The first day of the Teamfight Tactics Reckoning World Championships just wrapped up. Day 1 of the four-day event saw the eight bottom seeded players duke it out in the Play-In Stage to determine which four will join the other 12 players in the Group Stage. Throughout five games, the four players moving on have been determined as they move onto Day 2 for a chance to compete for the $250,000 prize pool and the title of TFT Reckoning World Champion. Here are the lessons we learned from the first day of action.
Welcome to the Group Stage to today's Top 4!
🇦🇺 @eschatv
🇯🇵 @nukotod
🇵🇱 @shircaneTFT
🇨🇴 @sealcune pic.twitter.com/FkW2ikQV3m— Teamfight Tactics (@TFT) October 1, 2021
China and South Korea disappoint
Out of the regions represented at the TFT Reckoning World Championships, two of the more interesting ones are South Korea and China. Korea because they are coming off of their first-ever Worlds win where “8ljaywalking” took the trophy back home after a fantastic performance in the top eight finals. China has always been hyped up and as such, they have been given a lot of spots at the World championships despite never performing well. Last season the region had six spots, the most of any region at Worlds. Out of the six players, none of them reached the top eight finals. Coming into this season’s Worlds, Korea is trying to prove their win was no fluke. China is trying to prove it can live up to the hype. After the end of the Day 1 play-in stage, both regions fell flat.
The bottom seed from Korea and China played with the six other bottom seeds to determine the final four players in the group stage. After the five-game series, China’s “Luili” and Korea’s “Zenia” not only didn’t place in the top four, they finished last. Across the five games, Zenia and Luili only managed to grab a single top-four placement combined. Both players were mathematically eliminated before the fifth game even began.
Liuli finished in seventh place with 14 points, Zenia finished in last with 12. The sixth-place player, North America’s SpencerTFT had a distant 22.
The small regions show up big time
When it comes to the number of seeds each region has, almost all of them have multiple spots at the World championships. Even Brazil and LATAM got to send multiple players to the TFT Reckoning World Championship. The only two regions that got to send a single player were Japan and Oceania. Many people think this is a mistake due to how well the regions have done historically. For example, Japan over the last two World championships landed their single representative into the top eight finals each time. The Play-In Stage was just another test for the regions that have chips on their shoulders. OCE’s “Escha” and JP’s “Nukomaru” once again proved that their regions deserve more recognition. Both of them outclassed their competition during Day 1.
At the end of the five-game series, Escha and Nukomaru sat at the top of the standings. Easily qualifying for the group stage. Escha finished with a lobby leading 28 points with Mukomaru right behind him with 27.
The metagame continues to be diverse
Unlike in previous years, the metagame heading into Worlds has not been a topic of complaint. In fact, during most of the regional finals, multiple comps ended up taking down lobbies in each game. With very small changes leading up to Worlds, the goal was to continue to have diversity which leads to better skill expression and better competition. During Day 1, that diversity was on display with a couple of surprises.
NA IS WINNING THIS YEAR. pic.twitter.com/W3SnakG3Li
— DSG Milk (@MilkTFT) September 29, 2021
In what was one of the worst kept secrets, the best emerging composition in the game, Kled Reroll, made its triumphant return to the meta. The comp has been absent for a majority of the set. During the first patch of Set 5.5, Kled Hellion reroll was among the strongest compositions in the game thanks to Kled’s incredible damage output while also having a fantastic aggro-dropping ability. After SpencerTFT popularized the comp in solo queue last week, some people were looking forward to seeing it in action.
SpencerTFT wasted no time as he played the composition in the first game. The comp performed perfectly as SpencerTFT easily won the first lobby. Other players caught on but during the majority of the rest of the games, the comp was absent from the winner’s circle. Three other comps took the podium in the last four games. A Draconic composition that relied on economy to transition into expensive, but powerful, units won Game 2. Game 3 was won by a Forgotten Draven hyper-carry composition. Game 4 saw Kled return to the top again. But Game 5 was won by Nightbringer Yasuo.
Four comps in five games is a very good sign heading into the rest of the TFT Reckoning World Championship. Especially because some of them have yet to make an appearance.
