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PRELIMINARY SEEDINGS

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It's the biggest Highlander Season in 2 years! With a whopping 17 teams, we're keen to get the action underway next week. But first, we have released our Seedings as well as all the current Player Restrictions we plan on implementing for the Winter '24 Highlander season. Below you can find the current list of Player Restrictions as well as our Seedings for the Premier and Main divisions. If you have any issues with either please do not hesitate to reach out to one of our Division Admins or preferably via our support channel in Discord.

Player Restrictions can be found here.

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PREMIER

Atomic Deluxe
BRIANLANDER
crylander
EVIL RASCALS
Significant Otter
good pug
50,000,000 Doctrine Fans Can't Be Wrong
Team Wahoo!

MAIN

CONNECTICUT KIA BOYZ
goblin deez
Scurvy Ridden
Sharon Keast
Where no ability meets no effort
Should Be Studying
Dispensers
rat gaming
monosodium glutamate

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Why two divisions?

This season we intend to run two divisions like we did last season. We believe that an eight-team Premier division and a nine-team Main division will provide the best competition with the least amount of skill divide possible.

The Premier Division this season houses eight teams, all of which we believe will be of similar/equal skill to one another. We feel the biggest gap in skill is likely between the 5th and 6th-seeded teams. Furthermore, we think that placing any of these eight teams in the division(s) below wouldn't be beneficial as their skill level is currently far greater than that of any of the remaining teams even with harsh or scrutinised class restrictions.

The Main Division for this Highlander season will have nine teams. While nine teams isn't ideal for a season that will only run for a maximum of 7 weeks (not including 3 weeks of Playoffs for a total of 10 weeks) we believe this will have the best competition for the remaining teams outside of Premier. We are aware that there is a sizeable skill gap between the 6th and 7th-seeded Main teams but we don't believe that restricting players on the higher-seeded teams in the division or splitting the division up into two divisions would resolve this issue. Splitting Main into two divisions (for a total of three divisions) would result in a bottom division of four teams with match repeats, which we feel would not result in good or enjoyable competition as regardless of any restrictions that would be implemented, the higher seeded team could be far better than the three seeded below them.

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Season Progression

For Winter '24 both the Premier and Main Divisions will have a 7-week regular season with the entire Map Pool being played. With this in mind, the Premier Division will be using the Round Robin match system, with all matches being generated at the start of the season. However, due to the number of teams in the Main division, Main will be making use of the Swiss System - meaning matches will be generated weekly.

Please keep in mind that ABBA will be played in Week 4 of the Regular Season for both divisions. The map (only map) being played during that week will be the newest version of Upward.

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Sniper Crouch Exploit

When a Sniper crouches whilst scoped in, his head moves slightly to the right instead of straight down. This means while crouching near a wall or large object, a Sniper can conceal up to, or sometimes more than 50% of their character model - often obfuscating where the head hitbox is. Because of this issue, an enemy sniper abusing this issue can often have a mostly uninterrupted line of sight, but with their character model being significantly covered. In a Sniper dual, a Sniper crouching close enough to a wall can likely negate a headshot from an opposing Sniper whilst still being able to shoot unobstructed.

From Winter '24 of Sixes and Highlander onward, we will be classing purposeful abuse of this issue as game mechanic exploitation. We understand that this is potentially difficult to police, however, it will often be very clear when someone is intentionally abusing this mechanical oversight. We will be reviewing each reported case of this behaviour individually, and not blanket banning any instance that could be purposeful exploitation.

This will be touched on again in an upcoming post (titled: Demo Recording Rule Change, Docs Updates, Infractions Ruleset Changes & Game Server Bans), but for now is not live in the ruleset.

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