[ MISC ]

• Added a description note to Souvenir Highlight Packages explaining that they will become tradable and marketable after 7 days.
  
• Various stability improvements.

It’s that time of year again. The gentle sea breeze... digging holes in the sand... seagulls flying above, looking for the best time to steal an entire hotdog right out of your hands... Sounds nice doesn’t it? Well there’s no time for relaxing now, Soldier! Gray Mann’s army is back with a vengeance, and thousands of robotic abominations are storming across those very beaches as we speak. It’s time to get out there and fight unless you want this to be the last summer you'll ever get! Gray Mann is coming for a lot more than your hotdogs and if you don’t fight back hard and fast, there won’t be any more hotdogs left for those flying beach rats to take...

Operation Bolted Barbecue is a new Mann vs. Machine charity event brought to you by Potato MvM! Complete over 50 missions across new and returning maps! Complete at least 10 missions to receive an in-game medal! Event servers are available across the world. Click here to get started!

Feeling generous? http://potato.tf/ is also hosting a charity fundraiser supporting Direct Relief! Donate as little as $5 to receive an in-game medal! Have the link to your Steam profile ready and click here for more information.

Destroy those robots while you can! The event will run until October 15th, 2025.

Important Links:

• Event Website
  
• Discord
  
• Steam Group

[ AUSTIN 2025 MAJOR ]

• Champions Autographs Capsule is now available for purchase, congratulations to Team Vitality!
  
• Highlight Souvenir Packages can now be acquired for the Playoff matches.

[ MISC ]

• Added in-game lobby voice chat and voice chat during Premier Pick/Ban phase.
  
• Fixed bad command flows in point_servercommand entities.
  
• Fixed community maps not reloading correctly with "restart" command.
  
• Buy binds are now disabled during halftime freeze phase.
  
• Fixed scoreboard column text formatting in Japanese.

Over four days, the Moody Center in Austin, Texas hosted Team Vitality's coronation as the best Counter-Strike team on the planet.

Facing The MongolZ in the Grand Finals, Team Vitality lost the opening map 13:5, then stormed back on the next two, winning 13:4 on Dust II and 13:6 on Inferno to win the BLAST.tv Austin Major and the organization's second Major Championship.


To celebrate, today we are releasing the Major Champions Capsule, featuring Paper, Foil, Holo, and Gold stickers autographed by one of the Champions from Team Vitality.

And for the first time, we are introducing Souvenir Charms. Each Playoff Stage Souvenir comes with a Souvenir Charm that contains a highlight from the match.

Finally, Season Two of Premier ends on July 14th. To receive your Premier Season Two Medal, you must have 25 Season Two Premier wins and a visible CSR when the Season concludes.

See you soon for Premier Season Three!

An update has been released for Portal:

- Fixed some fire effects not working in some mods.

Patch 7.39c is out now and you can check out the patch notes here.

In addition, over the last few days we've addressed the following issues:

• Allow items which are locked for combining to be delivered by the courier

• Fixed Abaddon's Mist Coil not dealing self damage when cast on enemies with The Quickening facet

• Fixed several bugs where changing styles in the armory didn't update your model's appearance in demo mode.

• Fixed a bug where changing styles while previewing an item in demo mode would not update the large preview in the armory.

• Added a new setting hero specific setting for Rubick to allow players to configure what quickcast mode should be used by stolen spells.

• Fixed Ghost Walk's duration being refreshed every time Aghanim's Scepter was dropped or picked up.

• Fixed Elder Titan being able to repeatedly get the same Damage and Debuff Immunity buffs by alt casting stomp without casting Astral Spirit

• Fixed Lich's Level 25 "Frost Shield Provides +50 HP Regen" working on units with pip-based health (Undying Tombstone, Shadow Shaman Mass Serpent Wards, etc)

• Fixed Exorcism spirits not respecting the equipped cosmetic

• Fixed a bug where items could not be dragged from a courier's inventory to the stash, but could instead only be put in the stash via the Return Items ability

• Fixed not showing an error message when requesting delivery and the courier is dead

• Fixed courier preserving its orders through death and respawn

• Fixed Queen of Pain's Sonic Wave dealing infinite damage and healing when cast on a unit with very high status resistance

