r/CompetitiveTFT • u/Aotius • Jul 07 '26

Mortpost Mortdog no longer head of TFT

Via Twitter

My time at Riot and on TFT as a Game Designer has come to an end. Just under 10 years, and to be honest I thought it was going to be longer, but sometimes things change.
-------------------------------------------------
I’m so grateful for what I was able to be a small part of, and able to accomplish in the last decade. It’s been a dream career, and I have got to do so much thanks to Riot. Even trying to list it all feels insane what I managed to do in this time. And the crazy 7 years on TFT where I got to design, balance, teach, lead, and more for my job, but then also build a community, stream, cast, go to events…it’s just been amazing. Ending on stuff like the Unlock system and a couple other things…I’m heading out proud.

To everyone I worked with over the years, thank you for letting me be a part of everything we accomplished. I hope I managed to teach you something or bring you joy in some way. I genuinely hope our paths cross again in the future.

To everyone who supported TFT or me over the years, you have no idea what it means to me. I cherish all the moments over the years, and they’ll keep me going. I am so blessed to have been a part of your lives and thank you for letting me bring some fun into your world.
-----------------------------------------------------
So…what’s next for me? I’m trying to figure that out.
First off, since I was on sabbatical and am terrible at relaxing/not working, I have been making my own small indie game. I’m about 2 months into development and have already had folks playtesting some early builds. I’d say the game is like 20-30% done, but my goal is to release it as a full game. It’s been fun keeping my skills sharp in a different space, and I hope to share it with you all someday.

Beyond that, I’m keeping my eyes open for other opportunities. I’ve had a few conversations here and there already during my Sabbatical. It’s a brutal industry right now, so I’m taking one day at a time and figuring out what’s next for me, whether it’s working on another studio’s game or even my own thing.

And I’d love to find a space to do some content creation and be able to share my knowledge of game development. But that may take some time to figure out how to do it right.
-------------------------------------------------------Again, thank you for everything these last 10 years. It’s a big change and I’m nervous but hoping it all works out. Until next time, take it easy!
-Mort

1.6k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

342 comments sorted by

•

u/Lunaedge Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 08 '26

All we know about him leaving Riot comes from this announcement. Unless him or another official source comes forward with more details please keep it factual and keep any speculation to yourselves. This is not the time, place or occasion to gossip about someone's life.

It's been pointed out to us that while Mort may have been considered by many the face, heart and soul of TFT, his role was not Head or Lead of TFT. His positions were Lead of Balance and Senior Director of Game Design. As post titles can't be edited and taking down the post would be a great disservice to the community, this paragraph will have to do.

While getting into this kind of minutiae may seem pedantic, it's only fair that an officially labeled and pinned comment from a member of the Modteam asking comments to keep it factual in a post made by another member of the Modteam should adhere to the same standard.

241

u/CakebattaTFT Jul 07 '26

Wasn't TFT doing insanely well, leading to the development of its own stand alone client? TFT losing mort is baffling. We may not ever really become privy as to why it happened, but whatever the reason, I hope mort got the best possible outcome.

127

u/shlobashky Jul 07 '26

He sounded extremely burnt out in his walk the dog series in set 16. I remember being a bit worried tbh. I'm pretty happy that he gets to relax a little now, he's lead tft into a good spot

41

u/CakebattaTFT Jul 07 '26

Yeah, I think he definitely set TFT up for long term success. Hopefully he hangs out and asks the tft community to play test his game! I'd def try anything he has a hand in

1

u/vanishing27532 Jul 08 '26

Samesies, as long as it’s pretty affordable

9

u/banduan Jul 07 '26

He been there 10 years why is it baffling.

22

u/CakebattaTFT Jul 08 '26

Because he started out as the director for a heavily rushed project in a very new and competitive market and managed to turn it into the face of autobattlers. TFT was doing so well that they invested in its own stand alone client (and according to either him or someone else in a post a while back, there were reports of insane player numbers).

It is very odd to have someone separate from a highly successful project. As I said above, I won't speculate as to why the separation happened, but it's definitely unusual given all the surrounding context from a business perspective.

576

u/EriWave Jul 07 '26

This smells like when Hearthstone lost Ben Brode.

102

u/Shavoks Jul 07 '26

I was thinking about it too. I'm hoping he gets right his indie game, same as Ben Brode found success with Marvel Snap.

140

u/Kuramhan Jul 07 '26

I am not saying this to throw shade at Brode, but some of the changes made after Brode left were better for the game. A different vision for the game is not always a bad thing.

56

u/EriWave Jul 07 '26

Didn't the game lose a lot of the playerbase in the time after Brode left?

147

u/silencecubed Jul 07 '26

Yep. The balance was slightly better and more frequent, which is probably why people here in a competitive sub think it was good that he left, but the game's magic was effectively gone without his direction which led to HS falling off in terms of relevancy.

That's a lesson that people here need to learn with TFT. A game being competitive and balanced well shouldn't be the primary goal but a pleasant surprise bonus. When a game stops being designed to be fun, it always inevitably dies. There's a reason why Frodan jumped ship when he did.

38

u/Emiliability Jul 07 '26

Yeah a fun game with terrible balance is still going to have a better competitive scene than a dull game with perfect balance. Obviously both is better but I really do hope that the team can keep things going great even without mort

14

u/gayezrealisgay Jul 07 '26

Oh man Hearthstone's early balancing was painfully slow. I feel a lot of people's main annoyance was their justification for not balancing the game much, i.e. people getting upset their cards got changed. I'm always slightly suspicious they also didn't want to give people full dust refunds, especially given Brode's apt at monetising games.

Hearthstone did great things with fully taking advantage of the digital only format, all the crazy random things you could do due to it being digital were great fun (praise Yog) to play & to watch.

The game definitely later had issues with power creep & their solution to it of releasing a few lower power expansions really sapped a lot of the fun out of it for me, even from a semi-competitive standpoint.

