After the German Bundescup re-introduced draft-based cup games to the main stage over a month ago, their neighbors over the Rhine have now revived the NTF2CL, another draft-based cup dating from the days of tf2connexion, opened to all French-speakers. The tournament will run on both the 20th and 21st of February, but teams can start training together a week before, and the draft process and transfer market will take up a few days before that can even start.

The cup is split in two halves, with 7 games in a swiss system format on Saturday for seeding purposes, before moving onto a double elimination best-of-1 bracket on Sunday, with both the Upper Bracket final and Grand Finals being best-of-3 for maximum viewing pleasure.

The drafting was split between ten captains, who all had 37,000 $ to splash around on assembling their team, with the caveat that they must of course buy themselves in their own team which, depending on the price tag the Council of Elders put on them, could already take out a sizable chunk of their cash. Every player has had their price individually determined by said Council so that no matter the skill level or division, they can all be considered good picks. To check on the drafts, prices, or simply gaze over team names and logos for franchises such as “Process Express” or the “Granary Farmers”, head on over here (in French).

Once the teams are filled out, the captains will have 48 hours to partake in a transfer market where they can swap one of their players with one from another team. The map pool is made up of:

• cp_granary_pro_rc8
• cp_process_f5
• cp_gullywash_final1
• cp_snakewater_final1
• cp_sunshine
• koth_product_rcx
• cp_metalworks

Medics will be able to run at Scout speed when healing them, but the plugin for Gunboats always applying will be on, and Golden Caps will be have a 10 minutes timelimit on during playoffs.

We got in touch with one of the players behind this event, Corbac, who explained how this all came to be :

The NTF2CL was originally an event organized by TF2connexion three times between 2013 and 2015 and I had a lot of fun playing in those events as a new player. It was the most ideal way to gather the French-speaking TF2 community in a single tournament, as it allowed all players to participate, regardless of skill levels or notoriety. In my opinion, that was the best event that TF2connexion made, and me and many others all have very fond memories of it. At the start of 2020, I was thinking about using this format at a LAN, as to have teams with a similar level and therefore avoid that the tournament be full of one-sided matches, ultimately creating a highly competitive LAN with a lot of tension, thus building a lot of hype.

Sadly, Covid happened and the LAN project had to be shelved but the idea of reviving the NTF2CL stayed in the minds of others. Aliensmiley came up to me to offer to organize with him, Glastry and Cadillac a new online version of this cup. I accepted immediately and we’ve been working to make this happen ever since. It is a challenge as there are many things to consider and things to do : figure out the format, the planning, the overall rules, the drafting system, putting a price on players…

It takes time and energy but personally I am having fun with it. We hope that the cup gives a chance for every player to try hard and have fun for a weekend. And if it goes well, maybe do it again :)

Caster of the season DuMmTm and Juxta will cover this event on his personal channel, and there are possibilities of a Francophone cast happening as well.