Editing Ozfortress

{{DISPLAYTITLE:ozfortress}}

{{NewInfobox League

| area = {{flag|aunz}} Oceania

| current = [[ozfortress_Season_{{Current Seasons | ozf6s}}|Season {{Current Seasons | ozf6s}}]] ([[6v6]]) <br>

[[ozfortress_Highlander_Season_{{Current Seasons | ozhl}}|Season {{Current Seasons | ozhl}}]] ([[Highlander]])

'''ozfortress''' is the longest running and most popular competitive ''Team Fortress 2'' league in the Oceanic region. ozfortress supports [[Highlander]], [[6v6]] and [[Ultiduo]] seasonal competitions, as well as numerous offseason events. ozfortress is considered to host the highest level of competitive ''Team Fortress 2'' play in Oceania.

==History==

 

 

 

==Major Leagues and Competitions==

===OZF: the ozfortress Sixes Seasonal League===

 

====Format====

The ozfortress Sixes Seasonal League is most commonly run over a period of 10 weeks, the first seven being allocated to the regular season and the remaining weeks to playoffs. A pool of 9 maps is chosen prior to the seasons' launch. Premier, High and Intermediate are usually played in a round robin bracket, whilst Main and Open are run on the Swiss system. Throughout the regular season, two maps are chosen to be played by all teams each week. At the conclusion of the regular season, the top four teams of each division qualify for playoffs. Playoffs are run in a Bo3 format, with the three maps for each match being determined by a pick/ban system. The Premier grand final is a Bo5.

 

OZF playoffs use the Page Playoff system, in which the top two teams play each other(upper page playoffs) and the bottom two play each other(lower page playoffs). The winner of the upper page playoffs graduates to the grand final, whilst the loser plays the winner of the lower page playoffs in the semi-final. The winner of the semi-final then plays the winner of the upper page playoffs in the grand final.

 

ozfortress 6v6 makes use of [https://whitelist.tf/ozfortress_6v6_s36 a custom whitelist]. <br>

 

Further information is available at the [https://docs.ozfortress.com/rules/sixes official ozfortress website].

 

| [[OZF 15]]

 

 

The ozfortress Highlander Seasonal League is a newer league designed for [[Highlander]] competition. OZHL functions much in the same way as OZF, but with a map pool, ruleset and weapon banlist suited to the Highlander gamemode. The league made its debut in mid 2022 after the [[Respawn League]] was dissolved into ozfortress. Staff previously overseeing RSL competitions were installed as ozfortress' new Highlander staff. Similarly, many teams such as [[red pandas]] and [[rascals]] that had formerly played in the Respawn League (and UGC) have since competed in OZHL.

 

Ozfortress has been predominantly a 6v6 platform for the vast majority of its lifetime. Previously, ozfortress hosted a now long-defunct ladder competition; the Ozfortress Highlander League (ozhl) which had its last title in 2014. This previous competition was run in much the same way as the late ozfl.

 

As stated earlier, the ozfortress Highlander Seasonal League is run very similarly to the ozfortress Sixes Seasonal League. The season is run over 8 weeks, with the first five allocated to the regular season and three for playoffs. OZHL uses [https://whitelist.tf/ozfortress_hl_s3 a less restrictive whitelist] than ozfortress Sixes.

 

 

 

This section describes more casual or offseason events run by ozfortress.

ozfortress [[Ultiduo]] is an annual single-elimination competition run during the offseason between ozfortress' seasonal premier competition - in the past the OWL league and currently the OZF league. For the majority of its lifetime, Ultiduo has been an open tournament run over either a period of a few days or a few hours. Most recently, (Ultiduo 17) the tournament has been run over 3 hours and 2 divisions.

 

The ozfortress Ultiduo competition is the oldest still-running ''Team Fortress 2'' competition in the Oceanic scene, having been played for over 16 years as of 2024, with its origins lying as far back as the 27th of December, 2007. <ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20071230221228/http://ozfortress.com/showthread.php?t=25002 Wayback Machine Archive: SINISTAR and BOWT are crowned the 1st ozf Ultimate Duo!]</ref>

 

| '''Ultiduo 10'''

 

[[BBall]] is a very recent addition to ozfortress' competitions run in much the same way as ozfortress Ultiduo. ozfortress BBall is a single-elimination competition run across the course of several hours.

