Welcome to the ASUS Battle of Britain.
Back in the days it were metal birds soaring through the sky, trying to kill each other off, now it's soldiers and demomen trying to do the same. The battle is on!

This 32-team TF2 tournament will start Monday the 13th, and will finish Sunday the 19th. ASUS, with their Republic of Gamers hardware line, are giving out £500 to the winning team.

Signups are open now, more details, including signup, can be found on the tournament page

The Sapphire Euro Challenge is over. 4 teams started today, only one could win the prizemoney. That team was TCM-Gaming.

semi-finals
The first semi-final was Power Gaming vs The Last Resort. TLR started on offence, taking their time. They used over 10 minutes to cap C the first time round, but followed that with an excellent defence to get the first round. After that PwR got the second round. In the third round TLR attacked so fast (3:16 i believe), that PwR had no answer to that. TLR to the finals.

In the second semi-final we saw Epsilon Gaming and TCM-Gaming. TCM was here the clear better team, winning this 2-0.

The final
So there you have it: the final, the match where it's all about. TCM was expected to be there, TLR had to battle their way past Dignitas and Power Gaming, who many deemed stronger. So TCM were getting an easy match, right?

Well, maybe. The teams started on cp_granary with getting a point each. After that TCM took the lead, getting to 3-1. It looked like a done deal, but TLR decided otherwise. They searched far and found some new courage. TCM were brushed aside in a series of fast-paced rounds. TLR set the score at 4-3 to them.

The second map was cp_badlands. After getting to 1-1 again, the game could really begin. TCM, helped by zerox and numlocked, didn't waste any time, and increased the score to 5-1 in the next 15 minutes. TLR struggled back for a bit, but it didn't matter. 7-2 was the score.

This called for a decider map. That map was koth_viaduct. This map provided to be a real show. Great frags were made by pretty much everyone, and the game flowed back and forth. Both of the first two rounds went through the full 6 minutes, each team once again getting a point. After a slight tactical change from TCM, they gained the little advantage they needed. Even though the rest of the match was close, TCM won the next 2 rounds to set the final score at 3-1, winning the tournament.

Congratulations to TCM-Gaming, who win £500 cash, sponsored by Sapphire Technology.

Thanks to everyone for participating, and we'll see you all next time!

The first 3 rounds of the Sapphire Euro Challenge for Team Fortress 2 have been played today. The good have been separated from the bad, only 4 teams remain. Those 4 will do battle coming Sunday for £500.

Those four teams are TCM-Gaming, Epsilon Gaming, The Last Resort and Power Gaming.

Rounds 1 to 3 in a nutshell
The first two rounds of today, on badlands and granary did not bring many surprises. Most teams won the matches they were supposed to win. The only small upset of the day was caused by Crack Clan, who managed to convincingly defeat k1ck on granary.

The third round was probably a lot more spectacular, with top-tier teams all around. Power Gaming had not much problems winning from CC, and the same can be said of TCM vs Illegal. No, the real battles were fought by Dignitas vs TLR and broder vs Epsilon. TLR was just a bit stronger than a weakened Dignitas, with a scout and soldier missing. In the other Quarter final broder was about to win the match against Epsilon when the time limit kicked in. In the following golden cap Epsilon used that disruption to take a firm hold of the mid point and win the match.

Onto the semis
Coming Sunday you will see TCM-Gaming vs Epsilon Gaming and The Last Resort vs Power Gaming. They will start their match at 20:00 CEST on cp_gravelpit. The winners of those matches will play each other in a best-of-3 match right after that, to try to win the £500 from Sapphire.

It'll surely be a spectacle, don't miss it!

Welcome to the Sapphire EURO Challenge for Team Fortress 2, the next part of our Sapphire EURO Challenge Series.

This is a single-elimination cup, featuring 32 teams. There will be 2 match days: 1 for rounds 1 to 3, the other for the semi finals and the final.

The winners will receive £500 CASH awarded by SAPPHIRE.

Rules change
We have recently revised our rules concerning unlockables in TF2. Please re-read them and make sure you have full knowledge of these when participating. Find them by clicking Rules on the menu bar above.

Schedule
10/08 - 20:00 CEST - Round 1 - Badlands
10/08 - 20:45 CEST - Round 2 - Granary
10/08 - 21:30 CEST - Round 3 - Viaduct

15/08 - 20:00 CEST - Semi Finals - Gravelpit
15/08 - 21:00 CEST - Final - Badlands and Granary, with Viaduct as a decider.

