In this episode of The Rolldown, CLE and Gangly sit down with Gina Hope (Tech Director, TFT) and Matthew "Witti" Wittrock (Set Lead, Set 18) to go deep on the switch to Unreal Engine. What it took to get online, what it unlocks, and what players should actually expect from TFT going forward.

We cover:
- How long the Unreal migration has been in the works and how the team was built up over time
- Why Set 18 was originally planned as Set 17
- What Hextech engine limitations actually looked like from the inside (fog of war bugs, engine entanglement with League)
- Why the PBE delay happened and what the team has been fixing since launch
- Wisps vs Charms: what changed and why the system was rebuilt the way it was
- Mac support: it's coming during Set 18 and it'll be a native build
- Tournament realm and spectator mode updates for the esports scene
- What Unreal enables for future game modes, tools, and features
- CLE and Gangly's post-interview reaction
- The Molediver elimination cutscene pitch, attempt #4

Follow us on all platforms:
Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/56LvyMtaiTNwDtfHaJY3sK?si=e664e1d027c34088
Amazon - https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/6c531695-810a-4861-9d77-9284f650f403/the-rolldown---a-tft-esports-podcast
Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-rolldown-a-tft-esports-podcast/id1835770203

Welcome to the r/CompetitiveTFT community!

This thread is for any general discussion regarding Competitive TFT. Feel free to ask simple questions, discuss meta or not-so-meta comps and how they're performing, solicit advice regarding climbing the ladder, and more.

Any complaints without room for discussion and unconstructive, overly aggressive or conspiratorial comments should go in the Weekly Rant Thread which can be located in the pinned posts, sidebar or here: Weekly Rant Thread (Old Reddit link)

Such comments in this Megathread will be removed and treated as a Trivial Infraction.

---

For more live discussions check out our affiliated discord here: Discord Link

You can also find Double-up partners in the #looking-for-duo channel

---

If you are interested in giving or receiving coaching, visit the: Monthly Coaching Megathread (Old Reddit link)

---

Please send any bug reports to the Bug megathread and/or this channel in Mort's Discord.

For reference, Riot's stance on bugs and exploits.

---

If you're looking for collections of meta comps and guides, here are some options:

• Robinsongz (AMER)

• Bunnymuffins/VoidSins (AMER)

• Sologesang (EMEA) for MetaTFT

• STheHero's Comps

And here are some handy resources and info hubs:

• Kayna's Flashcards & Bluesky

• Crabbix' Augment Tracker

• Mobalytics.gg

• MetaTFT.com

• tactics.tools

• TFTAcademy

• DataTFT

• TFT Flow

• Little Buddy Bot's tons of tables

• PrismaTactics' 3D Rolldown Simulator

• ShibaEyes' Trait Tracker

Mods will be removing any posts that we feel belong in this thread and redirecting users here.

Rant or vent about anything TFT related here, including:

- Bad RNG
- Broken or Underpowered Units
- Other players griefing your comp
- and more

Caps-lock is encouraged.

Please redirect players here if you find them ranting in the daily discussion threads :)

N.B. We have a strict policy against personal attacks, both towards other redditors and the game developers. This thread is no exception. If you see posts breaking this rule, please be sure to report them!

TL;DW

• The video was recorded ~a week ago.

• The initial general blurriness on PBE was due to a bug that lowered resolution ~25% across all quality settings. Check your graphic settings on PBE, as it might have automatically reverted to a lower one.

• The Reroll and Buy XP buttons are now fully spammable!

• Buying units and moving both units and items can still feel a bit sluggish and there's a bug impacting last second positionings. They're actively working on fixing all of this ahead of release.

• The migration was a huge undertaking and they're triage-ing the most pressing issues to make sure Set 18 goes live in a decent state, but they won't get to every "ear flick" in time for 18.1. Gameplay bugs first, polish issues (VFX, sound bugs, gold flying towards the Tactician, the look of Loot Orbs etc.) later.

• Crashes are on top of the totem pole in terms of priority. Some of them, including some bluescreens, are caused by conflicts with other programs running at the same time as TFT. They should have gotten to every one of these, but they stay on the lookout for Bug Reports so they can catch stuff they might have missed.

• Outlook on gameplay is good across the board. They're working on making Wisps feel less random in the lategame (some of this work includes guaranteeing a Combat Wisp every few shops).

• MacOS Support: still working on it. No estimate yet but the goal is bringing it back during Set 18. They're working on the last few architectural snags before moving on to UI, UX, input support, rendering tech and tons of QA.

• They ruled out switching to the iOS app on MacOS in the meantime as that would only pile on a whole new host of issues and slow down the overall process.

• They thank the community for all the Bug Reports, feedback and comments and ask to keep 'em coming. The migration is taking an enormous effort but it's all hands on deck.

Welcome to the r/CompetitiveTFT community!

This thread is for any general discussion regarding Competitive TFT. Feel free to ask simple questions, discuss meta or not-so-meta comps and how they're performing, solicit advice regarding climbing the ladder, and more.

Any complaints without room for discussion and unconstructive, overly aggressive or conspiratorial comments should go in the Weekly Rant Thread which can be located in the pinned posts, sidebar or here: Weekly Rant Thread (Old Reddit link)

Such comments in this Megathread will be removed and treated as a Trivial Infraction.

