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ESEA Season 30 Week 6 Invite Power Rankings
starting super late in the season edition



1. froyotech (11-0)
b4nny and the boys came out swinging this season after struggling with their former pocket soldier aim in the former half of last season by replacing him with invite super-star yomps, and they look to be back to their untouchable form. This season has been very kind to froyotech as their biggest threat FROYOBLACK has disbanded leaving not much in the form of competition, and barring any sort of insane upset froyotech should collect an easy win against Kings Crew and receive their forfeit win from Velocity ESports to continue their path to their 7th perfect regular season.

2. Ascent (9-2)
If you had asked me in the preseason who I thought would be the 2nd best team in invite this season, my answer would not have been Ascent. The Ascent roster boasts incredible individual talent, and on paper, they should be a lot more dominant than they have been this season, but with this essentially brand-new roster of familiar faces, we saw botmode move to a calling position that he seemed less than comfortable filling. Botmode is a great player, but not necessarily a great caller, and with up and coming pocket soldier jayhyunpae accompanying him on the combo the lack of experience and ability to call pushes and ubers effectively saw this team taking an early loss to their season rivals, Mentality ESports. The team quickly bounced back from this loss and even went on to give froyotech a bit of a scare with an 11-minute half in their favor in the week 4 match on gullywash, unfortunately losing 4 straight rounds in 8 minutes in the 2nd half of the match. Just a week after Ascent saw their star demoman campy leave the team for reasons unknown (at least to me), which might have been a blessing in disguise as we saw scout extraordinaire slemnish make his return to invite after playing with FROYOBLACK last season, and he has taken botmode's spot on the combo and has added strong direction and organization for this star-studded team, his stunning scout skill is just gravy on top. This also meant someone had to fill campy's big shoes, and we've seen yight step up on the demoman role and do surprisingly very well in their matches so far. With the addition of slemnish, Ascent was able to best their season rivals Mentality Esports in their week 5 match on sunshine just barely pulling out a 4-3 victory where we saw slemnish and botmode get 120 frags between just the both of them. Slemnish is still probably shaking off a bit of the rust from taking most of the season off and I think by the time playoffs roll around Ascent might even be able to give froyotech a run for their money.

3. Mentality Esports (7-3)
Paddie and his band of up and comers and invite veterans have really made a lot of progress in very little time, they've shown top-level coordination and proven that they can hang with the rest of the top teams. Mentality was my favorite for the 2nd place spot at the start of the season, and I was feeling pretty confident about my choice after their victory over Ascent in week 1. After they took care of Meat Market with little to no problem it seemed like paddie was going to lead his team safely into the 2nd seed with no problem until their narrow loss to Ascent seemed to have shaken them up, as their following match against bring back turbine dm was also almost a defeat. Luckily, they were able to rally in the 2nd half while being down 4-2 and brought the game back to a 5-4 victory. After their loss and this close win, it seems like Mentality's confidence has been shaken as multiple roster switch-ups have been tried and tested since week 5 until it seems they've reached a final one. Speedy the pocket/roamer/scout for Mentality has been benched and they have brought in their former scout Mu, this decision could prove to pay off very well in the long run or could just be a bad knee-jerk reaction to an off week. In my opinion, Mu is one of the most underrated scouts in invite and can compete with the best of them, and adding her to the roster means paddie will be back on pocket soldier where his overall gameplay is better than his scout and to top it off, he now has 20 ping. I think these roster moves will make Mentality a much stronger team, my only worry is that paddie won't be able to control his team as well on pocket soldier as he could on scout. It's sad to see speedy go, and I hope we will see him play again in a future season as far as Mentality goes, I hope this roster change was well thought out and not a decision brought on by some classic paddie scapegoating and a couple rough matches. Mentality still definitely have the potential to beat Ascent and even compete with froyotech, so I am looking forward to seeing how well they do in playoffs.