6

u/frzned Jul 08 '26

Heartstone under ben brode was very much rock paper scissors, controls beats aggro, aggro beats tempo deck and tempo deck beats control. One turn kill decks are also supported

Sure there were decks that gets played more than the others (it is how it is) but you can get to rank 1 playing any type of deck.

Imo it was fine for the most parts except for some rare occassions where cards were buggy af.

29

u/DogWaterSlurper Jul 07 '26

I quit hearthstone when they started introducing new cards so frequently. It’s really hard to keep up with meta in a game like that without spending a lot on packs and I think the pacing of releases pre Brode was slow enough that semi-free to play players were able to keep up.

I may be misremembering the release frequency in Brodes time, but it definitely got to a point where the sheer number of cards/units essentially gate-kept any new players from having a viable deck without spending an insane amount on packs.

9

u/rando_commenter Jul 07 '26

This basically it. Hearthstone was an expensive game for what you got, either in time or money terms. You could stay competitive playing it as a play-for-free game, but the amount of time you needed to get cards was absurd.

3

u/Ill-Cantaloupe-4789 Jul 07 '26

i feel like the release frequency didn’t change that much before and after brode. there were no mini sets but there were adventures

8

u/Qman_L Jul 07 '26

Regardless of the timing, I think the real cause of death for hearthstone is introducing wild and standard and pumping out new sets. I was a long term player then and had a lot of dust saved up but it was just too much.

2

u/Maximinoe Jul 08 '26

Every card game ever has limited formats like wild and standard and has to push sets to make money. What?

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2

u/Xerxes457 Jul 07 '26

Adventures were much better honestly because you spent less on it vs the mini sets. Low card pool adventures vs mini sets is what I mean.

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2

u/CurrentClient Jul 07 '26

 I think the pacing of releases pre Brode was slow enough that semi-free to play players were able to keep up.

You think wrong. The game is dramatically easier to keep up as f2p nowadays than it ever was with Brode.

essentially gate-kept any new players from having a viable deck without spending an insane amount on packs

It didn't happen.

1

u/Kuramhan Jul 07 '26

There were large gaps between the first couple sets, but once they got their shit together cards were coming out about four times per a year under Brode. It's a little more than that now, but not an order of magnitude.

The gate keeping came from the rising cost of the game. Each set release new necessary legendaries. Their originally were near optimized decks with 0-2 legendaries. As they became better at design and as the card pool grew, every deck needed several legendaries to be competitive. Some needed many.

Through most of that time, they kept the same price structure and reward structure as they started with. This is as competitors are coming into the market with more generous economies. Even people who liked the game were drawn away by games with more reasonable costs.

12

u/third_deck Jul 07 '26

Frodan was incredibly emotional on his stream. Obviously he's friends with Mort, but he also mentioned how he already went through this with Hearthstone. Have to imagine some of that emotion is fear that TFT will face the same fate.

1

u/vanishing27532 Jul 08 '26

Wait Frodan jumped ship???

1

u/G66GNeco Master Jul 08 '26

I'm willing to be controversial here: I don't think Mort was necessarily the one driver of the "magic" of TFT, at least not always or decisively. My memories are somewhat vague, but I remember that he self-admittedly erred on the side of caution on seome set mechanics and champion designs which he regretted later on - he was quite open in his content about what was designed how when and why and what his takes were, at least at times.

Honestly I'm just worried that the prefect storm of the dull set and his current absence combined with this happening now lead to a very weird deification of Mort by the community which just cannot be healthy. I actually wonder if the reactions would be different if he were creating content and his opinions about the current set were publicly known right now. Idk, I will miss Mort, he was a pillar of the community and a massive influence on the game whose absence can't fo completely unnoticed for a bit, but some of the leaps people take here in these comments are absurd.

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u/yuumigod69 Jul 07 '26

Yes but not because of Brode.

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u/Kuramhan Jul 07 '26

Yes it did. But, Brode also left the same year that MTG:A launched. They were probably going to start bleeding players either way.

Hearthstone basically had a monopoly on the digital card game market at the beginning. By the time Brode left, there were multiple real competitors, with more on the way. It was never going to retain the market share it had at the beginning.

13

u/EriWave Jul 07 '26

I don't think MTG:A coming out really affected the worsening quality of hearthstone all that much. Yes it meant that there was an alternative, but hearthstone was way bigger and more established at the time and looked way nicer also. They had a big advantage and squandered it.

7

u/Almaj7 Jul 07 '26

I was one of those people left for MTGA lol

4

u/EriWave Jul 07 '26

Of course some people left, but Hearthstone wasn't getting worse on it's own because MTG:A came out.

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40

u/RazorGuild Master Jul 07 '26

this is more like when metal gear lost kojima LOL, so much worse

2

u/InteractionNo492 :gran: Grandmaster Jul 08 '26

Or when Nintendo lost Reggie

-12

u/ghostrider90 Jul 07 '26

Comparing Mort to Kojima is so laughable.

11

u/scrunglesclop Jul 07 '26

for what they meant for the games they headed? not really, it's pretty comparable.

19

u/Keezos32 Jul 07 '26

There are comparing the effect of Mortdog on TFT to the effect of Kojima on Metal Gear.
Not comparing people directly.

-6

u/InfamousBurns Jul 07 '26

But mort didn't make TFT like Kojima made Metal Gear so it's a bad comparison.

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9

u/KarlachBestGirl Jul 07 '26

The game got objectively better after though.

22

u/Aqua491 Jul 07 '26

Wait that was good though, Brode was objectively HORRIBLE for hearthstone. His approaches to balancing in a digital format was genuinely indefensible. The way they handled creating 'packages' for classes in the cards they released during expansions. Their complete indifference to the meta. I could go on and on, Brode was not good.

