Welcome to the summer league 2010 announcement post! In this announcement you will find all of the information for the 2010 Summer League, including the sign-up dates and some cool new features.

ETF2L AFS SEASON 2010
The ETF2L AFS Season 2010 will be sorted into divisions of 8 teams, with each team playing 7 matches. The number of teams in each divisional level will be as follows:

Division 1 – 8 teams
Division 2 – 16 teams
Division 3 – 32 teams
Division 4 – 48 teams
Division 5 – 80 teams
Division 6 – 96 teams

Total – 280 teams

SIGNUPS
Signups open on Sunday 30th May at 20CET.

The signups for AFS 2010 will be first come, first served. In case anyone doesn’t understand what this means – the first 280 teams that signup for the league, will be entered into the league. Additional teams will be added to a waiting list and they will replace any teams that drop between week 1 and week 3. This being said, we reserve the right to add a team in from the waiting list should there be a spot in a high division and only low teams to fill it – but this will only occur in a very extreme case.

The most important things for teams to remember is to have a team leader or team deputy available at 20CET on Sunday 30th May, to ensure that you sign-up as soon as you can.

MAPS
Being a Summer League, we’ll be using a majority of the well-known and well-loved maps. We’re also looking to test out a couple of new ideas and see how they work out in league play. The current map pool for AFS 2010 is:

cp_badlands
cp_granary
cp_freight_final1 (new freight)
cp_gullywash
cp_obscure_rc5 (or final – whichever is newest at league start)
cp_gravelpit
cp_coldfront_rc3
There is one completely new map to ETF2L’s league play which will be cp_coldfront. The maps aren’t finalised yet and are still being tweaked, so the above list is subject to change.

The maps will be played twice each, with a pair of fixed maps being played each game week. The fixed maplist will follow in a later news post.

NEW POINTS SYSTEM
The AFS 2010 will feature the introduction of our new points system which has been designed to make games a little more exciting and promote attacking play. It is also intended to eliminate the issue with 1-1 draws on AvD maps. Some of you may even have noticed the new feature running in the MNM cups since MNM #1.

“So what’s the new points system all about?!?” we hear you cry. Every league map in ETF2L can no longer finish in a draw.

If a map finishes in a draw, a golden cap period will be played to decide the winner of the map. If no winner is found in the golden cap period (which will be either 5 or 10 minutes – we’re still clarifying this), the winner will be the team that holds cp3 at the end of the time period.

The points for a map result have been changed to the following:

Map Win – 3 points
Map Loss – 0 points
Golden Cap Win – 2 points
Golden Cap Loss – 1 point
You can see that if your team loses a Golden Cap, you will still get the usual 1 point for a map draw that you would have received under previous rules. If your team was to win the Golden Cap round, you now have a bonus point added to your total in the league.

With regards to Gravelpit, it will now be played in a best of 3 format. So the result of the map can only be: 2-0 or 2-1. We do realise that this has the potential to make the map last 40 minutes or a little longer and we are looking at ways to see if we can shorten that time a little. However we also firmly believe that this will be a very positive change for teams who previously had issues with the Gravelpit stalemate format. Also, there may be some confusion over which team should attack first in the third round of Gravelpit. The current plan is: The team who achieved the fastest overall cap time of ABC (when attacking first) / The team who captured ABC and their opponents failed to capture all points (when attacking first) / The team who captured the most points – will get to choose if they want to attack or defend first in the third round.

Note: “When attacking first” = The round where the team attacked first and set the first time on the scoreboard. Both teams get the opportunity to do this in separate rounds. A time set when playing 2nd in a round of Gravelpit is not counted.

UNLOCKS
We’re currently discussing the unlocks that will or won’t be allowed in AFS 2010. Current thinking (note: not rules yet) is as follows:

Medic – All allowed
Pyro – All allowed
Heavy – All allowed
Spy – All allowed
Sniper – All allowed
Demo – All allowed
Scout – Bonk allowed, FaN and Sandman banned
Soldier – Equalizer allowed, TDH and Buff Banner banned
All community weapons and random drop items that have been released after the ‘War Update’ (soldier/demo), will be considered banned unless explicitly stated.

Please note that this is provisional and is subject to change, pending further discussion amongst the Admin team. For example, we have not forgotten about the Gunboats – but we need to make sure that everyone has an equal and completely fair way of obtaining them, without having to craft items that they might need.

PROVISIONAL START DATE
We are looking to start the season on Monday 14th June 2010. This means that the signups will be closed by Sunday 13th June or when the league has 280 signups – whichever is the sooner.

Once the signups have been completed, teams will be organised into divisions by the Admins. Please note that this is not an *Official* season and as such there will be no promotion or relegation between divisions. In addition, we will not require screenshots from teams for them to request a place in a different division. This is a fun summer league and we hope you enjoy the new features

WHAT DOES AFS MEAN?
Blame DeNeusbeer for this one – it means ‘All F*cking Summer’