Yes, this is all true, but you can't come in at 9 AM (or at all) unless you have SOME kind of pass. If you have literally no kind of pass, you can't come in.

IT'S IN THE FAQ.

I KEEP TELLING YOU NERDS THAT LIKE 80% OF THE QUESTIONS ARE ANSWERED IN THE FAQ.

PLS.

MY BRAIN.

The event hasn't even started yet, but I just want to thank everyone for trusting in the eXtv crew and me that we are gonna make this an amazing event. We've spent more hours than you can imagine preparing for this, and it's so fucking cool to have it all come together now.

Again, I can't thank all of you enough.

There's been an endless amount of work to do as of late, but we are only a few days away. I'm going to the venue early on Thursday to help set up, so the last day I'm dealing with any kind of issues is Wednesday night. Spangler will not be available either, as he's making his way out Wednesday afternoon. Please, try your absolute hardest to have six paid players on your roster by Wednesday night at the latest.

Any questions, problems, concerns, whatever, please direct it to me and get it out of the way by Wednesday at the very latest. I will not be able to help you after that. Do not wait until the last minute.

===

So, because everyone participating is getting a prize, here's what I'm likely gonna do with the prize situation.

If your placement gets you a tangible prize (basically, not an in-game item or game), then you'll be given the prize at the event. If you are given a key, game, or in-game item, I'll likely take down everyone's email address and send them to each person when I get home. It would require probably a good two to three hours for me to send out all of the digital prizes, so I might as well do that on Monday and Tuesday. If I find time to send the digital prizes at the event, I will.

More information will be available about this during the event.

===

If you need a ticket transfer or if you want to buy a ticket through me, TONIGHT IS THE LAST NIGHT IT CAN BE DONE. Myself as well as the rest of the GXL stuff will be too busy with everything else to do any ticket transfers. If you message me after tonight, I cannot help you.

I think only some of the CEVO admins are arriving that early. I'm not sure about anyone else.

There's been an endless amount of work to do as of late, but we are only a few days away. I'm going to the venue early on Thursday to help set up, so the last day I'm dealing with any kind of issues is Wednesday night. Spangler will not be available either, as he's making his way out Wednesday afternoon. Please, try your absolute hardest to have six paid players on your roster by Wednesday night at the latest.

Any questions, problems, concerns, whatever, please direct it to me and get it out of the way by Wednesday at the very latest. I will not be able to help you after that. Do not wait until the last minute.

5'8"

However you want. You can make multiple trips to your car, or you can scoot everything little by little.

There is currently an issue with joining rosters on CEVO's website. They are trying to fix it at this very moment.

It's fixed. People can join like normal.

The ticket transfer needs to go through me so I can get it changed on the GXL ticket.

Posting this again, in case you missed it. Please read all of this, and then pass it on to your teammates and/or anyone else you know that will be attending.

========
QUESTIONS
========

A very common question that I'm asked is if you need to bring anything with you to registration. You can bring the confirmation email but it's not really necessary. It might speed things up a little but I wouldn't worry about it.

Speaking of common questions, I really should have emphasized this a long time ago, but please read the FAQ in the first post (or in this post). I would say over half of the questions I receive are questions that are easily found with a ctrl+F in the FAQ.

========
SEATING
========

There will be a TF2 section that will start on one end of the row of tables and we will fill the row from one side to the other. CS:GO will fill in on the opposite side and eventually will meet in the middle. Everyone will space out enough so teams will sit together and not be spread apart. Just show up and sit down with your team.

At every table, there will be a quadbox. It's logical to share the quadbox with the table you're sitting across from. There should be roughly five people per two tables, so someone will need to daisy chain power strips. BRING A POWER STRIP.

========
TOURNAMENT STUFF
========

We have a bunch of players signed up along with a lot of teams created, but only a couple teams with all six paid. Please, have all six members of your team paid BEFORE you come to the event. If you try to give us your entry fee while at the event, we have to manually go in and edit it for you, and we will be extremely busy with numerous other things at the event. On top of that, in the scenario where the internet is really slow and you're having trouble with Paypal transactions, that would also suck. So please, do everyone (and yourself) a favor and pay before the event. Don't wait until the last second.

