hello! we are going to start the Qualification Stage today with an important change: we have decided to move the following teams straight into the competition:
Sammakot
TheDogs
#BIGBLOKELAN

unfortunately Duplo has dropped from the competition, so we have 10 teams left fighting for 5 spots, so we are going to have 2 groups with 5 teams each playing in the Round Robin format
two the best teams in each group will advance to the main event and third places from both groups will have to play a knockout match in order to draw out 5th the best team
tournament page and rules can be found here: https://play.toornament.com/en_US/tournaments/8420627550019149824/
you can play all of the matches until 30.01.2025 23:59 CET and default dates are:
Round 1: 14.01.2025 21:15 CET
Round 2: 16.01.2025 21:15 CET
Round 3: 21.01.2025 21:15 CET
Round 4: 23.01.2025 21:15 CET
Round 5: 28.01.2025 21:15 CET
you are free to reschedule these as long as you play them and submit the score within the deadline
Extra default date for tiebreak matches: 04.02.2025 21:15 CET
Knockout Match: 4.02.2025 21:15 CET (must be played before 5.02.2025 23:59 CET)

you can use one merc per match only if your opponent agrees on them, rosters cannot be changed unless allowed by the tournament admin
for other rules please have a look on the rules page, everything is outlined there and if you have any questions feel free to contact us through #poland-tf-faq-en tickets on the poLANd.tf Discord

Hey! We've concluded the sign-up stage. The following teams are going to participate in the event without playing the qualification stage:
MANDEM
Witness Gaming
ANTICIDE
Venomcrest
/for fence
Danish Tyrant Regime
Sammakot
TheDogs
#BIGBLOKELAN

The rest will have to play quafications in order to play in March:
High Steaks Gameplay
MPREGALODONS
Duplo
Dwoaze oebels
Oracle
Mr McVities, LANstanding HobNobs
Curse of rah
Siwa Appreciation Club
Bloking Hazard
evil Gameing
Velo Gaming

These 14 teams will be fighting for remaining 8 spots, as we have 14 team spots available in the venue. There is a possibility of change and we will be informed about it by BaseStack within a couple of days (we will keep you informed).
Qualification Team Leaders, please let us know what is your availability within this month, so we can do our best in order to make a suitable schedule for you. We plan to host the qualification stage throughout the entire January and schedule will be based on your feedback. I hope we can get them today, so we could start scheduling games on Wednesday/Thursday.

If you are booking flight tickets already and you are sure you will be playing on the venue, please plan your trip, so you could be on Thursday early. We plan to prepare a "media day", so we could make some cool content with all/most teams (as much as we can). It is entirely optional, but we highly encourage you to participate.

PS: we will be hosting most of the games on https://twitch.tv/essentialstf

hi, short update: i've decided to give one more week for signups, so we'll close it at 6.01.2025 23:59 CET
we have 20 teams signed up so we will organize qualifiers for sure and they'll start shortly after signups end
happy new year everyone!
ps: the list above is updated

here you can see who is signed up https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZgOeRfn-WxQ1jHZlFcLCtr_aJ0ZGLxYfpsUMAXCA080/edit?usp=sharing

I have a small update regarding sign ups: we have 13 teams signed up at the moment:
- Witness Gaming
- MANDEM
- TheDogs
- Anticide
- Venomcrest
- Duplo
- Danish Tyrant Regime
- Dwoaze oebels
- mak's team TBD
- Oracle
- /for fence
- MPREGALODONS
- High Steaks Gameplay

We have 14 spots available at the moment for the tournament, so if you haven't signed up yet, please hurry up, so we can ensure we have all teams interested covered. If you are in 5 and trialing a last - feel free to sign up too. If you will have to switch a player or two later, we will accept it. We know it's over 3 months in advance and we understand that forming a team off-season can be challenging, but we must know if we will have to organize a qualification stage before the tournament in order to ensure the best teams take part in the tournament.

