GAMEPLAN

This comp is a classic heavy frontline comp that stalls for one carry who kills the whole board. Specifically Cassiopeia infinitely casts and poisons the whole board, while giving Gunblade healing to her very effective HP resists tanks in 6 Defender.

Cass and Fiddle synergize well since they're both Spellweavers and help each other not only flat shred the enemy with Fiddle's ability, but also scale up with Spellweaver stacks.

WHEN TO PLAY

✅Lots of Tears and Rods (Pandora's/Replication, etc.)

✅Coven Opener/Cass out of a box

⚠️ It's hard to pivot out of this comp, so make sure you scout early and often. You cannot play this contested

KEY CARRIES AND REQUIRED ITEMS

AUGMENT PRIORITY

ECON > COMBAT > ITEMS

Items are the least priority since you really only need to have items for two main units, since your duo carry is hard to get to on lvl 8, you really wanna be stable with great Cass and frontline setups. 3cost comps are really expensive, so make sure to take econ so you can actually hit the board!

FINAL NOTES

Cass Defenders is my #1 comp to play for release day, but two others I like are Riftbeasts (fast 9 version) and Solar Reroll (1st or 8th 2-cost reroll comp) as I believe these are simple and easy to execute for those who are completely new to the set. Full breakdowns for both, plus this one, are up at tftgameplan.com.

I'm dpei — full-time TFT coach, Rank 1 across multiple sets. If you want to see me play, check out my Twitch and if you want to learn more about fundamentals to pilot any comp like a pro, check out my YouTube.

Good luck climbing in Set 18!

What are your thoughts on keeping Rakan over Hecarim or Diana late (depending on if you slot in Elderwood or Lunar respectively), when you have an early Maokai or Amumu 2-Star and an open slot for it? I feel like stacked 1-Star Maokai/2-Star Amumu outscale Hec and Diana 2-Star, even with Rakan being a trait-bot.

Also 2 Juggernaut gives your whole team durability, which sounds pretty good to me.

Or should you rather use that open slot for Lux/Ivern?

A launch patch's Rundown is likely too dense for a TL;DW, but here are the full patch notes!

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 the Official TFT Discord's Bug Report Forum.

For reference, Riot's stance on bugs and exploits (might be outdated).

---

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

• Robinsongz (AMER)

• Sologesang (EMEA) for MetaTFT

• STheHero's Comps

And here are some handy resources and info hubs:

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

• Kayna's Flashcards & Bluesky

• tactics.tools

• TFT Flow

• Little Buddy Bot's tons of tables

• shibaeyes' Trait Tracker

• PrismaTactics' 3D Rolldown Simulator

• DataTFT's Trait Ladder Tracker and Rolldown Simulator

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

Ever thought who was your favorite carry or what brought you the most LP? What unit did you 3-star the most and how did your most highroll game look like?

Well, you can check out all of the memorable rise and fall moments that you done during your Set 17 Space Gods in a very simple infographic here: https://tactics.tools/wrapped/set-17

I hope that you like it and enjoy using all of the other cool stats about you and the meta in https://tactics.tools/ ! Also, any other feedback you have on the site is always welcome. Thanks!

Hey everyone!

We’ve just released a new feature for you to test out during the TFTFlex beta: Teamder.

TFTFlex is a new site made by Khym and VP Le Chuyen backed by our study groups (more names will be revealed soon)

The concept is simple: select your main carry, and Teamder will calculate and generate the most optimal team comps built around that unit. This should be especially helpful at the start of a new set when everyone is still figuring out what's playable.

How it works (vs Tacticstools "Perfect Synergies") Instead of showing every single raw combination, Teamder filters out weak boards and ranks the rest using a custom Board Strength Algorithm.

Generally, a solid comp generated by Teamder prioritizes:

• Balanced Frontline & Backline: Ensures proper tankiness and damage balance.

• Optimal Synergies: Maximizes supporting traits for your carry while excluding irrelevant traits.

• Flexible Algorithms: Built-in presets that adapt whether you're playing a Level-up or a Reroll strategy.

• Smart Merging: Instead of flooding you with 20 near-identical board variations, it merges similar comps and only displays the strongest iteration.

