Newbie Guide

Welcome to ozfortress!

ozfortress is a community-run competition provider bringing Team Fortress competitions to Australia/New Zealand and the wider Oceanic community. Founded in 2001, ozfortress has been providing competitions and a community for over 23 years. As of 2024, ozfortress hosts Sixes (6v6) and Highlander (9v9) league tournaments triannually, with offseason tournaments between seasons including Ultiduo tournaments and various cups.

What is Competitive TF2?

Has top-scoring in casual and matchmaking servers become too easy for you? Looking for a challenge? Then competitive TF2 is for you. The most popular and widely played variety of competitive TF2 is the 6v6 format. 6v6 (or 6’s) is primarily played on 5CP and KOTH maps and focuses on fast-paced gameplay and strong team coordination. Unlike the 6v6 competitive matchmaking mode built into TF2, competitive Sixes are run through community leagues such as ozfortress and are more structured than Valve’s 6v6, with a highly competitive community and established metagame and ruleset.

9v9 is the other popular competitive TF2 game mode, known colloquially as Highlander. Each class is limited to one and the map pool consists primarily of Stopwatch and KOTH maps. Like Sixes (and since May of 2022), ozfortress has been running seasonal Highlander triannually. Highlander is typically seen as easier to approach, learn and play as a newer player, but don’t let that intimidate you from playing Sixes either!

Playing Sixes (6v6) in ozfortress

ozfortress offers 6v6 league tournaments three times a year through the warzone website for players in the Australasia region. Teams that enter these tournaments are grouped into the Open, Main, Intermediate or Premier brackets depending on their skill level and experience. All participants in ozfortress seasonal leagues receive an in-game medal, which depends on the final placement of your team in the division.

Sixes (6v6) Metagame

The metagame (or meta) is the most standard and accepted way of playing the game within the ruleset. This meta has been developed over the course of TF2’s lifetime and most teams will adhere to this meta as it is the most optimal way to play in many situations.

The most commonly run team composition in 6v6, also known as the cookie-cutter lineup, consists of 2 Scouts (a Combo Scout and a Flank Scout), 2 Soldiers (a Roaming Soldier and a Pocket Soldier), 1 Demoman and 1 Medic.

These 6 roles are often split into combo and flank classes. The combo consists of the Demoman, Medic, Pocket Soldier and Combo Scout and serves as the core of a 6v6 team, using their damage and healing to push together as a unit. The job of the flank (the Flank Scout and Roaming Soldier) is to harass, distract and indeed flank the other team, as well as to clean up kills on low-health players.

Other classes feature more occasionally in 6v6 TF2 as they aren’t viable all the time, but can be extremely effective in certain situations. This is referred to as off-classing and is usually done by those playing on the flank. Higher-HP classes such as Heavy are often used when defending your last control point while pick classes such as Sniper can be used to get an important frag when the enemy isn't expecting it.

Other rules and regulations that affect the Sixes metagame include the ozfortress Sixes whitelist and the ozfortress Sixes Competitive Ruleset.

Most competitive TF2 teams use VoIP programs to communicate with one another in-game. The most commonly used programs are Mumble and Discord.

If you want to see some high-level 6v6 action for yourself, you can check out the KritzKast and CappingTV for coverage of ozfortress matches and teamfortress.tv for coverage of European matches, and RGL for North American matches.

Playing Highlander (9v9) in ozfortress

ozfortress also offers 9v9 league tournaments three times a year through the warzone website for players in the Australasia region. Teams that enter these tournaments are grouped into the Main or Premier brackets depending on their skill level and experience, along with the number of teams that have signed up. All participants in ozfortress seasonal leagues receive an in-game medal, which depends on the final placement of your team in the division.

Highlander (9v9) Metagame

The metagame (or meta) is the most standard and accepted way of playing the game within the ruleset. This meta has been developed over the course of TF2’s lifetime and most teams will adhere to this meta as it is the most optimal way to play in many situations. However, for Highlander, each team is limited to one player on each class.

The most commonly run team composition in Highlander (and the only composition you can run), is one player on each of the nine classes.

These classes are often split into combo, flank and “flex” roles. The combo consists of the Pyro, Demoman, Heavy and Medic, and serves as the core of a team, using their damage and healing to push together as a unit. The job of the flank and “flex” roles is to harass and distract the other team, whilst also supporting their team’s combo in working towards the objective.

Other classes feature more occasionally in 6v6 TF2 as they aren’t viable all the time, but can be extremely effective in certain situations. This is referred to as off-classing and is usually done by those playing on the flank. Higher-HP classes such as Heavy are often used when defending your last control point while pick classes such as Sniper can be used to get an important frag when the enemy isn't expecting it.

Other rules and regulations that affect the Highlander metagame include the ozfortress Highlander whitelist and the ozfortress Highlander Competitive Ruleset.

Most competitive TF2 teams use VoIP programs to communicate with one another in-game. The most commonly used programs are Mumble and Discord.

If you want to see some high-level Highlander action for yourself, you can check out the KritzKast and CappingTV for coverage of ozfortress matches and KritzKastfor coverage of European matches, and RGL for North American matches.

Getting Started in ozfortress

So now you understand the fundamentals of the Sixes / Highlander format, it’s time to get started! First, pick a main class, usually the class that you are best at or have the most fun with. Mastering a single class is much more efficient and satisfying, however, some people enjoy changing classes every season in order to gain experience in multiple classes.

Next, join our Discord by clicking the widget to the right! The ozfortress Discord is used to find scrims, book servers, join a team, or even just chill out and talk about TF2. Each channel has a specific purpose including general TF2 chat, recruitment, and scrim requests.

The recruitment channels are your destination for making or joining a team. There is #format-lft (looking-for-team) channel for both Sixes and Highlander, for players like yourself who are looking for a team to join. Likewise, there is a channel for teams looking for players, aptly named #format-lfp, and they just might be looking for you! Have a scroll through the channel to see if there is a team suited for your preferences. If not, use the template in a pinned message in #format-lft and show the community who you are!

If you haven’t already, make an account by clicking the green Sign in with Steam button in the top right. All ozfortress tournaments are run through the ozfortress website, so you will need to make an account if you intend to join a team and compete!

Scrims, also known as scrimmages - are practice games played between two teams in order to improve as a team. The results do not count toward any league total and thus can be used as a great way for teams to try new things and hone their understanding of the game or format. Find scrims for your team in the #scrim channel in Discord! Typically scrims (and ozfortress official matches) are played between 8 - 10 PM AEST/AEDT (Sydney/Melbourne time).

Another way to practice is through PUGs (pickup games) and lobbies. These are hosted on community websites or through ozfortress servers! These are also a good way to make yourself known in the community and meet new people while practising sixes.

For more information about booking servers to play on and setting them up, visit Book a Server and Server Configs within the Help tab above! At the end of every game, a statistics page is generated at logs.tf and details kill, damage and more for each player!

Want more information on what we just talked about? Visit playcomp.tf and comp.tf!

Have any other questions? You may want to check out our FAQ section or feel free to ask in Discord.

We hope to see you in ozfortress soon!