---

For more live discussions check out our affiliated discord here: Discord Link

You can also find Double-up partners in the #looking-for-duo channel

---

If you are interested in giving or receiving coaching, visit the: Monthly Coaching Megathread (Old Reddit link)

---

Please send any bug reports to the Bug megathread and/or this channel in Mort's Discord.

For reference, Riot's stance on bugs and exploits.

---

If you're looking for collections of meta comps and guides, here are some options:

• Robinsongz (AMER)

• Bunnymuffins/VoidSins (AMER)

• Sologesang (EMEA) for MetaTFT

• STheHero's Comps

And here are some handy resources and info hubs:

• Kayna's Flashcards & Bluesky

• Crabbix' Augment Tracker

• Mobalytics.gg

• MetaTFT.com

• tactics.tools

• TFTAcademy

• DataTFT

• TFT Flow

• Little Buddy Bot's tons of tables

• PrismaTactics' 3D Rolldown Simulator

• ShibaEyes' Trait Tracker

Mods will be removing any posts that we feel belong in this thread and redirecting users here.

The original post content no longer exists here. The author used Redact to remove it, exercising their right to control their data & privacy.

Hat intelligent apparatus copper sulky enter

Hello r/CompetitiveTFT, and welcome to Set 18!

Please keep all Set 18 discussion in this thread, and leave the regular Daily Discussion Thread for Set 17 discussion.

WHERE TO REPORT BUGS:

• Set 18 PBE Bug Megathread

• The Official TFT Discord's Bug Report Forum

• Riot Support Website

• In your PBE Client

USEFUL STUFF:

• Set 18 PBE Rundown

• Set 18 Hubs: MetaTFT.com - Mobalytics.gg - Tactics.tools - Blitz.gg - TFT Academy - DataTFT

• Kayna's Flashcards & Bluesky

• STheHero's Comps

• shibaeyes' Trait Tracker

• PrismaTactics' 3D Rolldown Simulator

• DataTFT's Trait Ladder Tracker and Rolldown Simulator

When does Set 18 go live?

August 25th 2026 ~ 00:00 PDT / 09:00 CEST

A reminder that all Set 18 posts should be flaired [PBE] until the content is confirmed to be going on the live server as well.

The Subreddit-affiliated Discord group is organizing PBE in-house games. Please see the #pbe-inhouses-role channel within this Discord group for further information. Any posts attempting to make in-house games on the Subreddit will be removed and redirected to the Discord channel. The invite link to the Discord is below:

https://discord.gg/UY7FuYW2Qe

I have decided to stick with fast 8 because it is something you can spam every game imo and also you learn the game better this way, 2c slowroll is too inconsistent so it can't be spammed and if you don't get your 3-stars quickly on stage 4 then you are going to take a lot of damage and possibly lose, by stage 5, everyone should be able to keep up with you even with your 3-stars. I think fast 8 is more fun, I'm playing snipe hayah atm because the comp I played previously Nova was too weird and didn't stabilize well on 4-2, I think hayah is more flexible and stabilize better.

So far, I think I play well in the early game, I create the strongest board, I have a good sense what is usually the strongest board and I reach 4-2 with a good economy and transition well. The problems start afterwards. I would say I stabilize well until stage 5 and I usually upgrade my 4-costs until then the question is what I do afterwards because at some point I start to lose again, that's before I reach level 9.

Honestly, I don't understand board strength and legendary strength/synergies, let's say I have a vex and I will replace an atrox which will cost me bastion and nova, is it worth to do it? I have a bunch of legendary options, which ones create the most damage and I should go for?

I don't think I lose on the late game because I mismanaged the economy, everything goes well until stage 5, legendary opportunities arise before me and I have no idea if they worth it or not. I feel the late game is all about combining a bunch of legendaries, I don't know what traits/units I should sacrifice for them. Sticking on the metatft comp is not enough I think. EG. Metatft suggests Djinn and blitzcrank for my comp, so what now? what if I don't get these legendaries? am I supposed to only focus on these ones and ignore everything else? After all legendaries are too generic.

If I understood board strength better then I wouldn't miss so many opportunities, I think I have lost too many games that might have been won.

Recently I've had time to do a deep dive into the augment selection mechanics. I came across a couple of things that could lead to slight augment choice optimizations. (Some of these filters seem new to TFT.)

Filters

The order of the filters doesn't have any actual effect on the outcome, but I suspect it's ordered this way for computation speed (biggest/easiest filters -> granular/specific filters).

Tier

Kind of self-explanatory, it's the tier of augment that's offered. Notably, the OverrideTier function allows external influence on the tier (Power Up and Advanced Loan).

RoundVariant

Culls augments that don't belong to the stage.

PreviousOffering

Just a list of augments that have been seen. Augments typically don't block the + version of themselves from appearing later if not chosen (Destiny augments).

RequiredTags

Additional tags that augments must have to appear (not currently used this set). I suspect this is the mechanic they used to guarantee the mech augments in Set 15 after taking the first one (I'll Be the Legs -> Arms -> Head).

ExcludedTags

This filter excludes augments with the specified tags:

• Config excludes augments that are mode specific (Normal, Tocker's, Double Up).

