The Call of Duty 4 seeding tournament group stages are drawing to a close so it is almost time for the play off to start, the top 16 teams from the group stages will play a single elimination tournament to decide their seeds at the LAN.

There is only one spot left to fill in the tournament, with the last group stage game being played between TLR and corgz tonight at 20:00 CET, with the winner facing Next Century eSports in the first round.

For more info including team summaries and a lovely bracket system head over to our sister site esports heaven!

CoD Admins: tomzki, messioso, kleineman, bobert, wizinium and karko

Tonight's the night for all Starcraft Fans. The biggest non-korean Starcraft League will have their final matches.

After Sen beating mouz.IefNaij 3-2 in an exciting 5 mapper yesterday, taking home the 2,500$ for the 3rd Place. Teamliquid Starleague Grand Finals tonight will be the following:

ToT)Mondragon( vs. Liquid`NonY

The Winner of this "Best-of-7" match will take home the 10.000$ prize money.

This might be the last time TSL features a Starcraft:Broodwar tournament, with the upcoming of Starcraft2 within sight, so make sure you not miss it :)



Source:
PokerStrategy.com TSL
Teamliquid.net

Following columns such as KDL's "5on5 or 6on6 ?" or overdrive's "Care to debate" back in the days of 2006 this news is dedicated to the current 5on5 or 6on6 topic.

With the Crossfire Intel Challenge 7 Crossfire reintroduced the 5on5 format which right now is the most played format by far. The LAN will take place next week and the question is what happens then?

A decision has to be made in order to counteract an unneccesary split of the competitive community. Who might dare to make this decision? Obviously the three major forces, to name them Crossfire, Clanbase and the ESL.

So this is the time to decide that we will continue with the 5on5 format. To support the change to 5on5, Clanbase and the ESL hereby announce to close their 6on6 ladders and fully concentrate on 5on5. Also the upcoming Spring Leagues, the EMS and the EC will run the 5on5 format.

Statements by the parties:
[flag=mt CB|Killerboy]

Quote

This decision should have been taken 3 years earlier, but atleast it finally has been made and there won't be any turning back like last time and will stand strong as we believe this is the right and correct decision for the community and ET. We are pleased all major leagues supporting and keeping ET alive (CB, ESL & Crossfire) have cooperated together and concluded 5on5 is the way to go, it would
have made no sense to have 1 or more leagues running a different format as this will split up the community and decrease activity. 5on5 has given ET life again.

5on5 is way easier for LAN's and lets be serious, without LAN's a game realy isnt anything.
"5on5 didn't work 3 years ago so why should it work now" The reason why 5on5 didn't work last time is because it wasn't given a chance, as overdrive explained during that time:"was there any testing? Not really. 5on5 might have been a good idea, we'll never know as we didnt really give it a chance. We might have played 5on5 but that was just 6on6 with one guy less. We didnt really think a
bout making a new config or about maps not being suitable for the 5on5 format. There wasn't any real testing. We just changed to 5on5, hoping everything would turn out fine. I think we were all very naive in the 5on5 drama. Its a sad story as 5on5 would have made it easier for ET to get into LANS that would never considered hosting a 6v6 game."

All recent 5on5 cups have been a success and has made ET more dynamic, almost all clans have switched to 5on5 and in the past 2 months there have only been 1 or 2 6on6 matches a week. We hope people understand this decision, as from a player, specatator and admin perspective, after playing, training and adjusting to the 5on5 format, I have no doubt the 5on5 decision is a correct one.

[flag=de ESL|eiM]

Quote

I will not deny that both, 6on6 and 5on5, do work out great as format for a game like Enemy Territory. Both could theoretically be continued. But as mentioned in the newspost this would only trigger an unneccesary split of our already quite limited competitive scene.

The decision against 6on6 was taken as 5on5 just showed to be very successful. Let me elaborate. Whereas the most Enemy Territory action takes place online and by far Crossfire would have never become what it is without the great online activity of our community, today the Crossfire Lans aid the Enemy Territory scene incredibly much.

For example from the time that CIC7 was announced some month ago the participants of our ladders have increased noticeable. Right now all ladders have already doubled their participant numbers since CIC7 was announced and also the 5on5 ladder is far more successful than the now to be closed 6on6 ladder. This just as a statistic example what CIC7 did to our competitive scene. Many cups were and are hosted in preparation for the LAN. Each sunday you see dozens of ETTV matches from various competitions.

To get back to the initial point. The 5on5 format simply increases the chance for Enemy Territory to be featured on LAN events. And as pointed out these LANs greatly aid the competitive scene. No Opencup or Major Series would ever achieve what a LAN like the Crossfire Challenge does at each incarnation.

Thus this is just the right time to finally make the transition to 5on5 as right now 6on6 is pretty inactive already. We do know this decision will cast quite some hatred, but it is time to change!

The Enemy Territory Section of the Electronic Sports League is looking for some new Admins with fresh ideas to push the ET Section. Our ladder activity is increasing day by day and the new EMS season along with the upcoming Spring League needs alot of admin work!

