b4nny
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Grant "b4nny" Vincent is a competitive TF2 player currently playing Scout for Froyotech, known for playing Demoman for the ESEA-I teams eMazing Gaming, Leviathan Gaming and High Rollers Gaming and Scout for the teams iT and froyotech. He is widely recognized as one of the greatest Demomen ever, and is also a top Scout and Soldier main. His ability to play all classes in 6v6 at an Invite level has led to him often being regarded as the best player in the world.
b4nny is most known for his dominance of the competitive scene in its entire history, being LAN champion for 9 out of the 13 seasons he played in Invite. In addition, his team, froyotech is known as the previously undisputed TF2 World Champions after their victory at i52, i55, and first-place finishes in ESEA-I S17, 18, and 19, until they were beaten by TSU in a lower brackets final in the S20 playoffs.
Biography
b4nny grew up in Bellevue, Washington. Before he played TF2, he played competitive Call of Duty 1,2, and 4 in his middle school years. He was also interested in Unreal Tournament, which brought him closer to the arena-style FPS games, like Quake, that TF2 is based on. He has been playing TF2 since it was first released on the Orange Box, having pre-ordered the set in 2007.[1]
TF2
Slaughterhouse Gaming (BHS)
B4nny started his TF2 career by playing with Slaughterhouse Gaming, a pub community's Open team. He played with them for 2 seasons, Season 3 and Season 4 (albeit the team did not have a too consistent roster, and he did not play all the matches). In Season 3, the team barely made Open playoffs (at the time, only 8 teams made the cut) and lost to first-seed Harmonic. In Season 4, the team fared better, ending up at 3rd place in Open playoffs, but it was not enough. The team disbanded shortly after.
Don't Trip
After Slaughterhouse Gaming, b4nny was picked up by his friend tyrone to form the first iteration of what would become one of the longest-living teams in ESEA-TF2 history, Don't Trip. The Season 5 roster was integral in establishing the core of b4nny, tyrone, and mackey that would make up a large part of Don't Trip throughout its 9-season history. Playing alongside now-long-time-friends such as blaze and the aforementioned tyrone and mackey, the team won Open in Season 5.
Afterwards, the team made the jump to Invite, and had to restructure the roster. Blaze and jnkx, the scout pair, left, and the young talent yz50 was brought in alongside raf. The medic, karenbear, left as well, and Shade was brought in, to help create the core of players that b4nny still plays with today. The team got a sponsor and came into Invite under the banner of eMazing Gaming.
eMazing Gaming
b4nny's first foray into invite ended up with him making lan, starting a longtime tradition. The team barely skirted into the 3rd seed with a 10-6 in Season 6 and ended up placing 4th at lan, losing out to fourth-seeded blight.own, beginning a long-time rivalry with fellow lan veteran Platinum. Despite placing fourth, he was invited to play with the ESEA-East TF2 All-Stars team that season. The team defeated the west team 5-0 with b4nny topfragging for the team.
After Season 6, eMg made one more roster change. They cut scout raf for the next generation of Open champions in the form of Ggglygy from Nexzil Gaming. Still under the eMg banner, the team marched on into Season 7 and finished third in the regular season, with a 12-4 record. B4nny's second-consecutive third seed at lan gave him a chance to redeem himself and eMg won Season 7 lan, defeating ComplexityTF2 5-1 on Granary and Coldfront.
The team made no changes for Season 8 but did not anticipate the perfect season of CheckSix Gaming, again getting the third seed in the regular season, this time with a 9-7 record. B4nny's third consecutive lan appearance ended in a 2-1 defeat in the finals at the hands of CheckSix.
Prophets ft. Dashner
In the offseason, the team made some changes, cutting ggglygy for cyzer, yz50 for clockwork and replacing shade with CB (on good terms; shade decided to take some seasons off). Just before lan, the sponsorship was rebranded under a personal sponsorship from Dashner: Prophets ft. Dashner. Since CB could not make LAN that season, reptile stepped in as medic. Prophets once again won lan, defeating the first iteration of Classic Mixup in what would become a long-standing rivalry.
Quantic Gaming
Quantic Gaming sponsored the team for Season 10. CB returned to the team as medic after an absence at the previous season's LAN. Quantic finally broke the third seed tradition and captured the first seed for lan off a 15-1 record, but lost at lan to Classic Mixup. Shortly afterward, Shade returned, allowing b4nny to reform the original core of the team that had won S7 lan and combine it with new players that helped foster the S9 win to create an incredibly strong team. Mackey had to leave for a season, however, so they brought in Dave__AC from the former CheckSix team to complete the roster. The team united with a new sponsor, Leviathan Gaming.
Leviathan Gaming
Season 11 repeated what had become a trope of b4nny's invite career at this point: finish third place regular season and go undefeated at lan. Mihaly's Flow, the regular season leaders, were favorites at this lan, but dropping two games to LG and Spacewhales gave LG the chance to take the trophy away, and that they did. The Leviathan Gaming team are noteworthy in that they were the first team (alongside Classic Mixup) to be sent to Europe as part of the i46 TF2 lan. Dave__AC not available to travel to Europe, mackey stepped back in and re-completed the lan-proven lineup. Both American teams shocked expectations and defeated the Euros, leading to an all-American finals. However, LG ended up losing to Classic Mixup in the grand finals and finished second at i46.