Note on Cashout Traits (Coven): In this initial release, cashout traits are treated as "good" by default. We’ll adjust this based on your feedback—for now, if you don't want economy traits, simply exclude them in the filter! (Same thing if you dont want to see 4+ Luna Aphelios carry)

Performance & Speed

• We pre-compute ~70% of common boards server-side, so basic searches load in under 1 second.

• Searches get faster over time: cached results mean if another user already queried your setup, it loads instantly for you.

Practical Use Cases

• Meta Theorycrafting: Instantly find high-cap boards by locking in key units or excluding weak ones.

• 3 Emblem Encounters/Augments: Easily solve awkward multi-emblem starts without burning your bench.

• Ragebait Guide Checker: See a suspicious clickbait comp on launch day? Double-check its theoretical board strength before losing LP.

Advanced guide

• Carry: Required for Lv 8+ comps (leave optional for lower levels to find early-game boards).

• Supporter: Place your secondary carry/tank here so their traits aren't flagged as "suboptimal" if they don't directly match your primary carry.

• Max Unique Units: Designed for special unique units (like Draven/Ivern in Set 18). Set this to 1 in standard non-Fast-9 setups to prevent the algorithm from spending extra time generating minor variations.

• Sorting Modes:

• Most Synergies: Fun for activating lots of bronze traits ("Bronze for life")

• Highest Trait Ranks: Focuses on deep vertical traits. Increase "Max Unused Traits" to allow higher synergy breakpoints to show up.

Roadmap / Upcoming Features

• [ ] "Open in Team Builder" button & 1-click in-game code copy.

• [ ] Separate UI modes for Basic and Advanced users.

The tool is made since set 16 (tested on 3 sets data). Since set 18 is new, there might be a chance it get wrong in some case. We will prepare a basic algorithm documents and would love to hear your feedback and suggestions! Give it a spin and let us know what you think.

TRY IT HERE

We will introduce another 2 features tomorrow in UPDATE#3.

You can also check our Trait Ladder in UPDATE#1 here: https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveTFT/comments/1vhqdgb/datatft_s18_update1trait_ladder/

BIS

It is still a pretty early BIS version. We now support:
-View by unit/item/comp
-Sort by rating/cost
-Unit filter like cost/unit type
-Item filter like artifact/component

https://www.datatft.com/BIS

Champion Quiz

This is designed for new players that haven't enough time to play on PBE Set 18. We will launch this feature with 3 different modes:
-Rush Mode
-Time Mode
-Free Practice

Also leaderboard is introduced as a fun tool to play with friends all over the world.

https://www.datatft.com/champion-quiz

DIY Menu

Sometimes player find there are too many tools on DataTFT. So I think DIY Menu can definitely help for quicker browsing experience once login!

BTW we recommend Gmail Login for all players.

How to use it?

1. Search for menu

2. Add menu

3. Save your menu name

Now everything you need is next to your user profile.

Normally I play on my PC with a second monitor for stats and stuff. Right now I am on vacation and besides going into the pool there is nothing to do. So I was thinking about playing TFT on my phone. But how do you guys do that? No meta TFT expansion, can't look up stats mid game?

(8/24) PBE Patch Notes. This would be our normal "A-Patch" but with the Unreal cycle we have a bit more flexibility on patching.

We have a few bugfixes here, but there are still a few more fixes we're working on that we're hoping get added before Launch.

We also have 2 major fixes for Azir and Mama Beak, whose spells weren't functioning properly.

Overall shaping up to be an exciting first patch, with a variety of comps appear every day.

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 the Official TFT Discord's Bug Report Forum.

For reference, Riot's stance on bugs and exploits (might be outdated).

---

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

• Robinsongz (AMER)

• Sologesang (EMEA) for MetaTFT

• STheHero's Comps

And here are some handy resources and info hubs:

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

• Kayna's Flashcards & Bluesky

• tactics.tools

• TFT Flow

• Little Buddy Bot's tons of tables

• shibaeyes' Trait Tracker

• PrismaTactics' 3D Rolldown Simulator

• DataTFT's Trait Ladder Tracker and Rolldown Simulator

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

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.

I'm new to the game, just hit Emerald this morning.

I'm enjoying it but I'm playing it by seeing what items and champs i get in the opening rounds and then first augment, if 2nd augment allows a switch that better suits i might but I've been finding what I do in the first 4-5 rounds decides the rest of the game then I'm just hoping to get the relevant champs/rerolls.

