Welcome back everyone! ozfortress season 19 is here, the flagship competitive TF2 event for the Oceanic region returns for the second season of 2017! Just like previous seasons, the league is using the highly successful league system: Citadel. As always, we encourage teams of every skill level to sign up and play; the more the merrier!

OZF 19 will feature 3 brackets: Premier, Intermediate and Open. Premier will have a round robin group stage while the lower two brackets will consist of a Swiss group stage. All brackets will now be using the Page Playoffs format.

As with Season 18, all server booking will be done through ozfortress discord. Simply join the #bookings channel in the ozfortress Discord and type /book and details of your server booking will be PM'd to you. To view more commands, type /help in the #bookings channel.

There have been minor changes to the Global Whitelist. View those changes here.

Grand Finals of Premier will be played as a no-advantage best of 5, but Open and Intermediate Grand Finals remain a best of 3. Premier will have 8 teams while Intermediate's bracket size is pending signups. Open will have an unrestricted number of teams.

In Citadel, Captains can create Teams using the "Start Team" button on the Teams page. Once created, Captains can invite players to the Team. Team invites are shown on a player's profile, which can be accessed by clicking on your name next to the bell on the top right hand corner of your screen. Teams provide a bucket of players that can be signed up for a tournament. Players may be on multiple teams but only one Roster for any given tournament. Captains may sign up a Roster for tournaments under the League page.

If you are using an existing team, you do not have to recreate your team again! Simply sign up your OZF 19 roster using your existing team.

If you're new and not sure how to get started, don't fret! Check out the #recruitment section of the ozfortress Discord where you can express your interest in joining a team, or peruse potential players to form a team of your own. Teams are normally comprised of 1 Medic, 1 Demoman, 2 Soldiers and 2 Scouts. Please ensure you have enough backups to last you the season.

TFLIVE will once again be returning this season. Boasting an experienced lineup of casters and the highest quality TF2 production, TFLIVE is the home of Premier Oceanic TF2 coverage. If you're looking for past matches to get a feel for the game, they can be found on the TFLIVE YouTube. However, the best way to learn the game is usually to just start playing. Whether you're a veteran or new to the scene, get on a team and come play!

You can sign up Wednesday the 10th up until Friday the 19th of May at 11:59 PM, with the season starting on Sunday the 21st of May 2017.

[Signup on Citadel now!]

[Unlocks] [Map Pool] [Key Dates] [Rules]
[Transfers] [Server Configuration] [Administrators]

RULE CHANGES, CLARIFICATIONS AND IMPORTANT NOTES

RULE CHANGES

• All brackets now use Page Playoffs. That means there is no longer a Bronze match. The loser of the Semi-Final is 3rd. See this diagram for further explanation.
• Roster sizes are now limited to 10. Teams are no longer allowed to sign up with more than 10 players.
• Premier players no longer need two matches to receive a badge.
• Mercenaries are now allowed in playoffs but heavily discouraged. Requests will be dealt with on a case by case basis and only if it is deemed that there is no better option available.
• Players who have previous experience in the Premier bracket who wish to play in lower brackets may now be subject to class restrictions. This will be judged on a player by player basis by administrators.

RULE CLARIFICATIONS

• The captain now must be participating player in matches.
• Map selection for playoffs must be completed before the agreed upon match time.
• Clarifications have been made to Rule 6.2 regarding in-game exploits. The rule itself has not changed.
• Multiple account usage is prohibited and has now been explicitly stated in the ruleset.
• Third party exploits on alternate accounts is prohibited and has now been explicitly stated in the ruleset.

IMPORTANT NOTES TO REMEMBER (THESE ALREADY EXISTED)

• Transfers is three part process! It is not as simple as just inviting a player. You must APPLY for the transfer.
• Deadline for match time to be organised is Sunday 7PM.
• Use the proper map version and remember to exec config! As simple as 'rcon ozf' or 'rcon ozfkoth'.
• No draws on maps (i.e. 3-3 on Granary) - Golden Cap must be played in this situation. However, match draws are accepted (1 map win for each team).
• If your game is casted, proper aliases.
• Post logs and submit/verify scores after each match PLEASE.
• Two forfeits and your team will be removed from the league. The season is a short seven and two forfeits is more than reasonable.

Full ruleset here: http://warzone.ozfortress.com/rules

MAP CHANGES SINCE LAST SEASON

Granary: Updated from rc4 to rc8. There is a new Garage.
Reckoner: Updated from rc1 to rc2.

New versions of the maps have been pushed to the ozfortress servers. The old versions of Reckoner and Granary have been removed to prevent confusion and incorrect use of maps.

REASONING FOR MAP CHOICES

Deciding the map pool is a difficult decision every season, but this season was especially challenging due to multiple factors. We feel the map pool has been stagnating and with genuine competition from new and existing maps, deciding on the Season 19 map pool was discussed at great length. It has long been an unwritten but understood rule that there is an ‘experimental’ map in each season’s rotation, a map that isn’t as established in the metagame and is often still being updated. However coming into Season 19 we were faced by a tricky situation, with an established map of Granary undergoing a significant change in its RC8 release. This change was certainly more pronounced than those in the RC2 release of Reckoner, which since season 16 has been the experimental map and has undergone multiple changes over 3 seasons.

We believe it is our obligation to support the work of map makers by playing and giving feedback to their maps as they evolve by playing the latest available versions. While neither Granary nor Reckoner can truly be considered experimental at this point as they are both relatively ingrained in the metagame, both continue to go through regular updates and revisions that will affect how they are played. For these reasons, despite it being well received in both the first Midsummer Night’s Cup and the ozfortress poll, we have elected not to introduce Bagel in Season 19, instead opting to play the newest versions of Reckoner and Granary.

While neither of these maps are truly experimental, neither are fully established either especially given their latest revisions. For this reason, we encourage and actively invite discussion and feedback on these maps via the ozfortress discord so that the map pool to be the best it can be for the community, and any future changes to the map pool can well informed and based on community feedback and reasoning.

Good fix clem!! Except for the grammar edit i made!!