• Fixed units forever being stuck at 1hp as a knock on effect of something doing infinite healing

• Fixed "Owned By:" tag showing up on items used while in fog of war on dire side only

• Fixed Undying level 20 talent not spawning Tombstone on death

• Fixed being able to activate a watcher when two allies decapture the same watcher

Thirteen years ago, we launched Mann vs. Machine, a chilling cautionary tale where an artificial consciousness tried to take all our jobs. You didn't know it back then, but that was actually a literary device called "speculative" fiction, where writers (us) accurately predict the future (the present), but then hide it so as not to cause widespread panic.

In an effort to keep panic levels low, and apropos of nothing, we'd like to tell you a story: Once upon a time, a Mann vs. Machine mode in a video game was getting a much-needed update. And so a brave blog post writer (us again) asked the community to submit Mann vs. Machine maps and missions in time for that update. (For the sake of this panic-reducing speculative fantasy, let's put the fictional deadline at Wednesday, August 27th).

If that was the entire story, you'd already be at a low panic level but vaguely concerned about a looming dystopian future (mission accomplished). But as is traditional in the genre of speculative blog fiction, there's more! The king of the fictional land where this all happened (ancient Greece), decreed on stone tablets that even though the update was dropping right around the ancient Greek candy-harvest festival of Halloween, the maps did not need to all be Halloween-themed (first tablet) and in fact shouldn't be (second tablet).

"Though some of them COULD be," the king carved into a third tablet, held in the stone hands of a statue... of PRIMATE GEORGE WASHINGTON? No! It's just regular George Washington in a dystopian future past where our sculptors are NOT AS GOOD AS IN ANCIENT GREECE! What an ending! (The end.)

Is this tale a simple flight of gripping, well-written fancy? (No.) Or a chilling glimpse into a future that could arrive as soon as, again, Wednesday, August 27th with a second part arriving right before Halloween? (Yes, see paragraph one.)

After three Stages and six Playoff matchups, two teams have advanced to the Grand Finals of the BLAST.tv Austin Major.

Team Vitality, the #1 ranked team in the world, defeated Natus Vincere 2-0 in the Quarters and MOUZ 2-1 in the Semis to punch their ticket to the Grand Finals. This is the organization's second Grand Finals appearance and first since they won the Paris 2023 Major.

On the other side of the Playoff bracket, The MongolZ defeated both FaZe Clan and paiN Gaming 2-0, and now look to become the first Asian team to win a Major Championship.

The Grand Finals begin tomorrow, June 22nd at 12:30 CDT. Don't miss a second!

And as we enter the final day of the BLAST.tv Austin Major, team and player stickers are still available, with 50% of the proceeds going to the players, teams, and participating organizations.

Good luck to both teams!

After three Stages of the BLAST.tv Austin Major, eight teams have survived and advanced to the Playoffs. The Moody Center will host sold out crowds for four days to determine 2025’s first Major Champions.

Stage 3 saw fierce competition, with surprising upsets, come-from-behind victories and too many overtimes to count. There are stories abound in Austin, and every team has forged their own path to this moment. Who will come out on top?

Find out on Thursday, June 19th when the Playoff Stage kicks off between Team Spirit and MOUZ, and don’t forget to make picks for all Playoff Stage matches prior to the start of the first match!

As we reach the Major’s final stage, there's still time to support your favorite teams. Team and player stickers are available, with 50% of the proceeds going to the players, teams, and organizations participating in the BLAST.tv Austin Major.

See you in Austin!

AsiaFortress Liquid.tf is excited to announce its first-ever 6v6 Gibus Cup, which is a competitive TF2 tournament tailored for newcomers in the Asian region. If you're new to competitive TF2 and want to give it a try, this is the perfect place to start!

Signups are for individuals, and you will be put on a team with a dedicated coach.
Participants who play all their games will also receive an in-game medal.

This event is being hosted in loving memory of Moonchild and jR who loved Team Fortress 2 and were long-time members of their community.

Join their Discord for more information and to sign up!

Important Links:

• Twitch
  
• YouTube
  
• Twitter
  
• Discord
  
• Asiafortress