Tartarus Titans

 is a team participating in the Smite Pro League. The team is owned and operated by Hi-Rez Studios.

History
The Tartarus Titans formed ahead of Season 8 of the SPL in February 2021, alongside seven other teams managed directly by Hi-Rez. The initial roster consisted of a mix between Radiance and Pittsburgh Knights. From Radiance came Benji, Aror, and Cyclonespin while from Pittsburgh Knights came, at the time, World Champions Paul and ScaryD. ScaryD would join the roster assuming the jungler role, despite being a solo laner.

2021 Season
The Tartarus Titans would start the season being the middle of the pack. They placed 5th in the spring season and 5-6th during the Phase 1 Playoffs Tournament. Going into the summer season, not much had changed in the team in terms of standings. However, towards the end of the summer season was when the team had a big change. First, Cherryo would announce that he would leave the team as he missed playing smite. Secondly, on August 12, ScaryD would leave the roster, and Layers would sub for him until they found a replacement. ScaryD, having recently turned jungler from solo laner, would express his disappointment in a twitlonger. The change to Layers would revitalize the team, winning against the Solar Scarabs and the Olympus Bolts in their first weekend. The Tartarus Titans, however, would try to look for Cyno as their new jungler and move Layers to the coach position. The team would go back on this change a week later, as Layers would be their new jungler and Cyno would leave. This move would cause some controversy, as many expected Layers to not be picked up by a team due to his controversy with the Solar Scarabs. Regardless of public opinion, the Tartarus Titans would be a rising team. Going into the Phase 2 Playoffs Tournament, they were very strong. The team could not be countered, thus winning the tournament. Coming into the fall season, the team would get knocked down to 4th seed. However, they would once again win a playoffs tournament, as they placed 1st in the Phase 3 Playoffs Tournament. This win made them automatically be placed in the semifinals for the 2022 Smite World Championship. During the semifinals, the team would be able to beat the Solar Scarabs and move on to the Finals. During the Finals, the Tartarus Titans would be defeated by the Atlantis Leviathans. Benji would later announce his retirement.

2022 Season
Coming into the 2022 season, the Tartarus Titans decided to pick up SoloOrTroll and put Benji in a coach position. During the spring season, the Tartarus Titans were still a powerhouse but their dominance waned. They would place 4th during the spring season. For the Spring Masters Tournament, the team would resurge in power, leading to a 1st place victory. During the summer season, the Tartarus Titans would once again fall to 4th place. For the Summer Masters Tournament, the team would lose during the semifinals against the Camelot Kings. The Tartarus Titans would battle the Oni Warriors for 3rd place. Unfortunately for the Tartarus Titans, the Oni Warriors would win the set and so the Tartarus Titans would place 4th.

Before the start of the Fall season, Layers would make a twitlonger explaining his worsening mental health brought about living in Georgia away from his friends and family. Due to the rule of the SPL concerning the LAN league, one has to be live in Georgia or close enough to the studio in order to play games on LAN. In order to improve his mental health, Layers would announce that he was stepping down as the Titan's jungler. Layers would be applauded for this move as it took maturity to admit a problem such as that. A couple of days later, the Smite Pro Twitter account would announce that Layers is permitted to play from his home as long as he participates for major tournaments in LAN. This decision, while a happy one for the Tartarus Titans, would spark a conversation about the league and whether the LAN league does more harm than good. Regardless of that, Layers would start playing from home. A few weeks into the fall season, the Tartarus Titans made an unexpected change. The Twitter account for the Smite Pro League would announce that the Tartarus Titans have parted ways with CycloneSpin. As his replacement, Stuart would take his place as the ADC for the Tartarus Titans, breaking the record that Cyclonespin and Aror held for the longest-tenured duo lane team in the duo lane. Cyclonespin on his Twitter would confirm the change, stating that next year he'll decide if he will come back and retire. No official statement has been released regarding the situation, so no one knows the details behind the decision. However, Cyclonespin on PolarBearMike's stream has stated that he was kicked from the team, the decision to leave was not his. Without any other statements from the team, we can only conclude that the Tartarus Titans' poor performance forced a drastic change in order to better their chances for the Smite World Championship. This will not be the last time the Tartarus Titans would pick up a Solar Scarabs player, as a couple of weeks later it would be announced that Solar Scarabs coach, sLainy, has joined the Tartarus Titans. This would be the 4th player from the Solar Scarabs to join the Tartarus Titans, a fact pointed out by the community. Soloortroll, Layers, Stuart, and now sLainy were all players from the Solar Scarabs who somehow found themselves all being on the same team, having a majority of 4 out of 6 players. Humorously called the Tartarus Scarabs, the team would continue having success against bottom teams but struggle against some top teams. The Tartarus Titans would end the phase in 5th place, having a score of 7 wins and 7 losses.