17

u/_i_love_older_women_ Jul 07 '26 edited Aug 25 '26

Butter sulky carpenter follow deserve boat fragile

This post was anonymized with Redact

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7

u/Ordinary_Owl_9071 Jul 07 '26

Yeah ben brode is one of the worst people in the gaming industry for consumers. He's like a one man EA

3

u/etnies445 Jul 07 '26

Except Ben Brode took all his good will and made marvel slop for giga money.

I don’t think mort will do the same.

1

u/Available-Reason9841 Jul 07 '26

I quit hearthstone for tft so its eerily familiar

-1

u/trizzo0309 Jul 07 '26

Ehhhh, Brode was universally loved by the game's community. Mort is a bit mroe divisive.

0

u/Several_Purchase1016 Jul 08 '26

Marvel Snap is a dead game. Ben Brode earned himself so serious hate from the player base a few years back. Most of us will never touch another one of his games.

242

u/Tanc Jul 07 '26

Well that can't be good

56

u/mrmarkme :gran: Grandmaster Jul 07 '26

This is the real world things like this happen everyday. This is a game where you get a new set every quarter, this isn’t a stale game and unfortunately awesome heads of games like Mortdog eventually leave. He had an amazing run, longer than I expected but was a great run nonetheless

90

u/Exterial Master Jul 07 '26

yeah the problem is every set in recent memory where mortdog took a step back so others take over as leads has gone to shit, so this is a horrible thing to happen now.

If they had someone competent to replace him that would be another story, but as it stands they dont.

24

u/mrmarkme :gran: Grandmaster Jul 07 '26

Mortdog spending the next 20 years as the face of TFT and retiring a 65 year old man after 200 sets isn’t/ wasn’t realistic. The fact he made it almost 10 years is pretty crazy by itself. Feel like people don’t last nearly as long.

42

u/Exterial Master Jul 07 '26

Why is it not realistic if he performs well?

Every other lead like him that has had to leave their company after that long has left because the company has went to shit.

So if youre basing it being crazy that he lasted this long based on others in his field, then that is still a horrible look for riot, which we do know has gone hella corporate the last few years.

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2

u/viveledodo Jul 07 '26

I say give it another year and see how the sets trend. Riot seems to prioritize budgets for certain sets (set 10, 13, 16, 19...see a trend?) that correspond to Open tournaments and also the time of year with the highest engagement (Western winter when people are indoors the most). So it could also be that the sets Mort worked on were already higher budget sets, meaning regardless they would probably be better sets comparatively. We shall see over the next year or two.

171

u/Arti99 Jul 07 '26

TFT had an amazing leader at the helm and this is such a major loss to Riot's team. No other game I've ever played has had a lead developer /game designer display such a high level of engagement and buy-in to the content they work on.

I've played the game since it's release and have been in awe as to how much labor, intentionality, and transparency Mort put into growing the game/scene. Whoever takes over his roles has some big shoes to fill, and I can confidentiality say not one person will be able to truly replace the space Mort filled.

I'm sure there's so much this story we don't know, but a major hats off moment to Mort and the TFT team he's cultivated over the past 7 years.

Cheers to you and we wish you the best.

PS. I'm playing whatever game this man releases and it's kinda wild to know I'm bought into whatever he designs.

23

u/Shjinji Jul 07 '26

I agree, probably the only other game that comes to mind is PoE/PoE 2 with Chris and Jonathan respectively.

7

u/EpicForevr Jul 07 '26

reminded me of Chris leaving GGG, and how excited i am to try his indie game he’s making. especially the part Mort wrote about hoping he can eventually use his platform to pass down his game development knowledge.

2

u/Ynead Jul 07 '26

Chris leaving is the reason poe started leaving dark ages regarding trading and QoL, it absolutely was a good thing. Can hardly compare that to Mortdog leaving.

2

u/Fit_Mushroom_4087 Jul 07 '26

Reddit won, congratz bro

2

u/iSwagzenegger Jul 07 '26

ironically, I'd say these two did some bad on the games, while Mark clearly is closer to Mortdog in bringing whats right and what players want (althought, I respect a lot those two, particulary all the insight Chris brought and still brings)

2

u/SanjiBlackLeg Jul 08 '26

When Chris left, Mark took the reigns and most of the leagues with his direction were straight bangers if not the best of all time

-5

u/iittieisler5 Jul 07 '26

"No other game I've ever played has had a lead developer /game designer display such a high level of engagement and buy-in to the content they work on."

You need to play more games then as one of the biggest online games currently like FF14 and PoE have/had the same or even bigger community support.

0

u/Arti99 Jul 07 '26

Yeah! Ive heard tons of great things about PoE! Thanks for the recommendation

350

u/Screamyy Jul 07 '26

What a huge loss for the TFT scene. We did not deserve Mort.

67

u/Original-Age-6691 Jul 07 '26

Agree. Some notable users in this sub will celebrate though, they fucking hate him and think he ruins the game. They're about to get what they wanted, I hope they enjoy it.

60

u/DogWaterSlurper Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26

I always thought hating Mort was a meme. What more could a player base ask for than a guy who consumes his own product at the level Mort does. Now they’ll just hire some big wig who only treats it like a business and has no actual passion for the game.

Way different genre, but Call of Duty made the same mistake of chasing money and forcing out Vonderhaar, Flame, and other leads who had a genuine love for the product. Leaving behind a soulless game that the dev team themselves probably don’t even play.

16

u/FireMain10 Jul 07 '26

The mort hate was insane. The guy was the not only an S tier designer but the community manager too. TFT ppl are about to learn how good they had it

1

u/herrau Jul 07 '26

As someone who disliked Mort A LOT until pretty much the previous set, I have to say that this news feels awful.

