Fortnite Champion Series: Competitive community adopts Trios as their format of choice

When it comes to playing Fortnite competitively, there are quite a few things to consider when choosing how to organize a format. If you’re doing anything but solos, you have to make sure Fortnite can adequately support a team of multiple players without becoming dry or stagnant. To that effect, Trios have become the format of choice for competitive team Fortnite events.

More than one year later, 5 times as many players competed in Week 1 of Trio FNCS Ch. 2: Season 4 as in Season X.The most ever for any FNCS team mode.Insane numbers. pic.twitter.com/rYVckw1Tqu

— Fortnite Competitive Data (@FNCompData) October 13, 2020

Team size affects how Fortnite plays

Competitive team events in Fortnite test quite a few different skills, and tend to value consistency more highly than chance success. Playing with a team reduces the effect variance has on your games in ways that aren’t always so obvious or intuitive.

By increasing the number of players working together, teams can organize in such a way so as to normalize their firepower across their team. In a 1v1 situation, a player with an epic gun will have a straightforward advantage over a player with a rare gun, something that can’t really be mitigated in any way.

In a team, however, three rare guns can reasonably hold their own against two rares and an epic gun. As a result, the leap in power for finding a single high powered gun isn’t nearly as strong as in solos or duos, and strategies further mitigate this issue.

Teams can also pick complimentary weapons to help their teammates, something that isn’t possible when you can only have one gun firing on an opponent at a time. Think about how effective explosives are in conjunction with someone pushing aggressively with a shotgun and AR coverage, versus how any one of those weapons would be on their own.

While small teams can normalize variance, larger teams can restrict gameplay

Trio FNCS PC playerbase vs. prize pool distribution- EU had 48% of the total playerbase while getting 40% of the prize pool.- OCE has the biggest prize pool relative to their playerbase.Do you think the prize pool should be adjusted or is it fair the way it is distributed? pic.twitter.com/JCMm0n1jK8

— Fortnite Competitive Data (@FNCompData) September 27, 2020

Of course, while having teammates opens up a number of strategies that would otherwise be impossible, having too many teammates can end up becoming more restrictive as the teammates end up having to fight with one another over resources.

If you’ve had a chance to play the 50v50 format then you have likely experienced what I’m referring to. With 50 players on a single team, even things which are usually abundant like ammo and building materials become incredibly restrictive. When 10 other people can clear cut a forest before you can make it to your first tree, it becomes much more difficult to feel like your contributions matter to the outcome of the game.

While no one would expect a competitive 50v50 Fortnite tournament to be taken seriously, there is a reason teams seem to stick to such small numbers. Teams of three seem to be the sweet spot, and with how much the competitive Fortnite community has adopted the format, it seems to have some staying power.