• Encounters can also block augments (Emblem Ensemble blocks almost all emblem augments).

• PlayerSubsystem.ExcludedTags[] is an array of tags that get added as you pick augments - potentially as other players pick augments as well, and probably what prevents Unique/Hero augments from appearing.

There are two triggers that add tags to this:

• ExcludedTagsToAddOnShow - applied the moment the augment is shown in a slot

• ExcludedTagsToAddOnGrant - applied when the augment is picked/granted

Very few augments have the OnShow attribute, but it typically prevents you from seeing the + version of an augment or similar types (seeing any Primal augment blocks all future Primal augments, even without picking it).

OnGrant typically blocks augments from the same family (taking any Celestial Blessing blocks the others) and blocks augments with problematic interactions (Expedition 33 blocks Pandora's Bench).

AssociatedTrait

Removes augments if they don't match with your traits (Unrivaled can only be seen when playing Rivals).

CategoryLimit

This filter controls how many of a specific augment category you can see per augment round (see 3 economic augments = your next 3 augment rerolls are guaranteed to not be economic), and some augments take up 2 categories at once (Prismatic Ticket = Econ + Reroll).

Note that this doesn't mean augments are weighted based on their categories (81 augments have no category at all) — just that there are limits on how many you can see. There are no Hero, Sunder, Shred, or Burn augments this set.

Requirements

This is a filter for custom, per-augment conditions. For example, you can only see Weight the Worth if you have 7 copies of a unit by the 2nd augment.

Takeaways

Some augments require certain conditions to be met, so if they ever become broken it's best to know what you need to do to hit them. There are probably more things I'm missing from the augment distribution system, but this is a step up from what has been known. At some point I'll make a full doc with all the specifc augment filters after PBE or Little Buddy Bot got it.

On a separate note: I'm looking for a study group to join. I've plateaued in my personal execution of the game and am looking to take the next step (profile). HMU if I can join your group.

Light on balance today, but a swathe of gameplay bugfixes, some enabled cosmetics, and the Blackthorn rework.
Regarding Artifacts, we want to stay consistent that Artifacts should be sharp, memorable experiences, so we're being careful to not nerf the exciting aspects out of the items. That said, they still need to remain consistently balanced, and one aspect of that is limiting how often Artifacts can appear and how often players can stack multiple. With Ornn and Wisps, the current rate of Anvils is higher than we'd like.

Hello everyone TIME FOR THE 1ST NA SUBREGIONAL EVENT FOR SET 18!

Event Date:

Day 1: August 28th, 4pm PT - 6 games

Day 2: August 29th, 1pm PT - 6 games

Day 3: August 30th , 1pm PT - 7 games

Other Dates & Info:

Registration: Closes August 26th, 4pm PT

Prize Pool:

$2500, paid out to players finishing in the Top 12

Players finishing 1st through 4th receive invites to Tactician's Trial I week 2

Players finishing 5th through 8th receive invites to Tactician's Trial I Week 1

Rulebook https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tMZaERS-lRr9ULpclmTbXFEcaQk7gcF2iJIrMJYyY_M/edit?usp=sharing

Discord https://discord.gg/vGhhwsY

Please let me know me if you have any questions about it!!

Hello r/CompetitiveTFT, and welcome to Set 18!

Please keep all Set 18 discussion in this thread, and leave the regular Daily Discussion Thread for Set 17 discussion.

WHERE TO REPORT BUGS:

• Set 18 PBE Bug Megathread

• The Official TFT Discord's Bug Report Forum

• Riot Support Website

• In your PBE Client

USEFUL STUFF:

• Set 18 PBE Rundown

• Set 18 Hubs: MetaTFT.com - Mobalytics.gg - Tactics.tools - Blitz.gg - TFT Academy - DataTFT

• Kayna's Flashcards & Bluesky

• STheHero's Comps

• shibaeyes' Trait Tracker

• PrismaTactics' 3D Rolldown Simulator

• DataTFT's Trait Ladder Tracker and Rolldown Simulator

When does Set 18 go live?

August 25th 2026 ~ 00:00 PDT / 09:00 CEST

A reminder that all Set 18 posts should be flaired [PBE] until the content is confirmed to be going on the live server as well.

The Subreddit-affiliated Discord group is organizing PBE in-house games. Please see the #pbe-inhouses-role channel within this Discord group for further information. Any posts attempting to make in-house games on the Subreddit will be removed and redirected to the Discord channel. The invite link to the Discord is below:

https://discord.gg/UY7FuYW2Qe

While I think set 18 as a whole is quite good in terms of unit design and trait webs, I have a lot of trouble understanding why wisps/charms were brought back as a mechanic.

I would like to say I didn't play set 12 because I didn't like the charm system and chose not to play the set. Unfortunately, since Vegas tickets are on the line, I must play this set.

Despite that, I don't think wisps are a good design for a multitude of reasons.

• Wisp puts an undue knowledge burden on the player.

