The NA Invite Top 100 is a project merging history and shenanigans with the purpose of highlighting some of the best players in North American TF2 history. Access the hub post here to view outlines, honorable mentions, and previous reveals. Tune in every Monday and Friday for the next release!

Hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving weekend. There aren't that many super boomers (our definitions may differ) left on the table, but paladin begins the next leg of our journey. Active in the olden days, this Soldier then partook in the first five ESEA seasons, making playoffs in two of them. He was a member of the very first Invite compLexity squad, going 14-2 in the regular season before finishing at 3rd. With nearly 40 frags per hour in S3, paladin was in the same neighborhood as others like Hero and destro who ranked in the top five. The following season he joined Evil Geniuses midway through their campaign and helped them land 2nd overall. Even had a Scout season where he was 5th in frags and FPH. He tapered off for the remainder of his active playing time, and while it's somewhat balanced by being a top-level competitor pre-ESEA for his own data, that's not nearly enough to push paladin any higher. Hero is a Chad that's undefeated on Metalworks, Granary, and Yukon (9-0). Anyway, Hero began his TF2 adventure before ESEA, but once the league popped up he entered the inaugural Open season with Evil Geniuses, placing 4th. The following season, he and yaug helped lead the team to a second place finish. Like many protagonists, Hero then took a break from the game (or at least, Invite play). After spending the next three years inactive or in lower divisions, he returned to Invite to replace clockwork on Leviathan Gaming for the remainder of S12. Two seasons later, Hero would once again save the day by stepping in for dummy on tri hards. This time he and clockwork would be Scout partners, where they sported the best LAN jerseys of all time and placed 3rd. With two different runs on two different classes in two different eras, Hero certainly lived up to his alias. hubris (or gaston) joins us as we continue our trek through the ancient times. With so many players across different periods, you can bet that I'll be drawing comparisons with anybody that fits the bill. Simply put, hubris was the alfa of the Ancient Era: a gifted multiclasser. He has recorded stats on Scout, Soldier, and Demoman in his 29 regular and postseason ESEA games, going 18-11 overall. As a Scout, he took home the S3 Invite title with 20ID alongside players like saber07 and Ruwin. As a Demo, he stepped in for alexwut on Pandemic at NVISION 08 GeForce LAN - also taking 1st place. We shouted out animeman in the honorable mentions for being one of the earliest multiclassers, and hubris is another one of the prehistoric legends. We now skip ahead eight years since hubris played and xaler (or Campy) debuts with Faint Gaming in ESEA S25. Through a 9-7 record and playoff berth, xaler is in rare company of having made Invite playoffs in his first season. Furthermore, he was 8th overall in frags and trailed in FPH only behind habib and Bdonski, a mighty impressive feat. While they would bow out at 4th that postseason, he would parlay that into a contract with Ascent a year later. I was confused to find that his S28 leaderboard and Demoman-specific frags did not match, turns out he offclassed to Scout for what appears to be a single match (going 34-20 in 38 minutes oh my). After getting second place he would end up taking another break from starting. Under the RGL Era, he played in the inaugural season for :) ), and then another stint with Ascent two seasons later. Both times he'd finish 2nd making that a triplet of silver medals to his name. Did you know that yosh spent just one season in ESEA Open before playing Invite? I didn't. That puts him in a limited catalogue of players that made Invite after their first league season. In S20 and S27, he played well on middling teams but yosh's breakout season would come during S31, getting 3rd with Ford Gaming. A few months later, he would attend the largest RGB LAN to date under the Ford flag and took home the gold. Then during RGL S2, he would add another 3rd place with Ford to his ledger. Most recently, he Scouted for playoff squads on S4 Witness Gaming and S5 Rebirth Esports. Since the bulk of his noteworthy activity has happened in the RGL Era, I don't have too many statistical anecdotes to share on yosh. He did rank top two on Sniper playtime in his three full ESEA seasons, so there's that. Also his name on ESEA is "pootis," but that is reserved for someone else later. Evil Geniuses' sycknesS steps into the fray at #85. He was active on top-level teams before ESEA, but it was Seasons 4 and 5 where he truly shined. #5 in frags during S4 with the 3rd highest FPH of all Scouts, and contributed to a 2nd place finish. A similar story the following season: averaged 47.8 FPH on Scout which was roughly top five, while the team finished 3rd. sycknesS played 60 total matches during his ESEA run, with 41 wins and 19 losses. Oh yeah and there's also the Sniper class. sycknesS played more Sniper than anyone else in Invite from S3 to S5, with nearly four hours of playtime on the class during S5 alone. With fragging power in the same ballpark as those of carnage and justin, sycknesS was another premier Sniper from way back then. The final RGL Era player on the Top 100, branslam made his Invite debut as a Demoman for Meat Market in RGL S1. After a two season break, he then immediately impressed as a top division Scout threat on teams like Corsia and GlobalClan Ice. He quickly established himself among Invite veterans like ash and yight, placing 2nd twice in a row. Last season, he and the rest of Witness Gaming took a historic victory over froyotech for the first Invite title of his young career. No matter if it's a regular season or playoffs game, branslam always racks up an impressive K/D ratio and is there to help his Medic out. He is the newest hotness for combo Scouts moving forward. Pretty excited to see what he can do at LAN. #WitnessDeezNuts That guy Tagg was the guy during ESEA Seasons 13 and 14. As the roaming Soldier for High Rollers Gaming, his patented bombs chipped away at enemy teams until they caved to HRG's defensive playstyle. He is a standard case for how the class is not defined by his statistics. Tagg may not have had amazing numbers that leap off the screen, but he always did his job and played a crucial part in HRG's path to two perfect seasons. Prior to his teamup with b4nny, he played on the OG Leviathan Gaming and Chess Club, making LAN playoffs on the latter. HRG also made an appearance across the pond, placing 3rd at i49. His final performance would be under FROYO BLACK during S22, getting 3rd again. Outside of his debut season, Tagg has never had a losing season with multiple playoff appearances and two Invite titles to his name. Not bad at all. So glad you could join us today, Mr. Magoo. Cronjington Magoo AKA bearodactyl AKA bear is the fifth Medic to appear on the Top 100. He's got ten seasons with a few more at the lower divisions, and ranks #4 all time on ESEA in ubers. His eight playoff appearances leaves him tied for 5th most among all Medics on the Top 100. Those volume statistics are nice, but what is perhaps even nicer is that bear is a well-traveled LAN veteran, possibly even the player with the most miles to his name. In the US, he has attended both Rewind LANs on the west coast, and three RGB LANs on the east coast (winning RGB4). In Europe, he has been to multiple iSeries and the Esports United Community Rumble. bear played Medic for froyotech in the Community Rumble, and offclassed to Soldier and Scout for all the iSeries appearances. That bevy of experience means even if he never returns to Invite play, bear will still have a spot among the best. The ever-active Rekuso started playing in TF2 leagues in late 2012, making him one of the oldest players still active in the game today. He has played in the last ten seasons, participating in Invite for all but one of them. Overall he is tied for 8th in most seasons played at the game's highest division. Naturally he's been on many teams and cores throughout his journey, including the Yomies and 8K crews. In more recent times, you've seen him roam for both GlobalClan Fire and Ice. Unfortunately, while Rekuso does impress longevity-wise, he pales in comparison to his competition in terms of playoffs success. In 13 seasons he's only made the playoffs three times which ends up being one of the worst percentages between any player, not just other roamers. Furthermore, he's gotten 4th (0-2) in every playoffs appearance. He will have an opportunity to break that trend this season with Like A G6.

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