We bring you the vital details on tomorrow's cross-community Team Fortress 2 orgy

Things have been coming together at a rapid pace for the inaugural Free2Play Invitational Cup, which has been sired from the reputable stables of ETF2L and VanillaTF2 yet seemingly claims affiliation to neither… a strange breed indeed.

If you missed Richard Lewis' announcement, the basic concept is that four teams from the top level in other scenes throw down in the cartoon confines of Team Fortress 2 under the tutelage of a few good medics.

The Counter-Strike Source, Call of Duty 4, Brink and Left 4 Dead 2 competitive scenes will all be represented this time around, perhaps settling once and for all which is the best title... but I digress, this is all about showcasing competitive Team Fortress 2; a game who’s popularity exploded over night a month ago when Valve released their baby in to the Free2Play wilderness. Never really considered a fully fledged competitive title outside of its own circle, this is an opportunity to bring the intense teamwork and crazy airshots that punctuate matches to a wider audience of gamers.

The action begins on Thursday evening with a round-robin format where every team will play each other once before the top two play-off to decide who will go on to face the celebrity roster featuring the likes of Robin Walker, Total Biscuit and our own Richard Lewis at a later date.

Games will be played in the standard competitive format with six players per side and a limit of one demoman and one medic per team (all other classes limited to two per team). To make things easy for our fresh-faced competitors, all games will take place over 20 minutes on Badlands with all unlocks restricted bar Übersaw and Kritzkrieg.

The Teams

Finding out who exactly is playing for each of the four teams has not proven an easy task, but I can confirm the mentors assigned to each team will be as below:

CKRAS Counter-Strike Source mentored by F2

Epsilon Call of Duty 4 mentored by KnOxXx

Epsilon Brink mentored by Admirable

Xotic Left 4 Dead 2 mentored by skeej

I’ve had the privilege of playing a few practise wars with my very own band of merry Dutchmen (sorry Rulah!), Epsilon eSports’ Brink squad, and so far the experience has been good. As you might expect, the demoman and soldier classes have proven slightly harder to pick-up than scout, where the mechanics such as rocket jumping are rarely seen outside of the Quake family.

However, the aptitude of the players and their willingness to learn is as clear as day; these guys are serious gamers, and even though this is a fun tournament and you might not see the pinnacle of competitive Team Fortress 2 on display, you can bet your bottom dollar every team here is out to win.

The Schedule

The Coverage

Casting powerhouse VanillaTV will be on point for the coverage of this event, which incidentally falls on the same night as the UGC Highlander Grand Final and the ESL Season VII Premiership Grand Final. Casting resources are definitely spread thin but our friends from across the pond at eXtelevision have also stepped in to burden the heavy load of awesomeness.

Although details are not fully confirmed, I expect you will be able to catch at least one game from each round on the stream as well as SourceTV for every game and quite possibly mumble comms available for every team. Keep in the loop here on Cadred and with our brothers in arms at VanillaTF2.

Free2Play Invitational Promo Poster
VanillaTV