Esports Arena have announced the details for Rewind.

2017 is kicking off with North America's first international tournament (picture by Esports Arena)

Info

Taking place from January 21st - 22nd at the Esports Arena in Santa Ana, California, the LAN will feature games from the past decade, such as Halo: Combat Evolved, Shadowrun, and Team Fortress 2.

There will be two tournaments for TF2 at the event: an Invite tournament, and an Open tournament. The Open tournament is open for all teams to participate in, while the Invite tournament will have the best teams in the world compete against each other.

Registration for the Open tournament is now open, with team slots costing $150. Players that want to play at the event but are not signed up for the tournament will have to pay $15 for a LAN pass. The event is also free to spectate. Signups will be open until January 20th.

PCs will be provided for free to all teams that signup for the tournament and to those that purchased a LAN pass, and peripherals can also be rented for free (the organizers recommend that the players bring their own peripherals though). Players can also bring their own monitors if they want to.

Additional info about Rewind LAN can be found here.

Format

The ruleset for Rewind will be slightly modified version of the European ruleset. 5CP maps will have a 30 minute time limit & a five round win limit, and KotH maps will have a four round win limit. Teams will also be allowed to have two 2 minute tactical pauses for each map.

The Open Tournament will utilize a Swiss-system format, where each team will play another team in each round based on their current record in the tournament (i.e. 1-0 teams will play each other, 0-1 will also play each other, and so forth). The team that is in 1st place by the end of the tournament wins. All matches will be best-of-threes.

The Invite Tournament will start with a round robin group stage, with each team playing each other once in a best-of-one. After that, they'll head to the playoffs, where they'll be seeded into a double elimination bracket. The top four teams will be placed in the upper bracket, while the bottom two teams will have to fight through the lower bracket. All matches in the playoffs will be played in a best-of-three series, with the Grand Finals being a best-of-five series.

Invite Tournament

Six teams have been invited to participate in the Invite tournament, with teams from all across the globe heading to California. The six teams are:

EVL Gaming

• Scout: yomps
• Scout: corsa
• Roamer: garbuglio
• Pocket: rando
• Demoman: Bdonski
• Medic: cookiejake

EVL Gaming have been one of the top teams in ESEA Invite ever since their inception in Season 15. Known as Lost in Translation at the time, the core of yomps, rando and Bdonski famously won ESEA Season 20 after breaking froyotech's four season win streak.

Bdonski is taking EVL's rivalry to LAN (picture by Austen "tagg" Wade)

The team has made it to every ESEA Invite finals ever since Season 17, donning jerseys with red mountains and samurai armor throughout the years. froyotech have been their rivals on every occasion (excluding Season 20 when they faced Team SoloUber), but they've never been able to beat them, online and on LAN. In Season 23 they brought in slemnish and garbuglio, and they also had to deal with a revolving door of medics, eventually finishing the season with dingo.

dingo however will not be returning to EVL, with -bird noises'- medic cookiejake taking his place. Also departing from the team is slemnish, who will be replaced by -bird noises'- scout corsa. With two new players, the team looks to make their first LAN appearance since i55 and grab the title in California. And maybe this time they'll be able to beat froyotech once and for all.

froyotech

• Scout: b4nny
• Scout: Freestate
• Roamer: -blaze
• Pocket: paddie
• Demoman: Hassassin
• Medic: Nursey

froyotech is a household name in competitive TF2 - one that spreads goosebumps all over your body. Created in Season 16 by b4nny, the team has taken the gold in almost every competition they've been in, with seven ESEA Invite titles and two world championships at i52 an i55.

Will the home turf help leverage the odds for b4nny? (picture by Austen "tagg" Wade)

froyotech aren't immortal though. In 2016 they initially won ESEA Season 21 & 22, but they weren't able to grab a 3rd Insomnia title at i58, losing out to Full Tilt and landing in 3rd place. The boys in green and black made several roster changes after their trip to the UK, bringing back TF2 veterans shade and blaze, picking up former FROYO BLACK demo Hassassin, and saying goodbye to TLR, phorofor, and Muma. With this roster they had a dominant season, losing only one game in the regular season and not dropping a map in postseason, claiming the ESEA Season 23 title. shade is once again “quitting” TF2 and Nursey, who was last seen on -bird noises-, will be joining the team for Rewind LAN and the foreseeable future.

There's no doubt that b4nny and co. are hungry to claim an international title. This time around they'll be playing on home turf, and with rivals locally and internationally heading over, the crew will have to play at their best if they wish to seek victory.

Meat Market

• Scout: CheesyMacgyver
• Scout: knuck
• Roamer: ?
• Pocket: broKing
• Demoman: Pelt
• Medic: skeez

Meat Market have had quite the journey in ESEA, having taken a long journey to Invite. After climbing back to Invite from Season 22 Intermediate, the team had a stellar Season 23 in Invite. The biggest challenge they face now is their first ever LAN, and the lake has a lot of large fish to go toe to toe with.

