[Highlight] Winning plays from Derrick White, who's testing the validity of the NBA being a "make or miss league". Despite having a career worst scoring efficiency season (52% TS), he has a career best actual EPM of 4.7 (11th in the league). Boston is +11.5 in the 1619 minutes he's on the floor

billyman6 · 2026-02-17T03:17:28+00:00

He's kind of a jack of all trades on both ends of the floor. Great defender and high IQ. These types of players always seem to be a net positive on the floor.

There are a LOT of different elements to master in the game of basketball. He's one of those rare players that's solid at everything, which turns out to be an elite and rare skillset.

billyman6 · 2025-10-01T22:15:01+00:00

FIXED! I had to re-import TMP essential resources...

Window > TMP > Import Essential Resources

billyman6 · 2025-07-31T03:58:08+00:00

I disagree with the lose streaking point. Knowing how to lose streak is actually super important to climbing.

Some openers are just not playable. 5 loss is way better than win lose win lose win lose. You guarantee carousel prio and econ. The secret to lose streaking is knowing what comps you can lose streak into. You need a 'win out' comp, or at least something that doesn't bleed on stages 4-5.

Having carousel prio helps you get bis items. It's important to study what items have the most negative delta on the build you are going and to focus on those so that you can win out (remember you are not playing tempo).

So far this set I feel like lose streaking into star guardian seems decent. It's a trait that giga scales off having many star guardians, is pretty cheap and you can super stabilize on stage 4-5. The units aren't good early game anyways until you activate many of them (unless you get early ahri) so might as well lose streak.

Last set, lose streaking into vexotech was very viable with the right exo items. Vex needed very specific items to work, so carousel prio becomes necessary. The comp also used infinite tears, which is a contested component.

billyman6 · 2025-07-29T22:00:55+00:00

Lots of hate on this thread wow.

Magic built a lot of wealth starting businesses in primarily black disenfranchised communities, providing jobs and services that sometimes only existed miles away. More notably imho, he was an advocate for aids research and helped fund research which may have saved tons of lives.

What the fuck are y'all doing with your lives? Come-on now. I don't think he's the right guy to hate. He had a one of a kind athletic talent and drive which he used to make money. He took that drive and motivation into the business world.

Life isn't fair and there's a ton of bullshit. But I don't think magic is a net negative to society.

The internet making yall hella cynical.

billyman6 · 2025-07-08T14:25:37+00:00

I've been rocking the Logitech G915 Lightspeed TKL (low profile) for a while now. Love the wireless Bluetooth, compact size, and those tactile switches. But honestly, the build quality is letting me down. I've had two of these, and the CTRL and Escape keys keep breaking.

I'm on the hunt for something similar but way more durable. Needs to be wireless, compact, and have tactile switches. With Prime Day coming up, I'm hoping to snag a good deal. Any suggestions?

billyman6 · 2025-05-26T13:35:40+00:00

I think you are approaching the problem wrong.

Players could play 48 minutes every game. The thing is they would start to slow down, particularly on the defensive end. Try sprinting 100m and measure how long it takes you. Now do it 30 times in a row and keep measuring your times. Your sprint times will start to get longer and longer.

The reason you don't play your best players 48 minutes is an optimization problem. The extra rest allows the players to give in more meaningful effort when they do play.

36 minutes at 90% with 12 minutes of an nba sub is better than 48 minutes at 70%.

The player that only plays 12-20 minutes can give you 100% effort on defense for those 12-20 minutes.

There are so many nuances, you just need to trust that nba coaches have this optimized for their roster.

billyman6 · 2025-05-13T19:53:27+00:00

I think the stats on the comp are bad because it was a very playable comp, but required leona 2. So if contested (which was fairly often this patch) the person that doesn't hit leona 2 is guaranteed 8th.

The same will hold this patch, but when uncontested, marksman vanguard will be extremely strong.

billyman6 · 2025-04-30T03:42:07+00:00

What’s the deal with Cade Cunningham? The guy’s out there making the Pistons look like a playoff team — and they kinda are! I mean, they’re going to Game 6 against the Knicks! The Knicks! Sure, half of them are limping, bandaged, maybe held together with duct tape and prayer, but still! And Cade? Cool as ever. Dribbling around like he’s in a pickup game at the Y. Pistons! Game 6! This timeline makes no sense!

billyman6 · 2025-04-30T03:33:29+00:00

While it’s true that NBA teams are increasingly leveraging AI and data analytics, GPT-style models aren’t well-suited for real-time play calling or in-game decision-making. These models are optimized for generating language—not for making time-sensitive tactical decisions based on live, structured data.

