectly timed bombs. With all their efforts combined, Significant Otters started snowballing point after point and gracefully glided their way into last, capping, and ending the grand final triumphantly.

Writeup authored by Sperkle.

Placements

- Significant Otter
- TOWEL ANIMALS
- lipSnoT
- dilf hunters

Series Score

2 - 1
Match

Awards

Best Scout: Hondjo
Best Soldier: Zepi
Best Pyro: Bree
Best Demoman: Beats
Best Heavy: Fade
Best Engineer: arbabf
Best Medic: boo
Best Sniper: Kitt
Best Spy: Salad

Most Improved Player: Zepi & Oldcustard
Most Valuable Player: Hondjo
Most Improved Team: lipSnoT
Friendliest Team: lipSnoT
Best Dressed Team: lipSnoT

Best Caster: DuMmTm


Congratulations Open winners Boykissers!

Despite still being a relative newcomer, Morb Fortress 2 - Morbheads has quickly become an ozfortress fan favourite team, capturing the attention of players of all divisions. After their second-place finish in Season 3, there was much excitement surrounding this team as they progressed through the finals this season, culminating in a two-map thriller against Boykissers.

The first map, Ashville, saw them snatch the first round, but not without fierce competition from the home team. Unfortunately, the morbheads were not able to keep the pressure applied, with Boykissers taking the following three rounds and thus the map.

Onto Vigil, the pick of Morb Fortress 2, which saw them attacking first. Boykissers dug in with a solid defense, eventually losing all but the last point after 15 minutes. The dream was not dead for the morbheads, who valiantly held their ground for a 9-minute defense before the attackers captured the third point to end the round and take home the trophy.

Congratulations to Boykissers for their great season, and best of luck to Morb Fortress 2 - Morbheads for what lies ahead. That gold medal is surely within reach.

Placements

- Boykissers
- Morb Fortress 2 - Morbheads
- Milo Fortress 2 - Miloheads
- with steven

Series Score

2 - 0
Match

Awards

Best Scout: Maxyvee
Best Soldier: Hecate
Best Pyro: romlyn
Best Demoman: tom.
Best Heavy: uber_gamer92
Best Engineer: eden
Best Medic: ms wizard
Best Sniper: Gazza
Best Spy: Pancakelover

Most Improved Player: Maxyvee
Most Valuable Player: tom.
Most Improved Team: Milo Fortress 2 - Miloheads
Friendliest Team: Morb Fortress 2 - Morbheads
Best Dressed Team: Morb Fortress 2 - Morbheads

Best Caster: freaky


Thread: Sixes S37 - Congratulations to our winners & runner-ups!
core League Director


Well well well, what do we have here? Sixes winners!

Yes yes, the season is over. Whilst many of you are probably playing in our Experimental Cup 2 tournament and will be busy, we figured we should probably get the winner's post out (however late it may be 😬). As always, congratulations to the winners, the runner-ups, and also to all of you. Sixes had some bumps this season, but overall it was a bloody good season, and we hope you are ready for Sixes Spring S38 signups to open in around a week's time!

If you haven't seen it already, please give our Post-Season Polls a look, we would appreciate as much feedback on the seasons as possible!

Sixes Post Season 37 Poll


Congratulations Premier winners xcx!

After four seasons, Taoyuan Leopards were the first to bring us to a full five-map series, which in itself is an achievement. We've all seen xcx before, maybe under the names Witness Gaming or soirée, so by now most everyone will know the players. Taoyuan Leopards was David, and Goliath couldn't be anymore, well, Goliath. But that didn't dissuade their courage or their drive. The Picks/Bans process went about in a way most would expect, the usual pug maps and some King of the Hill, with the only exception being a Process ban out of Taoyuan Leopards, who also saw fit to ban the third and most recently added KOTH map in our Sixes map pool, Bagel. Our newest map addition Sultry received an immediate first ban from xcx, making it clear that the old dogs didn't want to learn new tricks, which could only go the way of the new.

Our first map Product, the pick of xcx, didn't go the way many would have expected. Whilst xcx managed to close out the first round, in the second closest round of the map, Taoyuan Leopards demonstrated an unshakeable will to rob xcx of the win on their own map pick, responding not-so-kindly with two round wins, bringing the score 2-1 to Taoyuan Leopards. In the closest round of the map xcx edged out a round win to tie the score at 2-2, with lexx being the only xcx player to make a real mark against a dominating front from Taoyuan Leopards in that round, but they had a 13-kill deficit. It was clear that Taoyuan Leopards were more than ready for the Product pick, and their soon-to-be MVP robor (AKA sheep) led the charge in damage and frags for Product, and led them to a round win for the fifth round of the map, bringing the score to 3-2 to Taoyuan Leopards, leading with the highest damage of that round.

