Teamfight Tactics Thursday Tournament Recap

This Fourth of July played host to the biggest Teamfight Tactics tournament so far in the game’s short life. Pokimane’s Teamfight Tactics Thursday hosted by Riot Kobe and MarkZ amassed a massive 200k viewers on Twitch across the players and host streams. Sixteen prominent players and streamers battled it out for a $15,000 prize pool. Each top four placement won money, with a Winners’ side placement being worth double. The best overall placement at the end received an MVP bonus.

The first round was randomly generated, with game one consisting of Boxbox, Dogdog, DisguisedToast, Dyrus, Forsen, Hafu, Scarra and Yassuo. The second game saw Amaz, AriaSaki, Becca, Mizkif, Reckful, Shiphtur, TidesofTime and Trick2G. The top four in the lobby would play in the next Winners’ match while the bottom four would go to the Losers’ match. This would continue for four rounds.

Results

In the end, the top players definitely rose above the rest. Dogdog, DisguisedToast and Reckful never fell below the top half the entire tournament, taking home the lion’s share of the cash. Hafu and TidesofTime were on the Winners’ side for three of the four matches.

With every winner, there has to be a loser. The only player who failed to place top four once was Amaz. There was also a very large bottom of the pack, with Shiphtur, Dyrus, Yassuo, Trick2G, Mizkif and AriaSaki placing in the top four once each.

Pokimane’s final rankings placed Hafu in fourth, TidesofTime in third, DisguisedToast in second and Dogdog in first, claiming the MVP bonus.

Tournament Meta

One of the main takeaways was that Draven is still incredibly strong if given proper items, even versus Assassin compositions. Draven is almost never a bad option. In addition, Elementalists have been thrust into the spotlight as a very strong mid game perk. Even going Elementalists into Draven with Imperials is a very viable route to take. Every top player ran a composition similar to that at least once if not more.

However, there are still strong options to run if you can’t get that Rapid Fire Cannon. A carry Morgana with some mix of Varus, Brand, Aatrox or Swain for the four Demon mana burn can be very potent if paired with a strong frontline. For a more niche play style, two starred tier five units can also be menaces on the battlefield if built around, as demonstrated by DisguisedToast’s Miss Fortune carry and Dogdog’s Karthus carry.

More than a few Assassin comps and Wild comps were run with the focus being on different units within them. Zed was a surprise performer when maxed out, as well as Shyvana carry being an interesting option with Dragon origin and Phantom Dancer making her nearly invincible.

As expected, the late game still revolves around getting the tier four crowd control units in almost any team comp. Cho’gath, Sejunai and Gnar add an incredible amount of power when they get their ultimates off.

This one day outing of streamers has perfectly set the tone for the Teamfight Tactics pro scene. The day was dominated by the players with better reads on the meta, better strategies and better mechanics. While this tournament was a relatively small event, Twitch Rivals has announced one on a much larger scale in about two weeks time. With a prize pool and stage many times larger than this one, the Teamfight Tactics scene is about to explode.

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