Game design director Stephen “Mortdog” Mortimer baited fans in the best possible way on his Teamfight Tactics Q&A stream on June 14, which won’t affect the technical side of the Set 12 launch but may impact normal modes of communication for a new set release.
Mortdog is the face of TFT, whether he likes it or not, and many in the community rely on him for information about the autobattler. It’s been five years since TFT first launched, with the team celebrating this accomplishment through the five-year anniversary Bash and Pengu’s Party game mode. Roughly a few hours into Mortdog’s Q&A stream on June 14, he announced to the chat that he and his family are moving out of California and he will be gone from Riot until Aug. 1 in response to a question about how long he expects to stay working on TFT.
The move is fully supported by Riot, according to Mortdog, and will not impact TFT game development of Set 12. But with him being gone through July, common communication systems that we’ve become used to will not take place. This includes no Patch Rundowns for Patch 14.13 or Patch 14.14—and no PBE Rundown from Mortdog.
But Mortdog may have cooked something up for his absence, with him adding that PBE rundowns “won’t be from me this time,” with him following up by saying many members of the team will be “taking care of things while I am out.” He also didn’t comment on PBE daily update notes that normally take place every day or two during testing of a new TFT set.
No official TFT Set 12 release date has been announced by Riot at the time of writing, but we are predicting an official launch will drop through Patch 14.14 on July 31.