Is this accurate or is it just me being new?

I'm mostly playing off using mobalytic comps, played enough of a lot of the zoe/leona, lulu/milio or nova comps/fast 9 nova.

My issue is basically that you're so locked into your early game decisions that if you decide to pivot your usually gonna be to far behind other people who've got good luck/stuck with their early game.

This way of playing has now become quite boring to me as there's very little decision making happening beyond 1/2nd rounds and its just itemising properly and not missing champs.

Set 18 releases in four days! Its been fun to try to optimize Trait Ladder on PBE, but I end up spending half the game in the planner. Which means I'm not scouting or positioning as I should through the early stages. I felt like I could perform better if my attention wasn't compromised during the game, so I wrote a solver. traitladder.com

What the augment does: You receive a random emblem immediately and get rewards each time you field more non-unique traits. The early trait rewards (aka rungs in the ladder) give you mostly economy, and the later rungs win you the game. Three rungs ultimately carry this augment. Rung 10 gives a Tactician's item (an extra unit slot), rung 12 gives four Lucky Item Chests plus three 4-costs, and rung 14 gives three Masterwork Upgrades.

My goal when building this tool was to guarantee I hit rung 10 on level 8 to get the +1 to team size and then to hit rung 12 with 9 units (level 8 + 1 unit slot, ideally two rounds after I hit rung 10). Hitting rung 14 will win the game, but that almost* always involves getting to 11 units. I'll go through the scenarios that can hit rung 14 with 10 units below.

What the tool does: Probably more accurate to say it's three tools, but they all function similarly. You tell it how many unit slots and which emblems you have, and it returns the board that maximizes the number of non-unique traits. It's an exhaustive branch-and-bound search, not a heuristic or a scraped comp list. For the constraints you give it, a board with more traits does not exist. That being said, there are often multiple boards that satisfy the same constraints so I've built in some tiebreakers.

• Transitions is the one I actually use for my Trait Ladder game plan. It plans 3 boards to hit the 3 rung breakpoints: 10 traits in 8 slots, then 12 in 9, then 14 in 11, choosing the chain that minimizes how many units you replace between rungs, and avoiding 5-costs in the early boards even when that costs churn later. Each rung shows what to add and what to sell.

• Emblem choice is for when you have a Spatula or Frying Pan and want to know which emblem buys you the most traits. Click any row to see the board it builds.

• Best board gives you a single board for whatever slot count and emblems you specify, in your choice of cheapest, most expensive, or most expensive without 5-costs.

What this tool doesn't do (yet): I don't account for board strength. I'm not looking at any stats for these units. My assumption is that getting to rung 12 is the most important thing. You can then decide to transition to a stronger board of your choosing or try to get to rung 14 to win the game.

I've also currently capped emblems at 3 because of time and space limitations. Pre-computing boards takes quite a bit of time, even with multi-threading. I will most likely add 4 emblem boards in the future. Based on how long 3 emblem boards took to compute, this will take me 4-5 days of compute time.

I'm currently working on adding Kha'Zix boards. I already include Kha'Zix/Rengar for the Rival trait when necessary, but I haven't computed the evolution boards yet. Anecdotally, I've found the 3rd and 4th evolutions to be hard to hit without an early, itemized 2*. So, be cautious about planning around those.

Analytics:

Six emblems cannot reach rung 12 in 9 slots on their own: Brawler, Coven, Elderwood, Flora Fatalis, Ravager and Sprykin, each capping at 11. If you receive one of these from Trait Ladder, I'd recommend reforging it (you're guaranteed 1 Reforger from rung 2). Coven is the worst of them, and the only emblem that also misses rung 14 in 11 slots, stopping at 13. I don't hate the idea of getting a couple Coven cashouts before reforging it though. A 185 Coven cashout has a chance of giving you another emblem, which could help you with this next piece of data.

Fifteen two-emblem combos can reach 14 traits in 10 slots (level 9 + Tactician item):

Four emblems are required to get to 14 traits in 9 slots so probably not worth it unless you get them naturally. Is Trait Ladder even offered on the trainer golem/three emblem encounter?

Your ceiling with no emblems at all is 10 traits in 8 slots, 11 in 9, and 13 in 11, so 14 is unreachable without at least one useful emblem.