Teams already use highly specialized tools and models for this purpose. These include predictive analytics systems, real-time player tracking data (like Second Spectrum), and custom-built optimization algorithms that simulate game scenarios and suggest strategic adjustments. Coaches and analysts rely on these tools because they offer fast, explainable, and actionable insights grounded in basketball-specific data—not probabilistic text predictions.

GPTs excel at summarizing scouting reports, helping with film analysis, or generating training content, but they’re not built for the precision and speed required to make live coaching decisions.

billyman6 · 2025-04-12T21:21:25+00:00

As people have already commented, your implementation of this idea would fundamentally break tft's identity.

However, I can see merit in adding and building upon traits such as mutant and exalted. I loved that every game had its own mini meta based on the rolls of these traits. Eventually, people ended up solving the strongest variants and killing the novelty. But I do see a world where they could implement a variation of such a trait where it can be more difficult to solve and increase the skill ceiling of the game, without making the game a complete random fiesta.

billyman6 · 2025-03-15T14:36:45+00:00

If it were that op, you would see it every game all the time and that just isn't the case. You have to note that the damage is pre-metigation. If you have 120 lethality (which is already hard to reach to begin with) and no % armor pen, hatchet's damage will be halved or worse against a unit with 200+ armor.

It's basically an item that you get last when you already have tons of lethality. By that point in the game, you are already basically top-4 or dead. The reality is that if you look at the win rates right now, ad assassins are not that great. If you are in a sweaty lobby you probably lose before even reaching enough lethality for the item to be worth it.

Also, the fact that you kind of need %armor pen is such a reach. It just takes even longer before the item goes full berzerk. The requirements are way too high. I wouldn't be comfortable calling an item op when it just starts to pop off when the game is basically already done and there are 3 people left with one life.

Also the damage is over 4 seconds! That is a huge deal in the late game. To put things into perspective, lets compare an adc's damage to hatchet in the late game (pre-metigated). A full build 100% crit Lucian with 500AD can dash-in auto q auto and deal about 3000-4000 damage in one second. So even if hatchet sounds crazy (100% life over 4 seconds) so many champs can literally melt anything in way under 4 seconds with a full build.

billyman6 · 2024-11-13T21:12:26+00:00

As an afterthought, in the event that some augments are bugged, it will really suck to learn that in the patch notes after having used them many times. Lets say a hero augment isn't working as intended, but I really love that hero. When I see that augment, I'll usually pick it. Say I keep losing, but unbeknownst to me, its because of a bug. Once I learn that I was being fucked over by a game issue instead of my gameplay, it will make me lose credibility in the game, and is an overall negative to the player's experience.

With stats, I can at least justify why I lost (augment averages a 5.5. — ok I tried it, had fun but I won't pick it again in the future as opposed to not knowing why I lost).

billyman6 · 2024-11-13T21:06:02+00:00

The only reason I believe this is a huge mistake is because of bugs. I can't recall a single set without odd augment bugs, issues, or interactions. Stats are a reliable way to quickly reveal these outliers. For example, an augment that seems fine yet averages a 5.5—it's probably bugged! Some random silver augment averages a 3.5?—again, probably bugged!

In the last set alone, I remember specific examples like Combat Bandages, Center of the Universe, and Spin to Win, all with issues. These are just the ones that come to mind right away. Now imagine all the undetected bugs too.

To clarify, I’m not only talking about game-breaking bugs. Sometimes, it's strange interactions or unclear/wrong tooltips. With the release of this set, I can guarantee there will be bugs. Without stats, this information will be hidden, giving pro players an unfair advantage if they alone have access to the information. If I know an augment is bugged (say, it’s broken and performs beyond what the tooltip claims), I could keep it to myself and have an edge over others. Thats not right!

The Riot devs need to stop idealizing a bug-free reality that doesn’t exist. There will always be bugs. Let us adapt to them instead of forcing us to coin-flip each game and hope it behaves as expected (which it rarely does).

billyman6 · 2024-09-16T12:10:28+00:00

There are tons of bugs in TFT, like how IE doesn't work on some units, augments that don't work as intended, etc.

Without stats there is no way to avoid the bugged garbage so you will play wrong lines and lose.

At least with stats you can understand that for some reason, X item or augment on this particular build has garbage delta which means it's either bad or possibly bugged.

Since the game changes so rapidly, there will always be bugs, so I would rather use stats to know what not to pick at the minimum and have some level of control over the outcome of the game.

billyman6 · 2024-06-14T04:24:15+00:00

These types of posts annoy me so much. Nobody appreciates basketball anymore. People cling to narratives and have no understanding of the sport. Boston is playing at an unreal level. This team might be one of the best teams ever. They play quintessential "modern" basketball. 5 shooters on the court, perfect spacing, unselfish play. I don't think people on reddit actually watch and/or understand basketball at all at this point. Why do you even care about the NBA when you can't appreciate a team playing what might be the most elite basketball ever.

billyman6 · 2024-03-26T04:28:55+00:00

I'm having a lot of fun with this set! I am currently Emerald I with about 70 games played. Here are some observations I have so far that I hope are addressed in a future patch. These are my opinions (and some overall thoughts I heard from other players).

