Teamfight Tactics: The black Sheep Of Riot’s Esports Flock

The Teamfight Tactics Dragonlands Championship demanded a different treatment to other games, and in order to execute their vision.

By Shubham Dalal | Dec 8, 2022 | 5 Min Read follow icon Follow Us

“The difference between Teamfight Tactics (TFT) and Valorant”, said Michael Sherman, global head of TFT at Riot Games, “is that Valorant is a game that lasts a lifetime, whereas TFT is a game we built in a few months. Is. .”Producing the TFT Dragonlands Championship in Alicante, Spain, required an imaginative approach comparable to Riot’s ultra-crafted, mega-competitive offerings in Valorant or League of Legends.The developers rewrote all the rules from the broadcast to the competitive side: no players came to compete over the LAN, and no physical spectators were seen, except for the small broadcast team on site.If you need more information about Teamfight Tactics: The black Sheep Of Riot’s Esports Flock then read carefully and share with your friends.

Teamfight Tactics: The black Sheep Of Riot’s Esports Flock

The TFT Dragonlands Championship demanded a different treatment to other games, and in order to execute their vision, Riot made the rare decision to delegate responsibility for the competition to a third party.Riot Games awarded the honor of hosting the tournament to GG Tech, a third-party tournament organizer. That arrangement alone is somewhat extraordinary for a company that typically enjoys exerting as much control over its esports tournaments as possible.

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Cristian González, Head of Esports for GG Tech, explained that his company had built trust with Riot over the years by distributing tournaments for them in Spain. “We work with them daily to manage all amateur scenes in all sports in Spain. We work with Riot’s Barcelona office to organize tournaments for TFT, Legends of Runterra, League of Legends and others .

Despite reassurances that the team was used to working with Riot, there was still a slightly comical moment at the GG Tech press conference when they confirmed that the company had a lot of creative freedom, even going as far as Riot executives. with whom he almost certainly made a pact.GG Tech is also nationally known for Gamergy, one of the largest offline tournaments in the country, hosting competitions like Rocket League, FIFA, Fortnite and more. Despite all this, the TFT Dragonlands Championships were one of the biggest events the company had ever held, and Riot had given them just two months’ notice to complete them.

Faced with the challenge of neither fans nor players being physically present, GG Tech enlisted local craftsmen to build a massive set that will focus on the cast and other personalities and make the stream engaging and comfortable Will make you feel.The set is littered with physical props from the game, and the four separate sets seamlessly join together to allow the large jib camera to pan between them. Many viewers will co-stream or watch one of the 32 players competing, which presents another challenge for the broadcast team.

Are traditional esports broadcasts dead?

Interviewed at a stand-up luncheon over some Spanish jamon, Matt ‘Nibiria’ Clendaniel said he prefers to skirt Riot’s traditional door style of esports broadcasting. “The eSports broadcast style of the ESPN announcer is dead. It’s been going on for 10 years, and I’m like, why not try something new? Before I came, I told [GG Tech’s fashion freelancer] that if you made me wear a suit and shirt, I would kill you.”

Clendaniel and the rest of the Broadcast team came up with skits, TikToks and other bits to make the broadcast ‘pop’ on both social media and the stream itself, and were given complete creative freedom by Riot to do so.This edition of the world championship tournament did not beat the previous championship, Gadgets and Gizmos, for viewership, but the team from Alicante did not see viewership as their key performance indicator.

Riot’s Michael Sherman explained his vision for the tournament, saying, “I want people to think of 2023 as ‘the year one’ of TFT Esports.”“Coming into this year, I don’t think we necessarily had something that was a perfect fit specifically for TFT. The first thing was trying to think about what our mission is, and we all Want to make competition and TFT eSports accessible to players.

Riot’s main focus with the esports scene of the world’s only competitive auto-batter is not to drive sponsorships (the event had just one – gaming chair maker SecretLab) but to inspire players to give themselves a go and potentially compete. To reach the highest level.The last chance for the event occurred just a week before the qualifier three-day final was broadcast, which would not have been nearly enough time for players from outside the European Union to arrange their travel plans to Spain. Riot may not have wanted to clash the championship with League of Legends, which wrapped up the week before, but it also indicates Riot’s desire to keep the competition as open as possible.

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Sherman claimed that 2022 has been more like a beta test for the game, with tournaments like EMEA’s Rising Legends allowing it to make its mark among a multitude of other TFT tournaments in the Americas and Asia. “I don’t think consolidation is necessarily the way forward, but figuring out how to partner with all of our regions and level up for all of our fans around the world is definitely top of our mind.”

TFT’s future

Accessibility came up frequently in interviews and casual chats with GG Tech and other third-parties responsible for Magic in Alicante. Riot’s participatory vision is somewhat unique in a world where two of its most watched sports now feature franchise leagues. In comparison, none of the top eight players in TFT Dragonlands belonged to a major esports organization.

But Riot’s open model — a model exemplified in some cases by mobile title Brawl Stars — has had the unfortunate secondary effect of scaring teams away. This means teams fear that their players could be out of major tournaments due to a few rounds of bad luck, losing valuable time to their partners on the main broadcast.The only ‘big’ teams represented at the tournament were French outfit Carmine Corp and American outfit Cloud 9. Neither team’s player made it to the last eight.

Instead of representing the team, most players split their time between competing and creating content for their social media channels. Riot won’t reveal much about its plans for the future of the game,Riot won’t reveal much about its plans for the future of the game, but it’s unlikely that larger organizations will want to get involved without assurances that their players will be attending the biggest events.

Yet at the same time, accessibility presents an opportunity for major teams to widen their fanbases. As a game that works on PC and mobile, with an element of chance and no high-octane, fast decisions, TFT is more accessible to casual audiences than Riot Games’ other properties. Caster and broadcaster already understand this,And want to take advantage of that opportunity to include players and personalities from a variety of genders and backgrounds as the title grows in popularity.

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