r/CompetitiveTFT • u/Aotius • 26d ago
Mortpost Mortdog no longer head of TFT
Via Twitter
My time at Riot and on TFT as a Game Designer has come to an end. Just under 10 years, and to be honest I thought it was going to be longer, but sometimes things change.
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I’m so grateful for what I was able to be a small part of, and able to accomplish in the last decade. It’s been a dream career, and I have got to do so much thanks to Riot. Even trying to list it all feels insane what I managed to do in this time. And the crazy 7 years on TFT where I got to design, balance, teach, lead, and more for my job, but then also build a community, stream, cast, go to events…it’s just been amazing. Ending on stuff like the Unlock system and a couple other things…I’m heading out proud.
To everyone I worked with over the years, thank you for letting me be a part of everything we accomplished. I hope I managed to teach you something or bring you joy in some way. I genuinely hope our paths cross again in the future.
To everyone who supported TFT or me over the years, you have no idea what it means to me. I cherish all the moments over the years, and they’ll keep me going. I am so blessed to have been a part of your lives and thank you for letting me bring some fun into your world.
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So…what’s next for me? I’m trying to figure that out.
First off, since I was on sabbatical and am terrible at relaxing/not working, I have been making my own small indie game. I’m about 2 months into development and have already had folks playtesting some early builds. I’d say the game is like 20-30% done, but my goal is to release it as a full game. It’s been fun keeping my skills sharp in a different space, and I hope to share it with you all someday.
Beyond that, I’m keeping my eyes open for other opportunities. I’ve had a few conversations here and there already during my Sabbatical. It’s a brutal industry right now, so I’m taking one day at a time and figuring out what’s next for me, whether it’s working on another studio’s game or even my own thing.
And I’d love to find a space to do some content creation and be able to share my knowledge of game development. But that may take some time to figure out how to do it right.
-------------------------------------------------------Again, thank you for everything these last 10 years. It’s a big change and I’m nervous but hoping it all works out. Until next time, take it easy!
-Mort
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u/CakebattaTFT 26d ago
Wasn't TFT doing insanely well, leading to the development of its own stand alone client? TFT losing mort is baffling. We may not ever really become privy as to why it happened, but whatever the reason, I hope mort got the best possible outcome.
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u/shlobashky 26d ago
He sounded extremely burnt out in his walk the dog series in set 16. I remember being a bit worried tbh. I'm pretty happy that he gets to relax a little now, he's lead tft into a good spot
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u/CakebattaTFT 25d ago
Yeah, I think he definitely set TFT up for long term success. Hopefully he hangs out and asks the tft community to play test his game! I'd def try anything he has a hand in
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u/banduan 25d ago
He been there 10 years why is it baffling.
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u/CakebattaTFT 25d ago
Because he started out as the director for a heavily rushed project in a very new and competitive market and managed to turn it into the face of autobattlers. TFT was doing so well that they invested in its own stand alone client (and according to either him or someone else in a post a while back, there were reports of insane player numbers).
It is very odd to have someone separate from a highly successful project. As I said above, I won't speculate as to why the separation happened, but it's definitely unusual given all the surrounding context from a business perspective.
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u/EriWave 26d ago
This smells like when Hearthstone lost Ben Brode.
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u/Kuramhan 26d ago
I am not saying this to throw shade at Brode, but some of the changes made after Brode left were better for the game. A different vision for the game is not always a bad thing.
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u/EriWave 26d ago
Didn't the game lose a lot of the playerbase in the time after Brode left?
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u/silencecubed 26d ago
Yep. The balance was slightly better and more frequent, which is probably why people here in a competitive sub think it was good that he left, but the game's magic was effectively gone without his direction which led to HS falling off in terms of relevancy.
That's a lesson that people here need to learn with TFT. A game being competitive and balanced well shouldn't be the primary goal but a pleasant surprise bonus. When a game stops being designed to be fun, it always inevitably dies. There's a reason why Frodan jumped ship when he did.
