After three days of the Teamfight Tactics Dragonlands World Championship, a winner has emerged: XunGe. This marks the third Teamfight Tactics Worlds title in a row awarded to a tactician from China, which continues to outperform all other regions.
From November 18 to 20, the Dragonlands World Championship pitted 32 tacticians against each other. The competitors reached the global stage two different ways — 28 had distinguished themselves by winning regional tournaments, while four earned their spot through a Last Chance Qualifier. The tacticians vied for points in each game, with the highest number of points awarded to the first place finisher. At the end of day two, only the top eight players were cleared to advance in the competition.
On day three, the remaining tacticians played in a new format, introducing the element of checkmate. A player could put the rest of the competitors in check by reaching 18 points, after which that player only needed to win one more game to be declared the Dragonlands World Champion. Five tacticians met or surpassed the 18-point threshold: Title, XunGe, Fritz, Huanmie, and HereWeGo. On the fifth round of day three, with a diverse team including Shimmerscale, Guardian, Lagoon, and more active traits, XunGe defeated LifesBad of Argentina to become “Dragonlord.” XunGe was awarded the top prize of $150,000 and a Golden Spatula.
Since the first Teamfight Tactics global event in 2020 — the Galaxies Championship — the Teamfight Tactics eSports team has listened to player feedback and made adjustments accordingly. In August, Global Head of TFT eSports Michael Sherman announced that the Dragonlands World Championship would differ from previous competitions in several ways, including an altered format and a bigger prize pool. Originally, only half of the competitors could continue onto day two, which meant those with low-roll games on day one were out of luck. With the new, more forgiving rules, all tacticians could play more rounds and keep their points on the second day. The Set 7 prize pool offered $456,000, which was a more than 50% increase from the Set 6 prize pool of $300,000.
Moreover, the Dragonlands World Championship introduced an additional Last Chance Qualifier. In Set 6, a Western Last Chance Qualifier gave players in North America, Brazil, LATAM, and EMEA an opportunity to snag the final two spots in the championship. Set 7 extended the same opportunity to players in China, Korea, Japan, and Oceania with the Eastern Last Chance Qualifier.
On November 15, Patch 12.22 launched the final update of Dragonlands, and fans must soon bid farewell to Set 7. Many are already looking forward to Set 8: Monsters Attack, arriving on December 7 with Patch 12.23. New sets, features, and cosmetic updates lie in store for Teamfight Tactics players to enjoy, as illustrated in the 2023 roadmap.
Teamfight Tactics is available on PC.