Coming into the season as an Intermediate moveup team, Meat Market had a lot to prove. Under the strong leadership of broKing and the Circa eSports banner, they were able to claim a playoff spot and finish 4th in ESEA, while providing some of the fastest paced TF2 of any invite team. After playing the season under the Circa banner, they'll be returning to their roots for this LAN, once again playing under the Meat Market name. broKing will be leading Meat Market's march along with CheesyMacgyver, knuck, Pelt, and skeez. At the time of this article, their roamer has not been confirmed yet, with kawa unable to make it to LAN.

This will be the Meat Market's first ever LAN together, including the first LAN for the players themselves, and they'll certainly be one of the wildcards heading into California. The surprise factor is there however, and just like in their Invite debut, the team can certainly make a splash.

Street Hoops eSports

• Scout: highfive
• Scout: cozen
• Roamer: marmadukeGRYLLS
• Pocket: showstopper
• Demoman: Duwatna
• Medic: ninjanick

Last seen finishing 2nd in ESEA Season 20 as Team SoloUber, Street Hoops eSports (also known as 20b) is returning to compete in the first international LAN on American soil, and they're ready to jump back in with a nostalgic lineup.

Do what now? (picture by Austen "tagg" Wade)

The team made their Invite debut in Season 16, and since then they've been a forced to be reckoned with. Their roster will be a bit different from their last iteration, but their players are all familiar with the 20b name with showstopper and Duwatna making up the core of their previous iteration. ninjanick and cozen make their return to TF2 after moving to Overwatch and competing on Spylce, with ninjanick picking up the medigun again, and cozen moving to scout. Finally, former EVL Gaming scout highfive and former dead babies mad gunz pocket marmadukeGRYLLS will be new to the 20b crew, and they'll be playing scout and roamer respectively.

Under the Team SoloUber name, 20b made headlines when they defeated froyotech in the Season 20 playoffs, knocking them out of the bracket and breaking their four season winning streak. After a year long hiatus, 20b are returning to jump, dunk, and score.

Se7en

• Scout: Starkie
• Scout: Thalash
• Roamer: Drackk
• Pocket: AMS
• Demoman: alle
• Medic: Raymon

The current world champions of TF2, Se7en comes Stateside to defend their title against the North American and Oceanic competition. As they fly over to sunny California, they'll be donning blue and black jerseys as they represent Europe across the Atlantic.

Se7en vs. a sea of copypasta (picture by Crowns eSports Club)

The team has a long history that goes back to 2015, in what started as a project by kaidus to create a top team made up of veterans and new talent. The team has found success ever since then, and under the name Crowns eSports Club, the UK trio of Starkie, Drackk, and Raymon took the world by storm by winning 2016's most prestigious event at i58. With the addition of Thalash after their world championship, they also took the ETF2L Season 25 title, capping off a year of dominance.

The team has rebranded themselves as Se7en, and look to once again compete against the world's best, picking up former sauna slayers' duo AMS and alle for their trip to California. With their eyes on the prize, they aim to make history by winning two international events within a span of six months.

Jasmine Tea

• Scout: Madness
• Scout: Yui
• Roamer: Zaka
• Pocket: Geoh
• Demoman: Paulsen
• Medic: mike

The Aussies from down under have shown some of the best TF2 on the international stage, with the days of Team Immunity seemingly gone yet not forgotten. Last year a new team from Australia stepped up to the plate with their amazing performance at i58. Now they're heading eastwards to finally claim a trophy for the Outback.

The 4th time could be the charm for Jasmine Tea and the Oceania region (picture by Austen "tagg" Wade and Andy Bones)

Jasmine Tea is the name of Australia's hottest team. Formed two years ago for ozfortress' OWL league, the Paulsen led squad has been once of the most dominant teams in the Oceania region, taking every OWL title since OWL 12 (with OWL 13 being the exception). Last summer they traveled to the UK for i58, hoping to live up to the legacy of their former Team Immunity brethren. And they took the event by storm, topping the group stage in 1st place, but ultimately falling to the ever so hated 4th place Aussie curse. Even then, Jasmine Tea drew the attention and cheers of the TF2 community.

Looking to break said curse, the boys from the Outback are making their way to sunny California. The team took a break from ozfortress Season 17, but they're ready to bootcamp once when they arrive in the states. The majority of their i58 roster will be heading to the Esports Arena, with Madness, Yui, Zaka, Geoh, and Paulsen returning to the international stage. They'll be bringing a new medic however, with mike taking Dave's place for the event. With experience from their i58 run, maybe 4th time's the charm for Australia.

Prizes

A total of $7,000 is up for grabs in the Invite tournament, courtesy of Esports Arena, Marketplace.tf, and Weedmaps. The Open tournament will also have a $500 prize pool. Both prize pools can also be increased via crowdfunding, which you can donate to here. You can also contribute by purchasing limited edition Rewind LAN t-shirts, with a portion of the proceeds going to the prize pool.

The total prize pool is yet to be finalized due to the crowdfunding, but the prize distribution has been confirmed.

The Invite Tournament prize pool distribution is as follows:

• 1st: 45%
• 2nd: 25%
• 3rd: 17.5%
• 4th: 12.5%
• 5th-6th: 0%

The Open Tournament distribution is as follows:

• 1st: 60%
• 2nd: 30%
• 3rd: 10%

A special thanks to saam and Dreamboat for contributing to the article.

Cover image by Esports Arena.