With ESEA Invite Season 22 just underway, TF2 PUG service ChampGG has entered into the Invite scene by sponsoring Invite team Running with Scizors. The team will be playing under the ChampGG banner as they get ready to compete in their second season of Invite.

Over the past few months the Running with Scizors roster has shown promise as a formidable Invite team. They made their Invite debut last season, with the roster featuring notable players such as Jarrett and Rekuso, along with rookies such as Skye and Deathy. Despite not making playoffs, the team earned themselves a respectable 6th place finish in the regular season. During the off-season, the team picked up Sezco after sen left the team and subsequently joined the newly formed EVL Gaming. With the new sponsor, the team is hungry to make the playoffs in what looks to be the most competitive season of Invite to date.

For ChampGG, this will be the first time that the site is sponsoring a team. The PUG service, owned and developed by erynn and tsc, has become one of the most popular PUG sites in the community, thanks to its draft system, easy to use interface, and other features as well.

Skye, the captain of the team, shared her thoughts about the new sponsorship and her hopes for the season:

We are very excited to be sponsored by ChampGG and look forward to representing them this season – the more sponsors there are in TF2, the better. 8K has maintained a very consistent roster since forming and placing in IM two seasons ago, only replacing our scout. In ESEA-I Season 21, we came sixth, losing the playoffs race across a couple of close games. But while we feel like we performed well in our debut invite appearance, we know we can do far better in the weeks to come. We’ve progressed as a team through playoffs and the offseason, and our goal is to make playoffs in S22 – potentially upsetting a few top teams along the way. This will be our third season of playing together as an established team, which gives us leverage over newly formed mix teams and teams shaken by roster changes.

erynn, one of the owners and developers of ChampGG, spoke to us about the pickup:

When we formed ChampGG earlier this year, our overarching goal was to help upcoming talent develop, and supporting a rising team fits that goal well. Some members of our organization came together in the off-season to make that happen, and after much internal deliberations and talks with teams, we are proud to bring Running with Scizors under our banner. As a team that has established itself in Invite but also has a lot of room to grow, we're excited to see how they will continue to perform well and improve. We're also very happy to see several organizations come into the upper echelons of the scene, and we hope to see even more in the future.

With the new sponsor, the ChampGG.8K lineup is:

• Scout: EvilMrMuffinz
• Scout: Sezco
• Roamer: Rekuso
• Pocket: Deathy
• Demoman: Jarrett
• Medic: Skye