The Best Strategies and Tricks Used in the FNCS Invitational
This article will take a look at some tricks and strategies that were used at FNCS and how you should go about learning from these pros to improve as a player yourself.
The 2022 FNCS Invitational in Raleigh was a historic event, being the first official LAN since the immortalized 2019 Fortnite World Cup. This event saw familiar and new faces from every region show off their skills on the offline stage. Since Chapter 1, the game has significantly changed, with a drastically different meta and increase in individual skill. Ultimately, it was Europe’s Kami and Setty who took the championship, winning the tournament in dominant fashion with 4 Victory Royales out of the total 12 matches.
Even if you don’t aspire to become the next FNCS champions, you can still learn from the best of the best and incorporate tricks and strategies into your own gameplay. Throughout the weekend, Kami and Setty utilized thorough planning and on-the-fly techniques to put themselves above the rest of the world’s top players. By watching how they played out their tournament, we observe how careful planning and sharp intuition are instrumental to a successful performance.
In this article, we break down three important parts of Kami and Setty’s continued success in the upper echelons of competitive Fortnite, and how you can take the fundamental concepts and use them to win more matches.
Rotating with Shield Bubbles
For those of you who played Fortnite competitively in Chapter 1 Season 10, you might remember a strategy involving Shield Bubbles and Hoverboards. Years later, Kami and Setty take some inspiration by using Shield Bubbles with Boats, creating a damage-proof method of rotation around the map.
This trick is extremely effective. A typical caveat of shield bubbles is that you are limited to staying in place if you want the protection of the bubble. By attaching the bubble to a vehicle, you essentially remain invulnerable while moving through the map, enabling long and safe rotations. To damage players in a Shield Bubble, you would need to enter the region that is being protected. Thus, unless a player is right beside a river, you are almost guaranteed to not take any damage.
All boat spawn locations and rivers
This is especially useful if you find yourself at the edge of the map, forced to make a far rotation with the storm on your back. The majority of rivers lead into the center of the map, so using this trick enables you to focus on moving quickly without worrying about the threat of being shot at.
Knowing Your Dropspot
In the final match of the FNCS invitational, everyone watching had the pleasure of experiencing one of the most legendary off-spawn fights in Fortnite history. Going into the final game, 2nd place team Veno and Queasy were trailing behind Kami and Setty by 12 points. Instead of playing catch-up, Veno and Queasy executed an all-or-nothing play, landing at Kami and Setty’s drop spot in an attempt to eliminate them early.
To start off the encounter, Veno and Queasy are actually able to land before Kami and Setty, likely due to the latter duo not expecting a play like this in the final game. Nonetheless, Kami and Setty understand where to land to give them the best shot of looting more than their opponents. Queasy gets an early shot on Setty, but is immediately traded out by Kami, forcing the fight down to a 1 on 1.
With limited materials and weapons and so much on the line, both players are at a stalemate, waiting for the other to make a play. Eventually, Kami charges forward, narrowly winning the shotgun duel against Veno to eliminate the challengers, solidifying their place as the FNCS Invitational Champions.
What is the takeaway here? If we take a specific moment of the final fight, we can actually find a major mistake that ultimately cost Veno the win. In several locations of the map, there are these archways that disallow walls from being placed. Unfortunately for Veno, there happened to be one in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
Veno’s attempt to build a wall after getting a shot off on Kami
With the wall unable to be placed, Veno’s rhythm was a bit off, making him miss the following crucial shot that ultimately resulted in Kami eliminating him. Because Kami knew his drop spot well, he had no issue running straight past this wall into Veno, continuously shooting his EvoChrome shotgun.
Even if you aren’t a competitive player, an extremely crucial part of playing good games is surviving off spawn. By learning a specific drop spot in extreme detail, you can take advantage of specific mechanics that other players wouldn’t be aware of. In this specific situation, it was a no-build zone. However, different drop spots have advantageous chest locations, natural mobility, terrain, and more. Practice makes perfect, so make sure you have game plans and contingencies to maximize your chances of winning off spawn fights.
Traversing the Map and Scouting with Balloons
At the highest level of competitive Fortnite, getting Storm Surge damage is crucial to getting through the mid-game. Although the majority of players will not encounter this mechanic in standard lobbies, we can still take away some implementable strategies from Kami and Setty’s surge route.
Kami and Setty drop at Driftin’s Double Pumps, near the center of the map. This location has a good amount of loot, but more importantly it has a balloon in a very opportunistic position. First, being so close to the center means that this spot will likely always end up where the first Storm circle appears. If not, you can easily utilize the balloon to glide in.
Kami and Setty’s drop location
Aside from your own rotations, this balloon gives a fantastic opportunity to scout any players rotating in from the south or south-east side of the map. You can use the height of the Balloon to get easy damage onto your opponents, and the option of gliding onto them after dealing enough damage is also available.
Kami using a balloon to get Storm Surge damage on players rotating in
In the screenshot above, you may have noticed that Kami is sitting on top of a different balloon, slightly north of the initial drop location. This is also an important mechanic of balloons; they are spread out such that you can easily launch from one balloon to another. This can be used to easily traverse the entire map, going from balloon to balloon. For players that are aggressive, gliding through the air is a good strategy to find players to fight. For players that enjoy playing passively, this strategy can help you get good positions wherever the zone goes.
Different ways you can get around the map using only balloons
Conclusion
Even with these extremely effective tricks, the main take-away here is that winning games involves a combination of planning and situational decision making. The duo has an extremely disciplined strategy, knowing the ins-and-outs of their dropspot, and different possible paths of rotation. Additionally, they have the intuition to know what to do under special circumstances, maintaining composure and using the knowledge they have to come up with a play.
The more you study from the best and practice, the better of a player you will become. Whether it’s in a standard public lobby, an in-game tournament, and even an FNCS Grand Final, learning and growing as a player is the key to victory.