David had truly slapped Goliath, emphasis on slapped. Because Goliath didn't like that, and retribution was coming. Gullywash was Taoyuan Leopards' pick, and they were confident heading into their pick not only because of their map win on Product but because it was their pick. However, xcx's loss on Product should have been a cautionary tale, because as much as we could try to sugarcoat Gullywash, it took xcx only twenty minutes to bring us a 5-0 scoreline, with matttt and lexx certainly not sleeping through these finals, especially not whilst playing on Gullywash, both leading their team in space made and damage. Speaking of sleeping through the Grand Finals, Doge was actually there, but both of Taoyuan Leopard's soldiers may have been snoozing on Gullywash.

Speaking of sleeping, it was clear that Sunshine was naptime for some, being the pick of xcx, and with all prior map picks being lost by the team who picked them - there was a pattern being established. Sunshine was a more lively affair for Taoyuan Leopards, who were certainly not the ones sleeping this time, matttt once again bringing direction to their team, which ended up being needed more than they would expect. Sunshine was one of the closer maps we had seen in the series, with the least disparity between every player in the server, everyone had shown up - it just took some time for a few. As we alluded to earlier, however, the map ended 3-2 to Taoyuan Leopards, continuing the trend of these two teams not being able to win their map pick, but that would eventually end.

Clearcut rolled around next, and boy was this one of the more exciting maps of the series, with only three kills separating the teams. However, there was one singular reason as to why xcx got close, and ended up leading in kills on Clearcut, and it was cooki. cooki had twenty-five, yes, twenty-five more kills than the next player on his team. He had more than double the kills of the next player on his team, with the only hope for Taoyuan Leopards being robor, trying his best but ultimately trailing behind cooki with the second most kills. With the two top damage leaders in the server on the side of xcx, a 3-2 scoreline to xcx on Clearcut saw fruition, and credit to Taoyuan Leopards for making this map as close as it was, even securing the first round which ended up being the fastest of the map, but xcx has a legacy for a reason, and we got to see more than a glimpse at that.

You don't need to be a mathematician to see we are at 2-2 for the series score, and no-one has won their map pick yet, but as we hinted at earlier, that ends. Taoyuan Leopards fans didn't know it yet, but the glisten in their eye when thinking up what the win would look like, xcx was ready to wipe it all away. If we were to pick an MVP for the match, it'd be a close race between matttt and cooki, the latter of whom put up some ludicrous numbers, but matttt simply was there - on every map, at all times, he showed up in a big way for xcx. Sadly for Taoyuan Leopards, they couldn't shut him down, and he played no small part in the end result for this series, with xcx bringing the map to a 5-2 finale, and the series to a 3-2.

It was a big series and something we hadn't seen in a long while. We're looking forward to a Taoyuan Leopards return next season because, with some time and grinding, we could see the results of this series flipped on its head in the future. With that, congratulations to xcx for another win, and kudos to Taoyuan Leopards for giving us an entertaining match.

Writeup authored by core.

Placements

- xcx
- Taoyuan Leopards
- en passant
- Ascension

Series Score

3 - 2
Match

Awards

Best Combo Scout: cooki
Best Flank Scout: HUNGRY4EGGS
Best Pocket: Doge.exe has stopped working
Best Roamer: AUZ
Best Demoman: matt
Best Medic: conor
Best Utility: robor

Most Improved Player: Pipelin12
Most Valuable Player: robor
Friendliest Team: Ascension
Most Improved Team: en passant & Taoyuan Leopards
Best Dressed Team: Ascension

Best Caster: Elmo


Congratulations High winners fever kids!

Coming into the High Grand Final, we had an inkling of what was going to happen. We've seen it before, a team of Highlander gamers turning Sixes into offclass hell, but had we really seen what was going to happen in this match before? A shock to no one I'm sure, but we witnessed Sunshine, Product, and Snakewater in this series, with Clearcut, Sultry, and Gullywash being banned. We've laid out the story in just two sentences, but we need to fill you in on what happened.

