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!

In the original blueprints for the Top 100, a type of scoring system was considered to juggle the categories of playing in different eras vs. team and individual success. The theory was it would create contrasts for the whole peak vs. longevity discussion, not to mention attempt to factor in era played. A player who was on a top two team for a few seasons in the Golden Era vs. a player who was mid-Invite for many seasons in RGL for example. Could have potentially come in handy here. marmadukeGRYLLS' numbers should remind you of someone we saw earlier this week. He essentially passed his torch down to Rekuso with having many active seasons and low playoff appearances. His 33% playoffs rate is the 2nd lowest of all players on the Top 100, only better than Rekuso (go figure). Also, for some reason his ESEA account is lost to the ether. We do know that his best showing was during S26 with SVIFT NA, going 11-5 in the regular season and finishing 2nd overall after getting revenge on Ascent in lower bracket finals. Ignoring two matches in ESEA S3, Blackymonster would go on to accumulate a regular season W-L of 39-17 in his first three and a half seasons. He was the Medic for Blight Gaming when they won an Invite championship during S6, and had a few single digit death games during the LAN run which is always nice to see. Blacky also played for other ancient legendary teams like compLexity and the inaugural Classic Mixup roster, though he did not attend LAN with the latter. He's actually active right now, playing Medic in Main this season of RGL. If Blackymonster ever climbs the ranks back into Invite, it will have been over 25 seasons since we last saw him in the division. That would blow the previous record completely out of the water (alfa's hiatus spanned nine seasons, and carnage attempted to break back in via qualifiers a season ago). I kinda wanna see it happen. Up next are twin brothers that made people believe. Let me tell you a wonderful tale of Street Hoops eSports. After a 2nd place finish during S14 Open, they skipped past Intermediate to play in the only season of Main in ESEA history. They ended up 2nd again - losing to a very stacked Apocalypse Gaming roster - and then promptly made LAN in their first season of Invite (not to mention getting 3rd overall). The wonder twins were the core of 20b throughout their rise, and paragon is first up. He always had respectable numbers on Scout, and was the only player in S16 to average 1.2 FPM on Sniper (excluding players with less than 10 minutes of playtime). In their four seasons, Street Hoops acquired a regular season W-L of 42-22 which is very impressive. Throw on four straight LAN playoffs appearances (along with getting 3rd twice) on top, and you have a short but sweet resume. Is it surprising at all to find that he and deadbolt were within 25 frags of each other during S16? There was no world where deadbolt and paragon wouldn't be ranked right next to each other. deadbolt takes the higher spot over over his brother since he played two classes in Invite. With duwatna getting poached following their debut season, deadbolt shifted over to Demo and played it for the remainder of his career. He mained the class in Highlander so it was nothing new, and his 1.43 K/D ratio across three seasons was in line with other playoff Demomen. Ignoring everything else, playing two classes at Invite LAN playoffs in your first two seasons is a feat that's well worth applauding. Even though he played the same amount of seasons between Scout and Demo in total, he only had one Invite season of the former so I gotta put that as his secondary class despite my OCD wanting him to match his brother. Sidenote: after their TF2 run, the twins played a pair of ESEA IM seasons in CSGO, so that's pretty cool. cookiejake has a number of accomplishments that put him in pretty exclusive groups. He made playoffs in his rookie season of Invite. He has made Invite playoffs every full season (granted it's only five seasons total but still). He is one of 14 Medics in ESEA history with over 2,000 career ubers. Furthermore, with ~26.6 UPH he ranks 2nd among all Medics in the top 20 leaderboard - second only to dbw's ridiculous ~28.9 ubers per hour value. cookiejake has landed at every position on the playoffs podium: 4th with Dorsia in RGL S3, 3rd with bird noises in ESEA S23, 2nd with EVL Gaming in ESEA S24, and 1st with froyotech in RGL S2. He also has some LAN experience under his belt with the first Rewind (3rd), the first RGB (2nd), and i63 (1st). He has crafted a compelling case as the best Medic to play five or fewer seasons of Invite. I know, that's a weird category but deal with it. A member of the original Velocity eSports, Kryptonite was part of the team for their first three seasons in Invite, picking up two 4th place finishes along the way. During his Velocity tenure Kryptonite landed in the top five for Soldier frags every single season, admittedly aided by the extended playing time as his FPH statistic was not as high as some of the others. Despite that though it's impressive since you still have to get the kills in a super long match either way. Velocity went 29-19 in the regular season during that stretch, and made an appearance at Rewind II to boot. The other pair of his playoff appearances would come from Mentality Esports in ESEA S29 and Rebirth Esports during RGL S5. Not much else to say, I couldn't even weave in a bad Superman joke. As you can see, garbuglio AKA PurpleShirt shares a lot with Kryptonite at a glance. Both players were active around the same time. Both players had six seasons worth of Invite. Both players had two trips to the playoffs in their first three seasons. garbuglio snuck an extra regular season win, and more importantly in his third season got 2nd with S23 EVL Gaming. Then the following season he'd do the exact same thing. That particular EVL postseason was exhilarating as every showdown vs. froyotech went the full three maps, and the grand finals in particular was a marathon of a set. Add in another silver medal from S26 SVIFT, and garbuglio has more placements at 2nd than at 3rd or 4th. At the tail end of his resume he was spotted being a backup for froyotech, and also joined them in a pair of European LAN conquests: Esports United Community Rumble and i63. NA's #1 roamer slides in just past a quarter of the way through. tripbwai is most known for playing both Soldier roles with the various MyAnimeList teams throughout ESEA and RGL history. He broke into Invite halfway through the Dark Age, and essentially has his resume split down the middle between the two leagues. During ESEA he started on MAL, and finished each of his first three seasons just shy of under .500. In S30 trip was actually #3 in frags on the Soldier leaderboard, despite not making playoffs and having equal FPH to that of the #1 in category mirrorman. In any event, the RGL half of his career has been more prosperous, with four consecutive playoff berths from Seasons 2 through 5. He has placed 3rd numerous times, but broke through to 2nd with Corsia in S3. Wow that's three Medics in this set, which means I probably should've spread them out more. zilly is the first (and not last) person on the Top 100 with multiple ESEA accounts, which caused numerous headaches for me during data collection, thanks fellas. With his first season of Invite being ESEA S18, he has overlapped with many Medics over the years: indust, skeez, bear, etc. Seasons-wise they are in the same ballpark, so here's yet another reminder that these specific pre-#50 ranks are kinda whatever. Doubly so when comparing Medics is so difficult because again - the class is reliant on others most of the time. zilly's ESEA career numbers are even more troublesome to parse because he played multiple seasons of fragging classes in the lower divisions. Though in RGL he did log two Invite seasons on Soldier. Once for highfive demoman and once for Dorsia, making playoffs on the latter. Ford Gaming CEO sandblast breaks up the monotony of Soldiers and Medics in this section, making Scout a rare welcome sight. Moving along, sandblast made his Invite debut back in ESEA S24 with mario party 4 (one of the worst in the series don't at me) alongside other future division stalwarts yight and laz, finishing the season with a 7-9 record. After a couple pit stops with Faint Gaming and Ascent, he would create the Ford Gaming brand, which has been his home for four of his last five Invite seasons (including Morning Light, which was essentially a rebrand of F-150). He like trip, has played half his Invite TF2 life in ESEA and half in RGL, with more success in the later league. Every time sandblast makes playoffs he gets 3rd, make of that what you will. In this current season, the midseason birth of GlobalClan Panda featured him on Soldier, so perhaps his offclassing odyssey has begun.

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