As the sun sets over North America, things were looking bleak in the land of Invite. Only eight of the nine necessary teams were registered to play, and the dark cloud of Intermediate was mere hours away from swallowing all hope that was left in the desolate caverns of ESEA.

Suddenly, just as all hope was lost, a familiar savior pulled the division back from the brink, firmly announcing the return of the King’s Crew to ESEA Invite, who will lead TF2 through another age of prosperity for yet another season.

After placing third in the last season of ESEA Intermediate, aniph and his royal brethren have nobly taken the final ESEA Invite slot, ensuring the commencement of one of the most competitive seasons in the league’s history. Moreover, this isn’t even the first time King’s Crew have stepped up for the division, having placed eighth in Invite under the Fable eSports moniker back in Season 25.

Alongside their leader, pauldogg, change, and phelon have stuck with the crew through last season, while stock and bwelp have joined on Demoman and Scout, respectively.

We managed to catch up with aniph, who was able to comment on his team’s last-minute move up to Invite:

In terms of being one of the teams consistently to move up, it has never been on our own terms and it sucks. phelon and I have been playing competitive 6v6 for over 10 years, and we understand the importance of the invite division for the competitive game. I think that attitude of selflessness towards that flows throughout the entire team. Losing our Intermediate spot particularly sucks this season, because we felt we really had the roster that was going to win it convincingly. I’ve been in like five finals and never won, so it would have been nice to compete there again.

Nevertheless, this season of Invite is looking incredibly fun, and I’m ecstatic to see so many old faces return to the division (#20believe) and we are excited to compete in this class of Invite. We are hoping to perform well around the bottom and catch some teams slipping up. We are also gonna be using this as practice for Episode III LAN as our whole starting six should be in attendance. Overall, we are looking forward to the challenge, but disappointed we had to be here in the first place.

Finally, shoutout to our sponsor jnkx, founder of King’s Crew. He’s amazingly supportive of the scene and has huge support for us personally.

Preparing to embark on a treacherous nine-week quest, the adorned King’s Crew features:

• Scout: change
• Scout: bwelp
• Roamer: phelon
• Pocket: pauldogg
• Demoman: stock
• Medic: aniph