I know I haven't mentioned much about the CEVO rental computers, but I know I've said this before and I'll remind everyone again: The rentals are packed and should not be considered an option. You should find alternative ways to get a computer to play on. We don't have too many rentals to play with, as the rentals will mostly be used by CEVO players and the European team, and we need to get this tournament done in one day. The reason I brought up that the tournament needs to finish in one day is that if everyone is trying to use these rentals, it will put massive delays on tournament progress. CEVO mentioned there also might be a fee to use them, but I haven't heard anything about that in a while. I cannot promise the availability of rentals to literally anyone except the CEVO players and the European team. Again, one last time for emphasis, you should not consider them a reliable option.

Speaking of tournament progress, this is also something I need to be very strict about right now. As I just said in the last paragraph, this tournament needs to finish in one day. We cannot afford to deal with any kind of extended delays because people are randomly missing. PLEASE SHOW UP BEFORE 9 AM ON SATURDAY. If you want to go to your hotel quickly or go grab some food, please ask dr.shdwpuppet or me first on how much time you'll have. Everyone needs to have excellent communication here, because I will not hesitate to forfeit a team because people are missing. I will not play favorites or make any exceptions for anyone here. I really don't wanna be that guy to forfeit you, but at the same time, you shouldn't be that guy (OR GIRL) who disappears for too long and makes your team take a forfeit. Exchange phone numbers and be on the same page, and your team will (hopefully) be just fine. I want this tournament to be on schedule as much as possible, and the guys that we have to think about the most here are the casting/streaming desk. These guys will be working all day, practically nonstop. These delays make their day of work that much longer. Please be respectful to everyone, and show up to your matches on time.

Also, for the duration where you haven’t been eliminated yet in the TF2 tournament on Saturday, you cannot play in any other tournaments until you’ve been eliminated / the tournament is over. This is just a cautionary thing I’m enforcing to make sure there aren’t tournament delays.

========
MAP SELECTION
========

For those who haven't seen, cp_yukon_final and koth_pro_viaduct_rc4 have been added to the map pool.

This brings the final map pool to:

cp_badlands
cp_granary
cp_process_final
cp_gullywash_final1
cp_snakewater_final1
cp_yukon_final
koth_pro_viaduct_rc4

For the map selection process, the entire tournament will be map elimination between the two teams. The order is decided by a coin toss or Rock Paper Scissors. The winner picks whether they want to eliminate first or if the other team will eliminate first. The team who eliminates first also gets to choose what side they play on. In example of Team A vs Team B:

Team A wins the coin toss, and they decide to eliminate maps first.
Team A eliminates Badlands.
Team B eliminates Granary.
Team A eliminates Process.
Team B eliminates Gullywash.
Team A eliminates Snakewater.
Team B eliminates Yukon.

The map that remains is Viaduct, which will be the map in this match.

Also, because Team A eliminated the first map, they will also choose on what side they play on for the selected map (Viaduct). If any of this is confusing, please post.

========
GROUP STAGE
========

The teams are really starting to pile up, so here's what I'm likely going to do for group stage.

-As mentioned previously, no matter how many teams sign up, there will be a total of 16 teams after the group stage is over with to continue to the double elimination phase. The amount of groups and amount of teams in each group will be determined on the number of teams we have on October 10th (Friday night).

-We have limited resources on how many servers we can run at once. Some of your groups (and/or matches) might be delayed a little bit to make certain we don't overload our resources.

-The CEVO-qualified teams will have their seeds based on how they finished on Friday, therefore making them exempt from the group stage. Let me explain my idea behind this, with the first two reasons being of massive importance:

• Makes the group stage go quicker. It is going to be incredibly hectic with so many matches happening at once, so to have less matches going on will help alleviate the flow of the schedule.

• It frees up the rental computers when people might need them the most (but again, no one should rely on their availability). It also lets the European team hammer out their matches quicker with more available computers.

• It gives teams more of a shot at making it out of their group.

• It gives the CEVO teams a bit of rest from playing all day on the day before. Not a really relevant reason to anyone else, but I think they might appreciate that a bit.