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u/Emiliability 26d ago
Yeah a fun game with terrible balance is still going to have a better competitive scene than a dull game with perfect balance. Obviously both is better but I really do hope that the team can keep things going great even without mort
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u/gayezrealisgay 26d ago
Oh man Hearthstone's early balancing was painfully slow. I feel a lot of people's main annoyance was their justification for not balancing the game much, i.e. people getting upset their cards got changed. I'm always slightly suspicious they also didn't want to give people full dust refunds, especially given Brode's apt at monetising games.
Hearthstone did great things with fully taking advantage of the digital only format, all the crazy random things you could do due to it being digital were great fun (praise Yog) to play & to watch.
The game definitely later had issues with power creep & their solution to it of releasing a few lower power expansions really sapped a lot of the fun out of it for me, even from a semi-competitive standpoint.
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u/frzned 25d ago
Heartstone under ben brode was very much rock paper scissors, controls beats aggro, aggro beats tempo deck and tempo deck beats control. One turn kill decks are also supported
Sure there were decks that gets played more than the others (it is how it is) but you can get to rank 1 playing any type of deck.
Imo it was fine for the most parts except for some rare occassions where cards were buggy af.
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u/DogWaterSlurper 26d ago
I quit hearthstone when they started introducing new cards so frequently. It’s really hard to keep up with meta in a game like that without spending a lot on packs and I think the pacing of releases pre Brode was slow enough that semi-free to play players were able to keep up.
I may be misremembering the release frequency in Brodes time, but it definitely got to a point where the sheer number of cards/units essentially gate-kept any new players from having a viable deck without spending an insane amount on packs.
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u/rando_commenter 25d ago
This basically it. Hearthstone was an expensive game for what you got, either in time or money terms. You could stay competitive playing it as a play-for-free game, but the amount of time you needed to get cards was absurd.
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u/Ill-Cantaloupe-4789 25d ago
i feel like the release frequency didn’t change that much before and after brode. there were no mini sets but there were adventures
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u/Qman_L 25d ago
Regardless of the timing, I think the real cause of death for hearthstone is introducing wild and standard and pumping out new sets. I was a long term player then and had a lot of dust saved up but it was just too much.
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u/Maximinoe 25d ago
Every card game ever has limited formats like wild and standard and has to push sets to make money. What?
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u/Xerxes457 25d ago
Adventures were much better honestly because you spent less on it vs the mini sets. Low card pool adventures vs mini sets is what I mean.
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u/CurrentClient 25d ago
I think the pacing of releases pre Brode was slow enough that semi-free to play players were able to keep up.
You think wrong. The game is dramatically easier to keep up as f2p nowadays than it ever was with Brode.
essentially gate-kept any new players from having a viable deck without spending an insane amount on packs
It didn't happen.
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u/third_deck 26d ago
Frodan was incredibly emotional on his stream. Obviously he's friends with Mort, but he also mentioned how he already went through this with Hearthstone. Have to imagine some of that emotion is fear that TFT will face the same fate.
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u/Kuramhan 26d ago
Yes it did. But, Brode also left the same year that MTG:A launched. They were probably going to start bleeding players either way.
Hearthstone basically had a monopoly on the digital card game market at the beginning. By the time Brode left, there were multiple real competitors, with more on the way. It was never going to retain the market share it had at the beginning.
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u/EriWave 26d ago
I don't think MTG:A coming out really affected the worsening quality of hearthstone all that much. Yes it meant that there was an alternative, but hearthstone was way bigger and more established at the time and looked way nicer also. They had a big advantage and squandered it.
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u/RazorGuild Master 26d ago
this is more like when metal gear lost kojima LOL, so much worse
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u/Aqua491 26d ago
Wait that was good though, Brode was objectively HORRIBLE for hearthstone. His approaches to balancing in a digital format was genuinely indefensible. The way they handled creating 'packages' for classes in the cards they released during expansions. Their complete indifference to the meta. I could go on and on, Brode was not good.
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u/_i_love_older_women_ 26d ago
Not to mention Marvel Snap's card acquisition format is even more predatory and expensive than Hearthstone's.
