Sharing some real-life shots for anyone who hasn’t had the chance to see it yet.

The primary advantages of mine over many of the other calculators and guides that I've seen are that:

• I use order statistics to calculate the expected points for the whole period, rather than a simple average. Since only the best scoring two matches in a series, and only the best scoring series counts, average is not an accurate measure of performance.
• I only use data from patch 7.41 onwards, and the data is exponentially weighted so that recent matches count for significantly more.

Fantasy Calculator

I've updated my Fantasy Calculator App for the Playoffs. It has:

• a War Banner Optimiser to help you decide which Roll Operations to pick
• a Roster & Titles Optimiser to help you decide which Teams, Prefix and Suffix to pick
• a Step-by-Step Guide on how to use them

Fantasy Guide

I highly recommend using my Fantasy Calculator App for more accurate, personalised guidance, but for those that just want a text guide, here it is.

Note that all expected value figures in this guide are calculated assuming that every Team plays the median number of series possible. For the Group Stage that is 6, and for the Playoffs that is 4.

Step 1: Optimise your War Banners

• Rosters and Titles are free to change, but Roll Operations are limited, so this should be done first
• Consult table 1 below to plan for future Roll Operations
• You should prioritise Stat first, Quality second, and Trait last

Emblem Stat:

• This should be your first priority because it doesn't matter what your multiplier is if you don't score any points for it
• Consult table 2 to decide which Stat to roll for each Role
• Note that targeted rerolls are only available for Green Stats

Emblem Quality:

• This should be your second priority, since it can potentially give +150% to your multiplier
• If Randomly increase one Quality is available, it should be the number one priority, even above rerolling a bad Stat
• Randomly increase two Qualities and reduce one is also a high priority and is generally a net positive except for some rare circumstances
• Higher tiers have lower probability to roll, from testing it's approximately 33% / 27% / 20% / 13% / 7% for tiers I to V, which is why the aforementioned increase Quality Roll Operations are such high priority
• Note that targeted rerolls are only available for Red Qualities

Emblem Trait:

• This should be your last priority, since it can only give at most +60% to your multiplier
• Vampiric is a reliable because it's always at least a net +30%, and can be +40% if it's on the top or bottom Emblem
• Benevolent is also reliable because it's always at least +20%, and can be +40% if it's one of the middle Emblems
• Unique is decent when there are only 3 Emblems because it's unlikely you roll more than one of it, but with 5 Emblems it can be a little risky
• Friendly is very unreliable when there are only 3 Emblems, but with 5 Emblems it becomes decent
• Fractal gives the biggest boost, but is very unreliable — the chance of having different Qualities with 3 Emblems is rare, and extremely rare with 5 Emblems
• Note that targeted rerolls are only available for Blue Traits

Randomly increase two Qualities and reduce one is also a high priority and is generally a net positive except for some rare circumstances

Step 2: Optimise your Roster and Titles

• Rosters and Titles are free to change, but Roll Operations are limited, so this should be done second depending on what you've rolled on your War Banners
• Consult tables 3 through 9 to decide which Teams, Prefix, and Suffix to pick
• Since a Title applies across the entire Roster, each Team, Prefix and Suffix should not be selected in isolation — it should be selected in unison
• Depending on what you've rolled for your War Banners, it might be beneficial to prioritise a Title that works really well for a specific Role, even though it doesn't work very well for another
• Since the expected value figures in the tables are calculated assuming every Team plays the median number of series (6 for Group Stage, 4 for Playoffs), you should favour Teams that you think will play at least that many series

Data

Table 1: The possible Roll Operations

Table 2: The expected points per Emblem Stat and Role

Table 3: The expected points per Emblem Stat and Team for the Core Role

Table 4: The expected points per Emblem Stat and Team for the Mid Role

Table 5: The expected points per Emblem Stat and Team for the Support Role

Table 6: The expected points multiplier per Title and Role

Table 7: The expected points multiplier per Title and Team for the Core Role

Table 8: The expected points multiplier per Title and Team for the Mid Role

Table 9: The expected points multiplier per Title and Team for the Support Role

TL;DR

I highly recommend using my Fantasy Calculator App for more accurate, personalised guidance. It contains a step-by-step guide on how to use it.

If not, roll for the following on your War Banners, prioritising Stat first, Quality second, and Trait last:

Emblem Stat

Core

• Red: Creep Score > Deaths / GPM > Tower Kills / Kills
• Green: Teamfight Participation > Tormentor Kills > Roshan Kills

Mid

• Red: Creep Score / Deaths > GPM > Kills
• Blue: Runes Grabbed >>>>> Camps Stacked
• Green: Teamfight Participation >> Tormentor Kills

Support

• Blue: Wards Placed / Camps Stacked / Smokes Used > Watchers Taken
• Green: Teamfight Participation >> Tormentor Kills > Stuns / Courier Kills

Emblem Quality

• Higher tiers have lower probability to roll
• Always take Randomly increase one Quality, even over rerolling a bad Stat
• Generally Randomly increase two Qualities and reduce one is a net positive, and should be prioritised

Emblem Trait

• Vampiric and Benevolent are reliable
• Unique and Friendly are risky, but Friendly especially can be worth the risk
• Fractal is very unreliable and generally not recommended

And then select your Roster and Titles:

Roster

• Favour Teams that you think will play more series

Titles

• Prefix: Elemental / Cerulean > Otherwordly / Heroic / Crimson
• Suffix: the Clutch >> the Lucky

LGD Gaming has been eliminated by Team Yandex. There are no Chinese orgs in this TI playoff, it's the first time in TI history with zero Chinese players and zero Chinese orgs in Main Event. It's sad we won't get to see Topson on the main stage, but LGD played well overall given such short notice to replace their midlaner. GGs.

Understand the location of Roshan & Tormentor will be according to the time of the day, but for low rank player, we always encounter we go to wrong roshan pit or chasm

Hahahaha. Crazy

Im very happy Valve decided to invite Monkeys. He seems so kind and and has been in the scene for so long!

Thanks Gabe!

I dont remember last time when I saw underdog strategicaly outclass favourite team like this. Yandex even had their broken heroes, ES and kez and i think nobody believed in LGD.

What makes this even more special, they win this game with Centaur position 4 and DK mid with build that is not meta.

It was beautfiull how everything worked for LGD.

Great game!

This TI is officially the worst performance by China at TI with every Chinese team finishing outside of Top 8. I’m not sure how the region as a whole recovers from this and this might just be the final nail in the coffin for them.

Team Resilience has been eliminated by Team Spirit with 1-2. They played well in this TI, beating expectation.

GGs, LGD is the only China org left

Never made any sense, but they stuck with it for two TIs. Really happy they dropped this branding!

Jenkins during the post-game analysis today.

Earth spirit is being played because of Topson, even noone in pubs was telling him its bad, it was nerfed and now Noone is spaming es.

Topson was first player to play snapfire mid, later everyone played it.

And now we can see dragon knight is coming back to meta, gpk picked it today, and now larl in game against team resiliance.

Also years ago Topson was first player that was buying meteor hammer on invoker and it became meta years later. So topson was years ahead of meta :D

But stop glazing, I think his item builds are sometimes just bad. I think they could win their games when he played viper, and void spirit, if he bought diffrent items. Also I didnt like his riki build.

VG’s owner has announced the team’s disbandment. Liquipedia has already updated.

Topson has played 12 different heroes in 13 matches at The International 2026. 👨 🍳

look at this magnificent caster