NA TF2’s first action of the new year comes in the form of the RGL Winter Cup, with a swiss group happening on Saturday, January 9th and playoffs the following day. The cup’s Invite division features eight teams, with familiar faces aplenty as well as names that you may not have heard of, well, not yet anyways. But good news! If you continue reading, you can hear about them and be “in the know” with all the cool kids.

froyotech

• Scout: arekk
• Scout: b4nny
• Roamer: blaze
• Pocket: jayhyunpae
• Demoman: habib
• Medic: skeez

New year, same FROYO. The reigning Invite champs have made no changes to the lineup that just can't stop winning, and they enter the tournament as favorites as a result. Their trophy case is probably getting crowded at this point, but team leader b4nny isn’t the type to tire of winning. He, habib, and arekk make up the core of the modern froyotech, and have rattled off four straight gold medals since RGL came to be. This past season, they brought blaze back into the fold to replace the departing paddie, adding both one of the game’s best Roaming Soldiers and more forehead acreage than any one team could ever need. With a core that’s proven itself time and time again, if you're a betting man, you can’t go wrong cheering for froyotech.

KUOD Damage

• Scout: phone
• Scout: KJKUOD
• Roamer: Alexandros
• Pocket: pauldogg / Hunter 2.0
• Demoman: STOCK
• Medic: lucrative

Featuring three former MAD LUXURIOUS members in lucrative, KJKUOD, and pauldogg, KUOD Damage is a classic group given a facelift to contend with some of the Winter Cup’s heavy hitters. Scout phone, who last played Invite in Season 3 with The Microwave, gets the call to Scout alongside KJKUOD. Demoman STOCK is back from a Div-2 adventure during his time in Stock Market, and is ready to play with the top dogs again. Roaming for KUOD Damage will be Alexandros, who played Invite most recently with Season 3's ah shie. He will be the only Roaming Soldier playing for KUOD during the cup, the team will follow in the footsteps of jackets worldwide and have two Pockets due to pauldogg’s work commitments. When needed, everyone's favorite element Hunter 2.0 will step in to fill pauldogg’s Gunboats. No matter who they have playing Pocket, KUOD Damage have laid a strong foundation leading into their debut tournament and are almost certainly going to play better than they can spell.

Dorscent

• Scout: slemnish
• Scout: branslam
• Roamer: laz
• Pocket: ash
• Demoman: xaler
• Medic: cookiejake

An aptly named fusion of the Dorsia and Ascent teams that both earned top-four finishes in Invite S3, Dorscent features both proven talent and established chemistry. branslam and ash are fresh off a second place finish in invite as members of Corsia, a team that also had xaler and cookiejake roster riding the kart. Right behind them in third place was laz, competing for Morning Light. Slemnish took last season off, shortly after another run in with his 2nd place curse in ETF2L Season 36, and just short of that in the DreamHack Community Clash with 3 frenchies is the winning number. But now he'll cross back over the Atlantic to face his old NA rivals, Even if they haven't met in a minute, the slamnish Scout combo is still a scary sight for any opposition. All eyes are on them to put on a good show.

Kronge Realm Y-3

• Scout: bwelp
• Scout: animus
• Roamer: Skele
• Pocket: Alley
• Demoman: nomi
• Medic: Plaidinium

Froyotech aren’t the only team in this tournament fresh off a first place finish. Kronge Realm Y-3 (then under their Off-White variant) came out of the lower bracket and defeated favorites MILKIES to win the Season 4 Div-1 title. While new to Invite, some iteration of the Kronge group has existed in RGL Advanced/Div-1 since S2’s silver medalist Happy Kronge Bois, which featured Plaidinium, nomi, Skele, and Alley. Now unburdened by the class restrictions that governed their successful Div-1 campaign, Skele and bwelp will be swapping classes. A good team gets better. The Kronge comes for us all.

Alan Gaming

• Scout: riot
• Scout: Dylan
• Roamer: alan
• Pocket: clean buddy
• Demoman: bumbo
• Medic: tony

Barely missing out on the podium last season in Div-1, Alan Gaming are looking to make waves in the Winter Cup with their team’s namesake back on Soldier. Absent from the team’s tournament roster are Scout yerb and Demoman Hunter 2.0, and AG have brought two subs off the bench in riot and bumbo to replace them. A fourth place finish in Div-1 may not seem like much, but the men of Alan Gaming were able to defeat all three of the teams that finished above them during the regular season, including eventual champions and cup participants Kronge Realm Off-White. With the return of their talismanic namesake, there’s no telling the heights that this team might reach.

Whale Jail

• Scout: alfa
• Scout: yosh
• Roamer: Kryptonite
• Pocket: coo coo cachoo
• Demoman: dingo
• Medic: bear

Five players with both recent and extensive Invite experience rule the prison yard of Whale Jail, and are joined by another inmate looking for a breakout performance. coo coo cachoo took a break last season but was last spotted taking silver with Destructive Criticism in Season 3 Div-1, but has yet to establish himself as an Invite mainstay. Meanwhile, alfa, yosh, and bear all played for either Witness Gaming or MyAnimeList, two Invite teams that finished top four in their respective seasons. dingo took the bronze medal last season with Morning Light, and Kryptonite rounds out the lineup, having taken an extensive break from starting at the top level. As with any new mixture of players, Whale Jail is the subject of plenty of questions. How will they perform in their first matches together? What horrible crimes did they commit to end up in whale jail? Does whale society have in place a system of common law that mirrors that of the United States and seeks to ensure the fair and swift application of justice, or might these individuals have been incarcerated in a manner wholly inconsistent with our own human notions of right and wrong? Regardless, they should be an interesting team to watch.

black swan

• Scout: Rio
• Scout: exile
• Roamer: SOOOOOAPYMEiSTER
• Pocket: ether
• Demoman: logan
• Medic: Toy

After bowing out of Invite S3 early, three members of dexter’s lab have made a late entry into Cup contention. exile, ether, and Toy are joined by ex-Witness Gaming Scout Rio on scout and ex-Morning Light Roamer SOOOOOAPYMEiSTER, and have yoinked Demoman logan from the clutches of Alan Gaming to complete their roster. The revamped swans have returned to the pond to kick ass and gobble up bread crumbs thrown in the water by weird old ladies, and all the old ladies are at home because of COVID.

balls cup team

• Scout: highfive
• Scout: botmode
• Roamer: marmaloo
• Pocket: aim
• Demoman: Alex.exe
• Medic: zilly

The final team in our guide brings together six players with intertwined histories under a n name that may or may not make sense to a more informed (or just less dumb) writer. Virtually everyone on this roster has bounced around Invite for ages, and most have played matches with each other at one point another in their careers. RGL's casting team member marmaloo is back to proper play after a couple seasons off, joining aim and botmode in stretching their legs off the bench. Lead ballers zilly and Alex.exe will hope to one-up prior teammates from Corsia. With a roster that boasts as much experience and raw skill as balls cup team, these six players should combine to play TF2 even better than they… cup balls? Is that where the name comes from? Can I say that here?

Congratulations, you kept reading and are now one of the cool kids! Be sure to tune in to CappingTV at 6:00pm EST on the 9th for swiss action and then at the same time on the 10th for playoffs. Hope to see you there!