Intro

Team Fortress 2 has seen its fair share of Invitationals, over multiple gamemodes and continents. Recently, however, there haven't been much. That's about to be remedied, however, as the 2015 Highlander Draft is about to begin!

The idea for this invitational was brought up a while back, and went through a few changes under community suggestion to form what it is currently being run today. For now, we'll focus on the part of the tournament that is currently active – the Premier division. As with any draft, a few captains were picked, including among its ranks names such as Satan, sigafoo, Justin Time, and stabby, as well as a few others.

Those captains, eight in total, went through a snake draft to form their teams. The first captain would pick first, second would pick second, and so on until the eighth, who picked the final of the first round and then the first of the second round. The seventh would then pick second, so on and so forth until all the spots were filled out. Of course, the captains themselves were playing, meaning only eight rounds of picking were required to fill out the rosters.

Teams

Obviously, with the draft concluded, the important part is the teams. Luckily enough, some of the captains were willing to give their own predictions - the exceptions being brick and stabby, who for their own reasons declined to give predictions. Sigafoo also couldn't, but noted that his guess at a top three were Satan, stabby, and Justin Time's teams. I've left the the list in the order of best to worst average, take it as you will (or not at all!).

Satan's team for this tournament is the highest ranked among the captains, and it's not that difficult to see why. Most of his team have played at the highest levels before, his Support classes being the only exceptions. There's no reason to believe that they can't play at the skill level required, though. Alec and User stick out as players who haven't started on a team in recent history, although the strong bote/.knd presence in CJ, Freestate, Kresnik, and Satan should mean that any rust on some of their players will be well hidden. Hydr0's perhaps not one of the most celebrated Snipers in this tournament, but he should be able to hold his own. Rolls Royce is in a similar position, where spies like Deer and feint have an obvious one-up when it comes to history, but perhaps this tournament will give him the attention that some people believe he deserves.

In loving recreation of an old team, Highlander Players is a roster where no players can be pointed at and said that they might have issues. Some of these players, the flank especially, subbed last season, but are certainly not debilitated by rust. Tiny, Giraffe, and Justin Time have all played on a team together in the past, and should be able to become a coordinated machine easier than other teams might. Their pick classes have always been silently excellent players, never quite achieving the attention given to some, but deserving of it nonetheless. If and when Giraffe can get everyone on his page and following his calls, expect a team that could probably give most Platinum teams next season a run for their money at the very least, let alone the ones in the draft tournament.

Dimento's team, Boxlotl or Riot, has an interesting roster. On one hand, players like Nursey and Dimento are players with experience and reputation. Classic, DavyC and Hassasin, on the other hand, don't really have that, unless you're in a part of the community where those players are active or well-known. Overall, though, those three don't have the name recognition that the the first two do. Then you have players like Jewfro and Connor, who've played in mid-high Platinum before and are overall solid, but don't have the reputation that Nursey or Dimento do. Add in Yosh and Scratchy, and there's the team. The pick classes and flank on this team are fantastic, the question is if the combo, Nursey aside, can play at the level they'd need to go toe to toe with combos such as Satan's or Justin Time's.

Despite the fact that half of this team has their own circlejerk, there isn't really a member of this team, outside Alto if you buy into the whispers, that sticks out as weak. Jordan, muma, Comanglia, and brick are all fantastic players, but the rest of the team are no slouches themselves. There are certainly names on this team, such as Sissel and Scruff McGruff, that haven't hit the spotlight quite yet, but are by no means bad. Hopefully the team's Mumble atmosphere will be better than some people have assumed, because if everyone's working together, they should be able to do a lot.

Terry Crews, the player not the actor, has assembled a team full of players who all have/can perform at a high level, regardless of the roster history for players like Yeremy and Rusty Bodega. Their pick classes and flank should be able to hold themselves against the other teams in the tournament, and even the combo, despite no roster history in upper Plat recently, aren't pushovers in their own right. If their combo can hold themselves against other teams and give their pick classes room to work, they could prove themselves better than a few of the captains seem to imagine. Time will tell if the team can hold their own against the rest of the tournament, but they certainly won't get walked over.

While this team obviously has some fantastic players, it's interesting to see overall such low scores, either indicating a really strong team composition in the tournament overall, or just that everyone loves to troll Route. While Melon and Fox both haven't played much recently, Karl, Ender, and Metawe are all fantastic players, as well as stabby, and should form a strong backbone for the team to work off of. Given that stabby's team faces Satan's first, if the captain estimates are indicative of success, stabby may find himself in the loser's bracket pretty early, which is something that practically nobody on his team is used to. However, with some of the names on this team, it's hard to imagine them being eliminated so early, so expect a good fight regardless.

While this team's roster is probably the most difficult to pinpoint unless you're well in touch with the UGC community, everyone on this team is an excellent player in their own right, and while even the more attuned may not recognize names such as Lazy or Pomf, there's always the chance for the lesser known like them to step up and give a reason for their name to be known. Some of these players, like Eerie Person and Feroaffer, have already made names for themselves recently, so despite the lack of huge names that other teams may have, overall the team should be fairly solid, with nothing overall sticking out as a potential carry, but nobody really looking like they'd hold the team back.

With a team full of names like Etney, Indust, Hng and Xan, and the leader rankings so low, it indicates what should be overall an excellent and close tournament. Each part of the team, from combo to pick classes to the flank, all have strong and weak points. If the three or four weak points on the team are taken advantage of, Sigacrew will have a hard time doing much of anything, but if those are protected by the stronger players on the team, they shouldn't be a pushover and could probably give any team in the tournament a close game.

The matches start tonight at 8 EST, so tune in to EXTV to see some top level Highlander while the season has yet to begin!