 

{| class="wikitable" cellpadding=2 style="width: 37%; text-align: center;"

 

A Midsummer Night's Cup are a series of single-night [[6v6]] competitions that were run twice a summer from 2017 through to 2019. From 2020 however, MSNC have been run at irregular intervals with the recent addition of a MSNC [[Highlander]] league. Teams are split into three divisions - either Premier, Intermediate and Open or Divisions 1 through 3. The focus for these cups is to provide ozfortress players with a more casual laid-back experience in between seasons. Hence, many MSNC tournaments have seen looser team compositions and more extensive offclassing than the seasonal leagues.

 

This section covers currently inactive ozfortress leagues or competitions. This includes those that have been formally concluded and those that may return in future years.

The ozfortress league was a continuous 6v6 ladder competition open to teams of all skill levels. Match scheduling was determined by a team's win/loss streak, which provided them with the opportunity to face opponents at other skill levels, or opponents they would otherwise never meet in regular scrimmage. This league was seen as a proving ground for new maps designed for the competitive community, and was paired with a less restrictive whitelist. ozfl was largely regarded as a pathway into ozfortress' previous premier competition, the ozfortress winter league (OWL) series.

The ozfortress league was the longest running Team Fortress competition in the Oceanic scene, with its origins lying as far back as November 2002 with ''Team Fortress Classic''.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20021206100839/http://ozfl.ozfortress.com/ Wayback Machine Archive: OZFL - Season 1 commenced!]</ref> The first signups for the ''Team Fortress 2'' edition of the ozfortress league were announced on the 7th of May 2008 and began with an 8v8 format with random critical hits.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20080621190542/http://ozfortress.com/showthread.php?t=26403 Wayback Machine Archive: ozfortress Team Fortress 2 League]</ref> The second round of matches saw a new 6v6 format being run alongside 8v8 and random crits disabled, before 8v8 was phased out entirely in March of the following year.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20090316070728/http://ozfortress.com:80/ Wayback Machine Archive: ozfortress says good-bye to 8v8]</ref>

 

The ozfortress league ran a total of 127 rounds of ''Team Fortress 2'' matches spanning nearly 7 years, with the final game being played on the 20th of March, 2015. [[Team Immunity]] accounted for 55 of the titles won, thus winning over 40% of ozfortress league titles.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20190109053433/http://www.ozfortress.com/showthread.php?t=28089 Wayback Machine Archive: ozfortress league title history]</ref>

The ozfortress cup was a double elimination exhibition competition. The cup had 16 slots, 12 of which were occupied by the top 12 teams of the year. The remaining 4 slots were claimed as eight 'wildcards' who competed with each other in a qualifier format.

 

The ozfortress cup was the first non-Ultiduo ozfortress ''Team Fortress 2'' competition to be run. The first OZFC began on the 10th of January, 2008 in an 8v8 format.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20080118012240/http://ozfortress.com/showthread.php?t=25201 Wayback Machine Archive: ozfc1 - draw and points]</ref>

 

====Previous ozfc Champions====

 

[[File:Owl 14.png|thumb|600px|The banner for the final OWL season before the transfer to OZF. OWL 14 came to a close in September of 2015.]]

The ozfortress winter league was the initial premier competition series run by ozfortress. It was a seasonal, round-robin [[6v6]] invitational that ran approximately twice a year. Teams were split into skill based divisions, from Division 1 or Premier down to Division 6. However, the number of divisions often varied between seasons depending on the number of teams registered. A typical competition ran over 10 weeks of matches and teams were invited to apply for selection before the competition began.

 

OWL was later phased out in favour of the ozfortress seasonal league following OWL 14 in early 2016. Recently however, the ozfortress Winter League has made a comeback in the form of OWL 2021, running alongside the existing OZF seasonal league.

====Previous OWL Champions====

 

 

===C4C: Capping for a Cause===

Capping for a Cause (stylised as '''Capping 4 a Cause''', or '''C4C''') was a 16 team open double-elimination competition run three times from 2010 to 2012. C4C aimed to raise funds for a named charity. Teams were asked to 'buy' their seeding by donating to the charity, where the highest seeds were given to the highest donating teams, providing them with a scheduling advantage throughout the tournament. Over the three iterations of C4C, over $22,000 AUD was raised for charities. These included the Australian Cancer Research Foundation, BeyondBlue and the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia.