This article was supposed to be released 2 weeks ago however due to it not quite being finished and me putting it off, it never got released when it was supposed to, however it was a lot of effort therefore I am releasing it now so it can be read and the people I interviewed did not type in vain

In 410 AD, Rome was sacked by King Alaric, leader of the Goths marking a significant event in the decline and fall of the greatest empire the world had ever seen up until that point. On May 12th 2013, the greatest Highlander dynasty ever seen were finally beaten for the first time in an official match, with DARATOUTOU dethroning SNSD and becoming ETF2L Highlander season 4 champions. The loss, like Rome's sacking, marks the end of an era but this all brings me back to another article of mine, on VanillaTF2 where I wrote an article detailing everything I thought went wrong with the organization of European Highlander and now, 4 months on, on the dawn of the greatest team finally, finally losing I want to re-evaluate the European Highlander scene, look at the new things going on, the people involved and the teams and talent out there. I feel the evening of May 12th two Sundays ago kind of typifies the position of Highlander as a competitive gamemode for TF2. The biggest story in European Highlander's short lived history so far and it was largely overshadowed by the prominent i49 showmatch between High Rollers Gaming and Epsilon eSports. That is not a bad thing for Highlander, even the most ardent Highlander player will agree the best two teams in the world doing a showmatch to raise funds for a unique cause for Team Fortress 2 is a good thing, it was just unfortunate for the sake of exposure that the Season 4, ETF2L Premiership Highlander final between SNSD and DARATOUTOU was vastly overshadowed by this game, because people are simply a lot less aware of SNSD's first defeat ever in an official capacity and how their reign as rulers of EU Highlander has come to an end to a solid bunch of 9 incredibly Frenchmen.

For those unaware of what happened, SNSD clean sweep another season, winning every map with the only slip up looking to be against Parrot Gapers on Lakeside where they went 2-0 behind and pulled back a magnificent comeback and took the map 3-2. The regular season match between DA! and SNSD was one sided as the Highlander kings dominated Gravel Pit, so DA! Had to come through the playoff match against Parrot Gapers in a tough game that went to a third map and set up a finale against SNSD. The unfortunate scheduling of the i49 showmatch did mean teams had to pull strings to make the coverage work and both SNSD plus DA! agreed to play an earlier time at 20 CET to get the game going, huge credit goes to the leaders for arranging this and Enigma at TeamFortress.tv for making this happen despite this match not being high on his list of priorities. So I got the oppurtunity, along with BlackOut TV's Jon and Jake to cast the Grand Final, pushing 350 viewers to witness SNSD's dominance come to an end. In the match itself SNSD took the first round on Badwater with a quick attacking time of just over 6 minutes, but to everyone's surprise, especially me and Jake casting DA! managed to better it will a below 5 minutes attacking time, reminding me of the way The Syndicate had pushed them in the showmatch, playing really aggressive and not respecting SNSD and waiting for uber. With DA! taking an unexpected lead, I took a long gulp of water and watched them attack on Upward, the second match knowing if they won the map they would become champions, knowing this the Frenchies put on a respectable 7 and a half minutes time to defend and with about 2 minutes to go SNSD were given their shot at attacking last with uber advantage, until a flank by Exon, the Demoman for DA! dropped him and did enough damage to give DA! a chance to hold on, a chance they took as they defended a non-ubered push on last and won the final, denying the Korean wannabe pop queens their 45th straight victory and giving Jake the honour of stealing my thunder and commentating on the moment SNSD finally lost, a moment I had been waiting for, for two bloody years, DAMN IT JAKE.

The Scene

So what does this mean for European Highlander? Well it does through the scene wide open and with SNSD announcing their intentions to continue and look to reclaim their title, it gives the scene a fresh of breath air in terms of coverage. The question in Europe for a long time at the top of the scene was “will SNSD lose?” and the amount of games I saw them dominate and occasionally, pull out a close victory had some appeal yes but the scene could never really grow until a team challenged the once invincible force. During Season 5, the coverage will be different as SNSD will be looking to reclaim their title with arguably a weaker squad as super Heavy ALX retires, giving a whole new angle for Highlander games in the Premiership to sell themselves.

