The Teamfight Tactics Gizmos & Gadgets Championship is well underway with Day 1 in the books and half the players have been eliminated. However, Team Liquid’s Goose, also known as GrandVice8, made it to Day 2 of the TFT Championship off the back of an impressive lobby win with an underrated team composition.
Goose snared two first place finishes during Day 1, but it’s the second one that we’re going to focus in on. He managed to net himself the win using an Arcanist composition that is far less common in a championship meta defined by Sivir and the Striker trait. Here’s how Goose managed to find himself a win at the 2022 TFT Championship.
Goose’s first place board at the TFT Championship
Goose grabbed himself a Needlessly Large Rod off the carousel, signaling his intent to play toward an ability power board, perhaps trying to get away from the heavily contested Sivir composition. In the opening PvE rounds, he got two crucial items: a Tear of the Goddess and a Neeko’s Help. The Tear commits Goose to AP and the Neeko provides him with a lot of potential late game power.
From there, Goose had some solid options for first augment, but he ended up taking Cybernetic Shell I. This augment gives armor and health to his otherwise squishy AP units. The only caveat is they must be holding an item of some kind.
Goose’s board didn’t fully hit its stride until he reached Level 6. At this point, he had slammed Rabadon’s Deathcap and Ionic Spark. He also built a VIP Debonair Brand 2, which became his main carry for most of the game. In terms of his synergies, he fit in 3 Yordle for the extra income and 3 Debonair to bring Brand’s VIP trait online.
Later, the Tear became a full Blue Buff, an incredibly powerful item on Brand. Goose also spread his remaining components to other units so they would benefit from Cybernetic Shell I. For his second augment, he chose Celestial Blessing II. This gave his squishy units even more survivability, particularly his Brand who often prioritizes Hextech Gunblade for the healing. With Celestial Blessing, his main carry no longer needed a healing item and could instead build even more damage.
At this point in the game, Goose focused on getting the most out of his Brand 2. With plenty or Arcanists around it, the Brand did an admirable job for a 1-cost unit and got Goose all the way to Level 8 with plenty of HP.
Goose reached Level 8 quite early at 4-1 using the extra economy he’d generated from Yordles and from playing an inexpensive board. He held off on re-rolling all his gold until 4-5. At that point, he rolled everything he found two Ahris. With Goose’s offensive items and augments, Ahri was the perfect main carry. He used the Neeko’s help to make Ahri 2 so that he could maintain his tempo and continue to preserve HP.
For Goose’s third augment, he chose Cybernetic Uplink II. This augment does well with his team comp as it led to faster casts for his Arcanists. It also worked well with Cybernetic Shell I because Goose already planned on spreading his items as much as possible.
Goose was able to sit on a relatively inexpensive Arcanist Ahri 2 board at Level 8 for quite a while, saving up gold while doing his best to preserve HP. His Ahri churned out damage and his ordinarily squishy team could survive because of the augments he chose.
Finally, Goose reached Level 9 on Stage 5-3. That was a bad interval, but he does it anyways so that he can make his synergies fit better. He added a Syndicate unit so he could activate the 3-trait for his Ahri. Goose’s final capped board made use of the 6 Arcanist trait, a Viktor 2 secondary carry and a Silco 2.
Overall, Goose’s final board was strong due to the sheer amount of damage it pumped out. The consistent Ahri damage plus the Viktor casts were enough to basically wipe out the enemy team. The comp Goose assembled wasn’t the strongest one at Day 1 of the TFT Championship, but it was enough to get the job done in this lobby. Strong augments, good tempo and smart positioning were enough to take him over the line and net him a first place finish against the best TFT players in the world.