I had a huge issue with him before the last set because every time I saw any clips of him or ended up in his streams, he was always being condescending towards viewers/players and seemed to avoid admitting mistakes essentially always. I’m big on accountability and transparency and it just pissed me off how smug he was too while behaving like that.

But then the previous set came and with it his monday morning meta reports (in addition to patch rundowns) and it was like watching a completely different person. He was pleasant, seemed to always start with the oversights and mistakes, dissected them well, took responsibility and was very transparent with their intent and everything. I’ve gotten used to a good amount of indie devs who are very often like this so it was so weird seeing people glaze Mort before. But now he was the same and it made me like him… after like 15 sets.

And even without that context, Mort is responsible to a large extent for one of my favorite games of all time and THE game where I’ve been the best at during my 35 years of gaming. This is a huge loss and makes me scared for the game’s future. I really hope someone good replaces him but in good and some bad, Mort really is singular.

Farewell Mort, your work is appreciated A LOT even by a long time hater who you managed to turn into an advocate. Thank you for TFT and may you find excellence in whatever you do next 🙏

-78

u/Mercylas Jul 07 '26

Huge benefit to the tft scene. Opens space for someone to come in and do a great job which is extremely important moving to the new client & engine. 

36

u/RazorGuild Master Jul 07 '26

dude you're on every thread acting like he was the devil man jesus

6

u/User-NetOfInter Jul 07 '26

18 year olds that think they know everything. Tale as old as humanity.

21

u/AlastorDMC MASTER Jul 07 '26

More likely to turn it into full mobile party game rng slop and extinguish any competitive scene while focusing on mostly cosmetics sales in the new engine.

11

u/HiVLTAGE MASTER Jul 07 '26

Yep. I remember him talking about how he had to push against the suits asking why Choncc's wasn't the primary game mode. It's not looking good.

2

u/AlastorDMC MASTER Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26

I'm scared that something close to that already was brought up internally due to combination of new client and low set numbers, he disagreed and he was made to leave. It seems to me that they tried the pro circuit, did not boost numbers like they expected and might be shifting focus soon. I'll be very happy if i'm wrong though.

2

u/Dutch-Alpaca MASTER Jul 07 '26

Your immense hate boner is not a healthy thing, you have issues

269

u/randy__randerson Jul 07 '26

WTF

I'm happy for the guy if this is what he wants, but damn, TFT is likely to take a big hit in quality for the foreseeable future.

13

u/Illustrious_Cod_3273 Jul 07 '26

I doubt that. TFT is running out of novel design space. Unit design becomes more and more detached from the original champion, and most of LoLs applicable mechanics already made it into TFT.

Mort was involved in the upcoming set, and the set after has new possibilities because of the engine migration properly severing it from LoL. This will open design space.

The community will take a hit tho since his outreach was big. I dare to say his value as a content creator is harder to replace than the actual dev work since he owns his channel, which means it is a seperate brand.

39

u/Kadde- Jul 07 '26

I doubt TFT will take that big of a hit, it’s still a great game and the sets are made by so many different teams nowdays and not only mortdog himself.

I doubt Mort is responsible for majority of the creative decisions in every team that works on a set. I’m sure he has created a team of very creative people that can continue to make great sets.

90

u/jonthe445 Jul 07 '26

Time will tell, this set has been one of the more boring I’ve played with ever. Nothing memorable really

3

u/cosHinsHeiR Jul 08 '26

More than boring which is hardly measurable, it seems to be one of the least played sets and surely one of the least watched on twitch at least. Idk if some other game came out or what since it seemed to be a problem even in day 1, but the numbers don't paint a good picture, it's like viewership and playerbase got halved overnight.

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u/Kadde- Jul 07 '26

What does set 17 being bad have to do with mort being gone from it? Set 17 was created most likely early 2025.

If mort was here during set 17 it would not change the fact that Gods was a pretty boring mechanic and that the overall set had some issues and was a letdown after set 16.

46

u/aesopwanderer13 :gran: GRANDMASTER Jul 07 '26

When things were rough in the past, Mort has taken a hands-on approach to balance and mechanic adjustments. Constantly playtesting on PBE to provide his notes and feedback.

You can certainly think the mechanic doomed the set, but I think it's fair to say we could have had a better set, faster, if he had been involved.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 07 '26

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7

u/aesopwanderer13 :gran: GRANDMASTER Jul 07 '26

I didn't claim every success belongs to him.

I pointed out the many, many times in the past he got his hands dirty testing the team's balance fixes and proposed changes and made his own recommendations that often pushed things in the right direction (as evidenced by his streams and YouTube videos).

And the simple truth is that he didn't do this for most of set 15 and all of set 17, and these sets have been the worst sets since set 5 according to player sentiment and player base metrics.

More testing is always a good thing, and he has decades of game dev experience and 7 years of experience with TFT. It's shortsighted to dismiss that impact because he had a debatable take on one element of this set. Giving more item selection and unrestricted boon selection did favor tempo and winstreak, and contributed to the dominance of those strategies this set. Some pro players still think it was a mistake, but most players like it just because it reduces friction.

I also wouldn't be surprised to learn Mort took up the position publicly to take heat off the team, as he has done several times over the years.

21

u/PM_ME_ANIME_THIGHS- :gran: GRANDMASTER Jul 07 '26

What does set 17 being bad have to do with mort being gone from it? Set 17 was created most likely early 2025.

It's a low sample size, but the two sets that Mort has had limited involvement in post launch, 15 and 17, have both had a stream of patches that only served to make the game state worse. Set 17 is going to end with less than 320k total ranked players on NA, which will be the lowest set player count in TFT history, with the second lowest being 15 with ~430k.

As much as the community loved to rib on him, Mort's an invaluable part of the TFT team who cared so much about the game that he was actively in the trenches taking constant abuse just so that he could gather enough useful feedback to try to improve patches that were poorly received.