But what does this say about the rest of the European scene? In particular the UGC League with the more “tryharding” section of Highlander players, those who exclusively focus on the 9v9 mode and have been in the shadow of super teams like SNSD right at the top. They are still there, always practising and slowly more talent is emerging and making it's name known to the top players. UGC European Platinum champions Sookie Doin' Work earned themselves a promotion to take on the big boys of Prem in ETF2L, following the example of previous winners Max-Play Highlander and getting the chance to show what they got. They have a lot to prove though, since Max-Play came last place in Season 3 of ETF2L, it can be an unforgiving task against the big boys of Europe, personally I think from what I have seen of SDW their only shot of not going straight back down is if they practise harder than any other team. Unfortunately for them, Kill Switch aka “The Barnblitz kings” could not join them, losing 2-1 on maps to Legolas as it seems a lot of HL teams still do not possess the skill level required to beat the high level 6v6 mix teams on KOTH or 5CP maps. The skill level is though, in my opinion still going up, recently I saw a UGC team named Spirits in a Shell who appear to not participate in ETF2L get a respectable 2-2 draw in a pcw against SNSD whilst Kritzkast Distinguished Ducks continue to improve, one day they will make it into ETF2L Premiership, most likely after my American rendition of Unbelievably Brave Sweethearts stops playing as we casually knock out Euros and outplay them on every class yet still somehow lose. I hope to see these teams stick to it and keep playing so they can improve their skill level and confidently take on the big boys regularly in not only practise games but also matches, it is quite sad to see teams who do not take Highlander seriously still able to keep hold of their Premiership spots without much effort. It is a young scene though and I can see the improvement in every game I play and watch, my children are growing up, soon they will be as ill-mannered, acne ridden and egotistical as the rest of us TF2 big boys.

BlackOut Gaming / TV

Like I mentioned earlier, before the start of Season 4 of ETF2L I wrote an article on VanillaTF2 venting some frustration over what I had seen as a lot of wasted effort into trying to improve a community. Not long after, everything plus more of what I hoped to see happen, happened as BlackOut Gaming formed a casting organisation to exclusively cover European Highlander called BlackOut TV. The main men behind the project itself was Jon and RussianGuyovich, two individuals who have poured their hearts and souls into making it work, getting in their own group of casters and people to help run the organisation and bring regular coverage to ANY SKILL LEVEL, not just do what I had been doing at VanillaTV and more recently, TeamFortress.tv and try to bring the highest level of matches to an audience, but actually give the European scene a great hub for their daily dose of 9v9. I have already mentioned my casting endeavours with Jake, but other casters such as Ryushi. SuddenlyStarMia, Mark, Slayerr and of course the one and only Russian Guyovich have risen up to the task of bringing the much needed Highlander and 6v6 coverage boost to Europe. Well known streamers from Highlander such as myself, HiGPS, Kip and Sal have given their time to helping raise the profile for the young Org. But by far the most important person in BlackOut TV, really putting all the effort in and pulling out the stops and making it happen is Jon. I can't praise the guy enough really for everything he has done, when I approached my contacts at BlackOut Gaming originally, just after they had confirmed sponsorship of ETF2L's Highlander and 6v6 league for the season, they all said the same thing over and over. “Don't thank me for BlackOut TV, thank Jon, he is the guy doing everything.” Now from experience community members willing to put time, effort and expertise into anything to do that underrated job of streaming and producing competitive content are the real heroes. We all know Comedian, Skyride, Lange, Truktruk, huhy...etc for the work they put into streaming games and producing content for Youtube and I can comfortably put Jon in the same category as the names I have previously mentioned. He is a fairly young lad, still new to the whole thing and he has a lot to learn in order to bring the best coverage possible, sure that is only fair to say but anyone who can say “lets create a casting organisation” and then keep at it more and more, time after time, cast after cast and still be motivated to continue deserves mad props from all corners of the community. Young Jon will be a name that will stay around in TF2 for a while I hope, the scene really needs contributors like him stepping it up and look out for him not only on BlackOut TV but also doing camera work for TeamFortress.tv Europe.

So where are we now?