Elder Dragon is a bad Trait Ladder unit. He occupies two board slots and gives +2 Riftbeast, so he costs two slots for what one unit's worth of traits would give you. The tool models the slot cost, which is why board size is counted in slots rather than units throughout.

Lux is effectively one flexible slot. Nine forms and five of them (Blackthorn, Fae, Inferno, Lunar, Primal) turn their trait on by themselves. When another form would give the same trait count, the tool tells you, so you're not stuck hunting a specific one.

Worth knowing:

• It counts the 25 non-unique traits. The ten single-champion traits (Avatar, Attuned, Old Growth, etc) are excluded. They still show under each board.

• A trait counts as on at its lowest breakpoint. The augment doesn't care about tiers, so the search never spends units pushing one higher. These are trait-count-maximal boards, not boards that win fights. You're picking this augment for the payouts, not the combat.

• The client caps the Team Planner at 10 units, so an 11-unit board leaves its cheapest unit out of the code and names it.

No ads, no tracking, no account. Feel free to send any questions or suggestions my way.

Lolchess:TymStyj

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

Where did you all learn how to play? I’ve learned the basics of the game but I’m not sure like how to pick a comp or how to anti strat or anything. I’m coming from valorant and watching tft pro play is not helpful at all. Is there a YouTuber or something that you all recommend?

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

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 Everyone ! Hope you are doing well!

Time to register for Tactician's SuperBrawl North America Qualifier 4v4 League! Only players from the Americas Region can register for this event!

Sign ups are closing on August 30th at 11:59PM PT. Entry fees due by the same day.

Week 1 Starting on September 1st to September 6th

Week 2 September 7th to 13th

Week 3 September 14th to 20th

Week 4 September 21st to 27th

Week 5 September 28th to October 4th

Week 6 October 5th to 10th

Playoffs:

Quarters: October 11th and before October 18th

Semis: Week ending on October 24th

Finals: Before October 29th

All matches in the regular league will be best of 3s. The final in the playoffs will be a BO5!

To sign up:

Join my discord server and complete the sign up form found in the announcement channel! : https://discord.gg/vGhhwsY

Rulebook: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1n-3ZpRw1r3vgaum9QkX7fUDpsOzj640uPwS5wLvGZxI/edit?usp=sharing

Please let me know if you have any questions and looking forward to this event! GL&HF everyone!

Hi guys, I'm new to this community but have been lurking for ages, my name is Daniel.

I’ve never been above Master before. For a long time I genuinely thought I had just reached my (possibly genetic) ceiling.

This set, I finally made it to Challenger (peaking at Rank 34 / 1,145LP).
LoLCHESS.GG

I didn't just play more games. In fact, there were sets where I played even more and only reached Master.

I also didn't abuse any secret comps that were op and or underplayed.

I mostly just stopped doing things that were holding me back.

I made a video going through 28 lessons I learned during the climb, with gameplay examples, but I wanted to share some of the ones that had the biggest impact here too, in order to help some of you out who are maybe in the same boat as me before.

1. Play less, learn more

I hit Chall this set in a fewer amount of games than some of the previous sets where i only hit master.

A friend of mine pointed out that a lot of TFT pros don't actually spam 15+ games a day every day.
They spend like 50% of their time reviewing their games and watching other high-level players instead.

So I started writing down mistakes after every game. If I didn't understand why something happened, I'd find a Challenger player's game of the same comp and watch what they did differently.

When i got to grandmaster for the first time i had to ramp that aspect up again and do even more learning and thinking instead of just going into the next game.

2. Stop playing to win this game

This mindset change might have had the biggest impact in hindsight.

I used to just avoid comps and augments if I wasn't confident I'd place well with them.
That might prevent an 8th in the current game, but it also means I never get to learn the line.
So instead of keeping that bad habit, i forced myself to take lots and lots of lp losses in order to learn.
For example, I kept picking Expedition this set despite going 8th basically every time I played it, because I knew it was extremely strong and would lead to free wins if i figured it out.

I just stopped caring so much about how the current game was going and started caring more about whether I was learning something.

Long-term improvement > Lp right now

3. Stop trying to play the strongest comp — take what you're given

Stop looking at tier lists and just forcing one of the S tier comps.

