I have 10k hours on my first account. I started comp around 6k hours. My HL seasons were kind of a grind but on my 2nd season of Medic in esea I won IM. Really only notable thing I've done though with my time.

Slemnish & Yomps have legendary status for their times spent in competitive

he played on my open team in s17 for a few matches and then disappeared and removed everyone/emo'd out (different account from the one he uses now)
also he had been playing pugs for quite some time so it wasn't like he got picked up out of nowhere

mae went from pounding DM servers to IM playoffs with six guys off and iirc he subbed for bird noises in invite for a match or two and did well

sigh got cut from air's team (for skyrolla :thinking:) and then got 3rd place in open the next season with slowbro, then got 3rd place in IM with bird noises, played with them in invite and the season after that he subbed during playoffs for froyo black who got 3rd place

delpo made invite playoffs his first season of playing demo but he as well had been playing pugs/ringing for invite teams for a while at that point

delpo was more than ready for invite several seasons ago as a soldier. Not sure if he never had the time or the drive to commit to playing in the division but he would have out performed most soldiers.

bdonski played open in s9 and didnt play again until s14 where he played invite

pug god

did anyone just walk into tf2 as a casual gamer with basically no time on PC fps and become invite in <5 seasons?

i feel like most of the "got good really quick" ppl were either already good at tf2 in a pub setting or already good at other games, which makes it a lot easier to actually get good quickly

when muma started playing steel HL in 2014 he didn't have a hud, played on 100 lerp, and got 30 fps because he didn't know what a graphics cfg was.

also he had only ever played cod and tf2 on xbox before that

tf2 was my first PC fps I ever touched, I started playing comp with 100 hours, I have 1.5k currently. My goal here is to make you guys realize how bad you truly are.

edit: for example it took saam 3800 hours to get where i was a year ago with 10x worse competition.

edit: most of these players getting mentioned are scout mains, put them on any other class and they couldn't compete with fucking mustardoverlord lmao.

i got 3 frags as medic in my first lobby after only playing minecraft pubs previously

I don't see any natural talent in this thread, all of these people grind dm or pugs on the daily, as much as invites do. So getting to invite in 5 seasons would be normal for their amount of pugs. Somebody who actually had talent (seagull, nukkye) would be people who improved incredibly fast with a low amount of hours for their level.

r u saying muma didn't play a fuck ton of pugs rofl

forgive me I was thinking about someone else.

Thank you for fixing my mistake bear :D

nukkye didn't have talent, he spent thousands of hours in dm and mge and went from div4 to prem

INS

I feel like some of the players mentioned might not have had "official" experience in etf2l or esea but they farmed dm/mge/pugs/mixes etc. Like ppl who "only" played two seasons before getting to the top and yet they have several thousand hours on the game

Kalho went from div 4 in season 9, straight to prem with him and his team going to playoffs almost every season and also being part of TLR the only team that won a map against Epsilon in their prime years.

Also Kiler4funn going from div4 demoman to prem scout in 2 seasons, not only he was part of TLR vs Epsilon game with kalho but won 3 seasons in a row in prem and got 2nd place at lan

I was god awful at TF2 in general back when I started 6v6 may 2010 and got a little bit less awful when a friend helped me with the basics, some months later I got into high/prem mixes (solid div5 medic at the time). Players were kind enough to teach me the ropes / be patient and half a year later I was a confident prem player. I wouldnt have had that kind of jump in skill if I didnt play with better players in a good environment.

Having that said a lot of my old teammates from SOLAR were people that went from lingering in div 5-4-3 to prem in a season or two (hycz qnx maidu cor lalli silleh). Honorable mention to gozo and hawku, the former who would have played prem with us if he didnt have to quit for uni and the latter who played div 1 on a macbook pro at sub 60 fps while complaining about dm. Ironhawk from my first team made it to prem (scrims, I dont think he has any prem official games) in less than a year.

Back when we were div 6 (low open) my good buddy and teammate chryspyon/chrysanthus would consistently beat and play even with prem soldiers at the time in ammomod which I thought was insane. The guy didnt play for almost 2 years and one day we talked and I convinced him to play with us for old times sake. 90cm/360 with machine-like scattergun precision and the gamesense of a potato, he would run around confused and topfrag almost every time he played div2/1 scrims with us. Best 6 months of my life.

This are european players way back a few years, maybe someone will recognize them. Im sure other players have improved faster, Im a bit biased since Ive known some of the players way back in pubs when we were all super new and improved over a season or two together later on.

I went from div6 spy to National HL Team Kappa
More seriously, biaised opinion here but with top5 we went from D4 to High Final in a year, i guess that's decent.

These days I would say Maros, Puoskari and Funs.

https://puu.sh/rE0pB/7c875d4338.png

hmm

And then took 4 season to get in prem Kappa

3/6 went from open in S21 to prem in S25 (also finishing 3rd in High in S23)

I played with Mr.Epic a year ago, and he had improved extremely fast ever since, don't see how a screenshot of his officials proves anything.

this is not a thread of who got to prem with the least seasons, even though it is something that can indicate how fast someone improved.

r5 scooped xalox out of pubs iirc and he was invite level by the end of that season. If nxzl had not died (which was not even remotely possible) he would have been invite in 3 seasons.

Although he only merced in the prem qualifiers and hasnt played prem yet. Chris_

ugc vlad
o wait

I've been told that vana went from div 6 straight to prem because he apparently somehow found himself in a high level pug and consistently won duels with prem scouts there so got picked up. His only prior fps experience was playing a random fps whose name I can't remember against bots a few years earlier.

shout out to micolash

Didn't aaant go right from UGC to Invite?

It is a little of both to be honest. Popularity has its perks.

Being friends with the right players and playing as part of their circle jerk in pugs could make you a stronger player over time since you are constantly playing against skilled players.

On the other hand, there are a lot of players who are very overrated simply because they are part of said circle jerk.

time
work ethic
attitude

to name a few