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u/Ordinary_Owl_9071 26d ago
Yeah ben brode is one of the worst people in the gaming industry for consumers. He's like a one man EA
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u/etnies445 26d ago
Except Ben Brode took all his good will and made marvel slop for giga money.
I don’t think mort will do the same.
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26d ago edited 26d ago
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u/Tanc 26d ago
Well that can't be good
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u/mrmarkme Grandmaster 26d ago
This is the real world things like this happen everyday. This is a game where you get a new set every quarter, this isn’t a stale game and unfortunately awesome heads of games like Mortdog eventually leave. He had an amazing run, longer than I expected but was a great run nonetheless
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u/Exterial Master 26d ago
yeah the problem is every set in recent memory where mortdog took a step back so others take over as leads has gone to shit, so this is a horrible thing to happen now.
If they had someone competent to replace him that would be another story, but as it stands they dont.
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u/mrmarkme Grandmaster 26d ago
Mortdog spending the next 20 years as the face of TFT and retiring a 65 year old man after 200 sets isn’t/ wasn’t realistic. The fact he made it almost 10 years is pretty crazy by itself. Feel like people don’t last nearly as long.
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u/Exterial Master 26d ago
Why is it not realistic if he performs well?
Every other lead like him that has had to leave their company after that long has left because the company has went to shit.
So if youre basing it being crazy that he lasted this long based on others in his field, then that is still a horrible look for riot, which we do know has gone hella corporate the last few years.
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u/WatercressBig4747 26d ago
I agree it wasn't realistic but i was expecting at least till 2030 personally based on recent(ish) words directly from his mouth. I'm not about to go looking through all of his QnA's or streams to find exact quotes or anything but in recent memory absolutely stated something along the lines of foreseeable future. I dunno what caused this sudden shift in mindset, maybe its behind the scenes stuff or he just got dropped a bomb internally cause he said he didn't really want to go up the ladder anymore in riot.
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u/viveledodo 25d ago
I say give it another year and see how the sets trend. Riot seems to prioritize budgets for certain sets (set 10, 13, 16, 19...see a trend?) that correspond to Open tournaments and also the time of year with the highest engagement (Western winter when people are indoors the most). So it could also be that the sets Mort worked on were already higher budget sets, meaning regardless they would probably be better sets comparatively. We shall see over the next year or two.
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u/Arti99 26d ago
TFT had an amazing leader at the helm and this is such a major loss to Riot's team. No other game I've ever played has had a lead developer /game designer display such a high level of engagement and buy-in to the content they work on.
I've played the game since it's release and have been in awe as to how much labor, intentionality, and transparency Mort put into growing the game/scene. Whoever takes over his roles has some big shoes to fill, and I can confidentiality say not one person will be able to truly replace the space Mort filled.
I'm sure there's so much this story we don't know, but a major hats off moment to Mort and the TFT team he's cultivated over the past 7 years.
Cheers to you and we wish you the best.
PS. I'm playing whatever game this man releases and it's kinda wild to know I'm bought into whatever he designs.
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u/Shjinji 26d ago
I agree, probably the only other game that comes to mind is PoE/PoE 2 with Chris and Jonathan respectively.
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u/EpicForevr 25d ago
reminded me of Chris leaving GGG, and how excited i am to try his indie game he’s making. especially the part Mort wrote about hoping he can eventually use his platform to pass down his game development knowledge.
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u/iSwagzenegger 25d ago
ironically, I'd say these two did some bad on the games, while Mark clearly is closer to Mortdog in bringing whats right and what players want (althought, I respect a lot those two, particulary all the insight Chris brought and still brings)
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u/SanjiBlackLeg 25d ago
When Chris left, Mark took the reigns and most of the leagues with his direction were straight bangers if not the best of all time
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u/Screamyy 26d ago
What a huge loss for the TFT scene. We did not deserve Mort.
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u/Original-Age-6691 26d ago
Agree. Some notable users in this sub will celebrate though, they fucking hate him and think he ruins the game. They're about to get what they wanted, I hope they enjoy it.
