The 32 best Teamfight Tactics (TFT) players across EMEA will compete in the TFT Dragonlands Rising Legends finals this week, and UK TFT caster Counterfeit (Peter Hartnell) is part of the broadcast line-up.
We speak to Counterfeit for his views on the EMEA finals running from November 4th to 6th 2022, as well as the separate upcoming Dragonlands Global Championship with its $456,000 prize pool taking place from November 18th to 20th.
Dragonlands Rising Legends EMEA finals kick off this week
The three-day event, which will take place between November 4th and 6th, will see the best ladder players face off against the best performing players from the Golden Spatula Cups and the qualified players from the Superbrawl.
As well as having a chance to become the EMEA Rising Legends Circuit champion, players will have the opportunity to compete for a portion of the €20,000 prize pool and represent EMEA at the Dragonlands Championships later this year, with the five best players gaining automatic qualification to the global event.
Meanwhile, the sixth and seventh ranked players will go on to compete in the Western Last Chance Qualifier (LCQ) to compete for the final two spots at the global event.
The format for the Rising Legends finals will see all players compete in ten games across the first two days of competition (five games per day), with lobbies being done in a Snake Swiss seeding system.
The final day of competition will then see the best eight players compete in six rounds of competition to decide the winner of the EMEA Rising Legends Circuit.
You can see the list of players on the Rising Legends Dragonlands finals Liquipedia page. Sadly, there are no UK players taking part.
Counterfeit tells Esports News UK: “While no UK players were able to make it into the regional finals, they’ve gotten stronger with each passing tournament, with a UK player called yl c0 making top 16 of the most recent Golden Spatula event.
“One thing that’s been really encouraging is seeing the development of the different regions within the Rising Legends circuit, with France leading the way and other regions following their example, finding that mutual support, scrimming and theorycrafting can benefit them tremendously.”
Counterfeit
“There are other really strong UK players like Lallana and the absolute character that is Barry Badden making the second day of that same event as well, so I’m very optimistic about the UK player’s future.”
On working on the Rising Legends broadcasts, Counterfeit adds: “Working on Rising Legends has been one of the best casting experiences of my life, and the people behind it at GGTech who are running things literally couldn’t be kinder or more wonderful folks who’ve helped grow me tremendously as a caster. I honestly couldn’t ask for a better situation – the people around me are truly excellent, including the incredible EMEA caster crew who’ve all taught me so much.
“What I’d say to other UK casters is to keep a lot of different irons in the fire, don’t limit your casting to whatever game you started with and you’ll be better for it. Perhaps you’ll even end up in the right place at the right time as I did, but as long as you’re improving it’s the right direction.”
Other casters at Rising Legends include ImpetuousPanda (Spain), Wita (Denmark), Nibiria (USA) and Meeix (Germany).
Max Wischow, product lead for EMEA TFT esports, comments: “Rising Legends Dragonlands Circuit has been an incredible tournament so far and we can’t wait to see what’s in store when the best 32 competitors from across our region battle it out later this week in the grand finale.”
Riot also confirmed it will drop an exclusive Rising Legends Dragonlands icon during the broadcast for those that decide to watch the event.
Fans wanting to tune into the event can catch all the action from November 4th in 12 languages, including English on the main TFT Twitch channel, as well as French, German, Polish, Spanish, Russian, Greek, Czech, Turkish, Hungarian, Polish and Italian through partner co-streams.
GGTech to host TFT Dragonlands Global Championship with $456,000 prize pool
GGTech has been selected to host the Teamfight Tactics Dragonlands Global Championship on November 18th to 20th, with 32 of the world’s top players from eight different regions competing for a $456,000 prize pool.
32 of the world’s best players from Europe, Middle East, Africa, North America, Latin America and Asia will compete for their share of the $456,000 prize pool, with $150,000 awarded to the winner, $75,000 for the runner-up and $25,000 for the third-place finisher.
Friday and Saturday will see the competitors battle their way through the qualification phase ahead of Sunday’s grand final which will follow a checkmate format, requiring 18 points and an additional round win to be declared champion.
The tournament will be hosted by Spanish gaming company GGTech and broadcast from its production studios in Alicante, Spain. The production team will stream the event live online on a stage inspired by the latest set of the game, the Dragons. Teamfight Tactics Set 7: Dragonlands was officially revealed back in May.
Riot Games and GGTech have recently collaborated to produce the Rising Legends competitive circuit, the largest in EMEA. GGTech has also been selected to host the Western Last Chance Qualifier on November 12th.
Casters for the Global Championship have not yet been announced.
We ask Counterfeit what he’d like to see from the event.
“Well, with Chinese champions for the previous two championships running (Huanmei in October 2021 and LiLou in April 2022), the upcoming Dragonlands event feels like a chance for the other regions to punch through and show they can compete on China’s level, rather than following behind in terms of TFT innovation.
“I know from the EMEA side we’ve got some incredibly determined players like the Galaxies (first World Championship) champion Double61 and this season’s Superbrawl champion Deisik looking to take part if they can make it through the regional stage.
“The upcoming Dragonlands event feels like a chance for the other regions to punch through and show they can compete on China’s level, rather than following behind in terms of TFT innovation.”
Counterfeit
“Players like Deisik and others stating outright coming into the season that they wanted to perform on the world stage, so there’s certainly no lack of hunger there.
“One thing that’s been really encouraging is seeing the development of the different regions within the Rising Legends circuit, with France leading the way and other regions following their example, finding that mutual support, scrimming and theorycrafting can benefit them tremendously.
“I’m really hoping that happens for the UK some time soon and we can really start putting ourselves on the TFT competitive map.”
What of the future of TFT esports?
Counterfeit states: “In terms of overall competitive TFT I’m very optimistic, with the large increase in prize pool [at the Global Championship] doing a great job of signalling Riot’s continued confidence in TFT’s future as a competitive game.
“For what this means to me – it’s huge, I never expected when I kept going with my own tournaments that TFT would end up where it has, let alone bringing me along for the ride.”
Counterfeit often runs TFT tournaments – you can follow Counterfeit on Twitter and Counterfeit on Twitch for more.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
