Introduction

Welcome to Season 17 of ESEA Invite. Unlike previous offseasons, only 2 teams are being cycled out (we pay our respects to Rent-a-Homies and WELOVEANIME). I think this is a very key development. While having many new teams may keep Invite “fresh,” this season shows signs of stability as teams and even rosters are remaining in tact. Think about this for a moment. When was the last time all LAN teams of the previous season returned for another? In reality you only have to think of the other 2 LAN seeds since we all know b4nny and Platinum's teams will always be in attendance. I can only recall up to S9, but since then there has never been the same 4 LAN teams hanging around. This means competition this season is going to be fierce. Nonetheless, we welcome the newcomers to Invite this season: Ding Dong Daddy, the natural promotion of the 2nd place IM finishers, and Mad Men, hijacking the Meat Market roster, though they would have been given an Invite roster either way.

Speaking of some competition, teams Froyotech and Classic Mixup will be flying the American flag over to Europe in late August to represent NATF2 at the i52 LAN. Mixup is after another overdue appearance on the big stage, while Froyotech is looking to help revenge the past performances of High Rollers Gaming. Will i52 show shades of NA dominance (i46) or EU resurgence (i49)? Only time will tell. Maybe we will all finally have that elusive NA vs. EU Grand Finals.

In this preview, we'll be going over the rosters (in alphabetical order), including a few words from some of the players regarding their general thoughts, expectations, etc., along with some trivia / numbers, and players to watch. Without any further delay, let's check out the Invite teams of ESEA.

Blame Game

• Scout: icTus
• Scout: ChinGoo
• Pocket: SureShot
• Roamer: shootist
• Demoman: insom
• Medic: Sakura

Blame Game returns for another season of Invite with some roster shuffling. SureShot, shootist, and icTus reprise their roles from last season. Goodbye to Ques, ctrlfmuffin and ringo_starr. To replace them, Sakura #1 returns to Medic in Invite after a season of IM, while insom of Sour Patch Niggas is making his Invite debut, playing Demoman. Another newcomer to Invite, ChinGoo (or Fury), previously with Blockback Mountain, will be icTus' Scout partner. While Blame Game may have struggled during S16, they had good showings including a 5-3 win over Rent-a-Homies and 5-3 loss to Froyotech. I know this phrase has negative connotations but they can only get better from here. With a fresh new roster, and mostly the same competition, should be exciting to see how this squad develops. Look to the newbies in insom and ChinGoo to show us what they're made of this season.

"We want to win, play well, and surprise everyone this season." - icTus

Classic Mixup

• Scout: enigma
• Scout: squid
• Pocket: TLR
• Roamer: A_Seagull
• Demoman: Platinum
• Medic: harbleu

For most of you, Classic Mixup needs no introduction. In the event you aren't most people, I'll bring you up to speed. Classic Mixup is Platinum's team. Always putting up a star lineup, always squaring off against b4nny, always at the top of Invite. This team is the longest running team in Invite. At least I'm pretty confident in saying that, I can't recall any other team that comes close outside of Tyrone's eMg / qXg / LG roster. Harbleu and TLR comprise the combo, with Platinum on Demoman. A_Seagull will continue to gracefully fly across the map while Enigma and Squid conga around capturing points. Getting to go into the new season with zero roster changes is fantastic. Not only is this a rare sight, while opponents like nemesis Froyotech and new blood Street Hoops are undergoing changes, Mixup's chemistry remains intact. And given more time to prepare, Mixup will only get stronger than their performances from last LAN. With i52 looming around the midseason, it'll be interesting to see what the constant barrage of TF2 on both continents will do to this team, who has a tendency to have varying motivation during the regular season.

“Caw caw.” - Seagull

Ding Dong Daddy

• Scout: alec
• Scout: Benk
• Pocket: showstopper
• Roamer: okiewaka
• Demoman: ranga
• Medic: peyote

The 2nd place IM team has kept the majority of their S16 roster in tact, only needing to recruit okiewaka into Roamer after ranga moved to the Demoman slot. Ranga has played Demo in Invite before (S15 Show Me the Monet) so it's not unfamiliar territory for him. Keeping so many members is vital for their chemistry, as they only need to incorporate the new presence of okie. Showstopper and Peyote were a fierce and exciting combo last season, backed up by their just as exciting flank from alec, Benk, and ranga. With the addition of deathmatch machine okiewaka, this team can flaunt their firepower more than ever, and off of the leadership of Peyote / the combo, I think Ding Dong Daddy have plenty of room to make a splash this season and will turn some heads.

