Reminder signups are still open until friday, go get: https://www.toornament.com/tournaments/1384876597745213440/information

only team is chumtoad rn, sign up or hiipfire gets free money, we need to stop this!

LF high/prem roamer both days

LFT

LFT Medic (NA IM)

lft soldier (either) both days

hmu friends :)

This is literally a free 300/60 euro for the taking, please sign up

lft combat class na

LFT ANY BRO ANY

ltf solly/med

Edited: Spelling
Edit 2: mentioning medals and fixing sign up time as it's changed

DIsclaimer: I speak on my own behalf as a player, not an EssentialsTF(ETF) staff nor on behalf of the organization. I am expressing my own opinions about the state of monthlies from my perspective as an independent stream producer, caster, and team leader. TL;DR at the bottom

I understand this is the offseason, but with 6 teams registered and only just under 24 hours left to do so at the time of positions this(and 1 team with a week to go in NA), it's really disappointing to only see 6 teams currently signed up. In order to keep running monthly tournaments while offering the significant prizepools (which imo are pretty nice for the euro scene especially, though money flowing into our game in general is really cool to see) ETF needs 16 teams minimum, and shoots for 20+ for matches that even our over the swiss stage in order to give lower teams better games later on.

On the spectating side of things, we've been trying to come up with new production ideas and roll them out to all producers (working on improving PiP replays, as well as working with pazer to see if rollout smooths similar to static camera smooths in CSGO can be implemented with path splitting, and working on getting 3rd person mid/last cameras similar to the work done at rewind II) and been recruiting more casters/producers to increase the variety of casting/observing styles (shoutouts specifically to boxcar and frootloops in NA). Understandably viewer numbers and promotion were down significantly last month due to unavailability for front page, but in Europe the series (especially playoffs) have been really good, and new anti-throwing/offclass limit break rules have been put in place to help make the NA playoffs more exciting than they have been.

Even if I wasn't ETF staff, I would still highly encourage teams to participate and would be throwing in my own rosters, even if just pug teams. I understand how hard it is to get people to commit to 5-6 hours of playing, both as someone who has worked all 6 hours of production for both days of games, and as someone who has participated and lead teams in previous ETF monthlies. Right now there's some work being done (still very early days, so right now if anything just brainstorming/early development that won't be out for at least a few months) to increase ease of signup, and to keep rosters from previous ETF tournaments as well as removing the need for players to manually enter their steamID64 (admittedly if you're using a custom URL it's a real pain in the ass to pull up steamrep for the 6-8 rostered players). These improvements will help on easing the sometimes confusing entry process, and will be a significant QOL improvement for team leaders but not something that they'll roll out if they can't get at least minimum signups. The introduction of medals soon should also serve as a nice incentive for participants, especially since previous participants will be receiving them.

I get it can be a real pain to sign up for the monthlies, and even daunting for Open and Low (and UGC/TFCL/Low-mid Open in North America)teams seeing large names like Lowpander, Se7en, froyotech, SVIFT NA/EU, Ascent NA/EU and Ora Elektro headlining these. The more teams that sign up, the more balanced games will happen as the swiss stage progresses, and the more likely it is that we get cool stuff for TF2 like 8k viewer front page finals and see more sponsors/orgs take interest in TF2. I know that in it's current state (especially since EU does not nearly have the league prizepools NA does) competitive TF2 is mainly about competition, improvement, and fun, but the fact that over double the prizepot of last season's premiership (or double RGB LAN 2's prizepool as an NA equivelent) each month is offered up and we're seeing a decrease in signups, even from premiership/high and invite/high IM tier teams is concerning and a bit saddening. Please sign up, these tournaments have crazy potential to be big highlight successes for our scene (as can be highlighted by the huge viewership during frontpaged events so far) and bring more to our little slice of eSports.

