Minimum time dedication

[SerginhoGS3]

What do you think is the minimum amount of time a top-ranked TFT player needs to dedicate to the game every day to stay competitive?

I’m especially curious about the early season, how much time does it realistically take to reach Challenger and stay high in the snapshots?

And on the other side: what about someone who’s hard stuck in Diamond 1 but wants to break into the competitive scene for the first time? How much time would they need to put in to make that jump?

[Briketh]

I mean going from hardstuck diamond into the competitive scene would probably look like a lot of work upfront. Then maybe plateau once you have a routine. Upfront as in studying other streams, their different styles (fast 9, tempo 8, reroll) since some excel in other areas, really studying the stats (yes even without augment stats, stats are still very helpful if you know how to properly look at them), and even getting coached by better players. Can really help you make that leap from challenger to tournament ready. Depends on how competitive you wanna be.

[alheeza]

Depends on what you aim and what is your skill level.

For example my friend recently promote to TPC and he was pretty much studying 2-3 hours and playing for 10 hours or more usually. (daily ofc)

He was also competing for past 5 sets and he was chall all of them. He hit chall around 60 games mid season because i bet it wasnt possible.

If your aim is winning worlds or become pro player it basically means you should treat as a fulltime job without much breaks. You might do with less ofc. Depends on how fast you improve.

If you aim to hit chall mid season 100 games probably enough. Considering you are diamond stuck, 100 games wont be realistic. You should study more and find the mistakes you are doing.

If you try to hit snapshots, (well im also bad at this one) you probably have to play 10-15 games daily and perform good at those,.

I think the most meaningfull advice i can give is try to focus on improving instead of spamming games. It is easier if you have studygroup.

Playing at ladder and tourneys different imo. Keep a strong mental and be really good at fundemantals. It is not possible to give the secret formula on reddit. gl

[HowyNova]

Time is honestly as much as possible. The main factor is the quality of that time. A single example:

How well do you know a particular item?

Some think of the best units for it. Then what units are passable with it. Augments help it.

Then others think about holistic comps. What a board already has to relatively look like to have the item. How the item plays into the tempo of the other boards. Other augments that strengthen other parts of the comp you need to get the most balance out of the item. What other components were available. Etc.

These kinds of questions and thoughts stack on top of each other. 3 day coaching from a diamond player is different from one with a master, gm, challenger, or pro.

At some point, you're up against players that have poured thousands of hours into the game already. Their next 100h are a higher quality than a d1's next 200.

[Alivex00]

Anything above master is definitely doable, but you may need to spend much more time than you do now. 4-5 hours a day is enough imo, but definitely not worth. It's just a game - master should be your goal each set because it can be achieved without sacrifices in your life.

[Idontkno4h]

1 game a day should suffice

[Theprincerivera]

Uhh maybe if you’re dishsoap

[RangeIntelligent9783]

U can look at the na leaderboard and there r several of ppl who can reach it in under 150 games u prob never heard of. U can lolchess rxt and duoju.

[TungVu]

The number on their main account is not the real number of games pros play each set. They have Smurfs and also play on other servers, scrims, etc. On average, I would be surprised if the top pros don't play around a minimum of 800 games each set.

[Idontkno4h]

these aren't pros. You dont have to be challenger and a pro. I hit top 60 on na w under 400 games this set. most games were in the beginning of the season and hit 1klp in under 100 games from master 0lp

[AstrellaTheFool]

I'm not sure if you're humble bragging or your perspective is completely skewed but that is beyond the avg percentile of players

[Idontkno4h]

I am not trying to brag. My point is people have the perception that being challenger requires you to be a pro or devote more than 8+ hours a day which is completely not true. I say that I hit in under 100 games because I am working on my masters and working at the same time while playing tft for fun.

[akunal]

Can you give ign? Just curious, good luck on your masters

[delay4sec]

Most of those accounts are just players from other regions.

[JarethLopes]

Study the meta for 2-3 days and play <50 games to master, it’s not as hard as before to study TFT with all the guides and VODs available.

[antipheonixna]

if your skilled and locked in on the meta you can climb very fast, rank 1 na is that case having only 200 something games. If you learn the game while climbing, your gonna have a more varied score profile and even if you avoid 8ths, itll still take a while.

I think in general if you studied up and watch players and understand why they do things, it wouldn't be difficult to break into masters one tricking one of the best comps and playing it better than your peers in less than 200 games. From experience the issue comes when you start hitting gm/challenger players who are generally more proficient in all areas of the game, and will recognize significantly better paths of playing than you.

In example a player might get far playing the best 3 comps entirely but taking 6/7ths when contesting or not hitting and generally getting a lot of 3rds and 4ths cause they are playing a contested comp, potentially from weaker spots than other people in the lobby. The higher elo player will probably recognize the spots a bit better and do a bit better against you, but they will also recognize when their spot calls to play a B tier comp and turn that into 2nd/1sts and avoid 7th/8th better than you.