Sign up
You can sign up by clicking here. Signups close Sunday August 8th.
Please remember, you must have a valid SteamID entered for EVERY MEMBER in your team to be accepted into the cup!

The 6th One Night Wonder is over. We've bene playing a lot of Freight and Viaduct.

In the high bracket we saw Broder ending first, while in the low bracket Flashpoint claimed all the glory. Congratulations to these two teams!

high cup
There were a few interesting matches played, for example the broder versus Holy Shit game on freight. Of course broder was the favourite, and so they won it, but HS really put up a good fight, they were in control of themselves, which sadly resulted in only 1 point versus the 6 scored by broder. Holy Shit couldn't keep up with the likes of Fanva, at times more soaring through the air than running, and clearly helping his team a lot towards the victory.

In the finals broder faced EL Diablo's Brigade on viaduct. THis was a very unpredictable match, both teams got some time on the point in every round, and so the rounds were going back and forth. In the end, broder proved to be just a bit stronger, winning with 3-2.

low cup
In the low cup, flashpoint faced What's in the Box? 2. This was a similarly intense game, also ending in 3-2. The box? demo, Kona was surely the backbone of their team, picking up a lot of frags, but in the end the solid pushes from flashpoint were just a bit better.

TIll next time!

The sixth installment of our One Night Wonder series are due to take place next Thursday. On the 20th of May, 32 teams (2x16) will battle it out again in the by now well known 2-cup format. (1 cup for the high(er) teams, one for the low(er) teams).

Maps of choice are this time the map that has been recently made official by Valve, cp_freight_final1, and the new kid in town: koth_viaduct. Both are rumored to feature in the next ETF2L season, and in other tournaments across Europe, so it's time to get a head start and to get to know these maps inside out early.

As said, the tournament will feature on 20th of May, and it will start at 20:00 CEST. (Not at 19:30 as we did with previous ONW's.)

For more information, including on how to sign up, read the announcement at the tournament page: [link]

The TF2 Western Digital Challenge is over. TCM-Gaming beat I Don't Know? over three maps.

The match
On the first map, cp_granary, TCM took a quick 3-0 lead within minutes. idk? had not much to put a hold to the TCM train. On the forth round, idk? managed to hold back TCM at their last point and the continued to get the other points one by one. 3-1, and idk? looked to be back in the game. Some fast rounds followed, but idk? were never able to close the gap TCM had created at the start, 5-2 to TCM.

The second map was cp_gullywash, idk? beat TCM on this map last time (Sapphire Challenge finals), after a complete thriller, so they chose to play this map again. Both teams seemed to be unable to get a hold of the map though, it took a whole 15 minutes for idk? to get the first round. Another ten minutes later, after a "heavy" fight, TCM leveled the score. With 5 minutes to play, idk? took out the kritzkrieg. Using this, they quickly scored 2-1. In the last few minutes, TCM fought back in an attempt to level the score again, and force a golden cap, but to no avail. idk's defence lasted long enough, so they won this map.

cp_badlands was chosen as decider map. At first, TCM got in a few points, then idk? managed to get right back. With only around 5 minutes on the clock, the score was 3-3. TCM had the final say, however, getting another point and thus setting the score at 4-3 to them.

Thanks
Congratulations to TCM-Gaming for winning the Western Digital Challenge. They have won €250!

Thanks to idk? for making it another interesting final, and thanks to all other participants. We hope to see you again next time.

The Western digital Challenge for TF2 is drawing to a close. Tonight we will see the finals of TCM-Gaming vs I Don't Know black. They will fight it out for the €250 offered by Western Digital.

For those who want to witness this clash first-hand, here are some details:

Time: Today (13 may), 21:15 CEST
Maps: cp_granary & cp_gullywash
SourceTV: (hopefully) pipino.n1ping.com:20006

Be sure to tune in, it's going to be a spectacle. Those that watched the last time these two teams met in an Esports Heaven final will know what I'm talking about!

Today the quarter- and semi-finals of the Western Digital Challenge for TF2 took place. We've seen a few nice matches on the way, let's take a look, shall we?

Quarter finals
The first quarter final match was the Scandinavian team broder against a mix team who went under the guise of "We make pew pew". Today they did not make so much pew pew. They were pew pewed by broder in a 5-0 whitewash. The pew pew members were not amused, emotions flying high:

fle:
omg its your fault totally baerbel!
what were we doing in qf anyway

baerbel:
i airshotted!
loads of ppl

I think that will be the last we see of that team...

