Fireside has announced The Fireside Cup, a sixes cup that will span two weeks and take place in the build-up to RGL 6v6 Season 15. The first week of the event will be dedicated to the group stage and the second to the playoffs. The cup is sponsored by Mannco.store, the premier marketplace for buying and selling TF2 items with real world cash, and broadcast will be split between Fireside and EssentialsTF.

Featuring a $600 prize pool, Fireside’s debut as a tournament operator comes months in the making with the hope of reintroducing off-season cups into the North American competitive TF2 circuit.

Poster by Technomo

Format

The Fireside Cup will utilize a group stage to seed teams into a playoffs bracket. The formats of each depend on registration numbers and will be announced in the build-up to the event itself. The rules for each map will mirror that of RGL Season 14; control point maps will have a 30-minute time limit which will proceed into an overtime period in which the timelimit is removed and the win limit lowered from 5, to 1 higher than the current highest score. King-of-the-Hill maps will be a straight best of seven rounds. Teams will be permitted two pauses of 5 minutes each on each map.

Fireside have, however, made one slight change versus most 6v6 competitions: there is a limit of one offclass per team at any given time, enforced by a custom plugin developed by Dr. Underscore. This will force teams to put a little more creativity into how they approach any given scenario throughout the game: gone are the days of the engineer reinforced heavy / pyro / sniper last hold!

The map pool will be the latest versions of the following:

• cp_gullywash_f9
• cp_metalworks_f5
• cp_process_f12
• cp_snakewater_final1
• cp_sunshine
• koth_bagel_rc8
• koth_product_final

Schedule

Group Stage: Monday, May 13th to Thursday, May 16th

• Best of 2
• Group Structure Pending Signups (to be announced closer to the event)
• 22:30 EDT Default Time
• 5CP (Progressive Ruleset - fireside_6v6_unity)
• KOTH (First to 4, No Halftimes - fireside_6v6_koth)

Playoffs: Monday, May 20th to Thursday, May 23rd

• Best of 3
• Playoff Structure Pending Signups (to be announced closer to the event)
• 22:00 EDT Default Time
• 5CP (Progressive Ruleset - fireside_6v6_unity)
• KOTH (First to 4, No Halftimes - fireside_6v6_koth)

Prize Pool

The cup will feature a base prize pool of $600. The prize pool distribution is as follows:

• 1st: $300 (50%)
• 2nd: $150 (25%)
• 3rd-4th: $75 (12.5%)

If you wish to contribute to the prize pool, please contact siyo on Discord.

Broadcast Rules

Fireside will be enforcing a set of rules regarding the broadcast of matches throughout the cup. All match streams must be registered with the tournament admins via the Fireside Discord, and players will be required to use a sponsor overlay while streaming their matches, a first for TF2 but something seen in other esports such as Counter-Strike. Additionally, a 3-minute delay will be required if streaming a match broadcast on either of the official channels for the event, with no player streams permitted for the grand final.

Coverage

Fireside will be providing coverage on their Twitch channel and EssentialsTF’s from the groups to the grand final, featuring:

Casters:

• jemond
• Tcmano
• Unicorn Wizard
• row
• DeltaMarket
• Nbr1Rckr
• zak
• siyo

Production:

• antlers
• Dr. Underscore
• Pika
• siyo

Sign-ups

For teams interested in participating, you can sign up here. Registration closes on 10 May at 23:59 EST. Team captains are required to join the Fireside Discord to receive further updates about the event.