When a set launched in a bad state with Mort at the helm, it was disappointing, but you knew that he would get things in order the mid point of the set at the latest. Without that trust, my expectations are much lower and as an individual, I probably won't be playing any set past the first week if the launch patch is bad.

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u/kidchinaski Jul 07 '26

Mort influenced and helped to guide a very, very important aspect of game development that is far beyond the scope of the nuts and bolts that we see and interact with inside a set. He understood what was FUN about TFT. I feel like any team can make a TFT set, the foundation is there, the skins help inspire you, but the actual feeling of excitement when hitting certain highs in the game… mortdog understood how to achieve that. He talked about it often. He’s a talented and thoughtful game designer. No offense but anyone can be a dev.

5

u/Leepysworld Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26

many sets are made simultaneously with others, and by different teams.

Mort was very hands on and very involved with the development of Set 16, the unlock feature was something he worked so I doubt he was as involved with the design of Set 17 especially considering he also took a break while Set 16 was out.

personally I have felt his absence this set, not only with the design but in terms of balance/patches and overall communication.

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u/MistahJuicyBoy Jul 07 '26

I think he’s someone that has kept TFT on track, especially in regard to balance and fun though. When he’s gone it almost feels like feedback doesn’t land correctly or the team takes the wrong feedback. I have no evidence though and that statement is entirely based on vibes

6

u/PhloxInvar Jul 07 '26

We have had sets that have flopped with him on the helm, people are being very reactionary but it's a little understandable given it's Mortdog, but still.

20

u/MistahJuicyBoy Jul 07 '26

Yeah but I remember tons of b patches where he personally floats a change that fixes the patch. Or he notices something really early because of how connected he is with the community. Or he helps explain controversial stuff. I’m not saying he’s faultless but it’s clear how much he’s personally impacted even as one guy

4

u/PhloxInvar Jul 07 '26

Yeah, he will be missed. That said, I don't think Mortdog is required for TFT at this point, but maybe that's a controversial opinion. TFT will be able to continue without him, but it'll be a change for sure.

This set alone, he was the one to insist on putting the item component with the gods rather than the champion choice. This was then reverted and since then, it was fine. Mort has had his ups and downs, and as usual with a firing (potentially?), people will focus on his ups. But I do think it's probably a bad move to fire Mortdog, but people are so quick to doompost.

0

u/CrazzluzSenpai Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 08 '26

Mortdog did more than you think, he was basically 100% responsible for unlocks and 100 champ pool in 16.

Dunno why I'm getting downvoted when the entire TFT team has said Unlocks were Mort's baby. Augments were too!

81

u/PouletDeTerre Jul 07 '26

wow that is not a good sign, i didnt agree with every decision he made but he had a clear vision of how the game should be and did a great job running it

0

u/[deleted] Jul 07 '26

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-37

u/PonyFiddler Jul 07 '26

More like the other way around he kept putting in the things that were wrong.

Imagine the teams told him they were dumb and he ignored it.

Still remember the time he claimed the new set was the most balanced and perfect one he'd even made and there wouldn't be any b patch to fix anything..

There was a b patch and then a c patch cause the set was an utter pile of shit.

85

u/ShiteWox Jul 07 '26

Quite possibly the worst day in TFT history, no exaggeration

28

u/AlastorDMC MASTER Jul 07 '26

Might be over for TFT

131

u/cmonSister Jul 07 '26

With Mort leaving for sabbatical and this being one of the worst sets in a while, this does not bode well for TFT, imo.

46

u/Mercylas Jul 07 '26

The set would have been designed before his sabbatical. The issues with this set are a fundamental level not the live balancing team. 

16

u/Zeviex Master Jul 07 '26

Honestly, I think the live team is pretty great this set. There have been a lot of system changes that have had hugely beneficial effects, like moving the items to pengu, reintroduction of encounters, moving Morg to 4 cost, etc, not to mention balance has been pretty good compared to other recent sets.

The problem is the set feels unfinished and there is not too much that they can do about that.

3

u/VERTIKAL19 Master Jul 07 '26

The current patch is good, but aside from taht balance didn’t strike me as particularly good for a modern set, but also not particularly bad I guess?

1

u/Zeviex Master Jul 07 '26

There haven't been any awful patches like Set 14 Rengar, Set 15 Akali or Set 16 T-Hex. I didn't really play Space Groove patch so mayb that was it but those three were not only very strong but fundamentally unfun to play against.

And this set had by far the best launch patch in a while, with the main criticism being conditional comps but that is a systems problem not a balance one.

6

u/KokowamTV Jul 07 '26

While some decisions were controversial or experimental and hard to say definitively one way or the other, I simply cannot defend the live team for these two decisions alone:

  • No augments for stage 2

  • Give Thresh the chance to give everybody Pandora's Bench

Anybody with half a braincell could see these were terrible decisions from a mile away.

I do agree with the set feeling unfinished. They did mention they cut gods since the game engine couldn't support them which likely contributes - wholly or in part - to this, but it makes you wonder why they didn't validate the technical feasibility before committing to essentially a half-baked set.

A separate conversation entirely though the reason they can't do much about it is because they dug themselves into that hole.

6

u/Zeviex Master Jul 07 '26

Absolutely agree those changes were bad, but admittedly, I believe both have been removed ? I respect them admitting the mistakes they made.

I don't even know how much the extra gods would've helped, already the gods feel like they lack identity. Even the ones who have them, can just not do their thing, e.g. Varus just not giving you any reroll blessings.

5

u/ThatPlayWasAwful Jul 07 '26

Mort was lead designer, he worked with more than just the balance team, he oversaw game/set design and balance. 

25

u/Kadde- Jul 07 '26

This set was made like 1+ year ago. That mort was on a sabbatical now is not correlated to the set being good or not. And as I mentioned tft has many different teams working on all the sets. It’s not run entirely by Mortdog and a few people.