On November 30th, 2022, it would be announced that Layers would be suspended from the Tartarus Titans and the team has chosen Cyno as his replacement. The reason as to why this happened was because Layers broke two rules, that being Communication with administrators and LAN duties. Layers would tell Hi-Rez 48 hours before the SWC seeding Tournament that he would not be playing in Studio. Hi-Rez was already being lenient with Layers due to his mental health issues. However, due to his not being able to make it to LAN and his very short notice, Hi-Rez decided to suspend him from now until the end of season 10 phase 1 SPL 2023. The Tartarus Titans decided to pick up Cyno, who unfortunately could not be in LAN but does plan to in the future. Going into the Phase 3 Playoffs for SWC, the Tartarus Titans would win their first match against the Oni Warriors. This match impressed many, as the Tartarurs Titans had only spent 3 scrim sessions with Cyno. Their next opponent, the Atlantis Leviathans, would, unfortunately, beat the Tartarus Titans in a convincing 3-0 set. Knocked into the loser's bracket, the Tartarus Titans would face off against the Olympus Bolts. The Olympus Bolts would beat them 3-1, however, there was some controversy involved. As the Tartarus were ready to win game 2, the game crashed. Due to the standards placed by Hi-Rez regarding situations such as these, the Tartarus Titans would not be granted the win, and game 2 had to be remade in its entirety. There was an uproar from the community as this was not the first occurrence of the game crashing, both regarding this season and past. During the set against the Leviathans, the game crashed within the first 10 minutes. Many felt that the standards were too rigid as the game was won all but in name for the Tartarus Titans. However, favoring either would result in an uproar regardless. Due to this, Hi-Rez decided to recreate the game. While the Titans did win the remade game, they lost the set, and in order to make it to the Smite World Championship they would need to win the SWC Play-ins tournament. During the tournament, the team would beat the Highland Ravens and Eldirtch Hounds with little resistance, only losing one game out of the total six played. After the Play-ins tournament concluded, the Tartarus Titans were amongst the team picked by the winners of the Phase 3 Playoffs. They were picked 2nd by the Atlantis Leviathans, a move that shocked many as many argued that other teams that made it out of the Play-ins tournament were weaker. Coming into SWC, the Tartarus Titans came in hot. In a set surprising everyone, they would 2-0 the Atlantis Leviathans. Cyno's pick of Thanatos was too out of nowhere for the Atlantis Leviathans to handle, and they couldn't adapt. Aror has stated that the win against the Atlantis Leviathans made them feel good, as while they didn't count out that they were going to be picked second by a team after the Play-ins concluded, it was still disrespectful that they were picked second when there were weaker teams. The next opponent for the Tartarus Titans would be the Jade Dragons. In a nail bitting set, the Titans were able to capitalize against a small mistake committed by the Jade Dragons and won the game in a 3-2. The only team standing in their way was the Camelot Kings. A major part of what made Cyno and the Tartarus Titans great was Thanatos. Cyno looked unstoppable with the god, and if a team tried to ban it then not only do they need to ban Ne Zha against Cyno, but now his team had to deal with one less ban. The only way to counter this was by beating Thanatos, a god that Cyno looked unbeatable. This, however, is what the Camelot Kings did. The Camelot Kings were on a hot streak and were able to beat the Tartarus Titans with ease. The only match that looked close was game 3. However, the Camelot Kings would beat the Tartarus Titans and once again, the Titans would end SWC in 2nd place.