News

Sun Sep 24 09:10:59 2023 3 days ago

ozfortress Spring '23: Sixes signups open now!

Sixes signups open now!

We're back, with a new season naming scheme! There's a bit that we've changed based off of your feedback of Sixes Season 37, and we hope you are excited for Sixes Spring '23 (S38)! In the off-season, we ran our second iteration of the Experimental Cup series, namely Experimental Cup 2. The feedback of the Progressive Ruleset / Pro Ruleset Timer plugin we tested in that tournament will directly impact Sixes Spring '23 (S38).

Signups

You can sign up for Sixes Spring '23 (S38) from Sunday the 24th of September, up until Wednesday the 4th of October 2023. We aim to have seeding out by Friday the 6th of October, if not Saturday the 7th of October at the latest, before the season starts. The season starts Sunday the 8th of October 2023.

SIGNUP NOW

Sixes S37 Poll Results

Sixes S37 poll results are now live, you can find them here or linked on the league page. Some of the results were fairly close, so we'll be adding some followup questions in the Experimental Cup 2 poll, which should be out prior to Grand Finals matches, and will close shortly after Grand Finals.

Global, Sixes & Highlander changes will come later!

With our Experimental Cup 2 tournament running just over the signups period, there will be some changes from the cup that will come later, however most ruleset updates will be coming in the next couple of days, we're just holding off to ensure we haven't missed anything!

Sat Sep 23 14:29:52 2023 4 days ago

ozfortress Spring '23: Highlander signups open now, Sixes signups open tomorrow!

Highlander signups open now!

It is an action-packed off-season for Sixes, but no so much for Highlander, however that changes now! Welcome back, Highlander Spring '23 is just around the corner and we hope you are as ready for it as we are.

You can sign up for Highlander Spring '23 from Saturday the 23rd of September, up until Saturday the 7th of October 2023. We aim to have seeding out by Monday the 9th of October at the latest, before the season starts. The season starts Wednesday the 11th of October 2023.

SIGN UP NOW

Sixes signups open tomorrow (Sunday 24th September)!

We're back, with a new season naming scheme! There's a bit that we've changed based off of your feedback of Sixes Season 37, and we hope you are excited for Sixes Spring '23 (S38)! In this off-season, we're running our second iteration of the Experimental Cup series, namely Experimental Cup 2. The feedback of the changes being tested in Experimental Cup 2 will directly impact Sixes Spring '23 (S38).

Staff Updates

You may have seen our most recent update post bid farewell to three of our league admins; Bakes, frydog and snazzy. While we wish them the best, we have two new league admin pickups. Please welcome wils to the Sixes team, and Kai to the Highlander team! We're excited to see both of them in their respective roles, and hope you are too!

In the coming weeks and months, we'll be simplifying the names of roles throughout the league to be a bit more intuitive, and more in-line with what most of you would expect. We'll let you know when this happens, don't worry.

Season Branding changes

We outlined it in our previous update post that we were making some changes to the season branding, part cosmetic and part utilitarian for players. The focus of the change is to make it easier for players to recognize or recall a season by the time of the year, rather than a season number. We won't be ditching the season number entirely, but just limiting it to headings and whatnot.

We're also moving away from separate season art for both seasonal leagues, allowing a bit more time for our artists to make one design, or perhaps (small spoiler) for us to work on new teaser content outside of the usual promo images.

Global, Sixes & Highlander changes will come later!

Thank you all

Seasons 37 & 4 for the most part went smoothly, but we want to make sure everyone is aware that we are working on gradual changes to both seasonal leagues to address commonly raised issues, be it; division sizes, bye matches, format changes or something else. Over the coming couple of weeks, there will be a few announcements not related to our seasonal leagues or competitions that we feel players will (hopefully) like, and we are excited for Spring '23 and 2024!

Mon Sep 18 02:47:02 2023 9 days ago

Highlander S4 - Congratulations to our winners & runner-ups!

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.