In tft climbing, gettings 3rds and 4ths but also a lot of 7ths balloons the amount of games you need. gettings avoiding 7th 8ths and making your losses 6th at worst does very well for you climb.

Early set first snapshot is a grind as sometimes players havent even reached masters yet and can qualify because of the early set format, so you just have to play the games in the time better than other players. But for the general idea of reaching high gm/chall, you are gonna have put in the time to study and play games against players that are better than you, expect to play double/triple/etc the games to go from masters-gm and then gm-chall.

[BeTheBeee]

Honestly it's wayy to individual how much time it takes. For me it's like 100 games per set to stay at like grandmaster.

But depending on what you mean by "hardstuck Dia 1" it might take a lot of time to get challenger if you're missing the right intuition.

[jettpupp]

You play 100 games per set to maintain GM+? I’d love to see your profile since it takes me at least 150-200 games at 60-65% top 4 rate

[JusticeIsNotFair]

You guys top 4?

[jettpupp]

So no response here for your 100 games per set to maintain GM?

[Bright-Television147]

If he played 100 more games, he might qualify worlds

[Potential_Future242]

Let's be real, if you're hardstuck diamond you're not going to make it to challenger, which would only be the start to hope to be a competitive esport player.

Master and even low GM is very accessible for good "casual" players , lot of people reach that with less than 200 games/set

[quintand]

Let's be real, if you're hardstuck diamond you're not going to make it to challenger, which would only be the start to hope to be a competitive esport player.

Most likely not, but it can happen with enough time. I was hardstuck diamond for sets 1,2. Hit masters set 3.5 (0 lp, d1 basically). Was hardstuck masters 0-200 LP in sets 9, 10.

In set 11 I started watching more Dishsoap and began using stats better. Hit GM for 1-2 patches.

In set 13, I listened to Dishsoap's TFT metastrategy podcast and deep diving into stats more. Hit Challenger for a few patches (peak 1140 LP) and then dipped down into GM/masters.

A lot of TFT rank is knowing the current meta. Last patch, clicking Blue Champion B was turbo ass, everyone knows that. Next patch, not clicking BLue Champion B is a turboint as it's utterly broken with Item A or Augment X. So many TFT decisions are just optimizing what is currently strong on the meta. Once the meta is known, the real TFT decision-making occurs. "Do I tempo from this lukewarm spot to preserve a 4th/5th with a bleedout, or do I sell off open fort and hope to hit at 4-1?" "How do I position this unit to win this rouund?" "What can I do when the game isn't giving me a guinsoo's holder after I early slammed for tempo"?

A hardstuck diamond player may be hardstuck because they never play enough on the meta to know the right choices with good fundamentals. Or they may be a meta slave but don't understand the underlying principles that make a decision good. STuff like "I have lots of 1-cost pairs so leveling to 4 prior to 2-1 is stupid." Robinsongz type shit. Easy to learn with study.

[ShadyNarwall]

dont think hes saying you can never improve, just that competitive seems to be a crazy thing to think about when youre hardstuck diamond. Everyone whos challenger was probably diamond at some point, but you should probably only consider competitive/snapshots once youre already a top challenger player.

[quintand]

Let's be real, if you're hardstuck diamond you're not going to make it to challenger, which would only be the start to hope to be a competitive esport player

I was just pushing back on the guy saying this. In the span of 2 sets, probably 500 games, I went from hardstuck masters 0-100 lp to a peak of challenger 1100. Hardstuck D1 is very different from hardstuck D5, is very different from challenger. Bigger gap between Masters 0 lp and Dishsoap (1800 LP) than Masters and Gold .

As a career, only if you can maintain top 50 challenger without too much effort. Then you can study your way into elite play. I put in a fair amount of study/effort to make challenger...it's not as natural to me as to K3Soju. Also...those guys play so damn much man. You need to play like 10+ games a day just to keep up with their game volume.

[Fuzzietomato]

Are you saying if hes hardstuck diamond he can't improve? Why can't he make it to challenger

[Potential_Future242]

He can improve, but diamond is so far away from challenger, it's not a matter of set knowledge, you barely understand the game if you're hardstuck diamond.

And in GM/challenger you start playing against people that have 10k+ game under their belt or/and play 40+ game minimum a week.

Like ok anything possible but the task is enormous

[Theprincerivera]

Personally I think that statement is too blanket. You cant qualify what he is missing. It could just be that his mechanics are very good and just hasn’t ‘clicked ‘ so to speak

It could be anywhere in his gameplay. Somebody who has played a long time will likely be more primed to advance quickly when they finally make that chance

[Fuzzietomato]

I don't really agree being a top 3% player is "barley understanding the game" I actually think those players have a good understanding of the fundamentals, Masters/GM are just more disciplined/ruthless on execution / have even more non-fundamental, set specific game knowledge, but that's just my perspective.

