ozfortress Dodgeball: May Madness '25

Maximum Signups

We may look to limit the maximum team signup numbers to somewhere between 40-48 teams, as we are worried we will not have enough servers to effectively cover any more teams. It's not ideal, but sadly may have to happen. We will let everyone know how things look as we find out.

Dodgeball makes its ozfortress debut!

I always keep my promises. After Ultiduo and BBall, it's time to bring the Madness to a whole new level with ozfortress Dodgeball - the first time this game mode has been run as an official ozfortress tournament after a unanimous vote in the Discord!

Signups

You can sign up for Dodgeball now, until Thursday, the 15th of May 2025. We aim to have initial seedings out by Friday, the 16th of May, 10 PM AEST at the latest. As always, our Saturday tournament will be on - you guessed it, Saturday the 17th of May 2025.

Ok, so what is Dodgeball all about?

It's simple but intense - 2v2 pyro-only action where players reflect rockets back and forth until someone misses. If you've never played TF2 Dodgeball before, it's the perfect mix of reflexes, positioning, and mind games that creates an incredibly addictive tournament format!

Captains Discord

For Dodgeball, we'll be enforcing the use of our Captains Discord. If you aren't sure what that is, you are either a new or returning player (or just enjoy living under your comfy rock, we get it), so we'll give you a quick rundown. For a year now, we've been using the ozfortress Team Captains Discord alongside our seasonal leagues and competitions to instantly connect teams when their match pages on ozfortress.com are generated, giving them an avenue of communication to instantly get the action organised. There are some advantages to this approach of course - we can monitor these chats, issue reminders, and are instantly reachable here with a simple role ping!

For Dodgeball, both you and your duo partner (regardless of who is a captain) will need to join this Discord. You can find a link to the Discord in the buttons at the top of the page (under Cup Details). Once you join, please apply for the Dodgeball Captains role in #setup.

Medals

As with our May Madness '25 events (Ultiduo and BBall), players who participate in two of the three events, as well as this cup, will receive a unique and "new" ozfortress medal. We can't provide a new medal model due to Valve's limitations on that, but we can certainly provide interesting recolours of our existing medals! To be clear, we will be doing this sort of thing sparingly, but for recurring cups like May Madness, we feel it is a unique and interesting way of rewarding those who play all events.

Here's a look at the medal we'll be handing out:

Medals FAQ

We expect you might have some questions, so we'll try to answer a few now!

Q: Do I need to play with the same person/people to obtain a medal?
A: Nope! Medals will be awarded to individuals who play both events.
Q: Participation/Placement?
A: Only a participation medal will be awarded for participating in **two of the three** cups. We may change this for future events, but for now (and considering this is a trial run), just participation medals!
Q: Won't this just encourage people to play the cup they like, and throw/cause problems in the one they don't?
A: Potentially, and it's something we are hyper-aware of. We'll be detailing further how we plan to combat this before Saturday (the day of), but for now, rest assured our normal rules of disbands making teams ineligible for medals will be enforced, and any outlier cases will be reviewed case-by-case by the administration team post-event. This will allow us to look at any/all cases equally and provide consistent rulings.
Q: When will they be distributed?
A: Well, after May Madness '25. We will need to wait for Valve to add the medals to the game, so that could be quick, or it could be Valve time.

Player Substitution

If prior to the event (the deadline will be 3 PM Saturday the 17th of May), you need to replace a member of your duo, please ping the @May Madness Staff role within the Captains Discord and we'll work with you to get that done, but please note it may affect the seeding of your duo!

Mercenaries?

Mercenaries will not be allowed for Dodgeball, unless it is absolutely necessary. To request a mercenary, you will need to ping the @May Madness Staff role within the Captains Discord and await approval from an administrator. Mercenaries will not be eligible for in-game medals.