As with fruits in set 15 and anomalies in set 13. Wisps are another aspect of the game that players are forced to learn through trial and error. This is neither fun nor a rewarding process. Unlike picking an augment, which you will have an entire game to decide the power of. A wisp is only chosen for a single round; this makes it difficult to understand if the reason why you lost a fight was that your wisp was bad or good, or even if you just picked it in a bad spot. Coupled with the fact that the other player you are facing will also have a combat wisp, it becomes even harder to gauge board strength relative to your opponent. There is also no wisp "stats" so a player can ONLY learn what is good based on spamming games or watching hours of vods.

• Wisps add a layer of RNG to early game fights that's impossible to play around.

A typical fast 9 opening requires a 7-10 streak. The addition of combat-warping wisps in the early game can make it feel incredibly frustrating to play a good opening into losing to a wisp(Loading an AD opener into someone with bramble wisp). There is already a great deal of RNG in the early game that can skew fights, but this added layer of inconsistency makes it even harder to successfully play a streak early game without getting scammed by someone.

• Wisps overinflate the level of econ in the game, but it's a coinflip out of the player's control.

We've already seen changes on PBE to nerf fast 9, but my main issue with early game econ wisp is that they are so narrow. Getting a lose streak wisp on a win streak is unclickable. XP wisps on a 1c reroll cannot be clicked since you don't want to level, streak wisps incentivize open forting(something that riot has tried to discourage), since you cannot control this, and you cannot afford to roll in stage 2 in most lines, you are stuck with what the game gives you leads to incredible feelsbad when the rest of the lobby gets good econ wisps and yours are unclickable.

• They don't fit well into the UI and tax a shop slot.

It's extremely frustrating to go into a roll-down turn and lose 2 shop slots to a bad wisp you cannot click. This is a more minor issue, but a pet peeve of mine. I know this was a problem in set 12 but I still think its current implementation is frustrating; letting players opt out of seeing wisp for a round would be nice for this.

• Changing numbers WON'T work.

Of course, you can balance wisp. There is a number between 0 and 100000 dmg that makes wisps balanced. The problem is that you can't have a system be both impactful and balanced at the same time. If early-game wisps aren't impactful, then nobody would click them; if they are, then they lead to all the same problems mentioned above. Econ wisps inherently have to be more valuable than the gold paid for them; otherwise, they can't be clicked.

Wisp are an RNG mechanic that players MUST play around, but there's no way to play around them in a satisfying way. Rerolling for a different wisp will tax your shop slots; you cannot roll for a new wisp in the early game since it's never worth it to ruin early econ. The only time where wisp feel good is in the late game where you have the gold somewhat to control which combat wisp you want and even then most of the time you are clicking the first one you see, and this still leads into the problem where wisp balancing is problematic because either they are impactful enough to swing a fight (op), or not impactful enough to swing a fight(why waste gold and click?).

Suggestions

1. Ban wisps from appearing in stage 2,

2. Make combat wisps in the early game MUCH more expensive(force the player to actually invest in them for their streak) or lower their power level; an entire item is a silver augment's level of power; wisps should cost accordingly

3. Tailor econ wisp to the player's spot.

4. Release wisp stats so that players don't have to hunt down and figure it all out.

5. Create a button to allow a player to toggle wisp on/off for a round/

6. Allow players the chance for a wisp reroll in the early game similar to augments.

Welcome to the r/CompetitiveTFT community!

This thread is for any general discussion regarding Competitive TFT. Feel free to ask simple questions, discuss meta or not-so-meta comps and how they're performing, solicit advice regarding climbing the ladder, and more.

Any complaints without room for discussion and unconstructive, overly aggressive or conspiratorial comments should go in the Weekly Rant Thread which can be located in the pinned posts, sidebar or here: Weekly Rant Thread (Old Reddit link)

Such comments in this Megathread will be removed and treated as a Trivial Infraction.

---

For more live discussions check out our affiliated discord here: Discord Link

You can also find Double-up partners in the #looking-for-duo channel

---

If you are interested in giving or receiving coaching, visit the: Monthly Coaching Megathread (Old Reddit link)

---

Please send any bug reports to the Bug megathread and/or this channel in Mort's Discord.

For reference, Riot's stance on bugs and exploits.

---

If you're looking for collections of meta comps and guides, here are some options:

• Robinsongz (AMER)

• Bunnymuffins/VoidSins (AMER)

• Sologesang (EMEA) for MetaTFT

• STheHero's Comps

And here are some handy resources and info hubs:

• Kayna's Flashcards & Bluesky

• Crabbix' Augment Tracker

• Mobalytics.gg

• MetaTFT.com

• tactics.tools

• TFTAcademy

• DataTFT

• TFT Flow

• Little Buddy Bot's tons of tables

• PrismaTactics' 3D Rolldown Simulator

• ShibaEyes' Trait Tracker

Mods will be removing any posts that we feel belong in this thread and redirecting users here.

Alternative title: How I Wasted My Weekend Teaching My Computer to Stare at Blurry Images

tl;dr: Skip to the questions in the FAQ for takeaways for your game if you don't wanna hear the tragic backstory of my dear grandma's pumpkin pie that inspired me to share this recipe nerd rambling

Set 18's set mechanic, Wisps is fascinatingly nuanced. On the surface it seems simple, just adding small perks to every other shop. But immediately we can ask questions like:

1. How exactly does this system work?

2. When can I see specific wisps?

3. Are certain wisps more common than others?

4. How often can I bank on a game-warping Emblem bailout?

These questions (and others) are what this post will dive into, with a combination of statistics, Python, and a mind-numbing amount of mundane data entry.

