Spethom wins the Teamfight Tactics Set 8.5 Mecha Cup

North America's biggest tournament before their Regional Finals took place over the last two weekends, with the final weekend of Mecha Cup playing out on April 22-23. After scoring 44 points over seven games, Spethom was narrowly named the Mecha Cup champion. With this victory, he secured a spot at the Monsters Attack! North American Regional Finals.

Here's how it all went down.

Spethom auto-qualified to Day 3 of the Mecha Cup through the North American ladder snapshot. This meant he had a guaranteed spot in the top 64 and had a bye from the first two days of competition.

He showed exactly why he earned that bye on the third day of play.

Spethom ended Day 3 in 2nd place, accumulating 37 points over six games of competition. This spectacular finish rewarded him with three bonus points going into the final day.

The final day format featured a total of seven games. Of the 32 competitors, half of the field were eliminated after the first five games. 16 competitors then played another game to decide the top eight players at the tournament who would then play a final game seven to crown a champion.

Determined to win the Mecha Cup, Spethom put his bonus points to good use. Spethom torched his competition in his first five games, leading the pack with 34 points. He placed 3rd, 3rd, 6th, 1st, 1st, respectively in those games. For the final two games, his and everyone else's points from the first five games carried over.

While his lead meant that he was essentially guaranteed to make it to the final lobby for Game 7, the penultimate Game 6 was an opportunity to widen the gap between him and his competition. At this point, he only had a one-point lead over second place RippleOverdrive at 33 points.

Unfortunately for Spethom, he placed seventh in Game 6, unable to extend his lead. Rereplay leapfrogged him in the standings with a third place finish in Game 6, and was now at 38 points. RippleOverdrive scored three points in the penultimate game and was now tied with Spethom. In fact, the point spread among the competitors going into the final game was 38 for first place down to 33 for eighth place. Mecha Cup was in for a wild finish, and anybody could take home the win.

The final game of the day featured Rereplay, RippleOverdrive, Spethom, Setsuko, Aesah, Spearklez, Kindlegem, and Robinsongz. Being tied for second place with three other players going into the game, Spethom likely had to swing for the fences and take a first place in the final game in order to win the tournament.

Game 7 started off with a 2-1 Hero Augment offering of 2-1-1 augments. This paved the way for a potential reroll lobby as many one and two-cost hero augments lend themselves to reroll compositions. Spethom selected Chronic Hallucinations as his augment choice, looking to play an Infiniteam AD line.

Chronic Hallucinations is Pantheon's support augment and reads "Your strongest Pantheon and his four nearest allies take 60% reduced damage for six seconds." Setsuko selected Winds of the Wanderer, locking himself into a Yasuo reroll game and RippleOverdrive selected League of Draven, locking himself into a Draven reroll game.

With two other Infiniteam players and two two-cost reroll composition players, Spethom looked to pick up any and all extra Sivirs, as they were likely to show up in his shop with Dravens, Yasuos, Lee Sins, and Malphites out of the pool.

At Stage 4-2, he selected the Infiniteam Crest augment and made a two-star Infiniteam Garen to secure a beefy frontline. This opened up a slot for Spethom to play a Morgana on his board, granting extra crowd control and armor reduction against enemies. By the end of Stage 5, Robinsongz and Rereplay, the other two Infiniteam players, went out in seventh and eighth place, respectively, and all the Sivirs returned to the pool of champions.

At the start of Stage 6, with the Yasuo and Draven reroll players both alive, Spethom was able to three-star his Sivir. At 13HP on 6-1, Spethom had put together an impressive showing and the strongest board he was able to make, but the lobby was tight. Kindlegem was at 26HP in first place in the game, and still alive, down at sixth place with 4HP was Aesah.

With an improved board, Spethom secured victories on both 6-1 and 6-2, and the competition was cut from six players alive to two. Standing in his way at 16 health and on a winstreak was RippleOverdrive.

One final fight. Spethom and RippleOverdrive tied at 33 points. Winner of the fight would become the Mecha Cup champion, taking home $3,500 USD, securing a spot at North American Regional Finals, and earning a major tournament victory.

Spethom's 5 Infiniteam Sivir Reroll composition reigned supreme, putting a halt to RippleOverdrive's impressive Hacker Draven Reroll comeback. With a whopping 44 points, Spethom was the winner of the Mecha Cup.

Through their finish in the top 4 at Mecha Cup, Spethom, RippleOverdrive, Aesah, and Kindlegem qualified to the Monsters Attack! NA Regional Finals. They will be joined by players who have qualified via Qualifier Points, Leaderboard Points, the Monsters Attack! Mid-Set Finale. That list of players can be found here. Additionally, two final spots to the NA Regional Finals remain up for grabs in this weekend's NA Last Chance Qualifier.

This is how the competitors split the $12,500 prize pool:

With the victory, Spethom secured a spot at the Monsters Attack! North American Regional Finals. This is his biggest tournament success while having competed since Set 5, and he couldn't be more excited about what the future of competitive Teamfight Tactics has in store.

Patch 13.8 went live on April 19, but with the tournament beginning on April 23 for Spethom and competition, there was not a lot of time to prepare. Competitive Teamfight Tactics has given berth to many different study groups that are finding success in tournaments.

Spethom's study group consisted of Dpei, RippleOverdrive, and WHALEOFPEACE, and the four of them found themselves all at the top of the leaderboard on Day 3. By the end of the tournament, Spethom took down study partner RippleOverdrive to secure the victory, but both will be competing for a spot at the Monsters Attack! Championship.

In terms of competitive play in North America for Set 8 of Teamfight Tactics, there are only two tournaments left leading into the Monsters Attack! Championship. Here is a list of the tournaments and their dates. Click on the links for more information.

Stay tuned to Esports.gg for the latest Teamfight Tactics news and updates.