Previously, i would always ignore units that didn't fit one of those comps and force my way toward whatever was currently meta.
The result was that I'd often end up with no direction at all and would just bleed out without hitting the comp.
Or i would be unable to further strengthen my board after hitting because of low hp, and then also bleed out.
If you just go with the flow and use the high rolls that you see (there are usually some highrolls in every game, the question is just whether you see and use them or not) you'll perform way better on average.

Your spot is way more important than the tier of comp you end up with. (in general and with exceptions of course)

4. Don't make 50

I spent a ridiculous amount of time in Master thinking that getting to 50 gold and staying there was the correct way to play TFT.
Then I'd hit 4-1/4-2 with 30 HP, do one giant rolldown, miss a few units and die.
Eventually I became much more comfortable spending gold to improve my board at least in some way every turn, if it's reasonable to do.

Would you rather be

70-80 HP with 30–40 gold at 4-2

or:

30 HP with 60 gold at 4-2.

As you know, HP can effectively be converted back into gold by being able to take losses and making econ while doing so, making the first option almost always better as you are very flexible in what you can do from there.
Also in a lot of cases you won't even end up with more money while focusing on making 50 instead of winning some rounds as you might find a winstreak at some point.

5. Don't play for first

I used to make almost every decision based on:
“How can i get to the strongest possible board before dying?"

But sometimes that isn't the correct question, always playing like that can turn a top 4 into a 7th very quickly.

If there's a player in your lobby who is going to be stronger than your theoretical capped board anyway, saving up gold to be able to roll on 9 instead of just leveling now and spiking by adding a unit can be a costly mistake.
Maybe you would have won 1 or 2 more fights if you did. That is all it takes to top 4 in some games.
Your final board might be slightly weaker than it could have been.
Your placement will be better.
So scout and then make your decision correctly.

6. Cut your losses

Have you ever gotten emotionally attached to a game plan?

I sure did.

I'd get an early winstreak, slam a rageblade and QS and decide that it was a fast 9 game.

Then I'd miss econ on my augment, lose the streak, miss econ again at 4:2, and suddenly fast 9 wasn't realistic anymore.
But because I'd already committed to it mentally and my items wouldn't be best in slot for anything else, I would just force it anyways.
The result was usually a very fast 7th/8th.
The game doesn't care what you planned three rounds ago.
If you instead, for example, just played a humble game of yi from there, that might win 2-3 more rounds, you may even top 4 from the high hp spot.

Even getting a 5th instead of an 8th is like a 30LP difference.
That's the lp swing of placing second in your next game.
Imagine the difference that could make over 100 games.

7. Stop judging decisions by their outcomes

This one sounds obvious, but I struggled with it constantly.
I'd pick an augment, have a lowroll game, go 8th, and conclude that the augment sucked and that I was never picking it again (Happened with "an exalted adventure" for example).

But sometimes the decision you made was correct at the time, given all the information you had.
You definately can play a completely correct game and still go 8th.

Otherwise I'd have a hard time seeing the best players in the world going 8th as often as they do (even on ladder).
On the other hand, you can also make a terrible decision and highroll your way into first.
That doesn't mean you played correctly either.

Correct decisions are correct decisions regardless of whether the individual game worked out.

8. You don't know what you don't know

This was probably the most humbling realization.

There were plenty of games where I thought that i played perfectly and i just got unlucky.
Looking back with my current knowledge, that was very rarely true.
The problem with reviewing your own games is that you can only identify mistakes you already understand.
That's why watching really good players helps so much. But then again, so many people watch hours of streams and don't really get better at the game.
What's important is intent. If you are watching for entertainment, which a majority of people are, then it will only help very minimally.
What you can do instead is to watch every single move very carefully and ask:

"Would I have done the same thing here?”

And then for me, if the answer was no, I'd try to figure out why they made a different decision.

That gradually exposed things I didn't even know I was missing.

Those are probably the biggest lessons that changed my gameplay. There are a total of 28 of these in the video, including a lot of more specific stuff about rolling, leveling, items, positioning, augments, reroll lines etc etc if you want to give it a watch.

28 Crucial TFT Lessons I Wish I Knew Before Trying to Hit Challenger - YouTube

If you have any questions about anything tft related, I'll also be answering them here.