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Traditional Sixes is coming to RGL

   sigafoo   - 4/29/2019
I'm happy to announce some big news around RGL, we are going to be hosting a Traditional Sixes league. Traditional sixes is the longest running competitive format for TF2 and often considered the most prestigious. We excited to have a chance to show a new player base why RGL has quickly become the largest TF2 League in North America.

Let's talk details! The league is still a little ways away, but we can start to talk to you about some ideas that we're having for the league.

If you're interested in joining the RGL staff, you can apply here.

Prize pool


We are expecting to have a prize pool between $8,000-$10,000.

Yes, that much. No this is not a crazy number, this is a sustainable number that we calculated out based on the league size, and growth we expect to have in a sixes league from players who come over from our Prolander and Highlander leagues.

LAN


We've been thinking about doing a LAN for a while, but have been waiting for the right time. We've been scouting possible locations, getting estimates of cost, housing for players, etc... and we are getting closer to have concrete plans in place.

Our current plan is to have a playoffs LAN for our two most popular formats in our fall league. This would likely be for Highlander and Traditional Sixes. It'd be a weekend tournament held in early January. The location would be in the midwest. The current locations we're actively looking into are: Milwaukee, Chicago or Minneapolis.

It's very important to note, that these are tentative plans, but we have no intention of baiting players or dangling this over their head. We will confirm 100% yes or no on the LAN when we officially announce our league. So teams/players can plan ahead if they think they can be one of the top 4 teams in Invite.

Divisions


RGL believes in having more divisions, that are smaller and closer in skill. The rule of thumb we try to go by is: We want every team in a div to have a chance at reaching playoffs. Obviously that cannot be 100% true every time, but that is what we strive for.

The current expected division structure would look like this:

- *Invite (8 teams)
- *Advance (8 teams)
- *Main (8+)
- *IM (8+)
- Open (8+)
- Newbie (8+)

* = Paid divisions with prize pools

Anti-sandbagging


RGL has always taken a stance against players trying to sandbag down multiple divisions. It hurts the integrity of your league and is not fun to play against. And often players that claim they're going to off class, switch back to their mains as soon as they start losing.

This is something that we take seriously at RGL and actively fight against. Teams can be forced up and in extreme cases, players could be suspended.

Servers


We plan to have enough servers to cover all of the matches in the league. We can easily scale up as needed. We also are working on a service so teams can use our excess servers for scrims and lobbies during non-match times.

RGL has been providing servers for matches since the beginning of the league, but we'll be focusing on making this more streamlined. To have a server easily set up for you and connect through the website.

Whitelist / Map List / Match timers / League structure


Since a majority of our player base is coming from ESEA, it only makes sense to have them come into a league that is familiar to them. We expect to use a whitelist similar to ESEA. The map list is expected to be close as well.

I know one item that will be brought up is the Cow Mangler. Which is not broken on its own in a class diverse format, but in traditional sixes, it can cross the boundary of broken since there's almost never any downside to it. And definitely will be on the table to be banned again.

When it comes to these issues we will have a small council of Invite leaders to come together to discuss these ideas. I also plan to personally talk to as many players as I can directly about their experiences with ESEA, past, and present. To find the flaws and successes that they had and how we can recreate their successes and brainstorm ideas for the flaws.

Beyond Sixes


RGL's website has been consistently updated since launch with a responsive team to bugs and issues. We're looking forward to adding some new functionality to the site by summer.

Site face lift

The site has functioned well but has always been a little basic. We are doing a redesign for every page on the website to have a more modern feel and design.

We also want to allow more customization on the website for teams and players. Though we'll hold those exact details closer to the launch of the redesign.

PUG Platform

We believe that it's important for players to have a place where they can easily practice the formats they love. Whether it's HL, Sixes, Prolander, etc... After the site redesign, we will be focusing on building a flexible PUG system that will support multiple formats.

This is still in the design phase, but we will keep you updated with our progress. In the meantime, you can join our discord channel where we have over 1,400 players signed up to play in our admin ran PUGs.

Final words


We cannot wait to have a chance to show traditional sixes players what RGL is all about and we hope that you'll consider trying out us out when we launch this league.