HL Season 18 New Team Registration End Date

RGL HL S6 League Structure, Map Pool, Qualifiers, and More (Part 1)

exa - 6/2/2020

Register Now For Season 6

Important Details

New Team Registration Ends : June 9th (Invite registration ends June 1st @ 6 PM EST)
Advanced Qualifiers: June 6th – June 7th
Placement of Teams: June 11th
Invite Fees Due: June 15th
Regular Season: June 15th – July 27th (7 Weeks)
Roster Locks: July 20th
Playoffs: August 3rd – August 17th* (3 Weeks)

* Invite/Adv will have GF an extra week if double-elimination is run.

How to find a team to join

Finding a team is not hard, but it does require you to put in a little effort.

New Players to Competitive:

We encourage you to make a post in the websites Looking For Team (LFT) section and also post in our Discord #lft channel.

You should also contact leaders of teams who need a player. You can find them listed in the Teams Looking for Players (LFP) section and also the LFP section of our Discord #lfp channel.

Experienced Players to Competitive:

We particularly encourage you to make a thread on the RGL HL LFT forums section. This will allow you to advertise yourself to higher profile teams.

Browsing the LFP section of the forums will also present you with many teams that are looking to recruit players.

Survey Results

RGL Highlander Season 5 Postseason Survey (All Division Results)
RGL Highlander Season 5 Postseason Survey (Invite Division Results)
RGL Highlander Experimental Map Cup #3 Survey

Here are the results for the Season 5 Postseason and the Experimental Map Cup #3 Survey. Throughout this article, Season 6 changes that were made as directly as a result of community feedback are highlighted.

Map Pool

We have finished gathering feedback from the Experimental Map Cup, as well as a map survey after the cup to determine the remaining map pool for Season 6 Highlander.

With a majority of our playerbase (as well as the Invite player result) voting for Cascade to be removed, koth_lakeside_final will have the slot for the Season 6 map pool.

Here is a list of confirmed maps for the upcoming season:

koth_product_rcx
koth_lakeside_final
koth_ashville_rc2b
pl_swiftwater_final1
pl_upward
pl_vigil_rc7
cp_steel

NOTE: The latest versions of each map will be played. The map order will be announced in a future article before match schedules are released.

All Divisions Structure

With Season 6 of RGL Highlander beginning, there are many changes that we wish to change or improve on that were either successful or were not very well received by players in the fifth season.

Invite

With a majority of Invite players in this survey result voting for fees to cover RGL costs, we will be going through with this decision.

Team Fees will be adjusted t0 $90 per team. This will be to total at least $700 to cover RGL costs (website upkeep, league volunteers, etc.)
We will be looking to have Invite HL matches covered each week, as well as team logos made for each team.

More details on how these costs will be distributed will be in subsequent articles.

Advanced

For Season 6 of RGL Highlander, we will be implementing an Advanced Preseason Qualifier. The qualifiers will take place from June 6th - June 7th (8:30/9:30 ET on Saturday and 9:30 ET Sunday). There will be set maps for each match using the Season 6 map pool. The first match will be on Upward, the second match will be on Product, and the third match will be decided using a map pick/ban system.

The teams guaranteed to compete in Advanced for Season 6 are:

The Frat House
Seductive 9
Home Depot Esports
Raven’s Team
Oprah Winfrey Network
Has anyone seen baski?
Chill Penguins

For the preseason qualifiers, we will feature 1 group of 4 teams in a group stage structure. We will be running an 8-team Advanced. The top team will earn their spot in Advanced for Season 6. The confirmed teams that were chosen are a mix of 2 returning teams from Season 5 and new, strong forming teams for Season 6.

The four teams competing in the Advanced qualifiers are:

Not The Worst Guys
Disingenuous Assertions
World Circus
Pencils

Regarding the teams that get knocked down into Advanced, we are looking to lax the guidelines for Advanced players participating in this division.

Regular Season

Invite and Advanced will feature an 8-team round-robin format.
Main, Intermediate, and Open will feature a Swiss-format.

Playoffs

The number of playoff spots may grow/shrink depending on division size before Week 1.

Invite - double-elimination structure - top 4 teams
Advanced - double-elimination structure - top 4 teams
Main - single-elimination Swiss bracket - top 6 teams
Intermediate - single-elimination Swiss bracket - top 8 teams
Open division - single-elimination Swiss bracket - top 8 teams

Lower bracket final match will be played on Monday. Grand Finals (if it gets to a second match) must be rescheduled to a day that works for both teams.

Please note that a team’s division is still subject to change as the week goes on or if a team leader can make a compelling case for being in a division. Players that leave and join new rosters during the season will also be monitored. If you believe that a team should be in a different division, you can contact us here on Discord.

Rule Changes

We have spent a good amount of time this offseason to continue work on updating our rules. You can view the full updated rules here.

This rule covers in-game match disputes and for teams to finish the remainder of their match if arbitration takes longer than 20-minutes.

This rule covers the new roster transactions feature in RGL as a deterrent to sandbagging in the league.

NOTE: It must be mentioned that the divisions and skill ranges may vary for all of the above - this is just a basic guideline. Admins must review each individual through a case-by-case process. Plans to move these in the global rules will be discussed in a separate article.

Other

Staffing Changes

We have recruited new division moderators and admins for Season 6.

The following reflects the updated positions of each admin in RGL HL:

Head Admin – exa_
Invite – Asher
Advanced – Space Ghost's Coffee
Main – Micahlele
Intermediate – WiLLmaTiC
Open – Powerpuker

The following reflects the updated positions of each division moderator in RGL HL

Advanced - Arzt Hispanian
Main - Inquisition & Constantly
Intermediate – Lasky
Open – Nerdaloid & Klowwd

Roster Transactions

This was polled after Season 4, but the system to roster transactions after division placement and registration has been completed.

Now effective for RGL Highlander Season 6, when a player join request is approved by team leaders the joining player will enter a “pending administrative review” status on the roster. Administrators may deny a team join request if the skill level of the player is inappropriate for the division. Extra scrutiny towards roster transactions among teams already at the top of their divisions will be given. Class restrictions or locks may be given to players on approval and will be noted appropriately on their team page. It is not expected that much oversight will be needed, but we hope to avoid cases seen during past seasons where the top teams inside of divisions were able to roster inappropriately skilled players.

Roster transaction rules will not apply to the Invite division.

Player eligibility for matches as a non-ringer will be granted after the admin review status is removed, provided they have been on the roster for 18 hours (including time pending review). As a reminder, teams are still granted the ability to use a default ringer inside of RGL matches, if they follow the necessary criteria as specified in our rules. In the event of administrators taking longer than reasonable to review roster transactions, please alert staff so that your players may be cleared for matches in a timely manner.