State of TFT

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The Release of 6.5, streaming and TFT competitive format

Recently, I’ve been frustrated about TFT and feel like I’ve been complaining much more than usual. I’m not having that much fun streaming TFT right now and don’t want you guys to tune into bad vibes so I’m going to take a short break.

Anyway, with the release of 6.5, something just felt off. I think it’s an amalgamation of what’s listed below and hopefully my feedback will spark some change. However, I believe the current state of TFT is a fucking joke.

1. Champion Balance
2. Champion Design
3. Augment Balance
4. Competitive TFT

1. Champion balance
The most obvious example here is Silco and Ahri.

How can Silco and Ahri be released the way it was? 40 base mana, no mana lock, gives mana, grants CC immunity and hp, standalone half the time? Even if Silco didn’t provide mana for two units, he’d still be strong. I won’t go into the endless combos that are just broken because of Silco because I’m sure that anyone above gold can not only see but also feel how broken the champ is. In Hextech Sivir, Silco buffs Sivir and Jarvan. Jarvan can instantly cast giving your backline (sivir) AS, and your Sivir an expedited cast as well. Then after 4 autos from Silco, just gives your Alistar 1.5k health out of nowhere and by the time Alistar dies, is buffing the next unit…???? Vi 2 on 8 which gives bruiser, enforcer, and rival? Nah, fuck that, silco 1, it’s time. Furthermore, because the unit is so imbalanced, it feels even worse to play against because on stage 4, Silco boards almost always just hit you for 15 out of nowhere. And just look at Ahri man… Compare Ahri and any other 4 cost, especially Renata, but that’s a different story.

2. Champion Design
In set 5 regionals, it’s not an understatement to say that more than half the lobby was playing the same opener every game. Sentinels Skirmisher. Irelia was a two cost with sentinel skirmisher legionnaire which had the exact same traits as one cost Olaf, being a sentinel skirmisher. If you just played these two units, you had multiple outs midgame and can even keep these on your final board which is exactly what’s going on now. Rek’Sai and Sej are both 2 costs with 3 traits. They share brawler and what makes it worse is that Vi shares brawler and enforcer with Sej.

I’m not saying that units sharing the same trait shouldn’t be possible but this much overlap, especially on lower cost units, should be illegal. Sure, your most capped board won’t include these but if it were a competitive lobby, reaching a board more capped than 4 brawler frontline seems unlikely with the Econ that you’ll be playing with. Looking at solo queue as well, with this in addition to the new augments, sometimes mid game you just take 15 damage and it just feels hopeless. I’ll elaborate more in Augment Balance since there’s a lot of overlap.

3. Augment balance
The augments this set are just much stronger than last set. That is fine but at the current state it’s not. The three most common openers are bruisers + X, hextech and innovators. Now, take for example on stage 3, you fight someone with an upgraded board with two combat augments (6.5 enhanced) that synergize with each other. An example would be makeshift + electrocharge. I think electro is way too strong as tier 1 but that in combination with makeshift just makes the board way too strong. If everyone were on an even playing field that is fine.

There is a huge difference between getting Econ --> Combat --> Combat than Combat --> Econ --> Combat
Econ on stage 1 is NOT the same as Econ on stage 3. Why are we even offered true twos, three’s company, four score, golden gifts, treasure trove, and probably more on stage 3, let alone stage 4? If it’s available, why do these augments not scale with stage? Rich get richer is not able to be offered on stage 4 but any of those are????? This got released to live? For example, let’s say you’re playing a common Hextech board on 6, Reksai, Sej, Jarvan, Lucian, Swain, Nocturne. Your augment on stage 1 is electrocharge. Your augment on stage 3 is bruiser crest, rich get richer, four score. I get that this is one of the more lowroll options, but assuming you can even get econ augments, most of the time you only have two options… Keep in mind that if it were tier 1 and you rolled enforcer heart, that has no synergy with electrocharge and somewhat that has synergy or just stronger such as phalanx or backfoot will 6-0 your board. You know how items scale off eachother. For example, BT giving a unit more effective health, so tank stats would be more valuable (QSS + BT + Titans) or Guinsoo giving AS, so having more AD from DB is even more valuable. Etc. Augments are the same. I’m sure the econ augments are going to be changed for next patch but right now, hextech, bruiser, innovator + combat augment synergy makes 3-2 board disparity depending on augment way too high. It’s impossible to lowroll the first augment but sometimes on 3-2, the game is just fucked. Good luck in prismatic stage 3 with no synergy. KEWK 7. I get it, variance will cancel out these games but it’s just not fun to play so that’s why I’m complaining.

4. Competitive TFT
I don’t even know where to start… In set 2, the only tournament Riot hosted, they invited players who didn’t play the game. In set 5, competitive really took off, and Regionals was the most stacked tournament. They asked for feedback and collectively, we said having one tournament that matters the entire set is kind of lame. What’d they do in set 6? Make it so we must play in all these “open qualifier” tournaments just so we can play in the same one tournament that matters the entire set. Are you guys, as viewers, hyped for Piltover cup, Zaun cup? I know for sure the majority of the players aren’t. Did you guys even know the tournament was going on given Riot put literally 0 effort in advertising it. Assuming you get the day 2 bye in Zaun cup, your EV is around 6 dollars an hour. Assuming you don’t get the bye and participate in the “open qualifier”, you’re playing for sub a dollar an hour. For a tournament that has no decisive winner and no prize pool? You must play in this garbage, repping their overlay, alerts off, music off to play in regionals. Did they even acknowledge our feedback…? This is without even mentioning the format of these tournaments. 3 games, top half, 3 games top half to day 2. RamKev bot 4’d a single game over 6 games and didn’t make it to day 2. LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. I was fortunate enough where 20k+ people wanted to tune into my perspective of said cups but somehow Riot just sees no potential in TFT, they rather invest in LOR, a game with less than 1/10 the viewership. I even got harassed after by people saying that If I don’t take the competitive scene seriously (tournaments with no incentive to win), how is Riot? Is that my responsibility? Mort scolded me for complaining in front of my audience, but can you really blame me? Does anyone else see this state of the game right now? It’s abysmal. On a side note, I’m working with twitch and potentially hosting a Twitch Rivals for the release of set 7 but more on that since that’s in a while.

I hope this tweet makes a little more sense now,
https://twitter.com/k3soju/status/1495283824716046337

Anyways, if you made it this far, thank you for your time. I really do like to keep the vibes up, so I apologize for the change of tone. Please, don’t have this happen again in set 7. Much love guys. ^-^

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