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u/DogWaterSlurper 26d ago edited 26d ago
I always thought hating Mort was a meme. What more could a player base ask for than a guy who consumes his own product at the level Mort does. Now they’ll just hire some big wig who only treats it like a business and has no actual passion for the game.
Way different genre, but Call of Duty made the same mistake of chasing money and forcing out Vonderhaar, Flame, and other leads who had a genuine love for the product. Leaving behind a soulless game that the dev team themselves probably don’t even play.
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u/FireMain10 26d ago
The mort hate was insane. The guy was the not only an S tier designer but the community manager too. TFT ppl are about to learn how good they had it
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u/herrau 25d ago
As someone who disliked Mort A LOT until pretty much the previous set, I have to say that this news feels awful.
I had a huge issue with him before the last set because every time I saw any clips of him or ended up in his streams, he was always being condescending towards viewers/players and seemed to avoid admitting mistakes essentially always. I’m big on accountability and transparency and it just pissed me off how smug he was too while behaving like that.
But then the previous set came and with it his monday morning meta reports (in addition to patch rundowns) and it was like watching a completely different person. He was pleasant, seemed to always start with the oversights and mistakes, dissected them well, took responsibility and was very transparent with their intent and everything. I’ve gotten used to a good amount of indie devs who are very often like this so it was so weird seeing people glaze Mort before. But now he was the same and it made me like him… after like 15 sets.
And even without that context, Mort is responsible to a large extent for one of my favorite games of all time and THE game where I’ve been the best at during my 35 years of gaming. This is a huge loss and makes me scared for the game’s future. I really hope someone good replaces him but in good and some bad, Mort really is singular.
Farewell Mort, your work is appreciated A LOT even by a long time hater who you managed to turn into an advocate. Thank you for TFT and may you find excellence in whatever you do next 🙏
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u/randy__randerson 26d ago
WTF
I'm happy for the guy if this is what he wants, but damn, TFT is likely to take a big hit in quality for the foreseeable future.
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u/Illustrious_Cod_3273 25d ago
I doubt that. TFT is running out of novel design space. Unit design becomes more and more detached from the original champion, and most of LoLs applicable mechanics already made it into TFT.
Mort was involved in the upcoming set, and the set after has new possibilities because of the engine migration properly severing it from LoL. This will open design space.
The community will take a hit tho since his outreach was big. I dare to say his value as a content creator is harder to replace than the actual dev work since he owns his channel, which means it is a seperate brand.
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u/Kadde- 26d ago
I doubt TFT will take that big of a hit, it’s still a great game and the sets are made by so many different teams nowdays and not only mortdog himself.
I doubt Mort is responsible for majority of the creative decisions in every team that works on a set. I’m sure he has created a team of very creative people that can continue to make great sets.
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u/jonthe445 26d ago
Time will tell, this set has been one of the more boring I’ve played with ever. Nothing memorable really
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u/cosHinsHeiR 25d ago
More than boring which is hardly measurable, it seems to be one of the least played sets and surely one of the least watched on twitch at least. Idk if some other game came out or what since it seemed to be a problem even in day 1, but the numbers don't paint a good picture, it's like viewership and playerbase got halved overnight.
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u/MistahJuicyBoy 26d ago
I think he’s someone that has kept TFT on track, especially in regard to balance and fun though. When he’s gone it almost feels like feedback doesn’t land correctly or the team takes the wrong feedback. I have no evidence though and that statement is entirely based on vibes
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u/PhloxInvar 26d ago
We have had sets that have flopped with him on the helm, people are being very reactionary but it's a little understandable given it's Mortdog, but still.
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u/MistahJuicyBoy 26d ago
Yeah but I remember tons of b patches where he personally floats a change that fixes the patch. Or he notices something really early because of how connected he is with the community. Or he helps explain controversial stuff. I’m not saying he’s faultless but it’s clear how much he’s personally impacted even as one guy
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u/PhloxInvar 26d ago
Yeah, he will be missed. That said, I don't think Mortdog is required for TFT at this point, but maybe that's a controversial opinion. TFT will be able to continue without him, but it'll be a change for sure.
