It's been a while since we've posted here, as these days we use Discord more for news or updates, just a casual plug. Coming into this upcoming season, we wanted to make a range of changes before the poll was released, then make further changes using the data given to us by you in the poll. We've put a list of these changes below, and want to keep this post as brief as possible but give you all of the info you need. Signups will open on the 8th of May, you can find the rest of the key dates in the link at the bottom of this post.

• Playoffs finally shifted to Page Playoffs from Double Elimination.
• Entire season now runs 10 weeks regardless, Top 4 team playoffs enforced.
• If we get 12 or more teams, we will split the divisions as a test, however a permanent switch will require more teams.
• For this season, we will be using the "Fix for Sticky Delay" from the TF2 Comp Fixes plugin by twiikuu. We are going only with this fix as we believe this is the only issue that truly can be summed up to be just a bug, not a possible design decision by Valve.

This seasonal poll puts a heavier focus on each map because we want to know what you would like to see. Have a map suggestion? You can put it in there! A link to the poll can be found below.

Seasonal Poll (April 2020)

Helpful Links

Key Dates | Match Casting | Whitelist | Competitive Rules | Community Rules
Transfers | Player Pool vs Active Rosters | Roster Lock
Server Guide | Staff List

League Ban

GodLikePotato STEAM_0:0:70063039

The user above was found to be using game-altering third party clients to gain an unfair advantage, and in the spirit of upholding standards upon our league and its players, we will be banning this user for a period of 2 years, after which their ban will be reviewed. This ban covers League Participation only, with no other effect on their access to other Respawn League services.

Should ANY teams in Respawn be found housing this player, the team will be permanently removed from our competitions and all members involved will face severe penalties. Avoiding our Bans system is something we do not encourage, as you can see above.

Coming into our fifth ever season along with 2020, there are a few changes, additions and news everyone should be aware about. First, we would like to formally welcome our new staff members in a more official capacity. We will be welcoming Sedna as Clari-tea’s partner in crime for the Asia region, along with our new Discord moderators, Aria, bird and Rias! We would also like to formally welcome (it’s a bit late but oh well) Max as a League Administrator for AU/NZ, along with inc and ohai as our Pug Administrators. Our Staff for 2020 are as follows:

Head Administrator

core

League Administrators AU/NZ

Eternal
Max
Michael
Kodyn

League Administrators AS

Clari-tea
Sedna

Tournament Administrators

Trippel8
UltraPhi

Pug Administrators

inc
ohai

Discord Moderators

Aria
bird
Rias

Now that all the introductions are over, it’s time to talk about some of the new changes & additions.

With each and every season we look to make improvements within our league that typically have a focus of improving competition at the top level, while finding ways to better introduce newer players not only to our game modes but to the game as a whole. We have the privilege of our AU community being a fairly small but tight-knit community, with this also brings challenges when trying to institute changes to a majority, especially when we only hear from a vocal minority. Going into this season, the roster limit will remain at 15 to collect more feedback and opinions from the majority in favor of it, and whether it should be reverted to 17 for season six. This process will be complete prior to the next season, and will be included in our seasonal poll as its own section once again. While we know this is not the answer some are wanting, we feel it is important that both sides are able to engage with us regarding their thoughts and opinions on this before we make this a permanent change.

To piggyback off of our roster discussions, we are lifting the total season mercenary limit rule to fall into line with other leagues, however the per match limit will remain. This change is made so those who are ever worried about going over this limit can rest a little easier, and we feel the rule is mostly voided anyway.

There are also changes to the way we are handling captaincy issues going into this season, with these changes focusing on forfeits and failure to schedule matches, two areas we currently believe are a problem. To view these infractions, please refer to our Infractions page, they are now under “Captaincy Infractions”

With the goal of trying to reach new players, we are working hard at making changes that the community can get behind, but for these changes to be things that YOU want to see, we need to hear from you. Whether it’s taking some time to quickly fill out our seasonal polls, using our #feedback channel in Discord, or even discussing with your team.

We feel there is the misconception within our community that we engage in conversations with users purely because we don’t want to take action and make necessary changes, but this has simply never been the case. By opening discussions with members of our community we are trying to ascertain what it is that you want to see changed, why you want it changed and who it affects. To circle back to the discussion on the size of our community, it is hard when only a small percentage of players voice their opinions on a matter and it typically leaves us with little to work on, but we also have to figure out if the feedback we are given is both actionable, and feasible. Sadly we do not have the security of player or team numbers that a format like 6v6 does, meaning we have to be vigilant regarding the changes we do make, as both too much and too little action are just as bad as each other.

While there is a lot of information to be dissected there, we believe it is better everything be conveyed in this way as to not leave anything out, and let you know where we stand on everything.

Also, some important information for Highlander in Asia! Signups will close Friday the 14th at 10PM GMT+8, giving anymore perspective teams time to signup. The season will then start on Sunday the 16th. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask us in #admin-support in our Discord.

League Ban

Sensei STEAM_0:0:1185286
Kopz STEAM_0:1:529576626

Sensei has been found to be using third party clients to gain an unfair advantage, and has tried to subvert our bans system via an alternate account (Kopz). As such, they will be receiving a standard 2 Year Competitive Ban for their use of third party clients, along with a 1 Year extension to this ban, with the ban total being 3 Years. If they are found trying to further avoid our systems their ban duration will be increased. It should be noted that they are on permanent probation.

Should ANY teams in Respawn be found housing this player, the team will be permanently removed from our competitions and all members involved will face severe penalties.

Before we get started, we’d just like to welcome everybody back, and thank you for returning for our fifth season! We hope you have all enjoyed the holiday break, and are ready for another season of Highlander. Respawn would also like to take this chance to thank everyone who has participated in our league thus far, without the support of this incredible community we wouldn't be able to do this. As always, if you've been around a while or are completely new to Competitive TF2, we've got you covered.

