ozfortress

[e][h]ozfortress

Basic Information

Full name:

ozfortress

Founder:

mercury
tempest

Head Admin:

core

Current Season:

Season 38 (6v6)
Season 5 (Highlander)

Links

History

Created:

2001

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 the southern hemisphere.

History

ozfortress was established in 2001 by TFC players mercury and tempest to cater for the competitive Team Fortress Classic community of Australia and New Zealand. ozfortress hosted a variety of TFC tournaments up until the early 2010s before the game was phased out entirely.

The ozfortress website was hosted on a standalone website for the majority of its lifetime until October of 2018, when it was announced that ongoing news posts would be issued on the organisations' Warzone page. In early 2020, the ozfortress forums went offline indefinitely, along with all information pertaining to competitions played before OZF 16. Currently, what was previously the ozfortress Warzone page has taken the domain name of the original ozfortress.com site and is the current home of ozfortress. Large portions of the old ozfortress forums can be accessed through the Wayback Machine Archive.

ozfortress website logo, circa 2002.

Homepage of ozfortress.com, circa 2010.

Major Leagues and Competitions

OZF: the ozfortress Sixes Seasonal League

2016 - Present

Overview

Banner for ozfortress Sixes Season 27, played throughout early 2020.

Announced on the 24th February, 2016, the ozfortress Sixes Seasonal League is the successor to the organization's previous OWL tournaments that concluded with OWL 14 and were continued into OZF 15 and beyond. The tournament has been ran triannually since its inception and features five tiers: Premier, High, Intermediate, Main and Open. Main was introduced as a solution to sandbagging and to provide a middle ground between Open and Intermediate.

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 a custom whitelist.

Further information is available at the official ozfortress website.

Previous OZF Champions

Year	Season	Premier	High	Intermediate	Main	Open
2016 (Mar-Jun)	OZF 15	Jasmine Tea		The Resurrected 6		Duksquad
2016 (Jul-Sep)	OZF 16	Jasmine Tea		Intoxicated		Project Mayhem
2016 (Sep-Nov)	OZF 17	The Hardies		Salt Free Gaming.		Yeah
2017 (Feb-Apr)	OZF 18	No Safeword		[ Brave Loyal And Kind ]		WhoopieShare
2017 (May-Jun)	OZF 19	Jasmine Tea		S A D B O Y S		MORTified
2017 (Aug-Oct)	OZF 20	The Sauce		spn 70kg fatty		Starburst-6s
2018 (Jan-Apr)	OZF 21	Y U G I B O Y S		carl libre		Rocket Division
2018 (May-Jul)	OZF 22	Pencil Case		Salt Free Gaming.		HentaiHaven Hunters
2018 (Sep-Nov)	OZF 23	Jasmine Tea		League of Super Evil		The Big Monstrosity
2019 (Jan-Apr)	OZF 24	Coffee Clock		ad hominem attack		Big Lez and The Boys
2019 (May-Aug)	OZF 25	Coffee Clock		DrugLab	Panda Bears	Cool Team Name Pending
2019 (Sep-Dec)	OZF 26	Coffee Clock		Winx Club	twig Today at 4:20 PM @everyone im horny	the nutte sac
2020 (Jan-Apr)	OZF 27	happy feet		what the fuck am i doing	open veterans	back 2 the bones daycare
2020 (May-Jul)	OZF 28	happy feet	braincels2020	whats our name	fighting dreamers	mork and friends
2020 (Aug-Nov)	OZF 29	soirée	psychology majors	Artix Entertainment	Terrible Tactics	[HK香港人］
2021 (Jan-Apr)	OZF 30	soirée		ligma	#JUSTICEFORLOGJAM	dm lords
2021 (May-Jul)	OZF 31	ALT		House of Cards	sugma	Phee Phi Pho Phum
2021 (Sep-Dec)	OZF 32	soirée	lawn mowers	God Emperor Seals	Phices	orangutan ganji
2022 (Jan-Apr)	OZF 33	soirée		Flying Spies BLACK	BEWARE OF THE PIPELIN12	Posse Pounders
2022 (May-Jul)	OZF 34	Witness Gaming		CURSED	Sharkylin12	camping
2022 (Sep-Dec)	OZF 35	Witness Gaming		altombo's kittens	RTBA	take me to snurch
2023 (Jan-May)	OZF 36	Witness Gaming		bob the digger	6Sins	The Ferrari Strategists

OZHL: the ozfortress Highlander Seasonal League

2022 - Present

Overview

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.

