Turner Tenney is a professional esports player who plays under the name “Tfue.¨ On September 28th, Tfue won the 2nd week of Fall Skirmish, a six week event where Fortnite players compete for ten million dollars. This event is primarily hosted online and on the East Coast of the United States.
On September 21st, 2018, Fortnite began the Fall Skirmish. Every Friday, the 100 hand selected players begin the fight for the prize. Every week the tournament has a different format. For example, the week 2 format (the week Turner won) was every man for themselves, where points are earned by being one of the last players alive and/or by eliminating multiple other players. The formats for each week can be wildly different; for example, the week before ran a format where you got to pick a teammate and split the prize money with them.
With the prize pool of the entire event being ten million dollars, skilled players such as Turner can make a very pretty penny. Fortnite usually gives out one million dollars every week during these events, five hundred thousand for players in North America, and five hundred thousand for players in Europe. On September 28th, the day Turner won the tournament, he won $37,500. Now, this may not seem like a whopping five hundred thousand, but this is because Fortnite pays out to the top 20% of the game, which means, if you got 20th place, you still earned $3,750.
Turner has a very unique play style, in the early phases of the game he lands in the same spot, ¨Westworld,¨ a location full of houses which can be looted to give you items which can be used in battle. Landing in the same spot every game can both be an advantage and a disadvantage, the advantage being that he knows the spot like the back of his hand, giving him an edge in any early game encounters. The disadvantage is that everyone knows that is where he will be for the beginning of the game. One very important aspect that both he and all his opponents do in the early stage is gather materials. This is important because it allows him to place down structures, such as walls, stairs, floors, and pyramids, all which can be used to defend himself when in battle. If you don’t already know, the way the game progresses is that there is a storm always closing in, forcing the players to be closer to one another, causing havoc. Turner uses this to his benefit by going into the next “safe zone” before anyone else, and building a base up high to protect himself. This means that as the storm starts to move in, the other players have to move to Turner, where he then can have the upper hand by being both above them and having not to worry about the storm. Once the zone gets very small, the player on ¨highground¨ can use a strategy called ¨Tarping¨ which involves the player placing floors over the entire zone, this makes it very hard for players below him to shoot him down. Another strategy players use is called ¨Turtling¨. Turtling is a very defensive strategy, it is very good at stopping players from damaging you, but uses a lot of materials. Turtling involves a player being in a base, opening a door, and then instantly making another base. This is primarily used when having to move a very short distance, or when you are being focused by multiple players.
Turner ¨Tfue¨ Turner, not only had to use all of these different tricks and strategies throughout the night, but also had to have a whole lot of skill and luck to dominate the competition and winning the event for the event, bringing himself home $37,500.
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