Another Invite offseason, another roster reload. The LunatiK eSports of last season is no more, losing many players of the Season 25 campaign along with their sponsorship. With new faces and a new name, Black Swan gears up for another shot at Invite glory.

Black Swan is a team full of young, talented gamers. Almost all of their players started playing ESEA within the past five seasons, so their rapid ascension to Invite is noteworthy. The only returning member from the Season 25 roster is roaming soldier Speedy, though scout jynx joined for the last few matches of the season after playing with Meat Market. Demoman exile and scout midas spent last season as part of playoff Open teams, but both have made Intermediate playoff appearances as well, another testament to their up-and-comer status.

Team leader ether played pocket briefly for Fable eSports last season, and will reprise the same role in Season 26. He returns to a roster where he spent a couple seasons in Intermediate under names The Baddies and Dexter's Lab. These teams also featured jynx, midas, and Speedy along the way so they are all familiar with each other. Last but certainly not least, MR SLIN returns to ESEA after a three season hiatus, and his wealth of knowledge about the game will certainly be a boon to these rising talents.

exile shed some light on the sponsorship loss as well as his excitement playing with the new lineup:

Well the whole sponsorship thing was kind of up in the air during the Invite team last season. It was originally going to stay with the next upcoming roster, but a lot of problems occurred last season so the team ended up dying, as did the sponsor. We decided that it would be best for us to just rebrand and hopefully if a promising sponsor comes around we can use that. As for expectations and goals for the season, we want to do decent enough for our team to be motivated to continue playing together, and not fall apart before playoffs come around. We have a lot of tinkering to do with our team dynamic and our different playstyles, but once we find a good balance for our players, we feel that we can totally have a good showing this season. Playing with MR SLIN has been super fun for all of us, because he has a lot of knowledge of the game that we don't really consider when we're scrimming. He definitely stepped up for these scrims we have had before our matches, and I'm glad he has stepped up to the level he did.

We also got a statement from ether on how the team came together and what to expect from them in Season 26:

Our team was an idea tossed around at the end of Season 25 when we realized that there's no quitting this game. Most of us have played with each other during Season 24 so it's nice to get to play with former teammates again. We're looking to really improve our game this season and hopefully get a few wins along the way.

The new and improved Black Swan ready to take flight this season is:

• Scout: midas
• Scout: jynx
• Roamer: Speedy
• Pocket: ether
• Demoman: exile
• Medic: MR SLIN