Yes, the show will go on! I have just completed seeding of the 16 teams that matched ESEA rosters. TF2 Team, The Friend Team, and christianmngle.com did not appear to, so they were not included in the seeding process - if this is a mistake, please contact me ASAP.

These three teams and any team that joins after this point will be randomly assigned a seed below 16. However, registration is still open and you can still play - but only until 8:00pm EST tonight. Once registration closes, I will randomly seed the remaining teams, and the first round will happen today 9:30pm EST (unless both teams agree to reschedule the match and post to that effect in Razer match comms before their match starts).

Good luck to all teams, and I'll see you tonight!

Glad to see we've gotten to 16 teams! ESEA teams will be seeded pretty soon, so if you're still looking to play and haven't registered yet, you don't have much time.

It was a pretty obvious fake just by looking at the wording. Why would a Valve employee need to "confirm the general consensus" on matchmaking with someone outside of Valve (and only that person, too)?

That's what I was referring to in my post. tftv+ isn't being promoted right now because it's being revamped, as far as I know.

Yes, please do sign up! I know there must be more than sixteen teams in NA.

As far as seeding goes: I will be seeding teams tomorrow. You will be eligible for seeding if you are signed up by tomorrow and have a majority of players on the same ESEA league team. Seeding will be based on the ESEA standings after the conclusion of matches tonight. If your team does not match up to an ESEA team or does not sign up by tomorrow, you will be randomly given a seed underneath all of the other teams signed up.

As far as scheduling goes: the first three rounds are by default scheduled for 9:30pm, but in order to be flexible, I will allow teams to reschedule to any time before the next round begins. However, both team captains must agree and such an agreement must be communicated before the default match time. This option is not available for the final two rounds of the qualifier on October 11th, so plan ahead.

While an event sounds cool, the general idea of an all-encompassing event is already served quite well by charity events like Tip of the Hats and TF2can. Many staff members here already serve in helping to produce one or more of these events, and with the amount of shared effort, time, and dedication required to pull even one of the events off, adding another event to manage on their workload might not be for the best.

As a result, I personally feel like we would be better served with offering a year-round premium subscription program (a revival of tftv+, perhaps). That way, we could focus on letting the broadcasts and other services that we provide be the primary incentive to donate. With such a program supplemented by production sponsorships such as the one we received for i55, that should greatly support efforts across the board.

All days in the qualifier begin at 9:30pm EST except for the final day. You can find the schedule here.

Only four days left in registration and only 12 teams signed up. What can I do to help get your teams in and playing?

Unrelated, but ESEA rules really need some cleaning up, especially the TF2-specific section.

Just a reminder that there's only a week left before registration closes next Sunday! Judging by the action we've seen from the Open Series of the Challenger Cup, it should be a great time for all teams, and you certainly don't want to miss out on that.

Only six teams signed up for the qualifiers so far... is this all NA has to offer?

StatusSpec 0.25.1 is now available with a few minor fixes.

Remember, this event is tonight! It's your last chance to properly try the platform and make sure you understand how everything works before The Fall Classic begins.

It seems the TF2 team learned from the mistakes of the Dota team when it came to Diretide. Hats off to them.

We plan to do that once the event is closer, likely based on standings from the current ESEA season. Stay tuned.