4. Meat Market (8-3)
The 4th seed was definitely the toughest decision for me, but I have to give it to Meat Market for right now. With their only losses being to the 3 teams I've mentioned already and the fact that they've beaten the current 4th seed team, Meat Market is looking a lot better than I was expecting at the start of the season. The combination of broking and corsa was even able to beat a former playoff team Velocity Esports 5-0 before they disbanded which set them a cut above the rest of middle invite, and although they haven't had very close games with the top 3 seeded teams thus far the roster has stuck together and scrims many more hours a week than the average invite team proving they're willing to work on their problems and grow as a team. With the addition of ash on medic the lack of experience has all but disappeared from this roster, but I don't know how well ash can compare to the mechanics that their former medic meyy was able to display, at the very least he should bring a better atmosphere to Meat Market's mumble and be a big help to the team's overall coordination. This upcoming week we'll see Meat Market face off against the fresh new Ascent and their closest contenders for the last playoff seed, bring back turbine dm. It will certainly be a tough week for Meat Market and their playoff spot might as well be riding on it, hopefully, all those extra hours of practice will pay off and they'll be able to secure at least one win.

5. bring back turbine dm (7-4)
This team is the dark horse of invite. There is incredible individual talent on this team mixed with new and old players that create something of a wildcard in every match. We've seen this team have close games with Ascent, Mentality, Meat Market, and Hell's Kitchen making them a strong playoff contender and at this point in the season, I truly think the 4th and 5th seeds are very interchangeable. Last week we saw the boys choke a 4-2 lead against Mentality Esports which could help their playoff chances immensely, but now they'll have to really buckle down and take this week seriously as they play Meat Market for a playoff deciding game. In the 5th week of the season bring back turbine dm said goodbye to max as he needed more time to focus on school and they brought in sniper beast bo4r to fill his shoes. I think bo4r was a very strong pickup for this team as he'll take some of the play-making pressure off of marmaloo with his very strong ability to snipe, which means marmaloo can focus on carrying in every other aspect of the game, I don't know how seriously this team is really taking this season but I think their match against Meat Market could easily go either way and we could see old man mason and his young squad in playoffs very shortly.

6. Hells Kitchen
Hells Kitchen has had a roller coaster of a season so far, from internal team issues to close defeats to teams they needed to beat to make their playoff dreams come true, they've come out with a new combo scout and a not so promising record. After Hells Kitchen beat the now disbanded, Velocity Esports, in the 1st-week things were looking pretty good until week 4 when they played Meat Market and bring back turbine dm where they lost both of their matches, and somewhere along the way sandblast too. The team now pretty much needs 10 straight wins in a row to make playoffs, and with the new addition of shamoo to their roster maybe it’s possible. More than likely this team will finish out somewhere in middle invite, but should still be considered a threat to the playoff bubble teams because a loss to Hells Kitchen could cost them their spot. Hopefully, they will survive until the end of the season and move on to the next revitalized, refreshed, and ready to win.

7. Kings Crew
Lucrative and his buds haven't had the best showing this season, especially after the improvement they showed last season, but as always, they never give up and help keep the top level of TF2 competitive by sort of acting as the gatekeepers of invite. Their only non-forfeit win has been against the IM move-up team, so they're proving my point of being the stepping stone to mid invite. It's not possible for Kings Crew to make playoffs at this point, but I hope they'll stick together for next season and hopefully come back better than ever.

8. AyyyyLmao Terror Squad
The fresh blood of invite had veteran froyo-slayer alec helping them out at the start of the season, but unfortunately, he had to step down to make time for his new job leaving the new kids cold and alone to find their path in invite on their own. Without forfeit wins from Velocity Esports, these boys might have been on track for an 0-16 season which has been done many times before them and is almost like a rite of passage for IM move-ups. I don't know many of the players on this team very well and I'm pretty sure for a lot of them it's their 1st season of invite, and although they might not get a real win hopefully, they had a positive experience and we'll see them again.