Mortdog, Teamfight Tactics’ Lead Designer, has revealed the comic reason for the famed Gangplank’s ultimate in TFT Set 9.5
The mid-set for Runeterra Reforged is soon to be released by TFT. Teamfight Tactics: Horizonbound adds two new regions for players to visit, as well as new units, traits, and items to experiment with. One of the new regions contains the city of Bilgewater, led by a new 5-cost unit, Gangplank.
True inspiration from TFT Set 9.5 Gangplank ultimate
Gangplank’s ultimate as a 5-cost unit is a destructive ship strike that smashes into his enemies, delivering damage and gaining cc-immune to allies. While many players were taken with how fantastic his ability was, no one realised it had such humble inspiration.
To begin, Gangplank may be deployed as both a frontline or a backline, burning enemies in close combat or shooting his pistol at a distance to help with his ultimate. When Gangplank casts his ultimate, he summons the Dreadway to crash into opponents, buffing any allies it passes through and damaging the enemies in the arena it crashes.
Many people pondered where the fantasy ability came from, but it turns out that the ship was inspired by a developer’s love of sailing activities.
“In the Warcraft 3 map mod era there was another MOBA called Tides of Blood with a pirate hero whose ult summon a ship from behind him. With the new version of Gangplank I was wondering if that was an inspiration?”
As a matter of fact, Dreadway was inspired by Set lead Sam, who was taking sailing lessons, according to lead TFT developer Mortdog.
“The real inspiration is Sam, our set lead was taking sailing lessons. And he was like ‘I want to add a boat.’ That’s the actual story. Sam the set lead, taking sailing lessons, wanted to add a boat.”
With all the hyped happening around TFT Set 9.5, Horizonbound will be available on live servers with Patch 13.18, which will be released tomorrow, on September 13, 2023.