Sunshine was not much of a shock for most, we witnessed a 2-1 from fever kids, but in that near-thirty-minute heat, we witnessed more offclassing from BUSHIDO TERROR SQUAD than the entirety of the Premier Grand Final. That may be a lie, we didn't count, but it certainly felt like it, and it wouldn't surprise us if it were correct. See we expected offclassing, some of it was far more effective than expected, but the permanent Sniper on the side of BUSHIDO TERROR SQUAD, that being Flow, only really aided in slowing down the game, with his presence making it harder for his team to execute successful pushes. Much of their success came from lunar and BONKITUP leading Ubers from near-constant disadvantages, and doing a hell of a lot of work with those Ubers. Despite this, it wasn't enough to prevent fever kids from closing out the map on them.

Product was our next map to experience, and it was something indeed. Do you know the offclassing we mentioned earlier? Yeah, it was still here, and it finally became effective. What changed you might ask? Well, the obvious indicator would be that it's a KOTH map, but that's not the whole story, nor the true, unstoppable, Russian force behind their success. You may know of a man, with his gun named Sasha, clearly BUSHIDO TERROR SQUAD knew of this man, because four players on their roster played Heavy, three of which had over a minute on the class, with their main Demoman lunar spending over six minutes on Heavy. The map concluded with a 3-2 to BUSHIDO TERROR SQUAD, finally securing a map win off the back of two players in particular, lunar who we've already mentioned on this map, and Flow, who had seemingly come alive since Sunshine. Whilst lunar did play six minutes of Heavy, it was not as effective as the twenty-five minutes of Demoman. With star-studded performances on Product out of these two, we would get to see a third map.

Snakewater was our third map, and BUSHIDO TERROR SQUAD saw far more effective use of their offclass shenanigans on Snakewater than they did on the previous 5CP map, Sunshine. Flow once again spent the vast majority of the thirty-two minutes of Snakewater on Sniper, and we once again had the pleasure of seeing a Demoman offclass, but not just to Heavy this time, but to Engineer. That's right, twenty-seven minutes of Engineer gameplay, in Sixes. See lunar also took twenty-five percent of the total heals for Snakewater on their side, and credit, where it is due, did do a lot of work on the class. But that work would fall short, for both lunar and Flow. We haven't mentioned anyone specifically on the side of fever kids yet, but we wanted to highlight some of their work in general.

fever kids showed up, especially jane doe and the one, the only yuki. Yes, that yuki, from Team Immunity. It's been some time, but they returned recently, and are still performing admirably, putting up consistently top of the scoreboard numbers alongside jane doe for all three maps. Everyone on the side fever kids performed breathtakingly, and they worked hard for the win in that match. BUSHIDO TERROR SQUAD showed us something we don't get to see too often and gave us quite the show. Ultimately, congratulations are in order for fever kids, our Season 37 High winners!

Writeup authored by core.

Placements

- fever kids
- BUSHIDO TERROR SQUAD
- Terrible Tactics
- east meets west

Series Score

2 - 1
Match

Awards

Best Combo Scout: Hif
Best Flank Scout: Gotaki
Best Pocket: Sephyr
Best Roamer: heyy
Best Demoman: jane doe
Best Medic: remorse
Best Utility: Gotaki

Most Improved Player: adam
Most Valuable Player: Hif
Friendliest Team: east meets west
Most Improved Team: Terrible Tactics
Best Dressed Team: east meets west

Best Caster: Elmo


Congratulations Intermediate winners Insisting on a

Phisting!

Unlike most of the Grand Finals affairs this season, this matchup between Insisting on a Phisting and guckOW would only last two maps, with Insisting on a Phisting coming out with a dominating performance on both maps, of which would be Sunshine and Bagel. We never got to see Reckoner - plus Snakewater, Product, and Gullywash which were banned.

Sunshine would end up being the closer of the two maps, going to nearly the full thirty-minutes, with granger fragging out, dropping thirteen more kills than the next person, working with schmuck to bring their team a well-earned victory of 4-2 on Sunshine. maid and underpressure from the side of guckOW put up a valiant effort, but couldn't bring their team to a victory.

Bagel would quickly become a somber affair, with all three of the rounds played going to Insisting on a Phisting in fairly dominant fashion, with only one "midfight" win going the way of guckOW. Unlike the previous round, however, the standout player on the side of Insisting on a Phisting was PhiPhi, who on soldier-managed create ample space and were a large part of their teams dominant performance on the map. Once again, maid and underpressure from the side of guckOW put a significant amount of work in on Bagel, along with gwendolyn and noobar, but they couldn't prove to be enough to resist the dominant force that was Insisting on a Phisting.