• The insomnia LANs (namely i49 and i52) do something similar like this, with basically an "Invite" group stage where no one gets eliminated from this group, as it's used strictly for seeding.

========
LAST BIT OF STUFF
========

Lastly, we should have a large mumble for teams to use. You can create your own if you’d like, but the option is there.

That’s basically all I have. Again, please send this to everyone you know and make sure all of this information is common knowledge. I’m really excited to see everyone in less than a week.

1:56 PM - CEVO|Spangler: yea, they are all setup for the new format. There is a STEAM Sync option where you sign into STEAM and it'll add it for you.

This.

Everyone, please pay soon. Don't rely at paying at the event. Even if that means you have to pay back a team at the event, it will be helpful to everyone. We CAN accept cash payments at the event, but then we have to drop one of the hundred things we are gonna be busy with to manually edit your login to paid. Please please please please please, have six paid on Thursday or before.

You can also assume that if you don't have six paid soon, I'm gonna bother you endlessly on Steam.

I've just spent five consecutive hours hammering out people's issues, getting this post up, and making sure everything is perfect. I don't think I blinked once, haha. Whew.

I'm gonna take a bit of a break, so I'll get to anyone's issues later on tonight if you need me.

This will be the last big update in terms of information. Please read all of this, and then pass it on to your teammates and/or anyone else you know that will be attending.

========
QUESTIONS
========

A very common question that I'm asked is if you need to bring anything with you to registration. You can bring the confirmation email but it's not really necessary. It might speed things up a little but I wouldn't worry about it.

Speaking of common questions, I really should have emphasized this a long time ago, but please read the FAQ in the first post (or in this post). I would say over half of the questions I receive are questions that are easily found with a ctrl+F in the FAQ.

========
SEATING
========

There will be a TF2 section that will start on one end of the row of tables and we will fill the row from one side to the other. CS:GO will fill in on the opposite side and eventually will meet in the middle. Everyone will space out enough so teams will sit together and not be spread apart. Just show up and sit down with your team.

At every table, there will be a quadbox. It's logical to share the quadbox with the table you're sitting across from. There should be roughly five people per two tables, so someone will need to daisy chain power strips. BRING A POWER STRIP.

========
TOURNAMENT STUFF
========

We have a bunch of players signed up along with a lot of teams created, but only a couple teams with all six paid. Please, have all six members of your team paid BEFORE you come to the event. If you try to give us your entry fee while at the event, we have to manually go in and edit it for you, and we will be extremely busy with numerous other things at the event. On top of that, in the scenario where the internet is really slow and you're having trouble with Paypal transactions, that would also suck. So please, do everyone (and yourself) a favor and pay before the event. Don't wait until the last second.

I know I haven't mentioned much about the CEVO rental computers, but I know I've said this before and I'll remind everyone again: The rentals are packed and should not be considered an option. You should find alternative ways to get a computer to play on. We don't have too many rentals to play with, as the rentals will mostly be used by CEVO players and the European team, and we need to get this tournament done in one day. The reason I brought up that the tournament needs to finish in one day is that if everyone is trying to use these rentals, it will put massive delays on tournament progress. CEVO mentioned there also might be a fee to use them, but I haven't heard anything about that in a while. I cannot promise the availability of rentals to literally anyone except the CEVO players and the European team. Again, one last time for emphasis, you should not consider them a reliable option.

Speaking of tournament progress, this is also something I need to be very strict about right now. As I just said in the last paragraph, this tournament needs to finish in one day. We cannot afford to deal with any kind of extended delays because people are randomly missing. PLEASE SHOW UP BEFORE 9 AM ON SATURDAY. If you want to go to your hotel quickly or go grab some food, please ask dr.shdwpuppet or me first on how much time you'll have. Everyone needs to have excellent communication here, because I will not hesitate to forfeit a team because people are missing. I will not play favorites or make any exceptions for anyone here. I really don't wanna be that guy to forfeit you, but at the same time, you shouldn't be that guy (OR GIRL) who disappears for too long and makes your team take a forfeit. Exchange phone numbers and be on the same page, and your team will (hopefully) be just fine. I want this tournament to be on schedule as much as possible, and the guys that we have to think about the most here are the casting/streaming desk. These guys will be working all day, practically nonstop. These delays make their day of work that much longer. Please be respectful to everyone, and show up to your matches on time.