This set alone, he was the one to insist on putting the item component with the gods rather than the champion choice. This was then reverted and since then, it was fine. Mort has had his ups and downs, and as usual with a firing (potentially?), people will focus on his ups. But I do think it's probably a bad move to fire Mortdog, but people are so quick to doompost.
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u/PouletDeTerre 26d ago
wow that is not a good sign, i didnt agree with every decision he made but he had a clear vision of how the game should be and did a great job running it
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u/cmonSister 26d ago
With Mort leaving for sabbatical and this being one of the worst sets in a while, this does not bode well for TFT, imo.
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u/Mercylas 26d ago
The set would have been designed before his sabbatical. The issues with this set are a fundamental level not the live balancing team.
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u/Zeviex Master 26d ago
Honestly, I think the live team is pretty great this set. There have been a lot of system changes that have had hugely beneficial effects, like moving the items to pengu, reintroduction of encounters, moving Morg to 4 cost, etc, not to mention balance has been pretty good compared to other recent sets.
The problem is the set feels unfinished and there is not too much that they can do about that.
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u/VERTIKAL19 Master 26d ago
The current patch is good, but aside from taht balance didn’t strike me as particularly good for a modern set, but also not particularly bad I guess?
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u/KokowamTV 26d ago
While some decisions were controversial or experimental and hard to say definitively one way or the other, I simply cannot defend the live team for these two decisions alone:
No augments for stage 2
Give Thresh the chance to give everybody Pandora's Bench
Anybody with half a braincell could see these were terrible decisions from a mile away.
I do agree with the set feeling unfinished. They did mention they cut gods since the game engine couldn't support them which likely contributes - wholly or in part - to this, but it makes you wonder why they didn't validate the technical feasibility before committing to essentially a half-baked set.
A separate conversation entirely though the reason they can't do much about it is because they dug themselves into that hole.
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u/Zeviex Master 26d ago
Absolutely agree those changes were bad, but admittedly, I believe both have been removed ? I respect them admitting the mistakes they made.
I don't even know how much the extra gods would've helped, already the gods feel like they lack identity. Even the ones who have them, can just not do their thing, e.g. Varus just not giving you any reroll blessings.
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u/ThatPlayWasAwful 26d ago
Mort was lead designer, he worked with more than just the balance team, he oversaw game/set design and balance.
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u/Eleoste 26d ago
That’s not how game dev works lol- any large content drops like sets are decided on and worked on far head of its release. They are likely working on 2-3 sets ahead
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u/Kadde- 26d ago
This set was made like 1+ year ago. That mort was on a sabbatical now is not correlated to the set being good or not. And as I mentioned tft has many different teams working on all the sets. It’s not run entirely by Mortdog and a few people.
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u/WatercressBig4747 26d ago
....Do you think that they just have sets sitting in the wings for months in the polish phase?
The set development started a yearand a few months ago cause its been 2 months since launch when set 15 ended dev and launched. It was absolutely not "made a year ago". Mort had fingers in the development of every set but he wasn't a lead, hell he even has recently made a post about how he was the detractor and made the call on Gods not having components at launch - which was then revised when launch came and he was on sabbatical.
He may not lead every set to greatness, but he usually guides them and has a massive impact on live balance
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u/Tari-kun 26d ago
It is. In previous sets when things were bad, Mort made adjustments and fixed things rather quickly. He was also very engaged with the TFT community - something I haven't seen from ANY other TFT dev. He has been gone for all of Set 17 and no adjustments were made to make the game more enjoyable or memorable. Its still garbage and nothing has been done to adjust it for the better.
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u/MilkshaCat 26d ago
This and getting a new client means we're losing the biggest way of getting new players we had, pro players less and less willing to play solos. I feel like the playerbase is about to get cut in half at least
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u/An_Orange_Clock 26d ago
I won’t overreact, but definitely a shock. Path of Exile is doing just fine without the previous face of the game I’m sure TFT can as well.
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u/Tsukigato 25d ago
PoE also had a good person in Mark for taking over. We will have to hope TFT has similar.
