🔒 EXCLUSIVE: Groups/ned/announcements - Uncensored 2025

Finally, we're at the end of the road! 30 teams signed up for this competition and after 6 weeks of action, now we're going to witness the top two seeded teams from the group phase duke it out on Dark Carnival.

TEAM ECLIP5E vs HELHEIM (NA vs EU) Home/Away/Neutral - This is entirely dependent on who Helheim fields. If they elect to use 3 of their EU/RUS players, then it shall be home/away. But if they choose instead to play both their NA-based players, then it would make things simple enough for just one neutral match on a 100 tick New York server.

3rd place match between Team France vs Millennium is optional: you can choose to play or not to play, we're not going to hassle you into it. But if the match is not played, 3rd place will automatically be awarded to whichever team lost to the eventual cup winners in the semi finals.

Speaking of which, match of the week on Hard Rain goes to Millennium vs Helheim. The Russians were leading for 4 maps and looked to have victory in the bag, but Helheim staged a dramatic comeback in the final map. The only available stream is in Russian, but the action itself is worth checking out: http://www.twitch.tv/dope_b0y/v/51302215

Thread for scheduling is here: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/ne4d/discussions/0/405692758719125946/

And the cup brackets are here: https://binarybeast.com/xL4D21602080

Good luck and may the best team win!

With 4 teams and just 2 weeks remaining, we are almost there! The quarter final match of the week has to be Team ECLIP5E vs Team Tableflip, the two heavyweights of the NA competition putting on a really good show.

Part 1 - http://www.twitch.tv/kissmeplox/v/48897550
Part 2 - http://www.twitch.tv/kissmeplox/v/48905902

Don't have much else to say this week, other than the campaign of choice will be Hard Rain. There was talk of it being saved for the grand final, but there have been at least FIVE tournaments in recent months that I can think of which have reserved Hard Rain for the grand final, with at least an additional two having done the same in the past year! So with that mentioned, I'll give you the draws for Hard Rain:

Team ECLIP5E vs Team France (NA vs EU) Home/Away - I don't think Team ECLIP5E have enough players on their roster to make a neutral match viable in this contest between Team France. Unless there are any complications with the roster that Team ECLIP5E elect to use, this will be a case of one match on an EU server and another on an East Coast server, preferably a 100 tick New York one to match similar settings on the EU server and lower the latency for everyone. But in case the overall ping disparity is enough to justify it, don't rule out the use of a Chicago server.

Millennium vs Helheim (RUS vs EU) Home/Away/Neutral - Russians get very good routing to Central Europe and New York. So if Helheim use one NA player, then it's a neutral match on an EU server but if they use both their NA players, then there should be two games on an EU server and NA server.

Thread for scheduling is here: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/ne4d/discussions/0/405692224238536899/

And the cup brackets are here: https://binarybeast.com/xL4D21602080

Good luck to all of you!

Well, what a turn of results Round 4 gave us; only 3 of the 8 teams who won their groups have advanced to the quarter-finals! Match of the week on Detour Ahead goes to the one I had my eye on most when the draws were made: Salmon Catchers vs Team France. Both teams had to contend with around 200 ms latency in what was a gruelling and colossal battle that was very close the entire way! The action can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iygRUGgfQVk

The campaign for this week is Death Toll and let's go straight to the draws:

Team ECLIP5E vs Team Tableflip (NA vs NA) Home - I won't even bother telling you gentlemen which server you should specifically use as I'm sure you'll be able to sort that out between yourselves.

Team France vs Boy Scouts (EU vs EU) Home - Another domestic match, one simple home match is all that's needed.

Abnormal vs Millennium (RUS vs RUS) Home - Yet another domestic draw, you know the drill by now.

Better Pizza vs Helheim (NA vs EU) Home/Away/Neutral - This particular draw can be anything, it's all dependent on which rosters both teams decide to field, so to clarify matters, here is how it should go:

If you guys want one single 'neutral' match (which we always recommend over playing home/away in terms of simplifying scheduling), then we advise that Helheim play both supra and purple, while Better Pizza have Impulse (and/or any other West Coast player you may have in your roster) while playing on a New York server. Better Pizza may have slightly better ping overall in this scenario but only by virtue of one player, and we don't deem one player with higher/lower ping on their own to be enough to prevent a neutral match from being a possibility.

But if you guys are not interested in settling this in just one match and Helheim field at least 3 non-NA-based players, then there will have to be one match on a Central European server and the NA server will either be New York or even Chicago, depending on how the pings are for both teams. But we absolutely recommend the neutral option: it saves more time and is less complicated.

You have until the 22nd February 00:00 PST to complete your matches and submit the results with mandatory screenshots in this thread: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/ne4d/discussions/0/405691491125695054/

As always, you can follow the cup tree here: https://binarybeast.com/xL4D21602080

Good luck to all of you!

