As the long-standing Australian league of ozfortress heads into another season, it is bidding adieu to one of its famous mascots in the owl. Going forward, the league competition will drop its traditional title of the ozfortress winter league (used despite the league occurring in any of the other three seasons as well) in favor of the simpler title ozfortress season. The upcoming season will thus be known as ozfortress season 15 (ozf15), continuing the legacy of the 14 seasons before it.

The league is also undergoing an overhaul similar to the one ETF2L had seasons ago, in which fixed-size divisions will be replaced with the international standard of tiers using the Swiss system. ozfortress season 15 will feature three tiers: Premier, Intermediate, and Open.

ozfortress league director Kenneth discussed the changes to the league:

OWL has been going on since 2009 and has been a major cornerstone of our community, but that community has changed massively since then. We decided to look at what sort of league we want to run and what our niggles are with the current format. The move to Swiss (which we've been teasing for a while) is obviously the biggest change, allowing us to eliminate the solid and quite unnatural gaps between different divisions. A huge benefit is the flexibility we now have with the lower end of the scene—we no longer have to deny teams because "there’s not enough space and you’re the worst team here" which was one of the most heartbreaking parts of the seeding process.

Our main goal through this entire process is to deliver teams the most fun competitive TF2 experience we can, and we believe that Swiss is the best system for that. We hope that teams will get onboard with the Swiss system—even if teams have a few tough rounds at the beginning, it’s designed to give really even and fun matches towards the end of the season once the system has sorted the men from the boys.

Signups for ozfortress season 15 will open on March 12th, 2016 and end shortly after on March 17th, 2016, and the first round of matches for the league will be played the next week starting on March 20th, 2016.