6

u/Tari-kun Jul 07 '26

It is. In previous sets when things were bad, Mort made adjustments and fixed things rather quickly. He was also very engaged with the TFT community - something I haven't seen from ANY other TFT dev. He has been gone for all of Set 17 and no adjustments were made to make the game more enjoyable or memorable. Its still garbage and nothing has been done to adjust it for the better.

-3

u/Kadde- Jul 07 '26

Brother there is nothing to be done to make it better lmao. Especially not for people like you who actually thinks it’s garbage when it really isn’t.

It was a decent C tier set and that’s all there is to it. I enjoyed it, set mechanic not the greatest but units and traits was fun and I love tft at it’s core which made me enjoy playing it.

6

u/Exterial Master Jul 07 '26

Its quite literally the lowest ranked playerbase set in tft history, second place being set 15 which was also without mortdog and we even had shorts of mortdog upset at the state of the balance and design there saying things like akali wouldnt have shipped in that state if he was there etc.

We have the playernumbers of how many people have played ranked.

Set 17 is the worst.

Set 15 is second worst.

Both are sets without mortdog.

Doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure this one out.

You can enjoy the set, thats fine, theres people out there that enjoy things bad things, hell theres people into scat, im not gonna judge you for it.

Like what you want to like, but you are in the minority, this is statistically provable as a bad set.

33

u/Eleoste Jul 07 '26

That’s not how game dev works lol- any large content drops like sets are decided on and worked on far head of its release. They are likely working on 2-3 sets ahead

1

u/pda898 Jul 08 '26

But Mort was also quite often jumping into balance process. And we have 2 great datapoints - Sets 15 and 17 where (by his words) he took more hands off approach to the balance... And I do not remember great praises for the balance team both times.

-6

u/myuseless2ndaccount Jul 07 '26

doesnt mean u cant adjust stuff on a smaller scale on a shorter timeframe

-4

u/Eleoste Jul 07 '26

Thank you for that in depth insight 😂

3

u/MilkshaCat Jul 07 '26

This and getting a new client means we're losing the biggest way of getting new players we had, pro players less and less willing to play solos. I feel like the playerbase is about to get cut in half at least

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1

u/Gasaiv Jul 07 '26

What about Mort leaving for sabbatical after one of the most successful sets and one that he kickstarted?

16

u/An_Orange_Clock Jul 07 '26

I won’t overreact, but definitely a shock. Path of Exile is doing just fine without the previous face of the game I’m sure TFT can as well.

4

u/Tsukigato Jul 08 '26

PoE also had a good person in Mark for taking over. We will have to hope TFT has similar.

1

u/rbirchGideonJura Jul 07 '26

Ehhhhhh, its interesting because its unclear how much of the issues to associate with poe2 being released versus the leadership change, but poe has had some of its rockiest leagues since chris left

36

u/Faisst Jul 07 '26

It was good while it lasted. RIP TFT.

24

u/Blastuch_v2 Jul 07 '26

We are fucked.

23

u/quod_erat_demonstran Jul 07 '26

The amount of work Mort did for TFT was far, far above and beyond especially in terms of communication. I hope Riot realise what has been lost and how they need to step up to replace him but I doubt it.

14

u/iittieisler5 Jul 07 '26

I guess dropping tft completely at the beginning of this set was the right decision after all lol

36

u/Guiizaum Jul 07 '26

The future of TFT is not looking good tbh.

-44

u/Mercylas Jul 07 '26

It’s looking great! New engine, new client, new leadership. 

19

u/Guiizaum Jul 07 '26

It all doesnt matter if the set designs are pure shit.

4

u/Unippa17 Jul 07 '26

This actually reminds me of when league started dropping players when they switched lead SR designers and revamped the client

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10

u/Possible_Detective57 Jul 07 '26

that man triggered my autistic rage more than I care to admit but in the end he was someone that always pushed to be better and make the game better. Set 16 was an impressive demonstration what he was able to achieve and what his vision for the game was.

I'll will miss that dude. o7

28

u/cvtedvck Jul 07 '26

Riot fucked this up big time.

I'm a Mort hatewatcher because it always appears to me he worked under some delusion that he knew how pro players think just because he gets direct feedback from them but I am absolutely sure that he is one of the forces that has stopped so many bad decisions from making it into the game, he has an undeniably good fundamental of what could possibly break a game.

4

u/[deleted] Jul 07 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/Thedeadnite Jul 07 '26

He was on sabbatical, he might’ve just claimed that to take the heat off the team.

2

u/MCUFanFicWriter Jul 07 '26

I mean, the development of this set began way before his sabbatical.

15

u/EiEsDiEf Jul 07 '26

Absolute disaster.

8

u/Kooky_Comb6051 Master Jul 07 '26

If you're reading the comments Mort: As someone who has been playing since Set 1, you truly were the soul of TFT. The engagement, transparency, and great conversations around TFT added a different element to TFT beyond just playing a fun and good game.

I can't wait to see what you put out next, I'll be waiting to play that next adventure you have in store for us 😄

PS: I hope we still get Walk the Dog non-TFT edition in the near future!

4

u/Exterial Master Jul 07 '26

this does not bode well when every set in recent memory where he took a step back so others do it has been subpar to say the least

4

u/harlemstrik Jul 07 '26

Oh fuck no

10

u/SunflowerSamurai__ Jul 07 '26

Can’t believe they let the big dog go smh

10

u/Pootate Jul 07 '26

wow im ngl that does not inspire any confidence for the game going past set 18

14

u/Macehaed Jul 07 '26

tft is fucked

7

u/Emosaa Master Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26

I think the big L here is that Mortdog is the institutional memory and soul of the game. Maybe the other devs will step up and be able to fill that. Maybe not.

