Prepare yourself for another weekend of non-stop gaming! Insomnia63; the largest event on the TF2 Calendar, is here! Top teams from across the world will be in attendance for the Team Fortress 2 Open, to play for the lion's share of one of the largest prize pools of the year.

Insomnia63 takes place at the NEC in Birmingham, England; across 3 days of play, August 24th-26th. Only on LAN could you see some of the best gameplay TF2 has to offer and it will come to its finale on the main stage as the two best teams throwdown to find which team is the best in the world and hold aloft the cardboard cheque.

If you can't join us at the event you can always join us on stream and watch the games live on the Essentials.TF Twitch channel with a top level coverage team. You can also track the tournament and support the teams by visiting LAN.TF for all the latest info.

HLMixes is organizing their Highlander Cup! The tournament starts in September, so hurry and get your team signed up! Details for the tournament can be found here!

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include:

• Added UGC Highlander Season 24, Highlander Season 25, 6v6 Season 26, 6v6 Season 27, 4v4 Season 13, and 4v4 Season 14 tournament medals
• Added TFCL 6v6 Season 4, Ultiduo Season 5, and Highlander Season 2 tournament medals
• Added TF2Maps 72hr TF2Jam Summer Participant 2018 community medal
• Added Insomnia 63 tournament medals
• Added Essentials.TF monthly tournament medals
• Updated the localization files

If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight! Sun Tzu said that and these players sure as hell believe it! Essentials.TF are bringing monthly tournaments to TF2 in both the EU and NA regions for August, sponsored by Marketplace.tf.

There's only a few days left to sign up for the EU monthly and not much longer than that for NA. You can sign up to play in EU here and to play in NA here. There's plenty of prize pool to play for and medals to be earned just for playing, so join us for some weekend combat.

If you're just looking for some good games to watch, you can watch it live on the Essentials.TF Twitch channel. Want to know more? Take a look at our announcement articles for the EU Monthly and the NA Monthly on Essentials.TF.

The Blapature Co. Charity Bash, a 24-hour Team Fortress 2 charity livestream, kicks off this weekend! Starting on Saturday, July 28th, at 7pm CEST, join a host of personalities from the Team Fortress 2 community as they raise money for Child's Play Charity. Everyone who donates at least $5 will receive a special in-game medal. There are additional medal styles available for larger donations! During the stream we'll cover a large variety of gameplay types and content, including competitive TF2, custom community servers, TF2 trading and more!

The stream will be broadcast live on the Essentials.TF Twitch Channel. To donate cash, visit the event donation page. You can also donate in-game TF2 items through Scrap.TF. Donating at least $5 worth of items will still earn you a medal!

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include:

• Added NHBL Heavyweight Champion Season 7 tournament medal
• Added TF2Maps 72hr Summer Jam 2018 community medal
• Added Chapelaria Ultiduo Gladiator Season 2 tournament medals
• Added Newbie Highlander Season 2 tournament medals
• Added Newbie Prolander Season 3 tournament medals
• Added Rally Call 2018 community medals
• Fixed tooltips for Fabricator items being truncated on OS X and Linux clients

RGL.gg is bringing Prolander to Australia! Thanks to STN.tf and CPU Servers, we are hosting our very first Australian One Day Cup. This will be a FREE tournament open to players of all skill levels, and best of all, half of the teams that enter will win keys! During the cup, you will be playing against teams of similar skill, so you don't have to worry about playing against the top players. Additionally, if you don't have a team, you can queue as an individual player and be placed into a team by us!

The cup is on July 21st, starting at 4pm AEST. Every team will play at least three matches, on payload and king of the hill maps, with the cup will lasting about six hours. New team registration ends on July 18th. Players who are looking for a team can post in the LFT section of the RGL cup website. More information and registration is at the Cup.AU.RGL.gg website.

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include:

• Added tournament/community medals for HLMixes, Hydro.tf, Ready Steady Pan Season 4, and Blapature
• Tweaked Competitive Mode MMR calculations
  • MMR mobility increased somewhat across the board
  • Players who have high game counts relative to the rest of the player base should see fewer adjustments of 1 or 0 MMR
• Updated pl_enclosure_final to fix a displacement hole in stage two
• Updated Test Run items such that the discount is not valid if the item is already on sale in the Mann Co. Store
• Updated the models for The Frontier Djustice, The Rotation Sensation, and the Elf Esteem to fix display problems with unusual effects
• Fixed some currencies not properly calculating the Test Run discount, which prevented being able to purchase the item
• Updated the localization files

(Image credit - HeroArt110)

Signups for Ready Steady Pan Season 4 are finally open! We're very excited for all the frying pan action throughout the season, but one thing you may be asking yourself is "where do I signup?". The website is open for team and user registration over at Pan.tf, where you can also look for teams and players on the forums. Signups end on July 2nd, so be sure to get your teams ready for the ultimate pandemonium that is Ready Steady Pan!

NOTE: Preseason matches start during the week of July 25th.

For those who are new: Ready Steady Pan is a semi-competitive league involving the frying pan as the only damage dealing weapon allowed, as well as food and jumper weapons. If you want to connect with others participating in the season or want to get in contact with the many helpers that are volunteering, you can check out our Discord server on our website.

LuckyLukeTF2 is back with the Top 10 Plays from the Copenhagen LAN 2018! The Top 10 Plays is a monthly series and you can catch up on all of the episodes here.

DanishActionHero has also created an exciting video of the best frags and moments!