Over the weekend, “Razza” was crowned the winner of the TFT OCE Regional Finals, securing a spot in the Fates World Championship paired with $2,000 for a first-place finish.
Razza will be the Oceanic representative in the upcoming TFT Fates Championships, and the only player from our region competing in the 24-player event.
The Challenger TFT player finished the final day of action at the Order TFT Regional Final on top with 430 points, including two wins (100 points each) near the tail end. He managed to hold off Keane and Gages, who finished with 380 and 340 points respectively.
Razza managed to outlast the other 31 players across the four-day event to become the second OCE player to make it to the TFT World Championship. He follows in the footsteps of Oubo, who played in the Set 3 Galaxies Championship. Oubo finished the Fates qualifier in 20th.
After missing out in Set 3, Razza is here to prove that OCE isn’t a “joke region” when it comes to TFT.
“In the global TFT community, OCE is kind of viewed as more of a joke region, like one of the smaller and weaker regions,” he told Snowball.
“I think in the OCENA Galaxies qualifier there was less pressure, a lot less pressure actually. This time around we have a guaranteed slot to worlds but last time we didn’t have a direct route.”
The OCE Fates champion claims the lack of high-quality practice, like regular regional events, has put the server far behind the likes of NA and EU. However, Razza has been trying to break the mold and compete when he can.
“The lack of tournaments hurts the quality of OCE players when it comes to tournaments. It’s one of the edges that Keane and I had in this event,” he admitted.
“If you’re playing on the ladder it’s just LP, that’s all you’re playing for. If you lose it, you can always come back tomorrow and gain LP again. Tournaments are different because it’s a one-off, you can’t just come back tomorrow and requalify for Worlds again.”
“OCE players are not used to this kind of pressure and a lack of tournaments hurts our players in terms of how prepared they are for tournament play. I do wish we had a lot more tournaments in OCE.”
Fates has been a set that has divided players with its Chosen mechanic. Razza hopes Riot removes the mechanic in Set 5 (which has been confirmed by the devs), but the game is a lot more competitive than it was a year ago.
“In terms of the game state, this is the highest variance game state we’ve had so far as a result of the chosen mechanic. Removing the chosen mechanic will reward the more consistent players.”
“In terms of the overall infrastructure, it is far more competitive with everyone trying to qualify for Worlds and TFT is growing overall as a game. Prize pools are getting bigger and there are more global tournaments as well.”
Now that the OCE Regional finals have concluded, Razza can now purely focus on the World Championship ahead of him. What is he looking at playing? It only takes one gander at his Reddit profile to know.
“Keepers is my go-to comp if I can, I wrote my first guide recently and it was on Keepers. I am very familiar with that comp,” he said.
“There are a couple of comps I’m still not too familiar with. I went into this tournament and didn’t play a single Mage game because I didn’t have any idea how to play Mages.
“I also only played one Slayer game because I didn’t really know how to play that either. There are players who are better than me at these comps so I am going to try and learn from them, play a lot, and review VODs.”
The TFT Fates World Championship is set to take play on April 7 to 9, with $250,000 up for grabs in the 24-player event.