Congratulations to Insisting on a Phisting for the win!

Writeup authored by core.

Placements

- Insisting on a Phisting
- guckOW
- beggars cant be choosers
- Avo's Cados

Series Score

2 - 0
Match

Awards

Best Combo Scout: RRLUCKY
Best Flank Scout: megumi
Best Pocket: Pengstah
Best Roamer: mashiro
Best Demoman: schmuck & underpessure
Best Medic: inStinct
Best Utility: encre

Most Improved Player: underpessure
Most Valuable Player: RRLUCKY
Friendliest Team: Salt Free Gaming.
Most Improved Team: Insisting on a Phisting
Best Dressed Team: DLLM

Best Caster: Elmo


Congratulations Main winners Ownage +5!

The Season 37 Main Grand Final was certainly an impressive matchup, one that you wouldn't want to miss. Ownage + 5 and Spare No Opps faced off previously in their Week 3 official, ending in a solid victory for Spare No Opps on the back of dominant Scout and Demoman performances.

The question was, could they do it again? A lot can change for a team in five weeks of practice, and it was decidedly anyone's game. Map 1, koth_clearcut_b15d, echoed to us those same scary Scout and Demoman performances coming out of Spare No Opps, it was clear they had not lost their touch in the slightest. Both KRB and Wergy should be commended on breaking 400DPM on this map, both were crucial factors in their 3-1 map score.

So far it looks like history is repeating itself, however, Pureblue reminds us that you should never count Ownage + 5 out. In a miraculous turning of the tables, Ownage + 5 claim Map 2, cp_snakewater_final1 in a 5-0 sweep, with Pureblue topping the damage stats, beating out the next highest player by over 100DPM.

At match point, both teams gave it their all on koth_product_final, as evidenced by the abnormally high damage statistics coming out from both teams. However topping the damage statistics was once again Pureblue, dropping the highest DPM of the whole series at a whopping 432DPM. This coupled with another impressive performance from Doug, proved too much for Spare No Opps to handle, closing out the official with another clean sweep.

Congratulations to our winners, Ownage + 5, and a big thanks to everyone for playing in Main this season!

Writeup authored by a team of ants in their prime.

Placements

- Ownage + 5
- Spare No Opps
- emgee and the egirls
- SEAL TEAM SUX

Series Score

2 - 1
Match

Awards

Best Combo Scout: VorteX
Best Flank Scout: Wergy
Best Pocket: meow & Ownage
Best Roamer: elmaxo
Best Demoman: KRB
Best Medic: strongman
Best Utility: UltraPhi & Ownage

Most Improved Player: Wergy
Most Valuable Player: Wergy
Friendliest Team: Drake & Drive & SEAL TEAM SUX
Most Improved Team: Drake & Drive & SEAL TEAM SUX
Best Dressed Team: Drake & Drive

Best Caster: Mikcow


Congratulations Open winners fking hl mains!

“Confirmed Friday 9PM” was the post in the match thread where we knew the teams playing in the Open Grand Final simply meant flipping business. Romping their way through the season, Left 4 bread and fking hl mains had churned through all the teams in their way to make it to the finals, with Left 4 bread slamming their way through the Upper Bracket to secure their position. At the same time, fking hl mains battled their way through the Lower Bracket, desperate to show they have what it takes to be Open champs.

Nakedly looking for the win with their first pick, Left 4 bread picked cp_sultry_b8 to start off their best-of-three match. Kicking it off, Left 4 bread were primed and ready for what would become an extremely even match, holding off the aggression from their counterparts until the mid-reset, then grinding them down over a few minutes to take the first round. Machinations beyond their understanding were at work, however, fking hl mains proceeded to turn the map back around off the back of their first mid-win of the match. You wouldn't think that the rest of the match would be a cascading domino effect, but by the time the dust had settled, fking hl mains had managed to nab another round, bringing the final score for the first map to 2-1 in their favour.

However bad the back half of the first map went, Left 4 bread weren't giving up without a fight, going into the next map, koth_product_final with their heads held high, and thrashing the first round once again to get up 1-0 in the early stages of the map. Open is a capricious god, however, and fking hl mains returned to their previous form seen on the first map, bringing three quick rounds in order to polish their victory to a burnished shine. GGs all around for a gnarly final - and congrats to our winners, fking hl mains!