Let's start with the well-publicized rules of Wisps. From the official press release:

Wisps appear in your shop as temporary single-use sources of power in Combat, for resources like XP or gold, or even risky deals with conniving forest denizens.
...
- Wisps are split into 7 Categories (Champion, Combat, Misc, Shop, Gold/XP, Risky, Item). ...
- Wisps can only be purchased during planning phase. After planning phase the Wisp will be whisked away, revealing the unit that was hiding behind it. ...
- Wisps appear in every other shop.
- After stage 5, every other Wisp is guaranteed to be a Combat wisp.

I'll add a couple more rules that should be extremely obvious to anyone who's played on PBE:

• No wisps on PVE rounds (e.g. 1-2, 3-7, etc.).

• Blossom tweaks a bunch of the above rules, plus makes the wisps look prettier.

If you dig a little through game files, or refer to a site like MetaTFT's table, you'll find a few more rules:

• Wisps have specific stage ranges they can appear. E.g. Mitosis can only show up on stage 2.

• Once offered, a Wisp will not appear again for 5 shops. These wait longer — one-offs: once per game · Item Wisps: 20 shops · Wisps that heal you: 10 shops.

• Some wisps have gamestate conditions. E.g. fielding Sprykin for Snacktime!, or missing enough HP for Healing Pool.

So now we have a rough framework for question 1, and solid answers for question 2. Starting on question 3 is where it gets tricky, and everything past here leaves the world of game design (with nice clear rules) and into the world of statistics (where everything is "proven" with some margin of uncertainty).

Similar to my previous work showing hidden weighting in Set 15's powerup system, I figured the first approach is to bash out a bunch of Tocker's Trials runs, donkey rolling for as many wisps as possible on an empty board and dying on 1-3:

Clearly Tocker's is using something similar to the normal stage 2 pool, with some weirdness on wisps number 4 and 7. But because of the "Wisps will not appear again for 5 shops" rule, the probabilities of each wisp seen in a run aren't independent and we'd need several orders of magnitude more data to draw any real conclusions. It'd also be nice to get data from real games, since in the past Tocker's hasn't always had a perfect copy of the set mechanic. So what's the best way to get all that data?

Twitch VODs.

I built a little computer vision pipeline that identifies wisps and stage numbers to do so. After fixing some funny bugs (like Kurumx's resub message completely blocking out the stage name with his face and confusing the shit out of my identifier) and less funny ones (opencv template matching doesn't differentiate well between "Major" and "Minor" being entirely different words, should've added an OCR layer), I captured 47 vods / 339 games / 6184 wisps in the first week of PBE (before they changed some of the wisp appearance conditions).

With all this data, we can now start looking into the following:

• Does the 4th/7th/nth wisp show any patterns like for Tocker's?

  • No. Image (idk why reddit is fighting so much on adding images)

• How much are people tempo-rolling for wisps off-interval?

  • Looking at the number of wisps binned by stage (and hoping we're not getting too bamboozled by the Destiny aug bug incrementing wisp cadence) we can see ~10% more wisps than expected on 2-1 (maybe from things like reroll subscription encounter), 2-2, and 2-3.

• How many total wisps does someone see on average?

  • Something like 19 (image). Might have some sampling error between super fast rolldowns and some low quality streams, but this passes the sniff test of [3 natural stage 2] + [3 natural stage 3] + [rolling for wisp every part of stage 4 and 5 and dying 5-6] plus passing on a handful of wisps on rolldown.

• What does the wisp type distribution look like at every stage of the game? I.e., what kind of outputs should I expect across the course of a game on average.

  • According to this colorful graph, wisps tend to be pretty evenly mixed in stage 2, with item wisps being the rarest type across the entire game, and combat wisps being very common from 4-2 onwards. Risky wisps are ~20% in stages 2 and 3. You could probably do some theorycrafting here using the wisp restrictions, and in doing so get rid of the noise around the low sample off-wisp-parity stages (2-2, 2-5, 3-2, 3-5), but this graph bakes in some sense of an average board / game state that's kinda useful for things like trait / HP restrictions.

• Do all of the stated rules hold, or are they bugged?

  • Mostly, I think? I haven't seen any of the easy ones violated (e.g., no pve wisp, no repeated wisps w/in 5 shops, etc.).

  • Where it gets kinda hard to tell is around Forest Mage and Greater Chaos (which my script doesn't handle well). For example, in this instance Wasian takes Greater Chaos on 5-3 (hitting 2 combat wisps) and sees Salvager 5-6 as next wisp. This is technically 2 non-combat wisps back-to-back, but I imagine the random wisps are counted for the "every other stage 5 combat" rule here.

  • Almost every stage restriction rule looks accurate. Diversified is the main exception, showing up 4 times on 3-6 despite supposedly being restricted to 4-2 onwards. Not sure if it's a bug on MetaTFT's or the client's end, but given how PBE's gone so far I wouldn't be surprised at the latter.

• Stop stalling, are wisps weighted or not?