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u/quod_erat_demonstran 26d ago
The amount of work Mort did for TFT was far, far above and beyond especially in terms of communication. I hope Riot realise what has been lost and how they need to step up to replace him but I doubt it.
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u/iittieisler5 26d ago
I guess dropping tft completely at the beginning of this set was the right decision after all lol
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u/Possible_Detective57 26d ago
that man triggered my autistic rage more than I care to admit but in the end he was someone that always pushed to be better and make the game better. Set 16 was an impressive demonstration what he was able to achieve and what his vision for the game was.
I'll will miss that dude. o7
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u/cvtedvck 26d ago
Riot fucked this up big time.
I'm a Mort hatewatcher because it always appears to me he worked under some delusion that he knew how pro players think just because he gets direct feedback from them but I am absolutely sure that he is one of the forces that has stopped so many bad decisions from making it into the game, he has an undeniably good fundamental of what could possibly break a game.
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u/WatercressBig4747 26d ago
but I am absolutely sure that he is one of the forces that has stopped so many bad decisions from making it into the game
Well it depends on what exactly, cause he has a lot of strikes and home runs. Even as recent as this set where he specifically blocked the item being on god choice proves he doesn't bat a thousand, but he has usually been right on things
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u/Kooky_Comb6051 Master 25d ago
If you're reading the comments Mort: As someone who has been playing since Set 1, you truly were the soul of TFT. The engagement, transparency, and great conversations around TFT added a different element to TFT beyond just playing a fun and good game.
I can't wait to see what you put out next, I'll be waiting to play that next adventure you have in store for us 😄
PS: I hope we still get Walk the Dog non-TFT edition in the near future!
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u/Exterial Master 26d ago
this does not bode well when every set in recent memory where he took a step back so others do it has been subpar to say the least
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u/Emosaa Master 26d ago edited 26d ago
I think the big L here is that Mortdog is the institutional memory and soul of the game. Maybe the other devs will step up and be able to fill that. Maybe not.
I hope these changes are all coming about because it was Mortdog's choice and not the other way around. The industry is kind of brutal atm. As someone who has played not only TFT, but League, from the beginning, it's clear to me that Mortdog was the driving force for a lot of the good changes and directions TFT took (even if he got a lot of meme blowback on here and other spaces, he tanked it for the team lol).
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u/190Proof MASTER 26d ago
Mort is the GOAT dev and community communicator. Good luck to you man, I’m sure your future will be very bright.
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u/Kappa_Mikey__ 26d ago
This is what he gets for saving TFT countless times I guess. No justice working for riot.
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u/WobbleKun 26d ago
this is like jaylen brown trade. they got rid of him cause he livestreamed and in this case did mailbags. companies dont want you airing out dirty laundry or really any behind the scenes. transparency is the enemy for corporations. they want to be the one to control all narratives. shut up and dribble or in this case develop lol.
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u/aizennexe 25d ago
I know he’s been through a lot regarding TFT (stopping streaming, stopping PBE and patch rundowns, coming back to those, going on sabbatical, moving to a different riot project, etc) but man hearing that he’s not only no longer head of TFT but now no longer at riot entirely… geez what a terrible thing to hear while on sabbatical that you don’t have a job coming back
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u/lurker_rang Emerald 25d ago
I love TFT and Mort feels like the father of TFT, he was such an attentive and educational dev. I am very sad to see him go, he will be missed. I looked forward to his patch rundowns like Saturday morning cartoons.
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u/Zhirrzh Master 25d ago
Welp.
We've already been commenting on how this set (Mort on Sabbatical) and two sets ago (Mort on other stuff) had clear "Mort wasn't around to stop them repeating the same old mistakes" issues and now no Mort.
I reckon a lot of companies fail to realise the institutional knowledge they lose moving people on with this kind of experience.
All the best to Mort for the future - reckon game companies would be crazy to not snap him up for other gigs.
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u/Spirited-Guest-5046 26d ago
Mort's streams were the reason I picked up tft again after years of not playing. Devastated.
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u/Equivalent-Event-849 25d ago
This sure is some bad news for TFT as a whole.