Writeup authored by snazzy.

Placements

- fking hl mains
- Left 4 bread
- G7
- Morb Fortress 2 - Morbheads

Series Score

2 - 0
Match

Awards

Best Combo Scout: Valeyard
Best Flank Scout: Mean Bug
Best Pocket: Hoste
Best Roamer: fuck it we ball & Zando
Best Demoman: Amatorii
Best Medic: Pastamania
Best Utility: Valeyard & Superevilironman

Most Improved Player: Mean Bug
Most Valuable Player: Valeyard & Hoste
Friendliest Team: Left 4 bread & Famous Last Words
Most Improved Team: Famous Last Words
Best Dressed Team: Famous Last Words

Best Caster: Mikcow


Thread: ozfortress Post-Season Polls
core League Director

Hey everyone, our Post-Season Polls for Sixes Season 37 and Highlander Season 4 are now live. These polls will be used to collect feedback from those who participated in ozfortress' Sixes Season 37 and Highlander Season 4 seasonal leagues. We ask that players take the time to fill in the form as it will help our staff make changes and shape future competitions within the league.

The results and data will be shared via either a news post prior to the beginning of the next season or a forum thread linked on the Spring 2023 seasons' pages.

Please note, we are not collecting email addresses. Google requires them.

Sixes Post Season 37 Poll - Highlander Post Season 4 Poll

Thread: Infractions Updates, New Staff, Seasons, Awards and Team Names/Aliases
core League Director

So, it’s been a bit since we’ve done a post like this, but we have some updates to share. We’ll have more updates to rulesets a bit closer to the release of the Sixes and Highlander seasons, but for now, we wanted to get you up to speed as to where we are at.

Infractions Updates

Periodically we make amendments to our Infractions Ruleset to better suit the general climate of behaviour within our community. Our general philosophy is that those who follow an approach of common sense when interacting with others will never have to be introduced to our Infractions system, thus we try to take the same common sense approach.

Usage of specific words

It is the long term goal of the Behavioural Panel to, through step-by-step changes, bring down the usage of marginalising or otherwise targeted demeaning language within our community, so that governance is brought closer to the standards held by broader society. We understand that much of this language may be deeply ingrained in the community vernacular, which is why we are taking a gradual approach to implementing and enforcing these changes.

This announcement exists to state clearly that the Behaviour Panel will be adopting a new stance of intolerance towards usage of the word "retard" moving forward.

Please note that the Behavioural Panel does not use a specific definition or list of words that are deemed "always infractable" or actioned; context remains a key factor in any case that is submitted to the Behavioural Panel. We do not expect this change to be uncontroversial, however it is not the job of the Behavioural Panel to be uncontroversial. This change will be effective immediately, and will not be applied retroactively to usage of this word from before the date of this announcement (16/09/2023).

We are generally moving towards the expectation that, what wouldn't be ok in the vernacular of broader-society, is not ok within our community.

Round Ban Point Requirement Lowered

For much of the Infractions systems’ lifetime, the “3 round match ban” has required an offender to accumulate 40 infraction points before being applied, just 20 points short of a one year ban. For many, this probably hasn’t made much sense, as with only 20 more points, the ban duration can jump from three rounds to a whole year. Something else worth mentioning is what other leagues do, which is typically any behaviour similar to what would incur a Tier 3 with our system, would result in an instant match ban. With most poor behaviour resulting in a Tier 3 infraction, and poor match organisation or other League Infractions only really incurring 10 points, its meant that team captains have been able to get away with poor match organisation multiple times before ever seeing any actual penalty. So, we will be lowering the point requirement for our “3 round match ban” penalty to 30 points, from its current 40 points. This isn’t a change we make lightly, and we’ll be watching its flow-on effect closely.

We Need You!

Yup, we’re looking for staff again. If you’re interested, see our Join Us page. If you’ve applied in or around the last three months, we may not have considered your application yet, so don’t fret! If you want to ask about your application, please feel free to DM core on Discord.

New Arrivals, Somber Departures

Along with our usual “we’re looking for volunteers” pitch, we have a volunteer to welcome, and three to say goodbye to. First of all, we would like to welcome our new Sixes Admin wils! We’re excited to see what he can bring to the team, and you’ll get to know him as an admin for the Experimental Cup 2 tournament we’re currently running!