Format

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. Other than this change in length, OZHL is run identically to OZF.

Further information is available at the official ozfortress website.

Previous OZHL Champions

Year	Season	Premier	Intermediate	Main	Open
2022 (May-Aug)	OZHL 1	red pandas	flamter		Patent Pending
2022 (Sep-Dec)	OZHL 2	red pandas		Patent Pending
2023 (Feb-Apr)	OZHL 3	red pandas	Patent Pending		fuck it we brawl

Minor Leagues and Competitions

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

Ultiduo

2007 - Present
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 nearly 16 years, with its origins lying as far back as the 27th of December, 2007.

Previous Ultiduo Champions

Banner for the debut tournament for ozfortress Ultiduo. This season was played before the release of the Ubersaw or the Crusader's Crossbow!

Year	Season	Winner (Soldier/Medic)	Runner-up (Soldier/Medic)
2007	Ultiduo 1	sinistar/bowt	wackety/iori
2008	Ultiduo 2	nesk/bowt	vision/nerfed
2008	Ultiduo 3	komplex/tinfed	nesk/bowt
2009	Ultiduo 4	lottic/aze	wackety/nomey
2010	Ultiduo 5	lottic/yuri	yuki/bonobo
2011	Ultiduo 6	yuki/bonobo	lottic/yuri
2012	Ultiduo 7	yuki/bonobo	krollic/Avril
2013	Ultiduo 8	yuki/No Mercy	Raiin/feresar
2014	Ultiduo 9	yuki/bonobo	Daveii/Mattr and ayR
2015	Ultiduo 10	Jersh/Sam.	eps/termo
2017	Ultiduo 11	krollic/Sam.	HERTZ/Remo
2018	Ultiduo 12	krollic/Sam.	silvo/ceekay
2019	Ultiduo 13	krollic/arnold	Doge.exe/v4na
2020	Ultiduo 14	krollic/arnold	silvo/ceekay
2021	Ultiduo 15	silvo/ceekay	down/essence
2022	Ultiduo 16	krollic/jd	Donn/Precious.
2022	Ultiduo 17	krollic/arnold	turris/jd

MSNC: A Midsummer Night's Cup

2017 - Present
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.

Previous MSNC Premier Champions

Season	Winner
MSNC 2017 #1	mt
MSNC 2017 #2	nt
MSNC 2018 #1	Jazz Men
MSNC 2018 #2	Y U G I B O Y S
MSNC 2019 #1	Mad Men
MSNC 2019 #2	Lollipop
MSNC 2020	:gorilla:
MSNC Sixes 2023	Witness Gaming
MSNC Highlander 2023	red pandas

Previous Leagues and Competitions

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.

ozfl: the ozfortress league

2008 - 2015
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. 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. 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.

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.

ozfc: the ozfortress cup

2008 - 2013
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.

Previous ozfc Champions

Season	Winner
OZFC 1	MAD DOGZ
OZFC 2	Team Immunity
OZFC 3	Team Immunity

OWL: the ozfortress Winter League

2009 - 2016
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

The banner for the final OWL season before the transfer to OZF. OWL 14 came to a close in September of 2015.

Season	Winner
OWL 1	pretty good
OWL 2	Team Immunity
OWL 3	Team Immunity
OWL 4	Team Immunity
OWL 5	Team Immunity
OWL 6	Team Immunity
OWL 7	Team Immunity
OWL 8	Team Immunity
OWL 9	Team Immunity
OWL 10	Team Immunity
OWL 11	Team Immunity
OWL 12	Jasmine
OWL 13	Cash Money
OWL 14	Team Impunity
OWL 2021	Vanquish's Aiming Academy

C4C: Capping for a Cause

2010 - ~2012-13
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.

Previous C4C Champions

Season	Winner
C4C	Team Immunity
C4C2	Team Immunity
C4C3	Team Immunity

Where to Play

The official ozfortress Discord is the best place to advertise LFT or LFP. The Discord also provides access to numerous player-run PUG servers of various skill levels and formats.

For Oceanic players new to competitive, the following Discord pick-up-game servers provide an introduction to the major formats. In order to play in these servers, it is required to link your steam account to the ozfortress website.

6v6

• OCE Icebreaker
• noob pugs

Highlander

• FROGpugs AU/NZ

Streams

• BearCastsTF2
• KritzKast
• CappingTV
• quid