“Alex “Showstopper” Idanjian here, captain and Pocket for Ding Dong Daddy: runners up of ESEA-IM Season 16. As newcomers to Invite (except ranga, who played Demo for Show Me The Monet in S15) we have been working hard to adapt to the heightened competition, and have seen steady improvement across the board over the past several weeks. If this course continues, we hope to come out with a few dominant wins in our premiere season of invite. The core of our team has been playing together for quite some time now, with many of our players spending three or more seasons together across various teams. We plan to stick together for the long haul, with our ultimate goal being to make ESEA LAN in a future season. As the only Invite team comprised of mostly new blood to the division we expect a bumpy and challenging road ahead, but hopefully one filled with lots of learning, improvement, and hours and hours of MGE.” - showstopper

Exertus Esports

• Scout: alfa
• Scout: Decimate
• Pocket: rando
• Roamer: Ma3la
• Demoman: Bdonski
• Medic: TheFragile

Exertus Esports are looking to come out of the S17 gates in full force. You know what will really jumpstart that plan? Keeping the exact 6 players from last season. Rando and Ma3la will keep dropping the damage from the Soldier class, alfa will keep switching to Sniper to snuff a push, Fragile will keep being the original Krossbow Kid, and Bdonski will keep impressing minds and hearts alike. Do any of you remember when Decimate was initiating Flying V strategies with Mighty Ducks? Now he's tearing people up at the top of Invite. Brings a beautiful tear to my eye. Exertus started out as a perceived pug team but have really built away from the notions and established themselves since their start in S15. While XTS may have only come in 4th at LAN, performances at the i52 Qualifiers (particularly against Street Hoops) show they're a top team through and through, all the while still displaying that drive to continue competing.

“We are looking forward to this season as we want to improve ourselves as a team and prove that we can do as well on LAN as we do online. Our main goal is to get to LAN again and learn from our past experience.” - alfa

Froyotech

• Scout: b4nny
• Scout: clckwrk
• Pocket: lansky
• Roamer: blaze
• Demoman: duwatna
• Medic: shade

Reigning champions Froyotech earned a ticket to Europe off winning the ESEA S16 LAN, but they've lost the Golden Boy of Gaming in the aftermath. Dummy, who is unable to commit the time and resources to potentially crush Europeans at i52, has stepped down. The 4G team snagged duwatna who left Street Hoops, and what a beautiful pickup for Froyotech that is. Duwatna may not have been the MVP for Street Hoops or the mastermind of the team, but he's a very consistent Demo capable of crazy numbers, perhaps even moreso than Dummy. Duwatna's presence will be a sidegrade at current, but will only improve the more he plays with the 4G group. There's not much else to say. The roster of b4nny's has been undefeated in the regular season for 4 straight seasons, and only having to swap out one stellar Demoman for another shows no signs of stepping on the brakes. All that is really left is to wonder when and if the streak will break, and when will anyone challenge Bloodsire for the illustrious “Best Invite Backup NA” award.

“Clockwork has been underperforming, we picked up duwatna and he's been doing a good job picking up his slack. We love him.” - blaze

Mad Men

• Scout: YouMustMike
• Scout: bl4nk
• Pocket: marmadukeGRYLLS
• Roamer: MemphisVon
• Demoman: Chriz Ta Fah
• Medic: indust

Blank is Bad is the team name listed on ESEA, but I'm going to call them Mad Men, though they only sport half of the Mad Men from S14. Returning members are YouMustMike on Scout, MemphisVon on Roamer, and bl4nk making his Invite Scout debut. The new additions to Mad Men are indust on Medic, last seen 2 seasons ago with iT, Chriz Ta Fah on Demo, last seen in Invite with S13 AG, and marmadukeGrylls on Pocket, last seen flexing his muscles being a Direct Hit extraordinaire (yesterday probably). The flank for Mad Men will be strong, but we'll have to see if the marmaduke / Chriz / indust combo can hold their weight compared to their predecessors bl4nk / rr / Nosferatu. This is a team with potential to get to LAN and probably ruin some other teams' chances on the way.

“We like playing video games. We're hoping to make LAN. We're pretty good half the time and pretty bad half the time.” - YouMustMike

Street Hoops Esports

• Scout: deadbolt
• Scout: paragon
• Pocket: grape
• Roamer: ash
• Demoman: cozen
• Medic: ninjanick

Seems that Street Hoops eSports went through some interesting offseason changes. Cozen was thinking of leaving and then said he was staying and then left and then came back (oh and he's playing Demo now), Duwatna left for Froyotech, and finally ninjanick joined the team has Medic. In terms of players changes, 20b is like Ding Dong Daddy in that a member is shifting to another class with a new pickup. The question is, will their new pieces be able to replicate the success they had last season, and go beyond that? Deadbolt and Paragon are still the wonder twin Scouts, while grape and ash will continue being the backbone of the team off their strong Soldier plays showcased at LAN. Of all the LAN teams, Street Hoops has suffered the most from immediate changes, and people on vacation / using ringers has jarred around their schedule. However, these Highlander professionals have been nothing but persistent since last season, taking 3rd at LAN with a roster that, with the exception of grape, was all new to Invite. Once this team resolves the early season kinks, I think 20b will turn full force during the midseason.