With the warm welcome out of the way, it’s time we say goodbye and wish the best of luck in the future for three of our friends. Bakes will be stepping back from his Highlander admin and Public Behavioural Panel member roles, and we would like to thank him for being one of the foundational admins who helped us bring ozfortress Highlander to life during our merge with Respawn League, well over a year ago now. Along with Bakes, two of our Sixes admins frydog and snazzy (AKA thelampshade22) will also be stepping down from their roles, both having joined us more recently, we’re sad to see them go and with them the best of luck in the future. Whilst it may be the last time you hear of snazzy, he will be taking up a Public Behavioural Panel role soon.

We would also like to congratulate (and thank) multi for stepping up to the role of Sixes Head Admin. He has a drive for the game that frankly I (core) wish I still had, and a wealth of knowledge on our history, so I’m certain he’ll be a good fit!

A Quick Reminder…

This is coming directly from myself (core), but as of the last six months, I’ve seen a rise in players unfairly targeting and attributing the actions of our team as a whole towards single volunteers, along with an uptick in pretty unfair treatment of our volunteers. I’ve been doing this for a while between ozfortress and Respawn League, and I would just like to make something abundantly clear. I, myself, will not tolerate the unjustified vitriolic behaviour that is targeted at those who volunteer their time to bring this community a free service, and who strive to actively listen to and improve on it. For the vast majority of you however, I can speak for all of us when I say we appreciate your support, it’s just always hard to not focus on those who like to be more than negative.

Season Branding changes

So, some of you may have noticed on our most recent schedule that we have swapped from our usual seasonal naming convention to “Format Spring 2023 Season #”. Whilst it's mostly a spunky branding change, it does serve more than one purpose. Ever found it incredibly hard to remember which season you played a map or class over a year ago, and you go to check, but you remember what time of the year it was? Maybe not, but I know I have, and so have a few others. That’s something we hope to address with this change, now if you remember what time of the year, you’ll know it was our Spring season of 2023! We won't be dropping the season number, just shortening it to "S#" instead. It’s a small change, but we figured we’d explain some of our reasoning behind it. If you were curious what it may look like for our upcoming seasons, here are the names:

  • Sixes Spring 2023 S38
  • Highlander Spring 2023 S5

Overall, it ends up being a bit shorter, and will work better on cast coverage as well, which is a plus.

Winners Posts, Award Nominations & Voting Updates

Don’t worry, our usual Winners' posts are coming very soon! In the meantime though, we wanted to update you on some of our thoughts, as well as address some of your feedback from the Voting form in particular.

One thing that was made very clear, is that in any division above four teams, captains vastly preferred just being able to copy-paste a template and fill in the nominee’s name, and after adding 40+ names multiple times throughout the form, we wholeheartedly agree. Even if the process on our end was automated further, this solution will always end up being significantly more work, for something we feel most were fine with already, but we’re happy we tried a new method.

With that in mind, we’re going to look to add better checks and automate more of the process on our end to save quite a lot of time on what is always a big time sink. But the Awards process is only one of two parts, the other being the Winners Posts writeups. These are something we’ve debated internally as many of us don’t feel it’s worth writing them, as so few read them. Going forward, we will be looking at other forms of content to replace these writeups, hopefully, something we can all enjoy a little more.

We want to be able to do more with our awards, and it’s something we’ve had in the back of our minds for a while. So, we hope you may be looking forward to some of what we may have in store, perhaps some user profile award displays, highlight videos, new awards and more.

Ruleset Updates

Before seasons, especially before signups release, we try to get our ruleset updates released - but the astute among you will have noticed the post-season polls aren’t out yet. We’ve made some changes to these polls to better gauge what players want, and we’ll continue to change these polls each season because they have been frankly terrible in the past, so it’s something we hope to do better with. You’ll see our post-season polls very soon, with a heavy focus on Sixes changes this time around. Something that we will be exploring is varied map pools for different divisions, with a question specifically focused on this for lower divisions like Open, and Main if we reach five divisions again. Whilst it won’t be included in the poll, we will be reaching out to our Premier players to discuss potential variations to the map pool for Premier as well. We’ll have more information on this for everyone once we’ve had those discussions and are happy to move forward with changes.

We can give you something now, however, and that’s to do with naming.

Team Names & Player Aliases on ozfortress.com

We know there are a select few who were waiting for the other shoe to drop - that shoe is team names and player aliases. We don’t want to be restrictive on what names you can and cannot use, but we wanted to update our guidelines around both to make it clear what will not be allowed, and what we want to change.