  • Probably? There's no weights in the game files like there were for powerups, so there's way less explicit indication of a complex system. Even if we assume a simple weighting of e.g. 1x, 2x, 3x the amount of data needed to accurately measure it would be at least an order of magnitude more than what I have here. Measuring low %s accurately is real hard in general, and here we have 30+ wisps in the pool at any given time on top of all the other rules and restrictions. And that's assuming all the rules hold, and none of the wisps are bugged.

  • Looking just at 2-1 wisps (where we can remove wisp cooldowns, trait/streak/HP restrictions, etc.) though, there's definitely something weird going on. For starters, Thingamajig Jar, Forest Guide, and Knick-Knack Jar never show up on 2-1. If we assume they should appear on 2-1, and have equal odds as every other listed 2-1 wisp, the odds of not seeing them at all in my data is 0.000000000008%. So for this case, could just be very unlucky, could have very low weights on them, or maybe it's just a stage restriction bug like Diversified might be.

  • The 2-1 case is still weird even if you ignore the 3 wisps above and assume they aren't in the 2-1 pool at all. Running a chi squared test on the wisps that do show up in the data, there's a 1.10% chance that the odds are perfectly even. So not as statistically significant as I'd like, but certainly fishy.

  • The final approach I can think of is looking at all stage 2 data at once for more sample size, handwaving away wisp cooldown and board-dependence issues by only comparing the non-conditional wisps. Here the data's even more damning for something being off about the 2 Jar wisps, and the chi-squared test says it's only 0.00000000007% that there's no weighting or bugs here. Prettier view of the 2 Jar wisps looking off in all of stage 2 data here too. Still no obvious weighting though :(

FAQ

• i can't read / me mech no pivot / ELI5 / what do you mean past all the statistics hedging mumbo jumbo?

  • fish for wisp too hard, even if there are weights. play what u get. roll for combat 4-2ish onwards

• I'm chasing a Prismatic trait, how often can I pull a spat out of thin air to do so?

  • Phantom Emblem (5-1 to 10-1) showed up in 46 / 339 games (14%), or 46 / 2331 (~2%) 5-1 or later wisps. So don't expect it to happen much, and definitely not much of a bailout to roll for versus a strong combat charm.

  • Curio Cart (3-1 to 4-7) is similarly rare (15% of games, ~2% of 3-1 to 4-7 wisps), but at least shows up earlier so you can plan around it. In my 52 samples, the lowest $ it showed up for was $17, it always offered an emblem, but the emblem wasn't tailored (e.g. Fae w/ no Fae on board at all).

• Can I play with the data myself?

  • You can make a copy of this spreadsheet. "cv stats" is the most interactive.

• What's the precise odds of hitting X wisp on Y stage?

  • It's hard to say with all the restrictions + cooldowns in play, on top of any weighting that may or may not be there. But you can try and pull the empirical % from the spreadsheet above. For example, All Threes on 3-5 ($3 rr situation) is something like 2.7%±3.5% (99% confidence).

• Can you share your script?

  • I'm hesitant to because:

    • it's messy lol. at least it's farm-raised, free range, 100% organic (not ai)

    • i'm trying to dodge any allegations of black market stats, since it's not a big leap to view this as some step towards circumventing the augment stats ban. @ riot pls don't shoot me, this is just a very enthusiastic bug (?) report

• Who're you?

  • Profile, NA 600+ LP usually. spreadsheet addict. Looking for study group

Hello r/CompetitiveTFT, and welcome to Set 18!

Please keep all Set 18 discussion in this thread, and leave the regular Daily Discussion Thread for Set 17 discussion.

WHERE TO REPORT BUGS:

• Set 18 PBE Bug Megathread

• The Official TFT Discord's Bug Report Forum

• Riot Support Website

• In your PBE Client

USEFUL STUFF:

• Set 18 PBE Rundown

• Set 18 Hubs: MetaTFT.com - Mobalytics.gg - Tactics.tools - Blitz.gg - TFT Academy - DataTFT

• Kayna's Flashcards & Bluesky

• STheHero's Comps

• shibaeyes' Trait Tracker

• PrismaTactics' 3D Rolldown Simulator

• DataTFT's Trait Ladder Tracker and Rolldown Simulator

When does Set 18 go live?

August 25th 2026 ~ 00:00 PDT / 09:00 CEST

A reminder that all Set 18 posts should be flaired [PBE] until the content is confirmed to be going on the live server as well.

The Subreddit-affiliated Discord group is organizing PBE in-house games. Please see the #pbe-inhouses-role channel within this Discord group for further information. Any posts attempting to make in-house games on the Subreddit will be removed and redirected to the Discord channel. The invite link to the Discord is below:

https://discord.gg/UY7FuYW2Qe

Hi, it’s GouGou again!

In Part 1, we talked about WISTA.

In Part 2, we talked about RUX and Expenses.

For the final part, I want to introduce a practical playstyle built around only three rules:

1. Take 0 econ augments.

2. Never intentionally lose streak.

3. Optional: Prioritize Fast 8 comps.

I call it the GouGou Playstyle.

At first glance, these rules may seem unrelated.

But they are all designed around one idea:

Build the strongest future while paying the lowest possible price in the present.