To answer my original question, I think European Highlander is in a lot better shape than before in terms of coverage with BlackOut TV stepping it up and increasing the amount of casts, before they came along if you wanted to see an ETF2L Premiership HL game, your only option was to wait for me to pull my finger out and cast a game on VanillaTV, or perhaps hope and pray Youtube legends Sal and Kip got sent the recorded sourcetv demo for themselves to cast. Now not only were most of the games covered this season but also many games from Division 1 and below of ETF2L and UGC European Platinum, Silver and Steel. Coverage is in a great place, but there is always room for improvement in terms of quality, something that will come in time I am sure. TeamFortress.TV hasn't gotten off the ground yet with EU HL, mainly because I have been given a similar role as I had in TF2TV, which was to find interesting games to cast and do it when I could, but BlackOut Gaming always beat me to the punch, when I wasn't busy – so a lot more improvement is needed for this end but I can see a brighter future having been part of this organisation for a short time. The number of signups increased slightly as well in ETF2L, nearly 200 if you include the number on the waiting list but it is still down from Season 2, but the drop rate is still an issue in most divisions, something that can be worked on perhaps. I just wish the seasons were more regular, 3 seasons a year would be nice you know ETF2L.

As previously mentioned about the skill level, it is growing, I can see it grow and I can spot new talent emerge like a Jewish sports agent, but I cannot help but accept that although the gap between Highlander tryhard teams and 6v6 casuals is decreasing, as proven in the Kill Switch vs Legolas match, there is still a long way to go to bridge the gap. As it stands now, the very best need only be a few highly skilled players willing to put a few hours in extra a week to improve their game to be in the top 3 as shown by SNSD and DA! I am even tempted to challenge Legolas to start practising to they can stop dribbling and losing to Colony, but either way the skill level at the very top of European HL is kind of exclusive, but perhaps with Europe no longer part of the SNSD empire we could see a new era for Highlander develop and the sub-top teams rise up and start to challenge and give some pride to the community, it does need it since Parrot Gaper's Spy, evokje is about as skilful with the knife as Michael J. Fox is at cutting carrots. Seriously I seen better spies in Steel....okay enough of that, to end this article I feel I should let two people who I asked for opinions that didn't want to whine about their team losing to SNSD because Permzilla went afk finish.

First up I have SNSD captain Linus giving his thoughts on the current skill level along with Highlander's first lady, Youtuber Kip giving her thoughts on the state of coverage:

Linus - After we destroyed DA! on gpit, we got too comfortable - more than usual. They haven't really shown anything to us that we felt threatened by. Massive props to them for actually realizing that we're not unbeatable and coming back big. In a way we got exposed - we've got weaknesses too, and we're absolutely beatable. However, overall, the state of the top highlander scene in EU remains unchanged in my eyes. Prem is still filled with teams that don't really want to try hard, and teams that do want to try hard, but simply don't have the skill to make it work. I've heard rumours of current teams bringing in fresh blood and I heard that the freshly promoted div1 team #SDW is really good and keen. But for now, I still feel we dominated the scene more or less right up until the finals like in the first couple of seasons. In a way I really envy the Americans - their HL scene seems a lot more competitive, with lots of HL specific casters and hype to keep it exciting.

Kip: I think the competitive community has really responded to your call for extended coverage of European highlander. Most significantly, BlackOut Gaming TV has had several Highlander (and 6s) casts a week which consistently draw 50-150 people, and that is continually growing. They have also reached out to the community to bring in new casters, which has been hugely successful. So you have that organization and community helping fill the Euro HL void. Then you also have commentators who are making the step from Youtube personalities to casters, like Ace (from Wolfsgorawr) and Haydn (MagicalKillaCow) who are starting to pick up on competitive casts. Hopefully, they'll bring a lot of casual gamers into the competitive scene. In general, I think the Euro HL community still has a ways to go. I think there needs to be a stronger connection to tf.tv and some sort of liaison is desperately needed. Currently, tf.tv only covers one HL match a week, but I think that could be expanded if the European leagues like ETF2L and Wireplay start streaming to their channel. I think your original call for people to step up is still needed. I think new casters who are trying their hand at streaming are great, but Youtube channels are consistent and provide better quality. So more European highlander-devoted channels would be great.

Don't forget to check out BlackOut TV's YouTube channel, Twitch.TV channel and their Website for coverage.