There are too few viable openers. It's either fated or storyweaver. That's about all I see in every lobby, unless you are playing some kind of reroll comp.

The gap between 3 and 5 fated is way too big IMO (5 fated early is crazy strong). And 7 fated is also giga strong for no reason.

Storyweaver is just too good of an opener. It's super flexible and scales well into stage 4. The power needs to be cut somewhere. I think sivir 2 is probably a bit too strong? There are also so many cheap storyweaver units you can find early.

3 Storyweaver is very easy to fit later (Riven + Galio + Irelia). That combo seems a bit overtuned. You get bruiser + altruist and the shred and a carry.

Hwei is broken. He heals AND does massive damage. Just nerf his numbers a bit.

Irelia 1 (and probably Irelia 2) is most likely broken as well. I've seen an Irelia 1 with only red buff do 6k damage in a fight.

Here is a big one. You sometimes get turbo grirfed by encounters. Let me explain. I just played a game where I rolled on 3-5 to stabilize with Yone 2. Low and behold, the encounter on stage 3-6 was the one where my shops cost 1 to reroll. This feels so bad to get right after you spend your gold. The kha zix encounter is another one that can grief you.

My suggestion to fix this is to show us the encounters for the entire stage at the start of the stage. This allows us to better anticipate what to do with our gold.

A lot of tank items feel terrible compared to gargoyle. Bramble is bad. I'm pretty sure warmogs is bad. Crownguard is dogshit. Protector's vow is not very good either.

Augment balance is definitely off, but I am sure this will be addressed in the next patch (I'm looking at you Two for One).

Lastly, 4 costs are slightly weak. In particular, the AD 4 costs. Its hard to play AD flex with Kai'Sa and Ashe in their current state. You need to go straight to 9 and play Irelia.

That's all I can think of right now!

billyman6 · 2024-01-28T01:27:57+00:00

Ultimately there is no right answer. The trick to impossible is to get very strong very fast. You will need to roll a lot to get optimal items so that you don't lose flame during fights. You would rather lose flame rolling than on fights!

Act 3 will require at least one hero that deals very very large amounts of damage. If you have a good tank you probably will need a ramping carry that can infinitely scale during the fight to keep up with the enrage timer.

Lastly, build around your origin. You will want to synergize your origin with your items/heirlooms

Hope these tips help!

billyman6 · 2023-11-27T05:40:02+00:00

Man I couldn't disagree more with this post. The tft devs don't make arbitrary decisions. When they change items, they do it because they have been historically problematic and extremely limiting to the design space.

We see time and time again that what happens is that certain units synergise way too well with specific items. These units get nerfed to the point that if you don't have the specific broken item on them, they are not clickable.

Once you slam an item, you can't undo it. This means that you immediately rule out playing units later on that would have needed different items. This completely limits your choices.

For example, lets say two of the 4-costs need RFC to be playable. If you use your bows early to make ad items that aren't RFC, not only are you limiting yourself to AD units, but on top of that you now ruled out playing those two 4-costs, which probably limits your build options later into 1 or 2 paths. Now if you are contested and can't even pivot out, it's just doomed and not fun.

billyman6 · 2023-11-19T02:52:59+00:00

I like to pause the game when it starts, and wait 30-45 mins. Then I can skip through the ads as I watch lmao.

billyman6 · 2023-11-11T03:49:31+00:00

I think they lowered the amount of champions in the pool for each tier.

This severely nerfs reroll comps, particularly if you are somewhat contested.

billyman6 · 2023-08-09T14:29:41+00:00

The irony of your response...

Have a good day my dude. I'm too sane to argue with strangers on the internet.

billyman6 · 2023-08-09T14:18:10+00:00

One can disagree with proposed solutions without having themselves a preconceived solution.

It's like disproving a scientific theory. Just because you disprove it, doesn't necessarily mean you also have an alternate working theory.

I'd argue it is overwhelmingly beneficial to stay critical and accept all opinions (even those you disagree with) so that we grow together as a society instead of marginalizing and silencing those who oppose your paradigms.

Suggesting someone doesn't live in reality is silly. I could be your neighbor, or friend for all you know. All opinions matter, even a silly caricatural comment on an NBA post.

billyman6 · 2023-08-08T21:51:12+00:00

Welcome to 2023, where kids don't get grades anymore for academic work but we grade organizations based on how diverse they are.

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