After taking home a silver trophy at i65, Ascent's roster had elected to take a step back shortly after, uncertain of the team's future. While a couple players made appearances, the team didn't field a roster for RGL Season 1, making it the first time since 2017 for Ascent to not be represented in North America. With Season 1 coming to a close, the team has reunited with veterans of the brand to take their place in Invite for Season 2.
A majority of players from the tenured squad at i65 and the final two seasons of ESEA, namely botmode, skeez, and jayhyunpae, maintain their roles of Demoman, Medic, and Pocket, respectively. Meanwhile, slemnish remains on Scout, moving from the combo to the flank.
On the flipside of things, laz and yight have left the team after a trio of 2nd place finishes in back-to-back seasons of ESEA and at i65. While Ascent paved the way for laz to play his first intercontinental event, i65, the Roamer wasn't new to the highest level of North American play, previously taking silver in ESEA Season 29 with FROYO BLACK. Just as well, this wasn't yight's first venture into top-level TF2, having played under the organisation in ESEA Season 28 where he also took a podium finish.
With laz's departure, Ascent found a new Roamer in marmaloo, reprising the role he played for Ascent of old in Seasons 27 and 28. To finish up their lineup, corsa will be taking up the scattergun once again, having last played with slemnish in ESEA Season 27 on that iteration of Ascent where the two, alongside marmaloo, placed second. More recently, corsa was seen leading :) in RGL Season 1, who currently sits in 3rd in the Invite tables.
On Ascent's absence from RGL Season 1 and resurface heading into Season 2, we spoke with botmode about the team's short break and roster changes.
We wanted a break, so we didn't play RGL, and I don't think we missed much anyway. Then, we went to play again and made a better roster. laz couldn't play anymore, and we wanted slemnish to play flank scout, and corsa makes our comms a lot better which was one of our biggest issues.
Regarding the move to Ascent and the future, marmaloo commented on the organization's new investments.
Corsakart has impressed us with his performance with both broKing and paddie, but recently he missed playoffs due to a lack of funding. Thanks to Ascent (Marketplace.tf™ and KovaaK's FPS Aim Trainer™), corsa will not have any worries about real estate in the south of France.
Ready to climb for the summit next season, Ascent is:
- Scout: corsa
- Scout: slemnish
- Roamer: marmaloo
- Pocket: jayhyunpae
- Demoman: botmode
- Medic: skeez