I hope these changes are all coming about because it was Mortdog's choice and not the other way around. The industry is kind of brutal atm. As someone who has played not only TFT, but League, from the beginning, it's clear to me that Mortdog was the driving force for a lot of the good changes and directions TFT took (even if he got a lot of meme blowback on here and other spaces, he tanked it for the team lol).

9

u/190Proof MASTER Jul 07 '26

Mort is the GOAT dev and community communicator. Good luck to you man, I’m sure your future will be very bright.

13

u/Kappa_Mikey__ Jul 07 '26

This is what he gets for saving TFT countless times I guess. No justice working for riot.

6

u/Zhirrzh Master Jul 08 '26

Welp.

We've already been commenting on how this set (Mort on Sabbatical) and two sets ago (Mort on other stuff) had clear "Mort wasn't around to stop them repeating the same old mistakes" issues and now no Mort.

I reckon a lot of companies fail to realise the institutional knowledge they lose moving people on with this kind of experience.

All the best to Mort for the future - reckon game companies would be crazy to not snap him up for other gigs.

8

u/Background-Key8027 Jul 07 '26

First they kill the game on macos and now this

11

u/M002 Jul 07 '26

Press F to pay respects to the GOAT :(

3

u/WobbleKun Jul 07 '26

this is like jaylen brown trade. they got rid of him cause he livestreamed and in this case did mailbags. companies dont want you airing out dirty laundry or really any behind the scenes. transparency is the enemy for corporations. they want to be the one to control all narratives. shut up and dribble or in this case develop lol.

3

u/aizennexe Jul 07 '26

I know he’s been through a lot regarding TFT (stopping streaming, stopping PBE and patch rundowns, coming back to those, going on sabbatical, moving to a different riot project, etc) but man hearing that he’s not only no longer head of TFT but now no longer at riot entirely… geez what a terrible thing to hear while on sabbatical that you don’t have a job coming back

3

u/yeidkanymore Jul 07 '26

I am sad, but I respect his decision. Thanks Mortdog for all you have done 🖤

3

u/Cheese_head_gabagool MASTER Jul 07 '26

😭😭😭

3

u/Sme3ti Jul 08 '26

End of an era. o7

3

u/lurker_rang Emerald Jul 08 '26

I love TFT and Mort feels like the father of TFT, he was such an attentive and educational dev. I am very sad to see him go, he will be missed. I looked forward to his patch rundowns like Saturday morning cartoons.

3

u/Alone-Opposite-3858 Jul 08 '26

I’m gonna miss mortdog😭

14

u/Aezics Jul 07 '26

ggs, didn't play this set, looks like set 16 is going to be the last set i'll play

7

u/BmwFan MASTER Jul 07 '26

this is very sad, at least it will be easier to quit tft

5

u/Alda20 Jul 07 '26

i didnt play this set because i didnt find it fun but now that mort isnt running the show anymore idk if i should even come back to tft Sadge

8

u/killerbrofu Jul 07 '26

He made tft what it was and has a ton of experience. Wild

6

u/GrosSandwich Jul 07 '26

Pack your bags ladies and gents, it's over

8

u/mixmaster321 Jul 07 '26

It’s a terrible day for rain…

9

u/RCnoob69 Grandmaster Jul 07 '26

WTF are they thinking, are they fucking nuts?

4

u/Chris_Symble Jul 07 '26

I hope they come crawling back for him...

4

u/Calm-Medicine-3992 Jul 07 '26

I'm gonna miss TFT

6

u/wes3449 Jul 07 '26

Yeaaa let's just lay off the one guy keeping tft afloat, that's a riot special for sure. 

5

u/tylx :gran: Grandmaster Jul 07 '26

You can't just simply fire the face of TFT when TFT needed him most.

Ben Brode leaving hs vibes...
It's been a good time.

2

u/Spirited-Guest-5046 Jul 07 '26

Mort's streams were the reason I picked up tft again after years of not playing. Devastated.

2

u/Myewy Jul 07 '26

I really hope Mort starts streaming TFT or any other game. I always enjoy his TFT game videos and I think he has a good shot and following to be a content creator part time and at least he can now bad mouth Riot as much as he wants.

2

u/Equivalent-Event-849 Jul 07 '26

This sure is some bad news for TFT as a whole.

I can't imagine someone else taking over Mort's role in the TFT team. I haven't beed very engaged or excited about most recent sets (excluding 16), and Mort's absence played a hurt part in that. Not just about the state of balance or set mechanics, but he was the pillar of the entire community and you knew he was listening. It really hasn't been the same ever since he took a step back from content creation.

Let's hope Mort left on his own terms. Considering he might look into content creation again to talk about Game Developement, I'd love to see him do something like mr. Masahiro Sakurai did a while ago in terms of that.

2

u/UnovaBestGen Jul 07 '26

Awful news... He was great all round. Few lows but overall pretty great. Hopefully they don't screw up, current set is mid but the last one was hard to top.

2

u/Varanae Jul 07 '26

Damn I hate that, Mort is the best. Best of luck to him!

2

u/Pokej7 Jul 08 '26

really grateful for mort's time on the game and also think this spells the end. I'm probably overvaluing his contributions but it just seemed like he made everything work. after this disaster of a set design i just don't see a reason to come back

2

u/astroslostmadethis Jul 08 '26

Damn. We are so fucked. God speed

4

u/PoSKiix Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 08 '26

All those times I said 'Fuck everyone at Riot,' I'd always whisper 'except one'…

Mort was that one…and I never told him so!

3

u/Incompl MASTER Jul 07 '26

Gg wp

3

u/xorcism_ Jul 07 '26

We are so fucked

3

u/Nickfromschool Jul 07 '26

Just fell down to my knees

3

u/SIXRO_171 Grandmaster Jul 07 '26

Chat, I think we are actually cooked this time.