TL;DR: These tournaments bring thousands monthly to teams, get LAN-level viewer numbers when we land front page, and are going to be getting better over the next few months; just have some patience with the format and sign up regardless of your team's skill level, the more teams the more balanced matches and talent showcases have potential of happening, especially deep in groups and playoffs.

Anyone that can dedicate the time sign tf up!!!!

we aint gonna get esports is nae cunt fucking plays

also lads medals soon

Im not sure how many ppl choose to not sign up cause of the format rather than because they simply cant give up a weekend. Thats the reason i havent been able to field a team last 2 monthlies (that said i usually go with mix teams, these dickheads r just annoying to organiae and have no LEADERSHIP besides MEEEE).

playing 5 hours straight of tf2 is exhausting and quite ludicrous for anyone besides the top 2 teams. 3/5 of the first day games are almost always wildly skewed in skill levels between the teams so its basically 10 minute game 50 minutes of waiting. I know i, and many of my teammates/friends would be more willing to play if the format of the first day was altered to be less time consuming.

problem is it's start saturday and end up sunday

+ most of the game are boring the first day caus skill difference is huge

yeah the reason I cannot play these (and many others) is because it's in the weekend. some people are not at home or working most weekends. I don't know what the reason is why it's always in the weekend, but I feel like in the offseason (just like right now where there isn't any 6s and most people are done with hl) it might be worth it to do one during the week and see how many teams signed up

We are aware of the complaint that 5-6 Hours of TF2 for two days being exhausting and we'll be taking a look at the format over the next couple of monthlies. With all the improvements to production, increased the quality of the streams, and the bigger audience, we aim to make the monthlies bigger and better. But we cannot do it without your support. If you can please try to make a team, the more numbers we can get the bigger we can grow.

Delay of 10 min + full 30 min game, means you only need 45 min max for one round. It's only going to be a problem when there are pauses. But that could also happen right now: 10 min delay + 2x10 min pause + 30 min game + time to submit > 60 min

Tuesday
1: 19:00
2: 19:45
3: 20:30
4: 21:15

Wednesday
5: 20:00
8F: 20:45
QF: 21:30

Thursday
SF: 19 (BO3)
F: 21 (BO3)

This also means you don't have to play 5-6 hours straight, but only around 3 hours (except for semi final and finals)

c:

8 more teams? That's ridiculous. I wish I was around tomorrow, or I'd try to put together another NA mix team. Last month we wound up with like 20 teams, c'mon Euros!

just sign up with some mercs even if you can't get ur full team fuckers

We're currently short 5 teams to be able to play tomorrow, sign ups are open until 30mins before the event so you still have time. We finally had confirmation of medals so you should also get that too when they're added to the game (they're a similar style to the iSeries ones)

Sign up here

its kinda baffling that we got so few teams right after beaters map cup was stacked with open-mid teams, and that cup took pretty much the same timeslot that weekend too
(especially with this now also being advertised on the etf2l frontpage to people only checking that and not tftv)

im absolutely in support of the NA tourneys and lft every month but dont get picked up

might be a stigma for anyone who isnt invite level to not want to set up teams and play because they'd need to gather 6 dedicated players for a weekend only to help grant vincent earn money

i put together an open-level team for the new map cup back in early 2017. our first game was against froyotech and we got rolled so hard most of my squad just didnt want to play the last couple of matches. im not saying this is what happens to every non-invite/prem team that plays in these, but its really hard to want to clear up time over the weekend and play in a tournament you have close to no chance of winning anything in.

im dumb as a stump so take what i say with a grain of salt, but i feel like the best way to encourage teams to sign up is to seclude top-level teams into their own divison for the tourney, rather than building a tournament bracket thats as predictable as march madness on easy mode

i signed up with a mix team. im doing my part.

sorry if this has been asked before but why are product and sunshine/a new map not in the mappool? slightly sick of playing gully+process for 6 hours

eventually, there will always be frenchies to fill any cups in any gamemode

yea just change gamemode to gg200, then you'll get plenty of new players. unfortunately, they'll all be french