Also, for the duration where you haven’t been eliminated yet in the TF2 tournament on Saturday, you cannot play in any other tournaments until you’ve been eliminated / the tournament is over. This is just a cautionary thing I’m enforcing to make sure there aren’t tournament delays.

========
MAP SELECTION
========

For those who haven't seen, cp_yukon_final and koth_pro_viaduct_rc4 have been added to the map pool.

This brings the final map pool to:

cp_badlands
cp_granary
cp_process_final
cp_gullywash_final1
cp_snakewater_final1
cp_yukon_final
koth_pro_viaduct_rc4

For the map selection process, the entire tournament will be map elimination between the two teams. The order is decided by a coin toss or Rock Paper Scissors. The winner picks whether they want to eliminate first or if the other team will eliminate first. The team who eliminates first also gets to choose what side they play on. In example of Team A vs Team B:

Team A wins the coin toss, and they decide to eliminate maps first.
Team A eliminates Badlands.
Team B eliminates Granary.
Team A eliminates Process.
Team B eliminates Gullywash.
Team A eliminates Snakewater.
Team B eliminates Yukon.

The map that remains is Viaduct, which will be the map in this match.

Also, because Team A eliminated the first map, they will also choose on what side they play on for the selected map (Viaduct). If any of this is confusing, please post.

========
GROUP STAGE
========

The teams are really starting to pile up, so here's what I'm likely going to do for group stage.

-As mentioned previously, no matter how many teams sign up, there will be a total of 16 teams after the group stage is over with to continue to the double elimination phase. The amount of groups and amount of teams in each group will be determined on the number of teams we have on October 10th (Friday night).

-We have limited resources on how many servers we can run at once. Some of your groups (and/or matches) might be delayed a little bit to make certain we don't overload our resources.

-The CEVO-qualified teams will have their seeds based on how they finished on Friday, therefore making them exempt from the group stage. Let me explain my idea behind this, with the first two reasons being of massive importance:

• Makes the group stage go quicker. It is going to be incredibly hectic with so many matches happening at once, so to have less matches going on will help alleviate the flow of the schedule.

• It frees up the rental computers when people might need them the most (but again, no one should rely on their availability). It also lets the European team hammer out their matches quicker with more available computers.

• It gives teams more of a shot at making it out of their group.

• It gives the CEVO teams a bit of rest from playing all day on the day before. Not a really relevant reason to anyone else, but I think they might appreciate that a bit.

• The insomnia LANs (namely i49 and i52) do something similar like this, with basically an "Invite" group stage where no one gets eliminated from this group, as it's used strictly for seeding.

========
LAST BIT OF STUFF
========

Lastly, we should have a large mumble for teams to use. You can create your own if you’d like, but the option is there.

That’s basically all I have. Again, please send this to everyone you know and make sure all of this information is common knowledge. I’m really excited to see everyone in less than a week.

http://i.imgur.com/Dml7kqz.png

First and foremost, we are extremely thrilled to announce that we have found a sponsor for the BYOC TF2 tournament on Saturday. Corsair Gaming have agreed to support the community tournament at GXL, now known as “theGXL TF2 Invitational, presented by Corsair Gaming” and will be providing us the following prizes:

1st place gets 6x RGB M65 mice, 6x RGB K70 Cherry Red keyboards, 6x H2100 Wireless Headset, and 6x MM200 mouse mats
2nd place gets 6x H2100 Wireless Headset
3rd place gets 6x RGB M65 and x6 MM200 mouse mats
4th place gets 6x MM200 mouse mats

We will also be receiving 16x MM200 mouse mats which will be divided to finishers below top 4. As most of you know, sponsors are very hard to come by and we’re super excited that Corsair has decided to support our game. They’ve been a pleasure to work with and we’re confident that this is going to make this LAN even better.

Be sure to check out all of their awesome stuff at @CorsairGaming on Twitter, www.facebook.com/CorsairGaming, and their own website at www.corsair.com.

Again, thanks to Corsair Gaming for their support!