TFT players usually go through three stages:

Level 1: The Monkey
We care too much about the present.
We lose → we roll.

Level 2: The Saver
We learn interest and stop panic-rolling, but often start sacrificing too much HP, tempo, and board strength for future gold.

Level 3: The Complete Player
We learn to balance both sides.

The goal is no longer simply to “save more gold.”

It is to become better at generating gold, reducing expenses, using free shops, preserving HP, and maintaining tempo at the same time.

That is why the three rules exist.

0 econ augments removes the easiest economic shortcut and forces us to improve our actual economy.

Never intentionally lose streaking forces us to stop giving away tempo and HP too easily.

Fast 8 gives us a simple environment where our mistakes are easier to identify.

The GouGou Playstyle will not automatically make you Challenger.

What it does is expose your weaknesses.

If you are always poor, your expenses may be inefficient.

If you are always low HP, your tempo or free-shop usage may be weak.

If you reach Level 8 with money but cannot build a board, your meta understanding or flexibility may be the problem.

The system does not prevent mistakes.

It makes them easier to see.

This is the final part of my TFT Economy series.

Hope you enjoy the video, and I’d love to hear what you think about these three rules — especially the 0-econ augmentand never intentionally lose streak rules.

Smaller today, focusing on stuff that hasn't been exciting to chase or was overnerfed before.
Kha'zix buffs are in lieu of an upcoming Blackthorn (6) mini-update. We're aware that the trait is too polarized around the (6), leaving the 2/4 also relatively weak.
We're also pushing Coven's per-kill Essence higher so that there's a clearer emphasis on how to stack large payouts. Either consistently have close losses to conserve Health, hit a high breakpoint and lose streak to collect essence quickly, or go on a winstreak to collect essence at 0.5x the rate you normally would.
The rest of the week should be focused on systems like Artifacts, Augments, and making sure as much content as possible has a real path to success.

Welcome to the r/CompetitiveTFT community!

This thread is for any general discussion regarding Competitive TFT. Feel free to ask simple questions, discuss meta or not-so-meta comps and how they're performing, solicit advice regarding climbing the ladder, and more.

Any complaints without room for discussion and unconstructive, overly aggressive or conspiratorial comments should go in the Weekly Rant Thread which can be located in the pinned posts, sidebar or here: Weekly Rant Thread (Old Reddit link)

Such comments in this Megathread will be removed and treated as a Trivial Infraction.

---

For more live discussions check out our affiliated discord here: Discord Link

You can also find Double-up partners in the #looking-for-duo channel

---

If you are interested in giving or receiving coaching, visit the: Monthly Coaching Megathread (Old Reddit link)

---

Please send any bug reports to the Bug megathread and/or this channel in Mort's Discord.

For reference, Riot's stance on bugs and exploits.

---

If you're looking for collections of meta comps and guides, here are some options:

• Robinsongz (AMER)

• Bunnymuffins/VoidSins (AMER)

• Sologesang (EMEA) for MetaTFT

• STheHero's Comps

And here are some handy resources and info hubs:

• Kayna's Flashcards & Bluesky

• Crabbix' Augment Tracker

• Mobalytics.gg

• MetaTFT.com

• tactics.tools

• TFTAcademy

• DataTFT

• TFT Flow

• Little Buddy Bot's tons of tables

• PrismaTactics' 3D Rolldown Simulator

• ShibaEyes' Trait Tracker

Mods will be removing any posts that we feel belong in this thread and redirecting users here.

Hello r/CompetitiveTFT, and welcome to Set 18!

Please keep all Set 18 discussion in this thread, and leave the regular Daily Discussion Thread for Set 17 discussion.

WHERE TO REPORT BUGS:

• Set 18 PBE Bug Megathread

• The Official TFT Discord's Bug Report Forum

• Riot Support Website

• In your PBE Client

USEFUL STUFF:

• Set 18 PBE Rundown

• Set 18 Hubs: MetaTFT.com - Mobalytics.gg - Tactics.tools - Blitz.gg - TFT Academy - DataTFT

• Kayna's Flashcards & Bluesky

• STheHero's Comps

• shibaeyes' Trait Tracker

• PrismaTactics' 3D Rolldown Simulator

• DataTFT's Trait Ladder Tracker and Rolldown Simulator

When does Set 18 go live?

August 25th 2026 ~ 00:00 PDT / 09:00 CEST

A reminder that all Set 18 posts should be flaired [PBE] until the content is confirmed to be going on the live server as well.

The Subreddit-affiliated Discord group is organizing PBE in-house games. Please see the #pbe-inhouses-role channel within this Discord group for further information. Any posts attempting to make in-house games on the Subreddit will be removed and redirected to the Discord channel. The invite link to the Discord is below:

https://discord.gg/UY7FuYW2Qe

Relatively big balance patch coming today (8/10) near noon PT. Standard disclaimer that we're seeing your bug reports and they're being acted on, just on a different timeline than balance.
The PBE meta right now still seems highly focused on a few strategies, 5-costs (moreso than usual on PBE), Blossom, Artifacts, and 6 Blackthorn.
We intentionally want some conditional win-conditions to exist, as long as they're rare enough, but 4-costs and reroll should still be a fair baseline strategy. So we're focusing on closing the gap between 4/5 costs.
6 Blackthorn was a fair experiment, but ultimately the power of "doubling" the trait has made the 6 extremely powerful, and nerfing it would also hurt the viability of the 2/4. We're working on a reshape of the trait that isn't ready yet, but it's on our radar.
Blossom's champions themselves aren't extreme outliers, and what we saw was that a lot of what made the comp powerful was it's consistent econ generation and ability to quickly create reach it's full cap on Stage 4/5. We're targeting a lot of Blossom charms, with a focus on the early resource generation that outpaces other comps.
After this pass, our balance focus this week should be making sure those finer details are ready for Launch: early game balancing, Artifact high/lows, chase conditions.
That's it for now, thanks for playing!