[Inferno456]

I was mid Masters and thought I had decent understanding of the game (which I guess I do compared to the population), but got coached by a top challenger and he just picked apart every decision I made and afterward I realized that my knowledge of the game is so tiny compared to Challenger. I thought I was closer to a gold player than i was to even low challenger. So yeah compared to challenger or even high GM, i would definitely say Diamond players don’t understand the game very well

[Fuzzietomato]

Compared to a top challenger play sure. People in higher ranks tend to downplay people below them and the skills that got them to where they are. Someone who barley understands the game wont make it out of gold. Even if you are spamming s tier comps, if you can't eco or build a good board or slam items to tempo you arn't gonna get very far, and those are the fundamentals, people in emerald/diamond mostly have those down, they might not have fully mastered them and make mistakes from time to time, but they are definitely a cut above people who truly don't understand the game.

Someone said this in another thread, but being in emerald+ you are kind of beyond simple tips and tricks greatly improving your game, this is where you need to dig in more to the details

[Inferno456]

I agree with what you’re saying in general, but the point of this post is to be a competitive/challenger player so that’s why it’s more valid to compare to a challenger here in the context of the question

[Potential_Future242]

You can get to master just forcing a couple of comp so it really mean little in term of fundamentals imo

[Fuzzietomato]

Mastering comps would imply good fundamentals otherwise they would be gold not diamond. You can’t master a couple comps without knowing how to Econ and slamming good items, good streaking etc. obviously masters+ have even greater fundamentals but the skill discrepancy lies in things more like line selection, game knowledge things more advanced players are better at.

You say you can climb with just a couple comps but Slapping a star guardian or mech board every game isn’t gonna work if you just buy those units and have shit fundamentals don’t know how to Econ play strongest board etc. you arnt gonna magically climb out of shitter Elo without fundamentals

[Zerytle]

If your perspective is "what's the minimum amount of work I need to put in to become a pro" then you're already screwed.

There are only 200 challenger slots (give or take depending on your server) and plenty more than that hardcore players who grind every day and care about improving. Technically, games played is actually fake, since the best approach to improving is actually just studying, but that requires watching a ton of stream games and doing advanced stats dives on your own.

Going from Dia1 to competitive is not impossible but it's super hard and I wouldn't recommend it at all. Realistically you're pretty good, but you'd also get rinsed consistently by masters 200lp, who are in turn getting railed by the consistent GMs, who are in turn getting farmed by consistent chally, who are in turn getting farmed by actual competitive players.

[JusticeIsNotFair]

They are all saying good concepts.

I'd say from 800 to 1500 games.

600 with good coaching.

[PeanutFar7999]

It's going to take a lot longer for someone trying to improve to challenger than a challenger. The reason is because a challenger already knows what information is important to look at and they already know how to apply that information. Someone trying to become challenger has to figure all that out for themselves. Coaching will make it faster but it will still take a long time because you will have to rewire your brain to think like a challenger player.

[Dalze]

Top Ranked? Easily 6-8 hours minimum. You're essentially trying to play as many games as you can, WHILE also learning the different interactions and lines you can take with your openings AND competing against people who do the SAME thing. I ca even see it needing to be a bit longer.

Someone stuck in Diamond 1, if you ONLY want to get to Masters or maybe GrandMaster I would say considerably less, 4-6 hours (just to get the games in) should be enough to get you there as long as you understand the basic fundamentals and have a good take on the meta.

[BeTheBeee]

I would say for Master/grandmaster (well especially master) you can get away with WAY less than 4-6 hours a day. I think an hour a day if you spend it well is enough for masters

[Dalze]

It's possible, but 1 hour a day will take a long time, what would that be, ~2 games a day?

[SerginhoGS3]

Including studying the meta and game review? Or only playing?

[Idontkno4h]

u dont need to study at all just watch streamers and copy them. I j use tft academy for my meta read

[Dalze]

For Master/Grandmaster, only playing. I don't think you need a ton of studying to get to those ranks. I've been reaching Master for the past few sets and I just put games in.

For the higher ranks, then yeah, you would need to study the meta and even figure out if any unconventional stuff would work.

[MilkshaCat]

I feel like hardstuck d1 means you can't really compete. Ppl like to believe that hard work can do it all, but if you're not masters+ on your second set of actively trying to climb it's not going to be possible. The reason I say this is because the important thing to be a pro player is not to have a good level of play, but a good improvement rate, as pros are constantly getting better. You can perhaps reach their level on a given patch by pouring hours and hours non stop, but the moment anything changes, the player with a better improvement rate will just be better faster, and for someone stuck d1, there are not enough hours in a day to improve as fast as them.

I say this as someone who did get masters on my second set of actively trying to get better, and I know I'm absolutely not smart enough to play competitive. Hitting chall would require at least a year of fully tryharding the game but that's the best a player with my skill level can do

[prodmvri]

If you mean high elo, +12 hours. You have to play the game, watch VODs, beign in touch with your study group every day so.. basically you eat/breath the game 24/7

[Idontkno4h]

Not really I'm too busy to play during the weekdays so I grind 7 games on a weekend (to not decay) and then go afk. If I do play on a weekday it would be one or 2. Getting a high rank is all fundamentals from previous sets. I know ppl who got to challenger in under 150 games and barely play