Besides, I would like to wish you a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year!

hello everyone,

we are now opening signups for poLANd.tf 2025!

right now, we have 14 spots available so if more teams sign up we will organise qualifiers. qualifiers will use the same whitelist and map pool as ETF2L S48, then for the main LAN players will be able to vote on the items and maps. we hope to increase this to 16 teams but that depends on the venue.

to register, your team leader should fill up the sign up form at https://signup.poland.tf with your player names, ETF2L profiles and team names, as well as each individual player should fill a rules form at https://rules.poland.tf

signups are open until 23:59 CET on 31st December 2024. qualifiers will start after 10th January 2025 and the format will depend on the number of teams participating.

if you are banned from ETF2L for a month or more on 14th March 2025, or have previously been banned from poLANd.tf events, you will not be able to participate.

as before, only team tickets are on sale. invited teams will be asked to buy their tickets in January 2025. qualified teams will be asked to buy theirs after qualifying ends, and at this same time spectator tickets will go on sale. we have 60 spectator tickets available, more than last year, and will let you know when sales will open as soon as that's confirmed.

thanks,

the poLANd.tf team

ergonomic chairs is the way to go, stuff like:
- Herman Miller aeron id you dont have a giant ass
- Herman Miller embody
- steelcase leap V2
- haworth zody (i have this one)
are one of the best chairs ive had pleasure to test out
these chairs are pricey and new they xost at least 800 EUR each but you can get used or refurbished ones for 1/3 to half price, i highly recommend checking sites like craigslist in your country (its olx.pl in Poland for instance)

they have a lot of ways for adjustment like how far from the back you put your ass on it, how far can the back sway or how much pressure do you have to put into backrest to start swaying back or event a sit place single in some cases, many of them also have lumbar support and i don't mean these SHIT pouches you can find on all "racing" or "gaming" chairs but an actual support which is adjustable by moving a bar up and down or even in haworth chairs you can set different pressure on left side than the right side of your lumbar

even if you get a good chairs, you if you will sit like a goblin on them then this entire research will be kinda useless; to you should ensure you sit in an ergonomic setting like having your screen not too high, not too low just on the same level your eyes are, not too close etc etc you can google this out

a good way to find out what fits you is to go to resellers and just ask them if you can sit on them for like idk 20 mina do you can see how it goes; you don't have to buy it from them later as you assess what is the best for you and it can always be like you will never buy it from any reseller sińce you will buy used but they do not have to know it, that's what i did ;) but i ended up buying new because i got 12 years warranty for the chair and that seemed to be a great deal, cuz even if anything breaka they will send me a replacement part
with used/refurbs you have no warranty, also some companies literally void your warranty like haworth if you are a seconda hand user

contact admins like wiethoofd and they can do it for you (actually enigma as the site owner can do it)

thanks Arie for helping me with LAN serveme when things went south
thanks F2 for helping me with logs.tf plugin not showing a score properly (i got a hotfixed plugin version in less than hour)
thanks JMax(no)chill and Wiethoofd for keeping production in check and all observers, also thank you Decaf for making all of these cool camera to game transitions possible, it was beautiful <3
thanks BaseStack Dortmund for being such wholesome people to work with with any matter possible and thanks for tons of coffee I got
thanks DCS and CanFo for a smooth tournament administration and great cooperation with me and players
thanks ike and jekeb for giving me a joy of playing fighting games on LAN
thanks zambz for a cool FK2, i'll definitely make use out of it
thanks Being Esports for entrusting me the server management and letting me see all of these people I love spending time with and people I haven't ever seen in person while knowing them for 8-10+ years in the game
thanks for all players/viewers who I had an opportunity to spend time with, you are so lovely
hope to see u in poLANd.tf in March and on ÜBERFEST in September!

cu@

doable

hey, 14-16.03.2025 is a date set in stone for the event
hopefully it will fit you all

WHERE
BaseStack Łódź
Rewolucji 1905 Roku 45
90-215 Łódź
Polska (Poland)

WHEN
14-16.03.2025, Friday-Sunday (games are in all days)

EVENT LINK
https://poland.tf
https://discord.poland.tf or https://discord.gg/C3TWmwj

SIGN-UPS
Sign-ups are invite based with a qualification system.
They will be open in December. We plan to host qualifications (if needed) in early January.
Only 6v6 team-based sign-ups for players. Team registrations are made by covering entire team costs by the captain. There are 86 seats available.