“It's hard to tell where we currently stand since we've only had a few scrims with our roster and we've had a ringer every time, but I expect us to do pretty well this season.” - deadbolt

Wood Pig

• Scout: arcticjoe
• Scout: meb
• Pocket: bape
• Roamer: Mangachu
• Demoman: dingo
• Medic: mason

Wood Pig came in a respectable 6th place in S16, with a 5-11 record for their first season of Invite. The departure of Sakura #2 and FanofAngles left the Soldier slots vacant but Wood Pig have picked up Mangachu to perform his Roamer antics while shifting bape over to Pocket. Mason, arcticjoe, and dingo reprise their roles from last season on Medic, Scout, and Demo, respectively, while meb fills out the roster as the other Scout. Wood Pig was a part of the bubble team triplet along with Street Hoops and Rent-a-Homies last season, and I expect them to be within that range for S17, as long as the arcticjoe / meb Scout pair brings as much firepower as arcticjoe / bape did. From what I gather, looks like the matches between them, Mad Men, and Street Hoops will be early indicators of any potential key matches later on in the season.

“Mason becomes a celebrity therapist, he doesn't have the time to post anymore and leaves graciously. Joe plays competitive Dark Souls 4 and becomes like rank 1 in that shit. Bape just fucking disappears no one knows where the fuck he dipped off to presumably kev's pcp-based pitbull clan assassinates him or some shit. Dingo fucks some mad Chinese hoes and eventually becomes some rich important white person. Meb goes on to finishing a PhD in some shit (basically he becomes a professor). I'm pretty sure Mangachu turns into a prophet figure who has killed sometime before the forums die and some amazing guy from Toronto (his reincarnate) emerges and posts a story about it, the only people who post about it are conductor, dev, and ringo, who all circlejerk each other about it.” - mason

6cuties

• Scout: Br0nze
• Scout: Shrugger
• Pocket: ???
• Roamer: smaka
• Demoman: Pharaoh
• Medic: blink

6cuties! There are 6 of them, and they are cute. Or at least they were. Now they're called Br0nzing with Br0nze or something. Anyway, it's another hand to shuffle for 6cuties, who will be losing Paddie, snailboat, and remedy. The trio of pickups for 6c are all returning to Invite after a break of a few seasons. Blink previously played Medic in Invite under the Xensity flag in S13. Smaka will be Roaming, coming off a season playing the class in IM, and now only has Scout to play in Invite before having played all classes in Invite (what do we call this, a hat trick? Grand slam?) Last but certainly not least, ??? (that's right, 3 question marks) will be stepping in to Pocket. ...at time of writing, the Pocket position is still up in the air (no pun intended). Rumor has a certain Pocket from a certain team to play for 6cuties, if not then could be another certain Pocket from another certain team. Who knows. But I'm not waiting until the first set of matches to find out and then publish this Preview afterward, dammit.

“I was hoping I could bring the legendary enoryt out of retirement but I guess that's out of the picture now.” - Pharaoh

Trivia & Numbers

• 0: New maps. Can you remember the last time the map rotation stayed the same for consecutive seasons? I started playing in S11 and haven't seen that once. Backtracking on ESEA tells me the last time that happened was S8-S9 (that was the year 2011 kids). While the process of “Let's vote Sunshine out!” followed by “Let's put Sunshine back in!” is redundant, this shows some form of stability, and gives Sunshine some more time to be tweaked and developed by both the creator and players alike. Honestly though I was excited for the return of Gravel Pit and you all got my hopes up.

• 7: Returning Invite teams. Yes, I'm bringing this up again. This is crazy! Invite is usually so full of shakeups that people hardly have time to get acquainted with their Invite players and teams before POOF the roster is either heavily revamped or disappeared entirely. It's stability on a wider scale at the highest levels of TF2, not just b4nny and Platinum season after season. Street Hoops have made the journey from Open, and XTS is going into their 3rd season together. Blame Game and 6cuties have also been around. The more we have of this in future seasons the better, I say.

• +1: Season of Roamers. With the LAN lineup of Seagull, blaze, Ma3la, ash, returning veterans MemphisVon, shootist, Mangachu, and new blood in okiewaka and smaka (technically?), it's time for another exhilarating Roamer show. May their jumps fly beautifully through their air and their bombs show finesse and artistic talent.

• 7: Invite rookies. They are, in no particular order, ChinGoo, peyote, alec, Benk, insom, showstopper, okiewaka. We welcome you to the harsh waters of Invite TF2 and hope you find them well.

• 0: Dead teams. I'm calling my shot now. We're not going to have any dead teams this season. Having so many teams around again is a blessing, and having none of them die throughout this season would be another blessing. Always aim for higher, so give us the best season to date guys. #believe.

• 2: Invite teams whose blurb is fabricated. I'll let you guess which.

Players to Watch

Unlike my S15 Preview, I restricted myself to only put down 1 player from the top 4 teams at each class. This keeps the list fresh and not make me feel sad / bad for just writing everyone on b4nny and Platinum's teams.

• Scouts: arcticjoe, Br0nze, clckwrk, YouMustMike
• Pockets: grape, showstopper, SureShot
• Roamers: A_Seagull, MemphisVon, okiewaka
• Demomen: Bdonski, insom, Pharoah
• Medic: indust, peyote, shade

Closing

With all that wonderful information thrown at you, I'm sure you're as ready as I am for this upcoming season of ESEA Invite. Be sure to check TeamFortress.TV for all Invite coverage whether via Power Rankings articles or casts on the TFTV stream. Here's to an awesome season!