Each region will feature only one division, however we are open to splitting the divisions if we get enough teams to justify doing so. As always, the Swiss System will make a return to conduct our Regular Season, with our Playoffs using the Double Elimination system. You can expect to be up against your Sister Team for your first match this season (1st vs 2nd, 3rd vs 4th and so on). We do this to provide a fair entry into the season, and it gives teams a better idea of where they sit relative to everyone else. By pairing teams based on their season seedings for their first match, it better reinforces the admin seeding placement.

While the prior season’s playoffs brought in a BO5 Grand Final, we will be reverting to a BO3 Grand Final with one half per map for this season. The Regular Season will feature two maps per week yet again, however this time around we are cutting our total amount of maps down from 10 to 9. We are introducing this change to repeat more of the maps you like, and less of the ones you don’t.

We heard your feedback during the season and in the poll, and there are a plethora of changes we are introducing this season. While we cannot fit all of the details here, rest assured they will be linked here and will come in further detail closer to signups closing. But while on the topic of signups closing, February the 1st will be the last day of signups, with 11:59PM being the cut-off.

Continuing with the theme of feedback and changes, we have heavily discussed the possibility of changing the current Highlander roster limit from 15 to 17 (back to the original amount). To give some reference to this situation, we originally changed our limit from 17 to 15 to hopefully prosper a higher level of competition on the top end of our league, whilst also encouraging people to make their own teams, or otherwise be more committed. Whilst we see and understand some of the issues with the current limit, we feel that the current limit is objectively better overall.

However, we dropped the ball when originally instituting this limit, and thus are going to be making a push towards better introducing newer players to Highlander, an area where we feel we have fallen flat. Part of this process will be introducing more guides, improving the looking for team or players processes, along with an announcement. Our first off-season tournament will be focused at introducing newer players to Highlander, and while the details for this tournament are not confirmed yet, rest assured we will be working towards improving Highlander in our region.

You can refer to the Guides category of our Discord to see an updated list of server providers. We would like to thank every server provider, without your generosity we wouldn't be able to continue. In that channel, you can find a list of our configs, and at the bottom of this post you can find a Server Guide which can also help with Server Administration and some common questions.

Please remember that you NEED to be recording POV demos, and holding onto those POV demos for at least 3 months after the season. Failure to present the requested POV/s upon request by an administrator will now result in a 6 month ban. Treat this elevation in treatment as the last straw, and we hope this will encourage everybody to keep their POV demos recording.

We have also changed our rules and conditions around Match Casting, a link to the post can be found below. You will typically find all match coverage on our official channels. We have not tightened this up purely because of specific organizations, we have done this to offer further opportunity to other organizations to cast and promote games, as we really just want to help promote you and your organization through our platform, rather than being unaware of it until the last minute.

We would also like to give some thanks to KritzKast, our approved casting organization for Season V. We now consider any organization other than KritzKast unapproved, meaning they will need both team captains to approve, along with admin approval. Approved casting organizations can cast whichever game without the need for team captains to approve. We’ve instituted this change as we feel there are little to no justifiable reasons for not wanting coverage, and by making this change we can streamline the process of getting casts organized.

AU/NZ Highlander Season V - https://respawnleague.com/leagues/17
ASIA Highlander Season V - https://respawnleague.com/leagues/18

Helpful Links (click on them)

Map Schedule | Key Dates | Match Casting | Whitelist | Competitive Rules | Community Rules
Transfers | Player Pool vs Active Rosters | Roster Lock
Server Guide | Staff List

Discord allows us to reach you in a way we simply cannot here. Going forward into 2020, we will be making more use of Discord for announcements, with only important notices being mirrored here.

Yup, it’s that time again. We would like to thank and congratulate the teams who have made it into Asia Highlander Season 3 Playoffs. We would like to apologize for the delay, but we have had to not only resolve website issues, but also figure out the best way to host these Playoffs. This time around, the schedule will be significantly less chaotic than prior seasons due to the low number of teams, and Playoffs will be running for 3 weeks.

Badges for all formats and regions will be distributed at the conclusion of the last match of the season (recorded on the website). We are again testing out an automatic deployment, so we ask for some patience.

Playoffs Bracket Terminology

This will follow the same formatting as last season, with Winners and Losers brackets. Players should keep in mind that Grand Finals are technically separate, and will be treated as such.

Schedule

Below you can find a schedule used to illustrate what matches are played each week, with the allowed days being listed alongside the week / matches. As you have made it to playoffs, we expect that you ensure you and your team are available for a minimum of 3 days of each week. You will also find BO1 or BO3 next to each match, this is used to signify which match is a Best of 1 set scenario, and which are a Best of 3 set scenario.

Week 1: Winners Bracket Round 1 /BO1/ (Wednesday - Sunday)
Week 2: Winners Bracket Finals /BO3/
Week 3: Losers Bracket Round 1 /BO3/ (Wednesday - Sunday)
Week 4: Grand Finals /BO3/ (Wednesday - Sunday)

Map Pool

Upward
Proside
Warmfront
Badwater
Vanguard
Borneo
Swiftwater
Product
Steel
Ashville

Picks and Bans

Best of 1 set:

Home Team Bans
Away Team Bans
Home Team Bans
Away Team Bans
Home Team Picks

Best of 3 set:

Home Team Bans
Away Team Bans
Home Team Picks
Away Team Picks
Away Team Bans
Home Team Picks

Match Coverage

All requests to cast from unapproved Casting Organizations or Entities need to be run by an administrator. For official coverage of matches, follow KritzKast on Twitch. If you wish to seek approval, please read this thread first.

[Competitive Ruleset]