  • Team Names and Player Aliases can no longer include profanity. It’s rare, but it happens, and makes it incredibly difficult to advertise to the world via casts, or to engage with sponsors when we have team names or player aliases that contain profanity.
  • Excessive emojis or special characters. We’re just putting our foot down because the reality is, it’s not funny, and it's only people within the team that find it funny, other players don’t. We’ve previously stated in our guidelines we wouldn’t allow any, but we’ll be revising this. So a tasteful amount of emojis is okay, but there’s a point where it's entirely unfunny, especially when it’s not creative.
  • Player Aliases should be recognizable to everyone. This is the biggest and likely most controversial change here. Whilst we could improve search functionality on our website to better handle past aliases, which we will eventually aim to do anyway, we feel it's fairly unreasonable to expect someone to have to search for “MrShidenfard” for example, when everyone knows him by down. We allow players to alias however they want in matches, provided it doesn’t breach our rules or just general etiquette, even during casts now. But player aliases that aren’t your recognizable alias make it incredibly difficult for us, for your fellow players, and especially for anyone new to find you.
    • Q: How will we accomplish this?
    • A: Slowly. For now, it will include knocking back obvious, less serious aliases. Those who have a genuine intention to change their alias will be able to, but we will no longer be allowing non-serious aliases. Those who already have difficult-to-remember aliases will be getting a message from us as we find them, with a chance to choose a new long-term alias or to go by their recognizable alias.
      • We won’t be committing to any in-writing restrictions, terms or conditions for this as of now, but just know we will be making an effort to move the line of what we deem acceptable to be more in line with common sense.

Post Length

We understand there is a bit to unpack here, and we have been making genuine attempts to minimize how often we do these types of posts, as well as minimizing the size of these posts, but we had a bit to catch you all up on, and with two Winners' posts coming, two polls for the seasons we just wrapped up and a third poll to come sometime after our Experimental Cup 2 tournament, along with a post dedicated entirely to ruleset changes, we felt there was a more urgent need to get all of this out of the way sooner rather than later. By the way, if you've made it this far and have an interest in news or documentation writing, please submit an application, we need you!

Thread: Experimental Cup 2 - Final Placements
core League Director


FINAL PLACEMENTS


We hope you're ready for the tournament! You can find the Player Restrictions now updated and linked as a button at the top of the Experimental Cup 2 page.

Seedings are listed in order, with all divisions making use of the Swiss system for Rounds 1-3, with Playoffs using our standard Page Playoffs system. The Cup Admins page has been updated and can be found as a button at the top of the Experimental Cup 2 page. Expect matches to be generated in a few hours.

If you have any issues, questions, or concerns, please visit our Discord's support category. We also have an FAQ page for the tournament as well.


Division 1

xcx
Pyongyang Professors
Ascension
altombo's kittens
call me tft the way she play with my little legend

Division 2

RAZER DEATHSTALKER ULTIMATE
gator pussy blanket
TRANSITION
The Freakaleak's
overwatch retirement home

Division 3

Moneyball
6Sins
DLLM
Ready Steady Tax Evasion
Phi's Sneed and Pheed

Division 4

Mammoth.
Spare No Opps
FROYOGABBAGABBA
Plan Z
God-Fearing Nuns
emgee and the egirls

Division 5

Mystic (Place Holder)
Jumper Mains
big fat booty men mge 24/7 mge
eating sounds
Talking Tom and Friends
Yuki Aim


Schedule

Please make sure you are acquainted with the schedule for this tournament, as all teams will be playing two matches per week for three weeks. The first three rounds will be the Group Stage rounds, with the following three rounds being Page Playoff rounds.

Thread: ozfortress Experimental Cup 2 - Signups Open Now!
core League Director


Experimental Cups are back with Experimental Cup 2!

The second iteration of our Experimental Cup has arrived, Experimental Cup 2! As in the past, we will use this cup to test larger gameplay changes to our seasonal leagues, this iteration again being solely focused on Sixes.

We will be testing the "Pro Ruleset Timer" plugin used prominently in RGL's North American Sixes league, along with some smaller match play and scheduling changes. For more, please see the Tournament page.

Signups

You can sign up for Experimental Cup 2 from Thursday the 7th of September, up until Thursday the 14th of September 2023. We aim to have seeding out by Friday the 15th of September. The tournament starts Saturday the 16th of September 2023.