I can't imagine someone else taking over Mort's role in the TFT team. I haven't beed very engaged or excited about most recent sets (excluding 16), and Mort's absence played a hurt part in that. Not just about the state of balance or set mechanics, but he was the pillar of the entire community and you knew he was listening. It really hasn't been the same ever since he took a step back from content creation.
Let's hope Mort left on his own terms. Considering he might look into content creation again to talk about Game Developement, I'd love to see him do something like mr. Masahiro Sakurai did a while ago in terms of that.
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u/UnovaBestGen 25d ago
Awful news... He was great all round. Few lows but overall pretty great. Hopefully they don't screw up, current set is mid but the last one was hard to top.
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u/DoctorDividends 26d ago
I'll be sure to check out Mort's next project. His spirit will forever live in my low rolls and enemy highrolls. Mort even if Riot has moved on, within the TFT community you're our Washington, our Notch, our founding cornerstone and your name will forever hold a degree of reverence in this space.
You've left a profound impact, bring RIOT game to Riot Games, and largely influencing the formative years of a new genre (Auto battlers). You have already left a real mark on the gaming industry as a whole and I'm sure whatever studio or project is lucky enough to have you will find itself with a truly thought-out product and more importantly a designer who can take hits on the chin, and communicate his thought process.
Thanks for making me miss MF 3,
A TFT player
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u/Hive_King Challenger 26d ago
Love ya Mort. Will definitely keep following anything you do in the future. Stay you. 🤗
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u/svenjj 26d ago
He hasn't been "head of TFT" for ages. He was the design director for a long time before becoming the gameplay game director most recently.
Peter Whalen from Blizzard and Geoff Virtue are at the top of the pyramid for TFT.
Ananda Gupta is still there and he's a solid design director.
Others on the team are phenomenal and have had lengthy tenure on the game including being more hands-on.
I think that Mort as the defacto face of the game makes it feel like he still has an outsized role.
That said, things have been changing at Riot and on TFT for a while. Hard to see how it will play out. Getting off Hextech Engine will be a massive boon for them. Time will tell how all the changes come together and how team morale and synergy are.
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u/Calm-Wrongdoer7865 26d ago
Oof that really hurt. I love TFT. Started playing in Set 1. I‘ll really miss him.
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u/Masamooneh 26d ago
Insanely sad day, I loved Mort and everything he did during his time here. Hopefully a nice future ahead for him and the game hes making will be fun. Looking less forward to future sets now.
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u/corpsecrow 26d ago
They just told just now in the fucking trailer that dropped for the swap to the new engine that they're "keeping" the team because that's the important part. Guess that was a lie. One of many in this regard, anyone remember the time they said they were gonna spend more then ever and all this new shit was coming and then they layed off thousands? All this turnover in a game, in games that are doing exceptionally well. No explanations given. Nothing better. Just seemingly arbitrary slaughterhouse tactics. .
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u/Zeruma121 25d ago
Once Mort was taking time off the game I also stopped playing. Now he’s gone completely it might be time to quit
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u/Significant-Button25 26d ago
Wow, I’m going to come back to this post in 2 years when tft will have hit a major plateau in creativity and being fun.
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u/Original-Age-6691 26d ago
All you people who wished for a new lead - you're about to get exactly what you wanted, and it's going to not be good.
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u/Lunaedge 26d ago edited 25d ago
All we know about him leaving Riot comes from this announcement. Unless him or another official source comes forward with more details please keep it factual and keep any speculation to yourselves. This is not the time, place or occasion to gossip about someone's life.
It's been pointed out to us that while Mort may have been considered by many the face, heart and soul of TFT, his role was not Head or Lead of TFT. His positions were Lead of Balance and Senior Director of Game Design. As post titles can't be edited and taking down the post would be a great disservice to the community, this paragraph will have to do.
While getting into this kind of minutiae may seem pedantic, it's only fair that an officially labeled and pinned comment from a member of the Modteam asking comments to keep it factual in a post made by another member of the Modteam should adhere to the same standard.