QUALIFICATION STAGE
All interested parties except invite teams must sign-up to the qualifications in order to participate.
ETF2L 6v6 Season 48 (Autumn 2024) map pool and ruleset is applied.

TOURNAMENT FORMAT
2x7 round robin groups for the group stage
double elimination playoffs without skipping first round (all teams start in the upper bracket) and without grand final reset in case upper bracket team wins.
The format is a subject of change if teams are interested in some enticing format, as we did last time.
Map pool as well as the whitelist will be decided by all participating players.

PRIZEPOOL
depends on interest, at least 1200 EUR
if you are interested in sponsoring this event, contact us at staff@poland.tf or @suprovsky on Discord

ENTRANCE FEE
400 PLN/player (94 EUR/103 USD/78 GBP), 70 PLN/spectator (17 EUR/18 USD/14 GBP)

Fee includes:
- one drink for spectators
- full PC rental (240 Hz/144 Hz FHD screen, PC capable of running TF2 on 240 fps, full perhiperals set) for players

hey!
as promised, we are coming back with the TF2 LAN event many of you has awaited for - poLANd.tf 2025.
it's going to happen in BaseStack Łódź once more and the event date depends on your responses on the interest form
we are going to stay with the signup format where whole teams sign up; be believe this will be the best outcome for the event as a whole
as of now, we are capable of hosting 14 teams, however i've been told that there is a very high chance this will be increased back to 16 or event more (depends on the way BaseStack handles the situation), the spectator cap will be changed, so most likely up to 70 people could come (that is going to be confirmed soon)
the basement space in the venue has been repurposed and now it's going to be a go-to place for spectators, with a bar inside
ticket prices will be higher: 400 PLN for players and 70 PLN for a spectator; the reason of them being higher is BaseStack having operational costs bigger and us wanting to have some prizepool guaranteed for the tournament (we are looking for sponsors anyway so we can make it even bigger!)
the idea behind the event remains: it's to make it as much competitive as it can be, encouraging the best players to come and let them prove that they are the best
my biggest wish related to this event is that we could host an intercontinental competition and we are happy to invite the best teams from different regions to participate against the best players we have in the EU region (if you are an invite team and you want to be a part of the event, DM me @suprovsky on Discord)

we are also raising funds for the event organization; as you know, all the events we make are entirely crowdfunded in terms of operational costs, together with our current balance we will need around 5200 PLN in order to cover expenses we expect (we are transparent with it, you can see the details here)
we appreciate all donations, big and small as all of them make us able to make this event happen
>>> DONATE HERE <<<

if you are interested in coming, please fill up this poll; based on that we'll know if the interest is right for the event
>>> INTEREST POLL | SIGN-UP HERE <<<

i think of uncle dane and solarlight, because uncle dane is just a casual player and seems pretty chill
while solarlight is a competitive player and is insanely good on demoknight, a lot of casual player back him up and somewhat can relate to him that he's cool and while i am pretty sure most comp players do not appreciate playing against a demoknight in 6v6 setting (also demoknight on high level won't simply work because experienced player will able to counter play it), solarlight kinda makes tryharding regardless if on casual or competitive look fun
i could give the same argument for swipez as a spy main as solarlight

ps: under no circumstances do not invite cringetopia moderators to talk or you will end up with a giant waste of time for everybody, these are the type of "people" who call comp player comptards

absolutely agree, this guy couldn't get over j_peg dunking on him on a pub, so this dude is most likely not capable of having a proper conversation about competitive although having some good and bad takes, because he can't handle simple stuff like being killed in a video game where the main objective besides the map is to kill players on the opposite team
having a conversation/debate with someone who is let's say less extremist in opinions could be good