Going back to America for Season 12, the roster saw one change in the leaving of clockwork, prompting the team to bring in hero to replace him, and the return of Dave__AC. This roster once again made lan, finishing second place. Shortly afterwards, b4nny, shade, and cyzer all left LG to form a new super team: bp.
bp
bp formed out of the core that had kept Don't Trip at LAN for seven straight seasons: b4nny, shade, and relatively new blood cyzer. They cherry-picked the best talent they could find, getting Taggerung from The Chess Club and Shrugger from Pinball Wizards, as well as lansky from GOIN HEAVY. The team went 16-0 in the regular season before being noticed by High Rollers Gaming and getting sponsored by them for lan.
High Rollers Gaming
Rebranded under the HRG tagg, b4nny and crew took s13 lan without much competition. The same thing happened in Season 14, with another perfect season and another lan win with the exact same roster. The team, after winning ESEA, was given the American spot at i49, and ended up finishing third after not being able to defeat the made-for-lan Epsilon eSports and the TCM crew. Once again it rebranded under a TF2 organization - the iT servers, run by klanana.
iT
iT, still undefeated in ESEA, went under a ton of roster changes in the offseason. Shade, unable to commit, left, and was replaced by up and coming talent indust from AG. Tagg and Cyzer left as well, prompting b4nny to switch from Demoman to Scout and pick up xalox from the dead Solace eSports as Demo and rr from The Mad Men on roamer. The roster once again went undefeated in the regular season, but in one of the greatest ESEA finals of all time, Classic Mixup managed to break their winning streak and recapture the trophy.
froyotech
The name was thought of because clockwork worked at a frozen yoghurt shop when they needed a team name. With klanana leaving TF2, the iT sponsorship was lost. b4nny and shade (now returning) decided to rebrand under the team name froyotech, creating something of their own esports organization with a website and all. The team reunited several players b4nny had played with in the past, getting blaze from his Slaughterhouse days on roamer and clockwork from Prophets ft. Dashner, Quantic, and Leviathan on scout. They also pulled in dummy and ruwin on Demo and Pocket respectively to begin the season. However, after Ruwin quit tf2, the scramble was on for a new pocket, and b4nny brought in old teammate lansky to replace him. Now looking like a reunion of bp/HRG/iT, the team went perfect in the regular season, but after a disappointing loss to Mixup in the TFTV Invitational, b4nny swapped with dummy and went back to his old main, Demoman. They won Season 16, and with that win came another trip to Europe for i52. Dummy, finally getting a lan championship and unable to commit to a European trip, left the team and was replaced by breakout Demoman duwatna. The team started out Season 17 looking strong, but surprisingly b4nny lost his first regular season match in over two years to Exertus eSports (now eLevate TF2). The team made the voyage to Coventry, England, to compete in i52 against the Euros and Australians and did not drop a single map in the elimination bracket, becoming the best TF2 team in the world. Froyotech finished 14-2 in ESEA before going on to win GXL and CEVO Season 5 LAN. Froyotech went on to win ESEA-I Season 17 in December of 2014, and ESEA-I Season 18 in April of 2015 with a 16-0 record.
The team continued into ESEA-I Season 19, but not without heavy roster changes. Lansky, unable to commit to i55, was moved to backup, and several players were considered in his spot. First, the team brought in serv0 of Rent-a-Homies, but after losing to Ascent on Sunshine, the team felt that serv0 did not quite fit the team's playstyle. They then picked up ash from Street Hoops eSports on Pocket, ash making his pocket debut after previously playing Roamer. After losing to Ascent 2-0 in the upper bracket finals, yet another drastic roster change was made, this time moving b4nny to Pocket and ash to Scout. This proved to be the winning combination, as froyotech came from the lower bracket and beat Ascent in 2 BO3s to win ESEA-I Season 19.
The main members of the team disbanded in November 24, 2015 after losing to Team SoloUber and getting 3rd place in ESEA-I Season 20.
b4nny remade froyotech following these events for Season 21 of ESEA Invite with the majority of team mates being pulled from the invite team Strawberry Mangoes. Freestate, a scout from Strawberry Mangos, became Medic, with Decimate filling his place. The rest of Strawberry Mangos stayed in their previous positions.
Interviews
2015
- 30-12-2015 | On The Point - with b4nny by Sideshow
2014
- 24-02-2014 | b4nny Interview by Tagg
Trivia
- During his long stint as a demoman main, b4nny was often called "Pipe Jesus", as a result of his impeccable grenade launcher aim and his long curly hair at the time.
- b4nny uses "C" for his crouch key, a carryover from his time playing Call of Duty
References
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea62tL7TSYg b4nny Interview by Tagg