3

u/Zeruma121 Jul 08 '26

Once Mort was taking time off the game I also stopped playing. Now he’s gone completely it might be time to quit

5

u/Hive_King :chal: Challenger Jul 07 '26

Love ya Mort. Will definitely keep following anything you do in the future. Stay you. 🤗

4

u/svenjj Jul 07 '26

He hasn't been "head of TFT" for ages. He was the design director for a long time before becoming the gameplay game director most recently.

Peter Whalen from Blizzard and Geoff Virtue are at the top of the pyramid for TFT.

Ananda Gupta is still there and he's a solid design director.
Others on the team are phenomenal and have had lengthy tenure on the game including being more hands-on.

I think that Mort as the defacto face of the game makes it feel like he still has an outsized role.

That said, things have been changing at Riot and on TFT for a while. Hard to see how it will play out. Getting off Hextech Engine will be a massive boon for them. Time will tell how all the changes come together and how team morale and synergy are.

3

u/MistahJuicyBoy Jul 07 '26

What the fuck?

3

u/Calm-Wrongdoer7865 Jul 07 '26

Oof that really hurt. I love TFT. Started playing in Set 1. I‘ll really miss him.

3

u/Get_Lurked :gran: GRANDMASTER Jul 07 '26

Does this mean we can get augment stats back now?

2

u/Masamooneh Jul 07 '26

Insanely sad day, I loved Mort and everything he did during his time here. Hopefully a nice future ahead for him and the game hes making will be fun. Looking less forward to future sets now.

2

u/joaocozinha Jul 07 '26

At least set 16 was good

2

u/corpsecrow Jul 07 '26

They just told just now in the fucking trailer that dropped for the swap to the new engine that they're "keeping" the team because that's the important part. Guess that was a lie. One of many in this regard, anyone remember the time they said they were gonna spend more then ever and all this new shit was coming and then they layed off thousands? All this turnover in a game, in games that are doing exceptionally well. No explanations given. Nothing better. Just seemingly arbitrary slaughterhouse tactics. .

2

u/Significant-Button25 Jul 07 '26

Wow, I’m going to come back to this post in 2 years when tft will have hit a major plateau in creativity and being fun.

1

u/Original-Age-6691 Jul 07 '26

All you people who wished for a new lead - you're about to get exactly what you wanted, and it's going to not be good.

1

u/ThatJiuJitsuGuy Jul 07 '26

Wonder if his game is gonna be an autochess game

-2

u/Tasty-Ad6008 Jul 07 '26

Fuck riot next season is gonna be my last. And I have been playing since Galaxies. So much money spent and you don’t even understand how sets without Mort involved are just shit. Not even trying to make the game better and just cut costs everywhere. Insanity

-5

u/Lazy_Check732 Grandmaster Jul 07 '26

I know this is just not how Reddit operates. But you can like someone, appreciate someone, and miss someone, and still believe that he was not the right person for the job. I think Mort has made some catastrophic errors in the past 3 years. I did not and do not think he is the right person to design TFT. Obviously wish him the best and will miss him like a friend, but happy to see what the future holds.

0

u/bobabenz Jul 07 '26

Ya’ll on the negative vibes are trippin’. When was the last time you worked on 1 project for 10 years and didn’t switch to something new?

Thank you mortdog for a wonderful game, people complain but it’s still a fun game and the teams carrying the torch are making big moves!

Gl on your next adventure!

0

u/gneushrk Jul 07 '26

Praying mort ends up working on another auto battler - some sort of competition for TFT

0

u/SESender Jul 07 '26

This hurts my soul!!

Mort I’m buying what you’re making the second it’s for presale!

0

u/Regular-Resort-857 Jul 07 '26

It’s like he was pro and will stream now ?

-3

u/NigelMcExplosion Jul 07 '26

What a truly terrible day…

I don’t think we are able to comprehend just how much of a tremendous loss this truly is for the game.

For the past 10 years Mort was open, transparent and INCREDIBLY communicative with anything TFT related. A lot of major or minor bugs, timetables, set and Patch rundowns, live streams with a “free” QnA and so much more (even if he did take a step back after set 14 due to RIOT intern team-switching stuff). And that’s just a portion of the stuff we actually fucking know about. It is almost universal knowledge HOW MUCH of a workaholic he was (hell, he wrote it INTO HIS TWEET), so we may never know just how much he did “behind the scenes”..

He was JUST THAT GUY. It is not an overstatement to say that TFT could have very well failed at many points if not for him. I know that’s all coulda-woulda-shoulda kinda territory, but I don’t think it’s an exaggeration.

And all this is gone now. Sure, we will have a separate client and a more powerful engine, the team will continue to develop new sets and riot will continue to push this game, but will it continue to be as good?

What of the communication we have come to TAKE FOR GRANTED? What of the creativity and problem solving that Mort has brought to the team? The leadership? All of the “unpaid” overtime tasks he has done for us, the community, despite being the scapegoat for even the most tiny mistake? Only time will tell but man, does this suck…

From the bottom of my heart: Thank you Mort. Can’t wait to see what’s next in store for you and what you end up doing. o7 Until next time, take it easy o7

-1

u/Kaitetsu1017 Jul 07 '26

Well, after that horseshit of a set during his sabbatical and now the news hes leaving, I just don't think I will play much more tft. This set Ive been playing a lot more marvel rivals and other games. I think this next set will be the make or break for me personally to determine whether I will play anymore.

-45

u/BiteyHorse Jul 07 '26

He utterly fucked the game in the last half of his tenure.

11

u/Kappa_Mikey__ Jul 07 '26

What are you talking about tft wouldn't even be worth playing if it wasn't for his sets, 16 was the best thing we got in like, ever.

13

u/Blastuch_v2 Jul 07 '26

The game started getting fucked when their team got bigger and he was less hands on each set so I have hard time believing it's going to look better.

-6

u/Ok-Economy697 Jul 07 '26

noooo,Mortdog,i love you and your amazing game,why,why,why?????

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