The second match saw I Don't Know? Black, recent winners of the ETF2L, taking Crack Clan to the fight. idk? secured an easy win with 6-1. WeMadeFux managed to produce the exact same result against El Diablo's Brigade. It was only 3 days ago eLD caused a huge upset by knocking Power Gaming out of the tournament, but today they didn't continue in the same fashion unfortunately.

The last quarter finals match was probably the most interesting Mister put up a good fight against TCM-Gaming, but not enough to beat them. Final score: 8-3 to TCM.

Semi-Finals
That left us with 4 teams in 2 semi-final matches.

The first match: WeMadeFux vs TCM-Gaming.
They started out on ctf_turbine, WMF's choice. This looked like a good decision. TCM being the favourite. The teams started out evenly, but after a while TCM got a few more caps in, setting the score at 10-7.

The second map was cp_badlands. This turned out to be a real toe-twister. The rounds were long, especially for badlands. The game flowed back and forth, and after a while it was 2-2. Then, with seemingly just over a minute on the clock, TCM were pushing WMF's last point, sure to cap it with their uber-advantage. Though WMF had a nice clutch, stretching their time some more. All spectators thought the game was going to be a golden cap, but they were hoodwinked. The STV clock bugged out, there were in fact 5 minutes or so left. This enabled TCM to cap 2 more times: 4-2, TCM go to the finals.

The second semi-final was broder versus idk? black. That couldn't possibly be more interesting that the match described above, right? Well you are wrong. Granary, the first map went, as expected, to idk? (6-2), being the more experienced, and better team. Broder were down, but not out! They put themselves back together and decided to go up and over idk? on that map, winning it 4-1.

This situation, each team had won a map, called for a decider map. 1 map, on one side we have idk?, only recently they were the underdogs, now they are the team to beat. On the other side we have broder, certainly the most promising new team. It was hard to pick a favorite for the spectators. The game was tight, each team capping points, but in the end idk? secured the map, and the match, with a 6-3 score.

Finals
The finals will be played somewhere next week. We will see TCM-Gaming and I Don't Know? Black fighting for the €250 made available by Western Digital. Last time these two teams met in an ESH final, idk? went home with the prize after a 3-map thriller, will we see the same again this time?

Match date and maps are to be decided by the teams. Stay tuned!

The playoffs of the Western Digital Challenge kicked off today.
Let's take a look at the teams that made it through to the quarter finals and how they got there.

The first matchup is Pew Pew versus Broder. Pew Pew, being a mix team, had the luck that division 1 team Fakkelbrigade could not field a lineup, and rode the easy way to the quarter finals. Broder performed well against new up-and-coming team Stoic on turbine, showing that Stoic still had a way to go.

Second matchup: Crack Clan versus idk? Black. CC struggled against instaWin in the 3rd round, but eventually won, as expected. Idk?, on the other hand, met one of the surprises of the day: Hadouken. idk? and Hadouken went neck and neck with idk? just clinging on to the lead when Hadouken would tie it again, only for idk? to cap as well. This went on for a while, resulting in idk? winning with 11-10, after Hadouken's last desparate attempt to tie the game was only met by idk? capping at the same time again.

In the third match we will see Spanish Mister versus TCM-gaming. Mister eased their way through k^m and Rockit, while TCM had a bit more of a fight. They gave away points against Stripclub in round 2, and won from FB green on (again) turbine with only a small margin. (What's up with turbine guys?)

Then we come to the 4th matchup, and probably the most surprising among them: WeMadeFux vs el Diablo's Brigade. WMF had no trouble getting to the quarter finals, so let's talk about eLD.

Turbine again, this time against Power Gaming. Both teams have recently (re)formed, eLD with the ambition of being in div 2, and PwR aiming for nothing that the #1 spot in Europe. Clearly Power should have this in the bag, right?

Well, they did, until 4 minutes before the end of the game. In those 4 minutes, eLD managed to cap 5 times, pushing one of the favorites for the title out of the tournament at an early stage. No one would have believed this if I told you beforehand, probably the guys of eLD least of all, so thumbs up to eLD for giving us a show!

This concludes day 1 of the playoffs. We will see the 8 remaining teams coming Sunday for the quarter- and semifinals. SourceTV is announced when available. Stay tuned!