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With The International 2014 steadily approaching its finale and a pair of new work-in-progress Team Fortress 2 maps hanging out in the wild, this week's ValveTime News Round-Up is of course instead focused on videos and Source Filmmaker shorts...for some reason.

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After a hectic and rather unpredictable four day Round-robin event during Phase Two of The International 2014, six teams have been eliminated as the remaining top ten split into two separate groups. Be warned, as major spoilers for the tournament lurk below.

At the end of Phase Two on September 12th 2014, Arrow Gaming, Na'Vi US, Fnatic, Team Empire, Alliance, and mousesports have all been eliminated from the tournament after failing to gain enough points to secure their survival. NewBee, LGD Gaming, and mousesports were all briefly locked in a Best-Of-Three head-to-head to decide which of their teams would be sent home once all three found themselves with a score of 7-8 after all matches had been played out. Ultimately, NewBee and LGD won out, moving them straight into the third and final phase of the Playoffs alongside Titan, Team Liquid, Cloud9, Na'Vi, Invictus Gaming, and Team DK.

ViCi Gaming and Evil Geniuses, who scored 12-3 and 11-4, respectively, will be skipping Phase Three all together and heading straight into the upper bracket of the main event, securing both teams a minimum of over $500,000 in prize money. On Sunday 13th and Monday 14th, Phase Three of the tournament will play out, after which two more teams will be eliminated before the remaining eight progress into either the upper or lower bracket of the main event at KeyArena on July 18th.

If you're looking to stay up to date with the tournament or if you want to learn more about how it is playing out, be sure to check up on the TI4 Overview page on the Dota 2 blog or our very own International 2014 Spotlight Guide! Good luck to all the remaining teams!

Late last night, Valve revealed the "Mann Co. Beta Maps" program, a new early access system for Team Fortress 2 which allows the community to test unfinished or unpolished maps to send gameplay feedback straight back to the developers. This effectively allows for large scale map testing, something which should provide more detailed feedback to help Valve perfect the design and visuals of new levels and gamemodes in a shorter period of time.
In order to get the ball rolling, Valve have introduced two new maps in the form of a Payload map by the name of "pl_cactuscanyon" and a space-themed map known as "rd_asteroid", the first of a new gamemode by the name of "Robot Destruction". Cactus Canyon stands as a two-stage Payload map with a large focus on vertical gameplay, while Asteroid features two symmetrical bases filled with team-coloured robots which need to be destroyed in order to build up enough points to win the round.

Both new maps can be accessed on official Valve servers by clicking "Play Beta Maps" on the "Play Multiplayer" matchmaking tab within the main menu. It is important to note that both of these maps are far from being finished, and we imagine both feature balance issues alongside the more obvious unfinished visuals and detailing. Beta maps will be updated extremely regularly as Valve improves balance or introduces new areas or mechanics, so expect to see them evolve quickly.

The update released to TF2 last night also introduce two new songs from the Expiration Date short released last month, entitled "Red Bread", and "Night of the Living Bread", both of which you can find within the game files and across YouTube. For a closer look at yesterday's update and the new Early Access map testing program, be sure to check out the official changelog and the announcement blog post.

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The first day of The International 2014 Playoffs has now concluded, bringing the Wild Card tournament to a close. As qualifier runner-ups, Virtus.Pro, MVP Phoenix, CIS Game, and Team Liquid were all determined to make it through the Wild Card tournament in order to secure the 16th and final spot in the rest of the Playoffs. Be careful if you're looking to watch the Wild Card matches for yourself as spoilers will follow, so don't say we didn't warn you!