We especially wish to fill the following positions:

• (EMS) Coverage Supervisor
  
• Coverage Admin
  
• Spring League/Ladder Admin (General jobs)

We have listed the usual tasks, benefits and requirements to become an admin in the ESL Newspost.
If you plan to apply please keep in mind to do that in English. We also expect a detailed application, so take your time.

For questions and further information you can read the Admins Wanted page or talk to our staff in #esl.et.

We look forward to your application. Get involved!

ESL Newspost
Admins Wanted Info
Apply now!

Head of Team Rockit Fabian 'SPU9' H. recently sat down to ask 24 community members for their opinions on what teams will achieve top placings at the upcoming Crossfire Intel Challenge7 in Enschede.

The result of the gathered information is a top three ranking with Blight and rockit on top with exactly the same amount of votes followed by YoYoTech and 'To make odds even' making it a top four ranking actually. The outcome of the ranking itself does not come as a surprise eventhough some might ask for ESL Major Series finalists of nOu Way! who were, together with dNan and Phantoms, not given enough points. What might be more interesting for the readers of Crossfire are the given statements from some of the asked people.

Quote

I think this years might end up being a little bit more distant a top two than ever before. In previous years there was an Impact or H2k to mix things up and if not always beat the top two then at least challenge them, I cant see that happening this time around it'll be a straight fight for the top spot. - TosspoT

Find out what the others had to say and read more over at Team-Rockit.com

With the thrilling conclusions of the Group Stages, the Nationscup is now moving on to the Play Offs! Over the weeks we have seen some epic games, as well as expected one sided games, all leading down to the final 16 Nations who had the skills, gameplay and the luck to go on. With the Play Offs, the danger of losing and falling out of the competition hasn't become any smaller. With the addition of a Double Elimination there will even be more games the before!

After a slow start and 3 teams short of the tournament size things weren't looking very optimistic however the Esports Heaven – Enemy Territory – One Night Wonder tournament turned out to be a success.

As predicted Blight shot through the tournament reaching the finals with relative ease. After dominating Braundorf in 2:40 Blight had nothing to worry about for the second map Radar. inteRaction did manage to get in some nice frags towards the beginning of Radar and made some heads wonder about a 3rd map, however after capturing the West Radar parts, blight’s defences became as solid as the Solid Granite power up of Carmageddon (well done to those of you old school enough to get that reference). After a full hold on Radar Blight claimed them self place on the One Night Wonder and the YCN Hosting Internet Support.

Apart from the 3 unfilled spaces and the 1 forfeit win the Tournament received quite good interest and generally positive reviews from all the teams involved. There is no doubt that there will be more ET One Night Wonders to come from Esports Heaven after things quiet down from CiC7 in March, and maybe next time an alternative schedule will be run to better accommodate more teams who couldn’t show up early enough for the first game. Additionally YCN Hosting is looking to host several larger tournaments during Q2 of 2010.

The Polagz, who are by far the best Polish team in the Enemy Territory scene at the moment have finally found the support they were looking for. After a month of searching for a Multigaming Clan they managed to team up with To Make Odds Even. They are supporting the Polagz to go to the CiC7 and upcoming LAN events,. The Polagz will surely be eyeing up one of the top three spots in Enschede with the likes of Frag Stealer and other top Polish players in the side!

edain had the following the say:

Quote

We are very happy now that we have found tMoe, not only because of the support we are getting for CiC7 but for the support they are giving us to enter the next LAN events as well.

Ever wondered how it is like to play with the most achieving team in ET history? Now you can find out yourself with Blight's next community contribution! One of the fans will be able to play within their ranks alongside of Night, RELOAd, feruS and company during one of their practise matches in the coming weeks. You'll be talking to them on ventrilo, following their tactics and hopefully experiencing the rush of bashing some of the world's best teams.

What do you have to do to win this? Simply show your motivation why you should be picked. There are a lot of possibilities here, so make sure you're original. You could for example bring back memories of the good old times where you remember the Blight players from proving you're an all-time fan, or if you're a girl write BLIGHT GAMING across your bare chest, that would sure be motivational to me! But I'm drifting off. Blight is also looking for a new tag, so posting your idea of a great Blight tag (ingame screenshot for example with colors) will also be considered. Lots of options for all you Blight enthusiasts.

The winner will be announced on Sunday and will be the fifth of Blight during one evening in the upcoming week.

Update: The winner has been chosen, and goes by the name of Fraggle!

We proudly present to you the sixth season of Europe's top online league at Electronic Sports League. Thirteen of the finest leagues, more than a thousand players competing, several thousand will try to qualify - and €13,000 worth of prize money. Get ready for the ESL Major Series Season VI!

The ESL Major Series is the highest level of European competition in the ESL for disciplines not included in the Intel Extreme Masters and has already awarded more than €85,000 in prize money to hundreds of gamers in the past three years.