Catch the action at: http://www.twitch.tv/brightness0

Well done to the 16 teams who have made it to the halfway point of the tournament. The honours for the Dead Air match of the week go to Babadook vs Urine Danger in Group F, where even though both teams did not have the same number of wins as each other heading into the game, their average scores were close enough that either of them could have sent the other home early; Urine Danger needed to beat Babadook with at least a 114-point margin to attain such a result. Some familiar names from past and present competing and a very close game throughout with great Tank and SI play. You can watch the VOD here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maZDbDbobvw

Before you see the draws for Round 4 and the cup tree for the single-elimination knockout phase, know that there is a system for the teams you've been paired against. The teams who won their groups are drawn against teams who finished 2nd which is basic and to expected, however, it is your average scores that have determined which team you face exactly. In a sense, the group phase was a way of generating a more 'fresh' seeding for the final 16. Although some might fear that group winners vs group runnners-up might be a tad processional, this week is the best time to test everyone's sense of map knowledge. It's custom campaign time which can only mean that this week's action will be taking place on Detour Ahead and if you don't already have it downloaded, then please do so now via this link: http://www.gamemaps.com/details/2445

One more thing to note is that as we venture into the playoffs where international competition will officially take place, I will write brief summaries of which server locations are to be used for each draw and explain why those choices were made. Note that these summaries are written purely on the basis of making the scheduling of international matches as simple as possible; it does not take into account factors such as any team's strongest starting four or if just one player has much lower/higher ping than everyone else.

If there is a suitable option available for playing just one neutral match, we will always advise that over playing two matches home and away. Unless there is no neutral option to avoid the scenario, we would rather not see repeats of home/away games with 250+ ms for both away teams. For teams with more geographically diverse rosters which might determine whether the match is neutral or home/away, we will posit recommendations based on those circumstances as it's your choice who your starting four will be, but bear in mind that if you do play home/away, it's a rule to field the same roster for both games. Even if a substitution is made out of necessity, the team will incur a variable points penalty should the substitute/ringer's latency be lower than that of the original player's latency. We're trying to keep playing conditions as even as possible and to avoid the sort of mind-numbing drama that has occurred in the past when teams didn't heed similar advice on such matters.

And still on the subject of even playing conditions, there's also the potential matter of keeping boss (tank and witch) spawns even for both home/away games. We will NOT enforce spawns or make it mandatory to keep them the same for both games. However, we heavily recommend that if you're able to have a server admin present for your second game, that they use the following commands to equalise the spawns as they appeared in the first game:

!set_tank 0.35
!set_witch 0.69

When a server admin is doing this, it's important that they use decimal places when inputting the values otherwise they'll be incorrect. In the above example, the tank will be made to spawn at 35% and the witch at 69%. If you're interested in keeping the boss spawns even (and you should be because one game could have a difficult fight for a tank while the other could have one that's more likely to wipe), the best thing to do is SAVE the second game for a match where you know there will be a server admin present to help set the boss spawns.

With no turning back now, here are the first knockout draws:

Team ECLIP5E vs The Miracles (NA vs AUS/NZ) Home/Away - This has to be home/away because there is no available neutral server in the middle of the Pacific, unfortunately. To complicate matters further, Australian/NZ internet is so poor that the ping disparity becomes much greater for The Miracles the further east they go, in proportion to NA teams connecting further west. Playing on an Australian server is a given, but the exact choice of NA server location is dependent on who Team ECLIP5E elect to have for their starting four in this draw.

[N]exus vs Team Tableflip (SA vs NA) Neutral - Home/away (if possible) might still cause quite a ping disparity so for the sake of keeping the match itself and the scheduling as simple as possible, we heavily advise just one match on a New York server; South American players get better ping connecting to NY and the majority of Team Tableflip hail from the West Coast.

Salmon Catchers vs Team France (AUS/NZ vs EU) Neutral - Forget about home/away because that really is NOT an option here, the pings of both teams will be in the region of around 350 at the minimum on their respective away servers, probably somewhere closer to 400 ms latency for Salmon Catchers on an EU server such is the quality of Australian internet! A Los Angeles server should suffice but if there is a Colorado server on 100 tick that evens the pings a tiny bit more, then feel free to use that. But if that's not the case, it has to be an LA server because anything further east will create an even bigger ping disparity in the opposite direction.

Team Almania vs Boy Scouts (EU vs EU) Home - Two European teams; one very simple match to schedule.

Abnormal vs Royal Flush (RUS vs RUS) Home - Two Russian teams paired against each other, there is nothing complicated about this draw; resume standard service as in the domestic group phase.

Babadook vs Millennium (NA vs RUS) Home/Away - Because North America is an expansive continent and Russia is geographically the largest country in the world, both communities can have players connecting from further west (NA) or east (RUS). But in our experience, Russians tend to have solid routing to some EU locations as well as in NA. For the reasons stated, we strongly recommend that the NA home game is in New York and that the RUS home game is played on a server in Central Europe.

Rekt by vs Better Ingredients, Better Pizza (RUS vs NA) Home/Away - Exactly the same as the other NA vs RUS draw described above.

Helheim vs Team "ey b0ss?" (EU vs SA) Neutral - I don't even think home/away is much of an option here anyway. Both EU and SA teams get better pings when connecting to an East Coast server so we strongly recommend a single neutral match on a New York server.

Note: the recommendations above are based on some amount of prior experience and knowledge as well as a little bit of theory. If you do find better options which help lessen the ping disparity overall, then please DO tell us!

And one final thing: when you are about to play your matches, ALL players, admins and casters MUST go offline and connect via the chosen server IP. This is imperative as a few cup matches have been targeted by DDoS attacks. You can schedule your matches here: http://steamcommunity.com/groups/ne4d/discussions/0/405691147602677243/

You have from now until the 15th February 00:00 PST to schedule your matches and confirm the results with mandatory screenshots. Good luck to all of you!

P.S - The official cup bracket is up! Check it out here: http://binarybeast.com/xL4D21602080