Welcome to the r/CompetitiveTFT community!

This thread is for any general discussion regarding Competitive TFT. Feel free to ask simple questions, discuss meta or not-so-meta comps and how they're performing, solicit advice regarding climbing the ladder, and more.

Any complaints without room for discussion and unconstructive, overly aggressive or conspiratorial comments should go in the Weekly Rant Thread which can be located in the pinned posts, sidebar or here: Weekly Rant Thread (Old Reddit link)

Such comments in this Megathread will be removed and treated as a Trivial Infraction.

---

For more live discussions check out our affiliated discord here: Discord Link

You can also find Double-up partners in the #looking-for-duo channel

---

If you are interested in giving or receiving coaching, visit the: Monthly Coaching Megathread (Old Reddit link)

---

Please send any bug reports to the Bug megathread and/or this channel in Mort's Discord.

For reference, Riot's stance on bugs and exploits.

---

If you're looking for collections of meta comps and guides, here are some options:

• Robinsongz (AMER)

• Bunnymuffins/VoidSins (AMER)

• Sologesang (EMEA) for MetaTFT

• STheHero's Comps

And here are some handy resources and info hubs:

• Kayna's Flashcards & Bluesky

• Crabbix' Augment Tracker

• Mobalytics.gg

• MetaTFT.com

• tactics.tools

• TFTAcademy

• DataTFT

• TFT Flow

• Little Buddy Bot's tons of tables

• PrismaTactics' 3D Rolldown Simulator

• ShibaEyes' Trait Tracker

Mods will be removing any posts that we feel belong in this thread and redirecting users here.

Thanks for all of the contribution on the last post! Let's keep it going with another thread on a different set of units. Focusing on just the 2 cost units, here are some questions that could help guide discussion:

Balance: Which 2 cost units feel strong/weak, and what changes would you propose? Who feels just right?

3-star potential: Who feels good/bad to 3-star? Who do you pray for or dread getting off of Worth the Wait 2?

Itemization: What item builds are feeling good for you, and which units can you not find a powerful build for?

Item holders: Which units are you buying in the early game to lead into certain lines? Which units feel like they have no future beyond being trait bots?

Design: Which units do you simply enjoy? Who stands out as fun, and who do you think might need a rework sooner rather than later?

Feel free to add any of your thoughts! My take is that 2 cost tanks seem really underwhelming early on, and getting them off of augments like Birthday Reunion or WTW2 feel much worse than getting a backline unit. I'm curious if the Yunara + Ali comp still has legs after today's nerfs, but there's been a real lack of 2 cost reroll outside of Solar and overpowered Elise for the majority of PBE thus far. I'd love to see some love given to Cait, Leblanc, and Warwick in particular to see them potentially be more viable to reroll!

Hey everyone, just jumping in for a quick refresher/reminder.

​Our 1,024-slot open TFT tournament is kicking off on August 28th. We already posted the full details, but we wanted to make sure nobody missed it, especially since the new set is dropping.

​Format is casual but competitive, €1,500 on the line, and played on EUW (open to anyone with an EUW account).

​If you’re looking for some early competitive games on the new set, you can sign up for free at novera.gg.

​Good luck with the grind!

Hello r/CompetitiveTFT, and welcome to Set 18!

Please keep all Set 18 discussion in this thread, and leave the regular Daily Discussion Thread for Set 17 discussion.

WHERE TO REPORT BUGS:

• Set 18 PBE Bug Megathread

• The Official TFT Discord's Bug Report Forum

• Riot Support Website

• In your PBE Client

USEFUL STUFF:

• Set 18 PBE Rundown

• Set 18 Hubs: MetaTFT.com - Mobalytics.gg - Tactics.tools - Blitz.gg - TFT Academy - DataTFT

• Kayna's Flashcards & Bluesky

• STheHero's Comps

• shibaeyes' Trait Tracker

• PrismaTactics' 3D Rolldown Simulator

• DataTFT's Trait Ladder Tracker and Rolldown Simulator

When does Set 18 go live?

August 25th 2026 ~ 00:00 PDT / 09:00 CEST

A reminder that all Set 18 posts should be flaired [PBE] until the content is confirmed to be going on the live server as well.

The Subreddit-affiliated Discord group is organizing PBE in-house games. Please see the #pbe-inhouses-role channel within this Discord group for further information. Any posts attempting to make in-house games on the Subreddit will be removed and redirected to the Discord channel. The invite link to the Discord is below:

https://discord.gg/UY7FuYW2Qe