Teamfight Tactics, a spinoff of League of Legends, is an auto battler game that provides players with multiple modes to engage in, allowing them to explore and master the fundamental mechanics. Understanding these basics is crucial for players to develop their playstyle, enabling them to stand out and overcome opponents in the game’s competitive environment.
In this beginner’s guide for Teamfight Tactics, we will be teaching you how to win the match along with all the implementations at each stage of the game to secure the win in your first match.
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How to Win in Teamfight Tactics
The primary objective in TFT is to emerge as the sole survivor in an 8-player free-for-all showdown. Throughout the game, you strategically amass resources such as gold and items, while tactically crafting a team composed of units possessing diverse strengths, weaknesses, and abilities. By assembling a team with synergistic units, you enhance their capabilities with boosted properties.
Your unit ensemble engages in random battles against other players’ teams during rounds. The player whose team suffers defeat will incur damage, and once a player exhausts their life, they’re eliminated. Achieving a top-three placement is considered a victory, so set your sights on that goal, even if the path seems challenging.
These are the fundamental basics of TFT at a surface level. Now, let’s delve into the steps of playing a match.
Getting Started
In earlier versions, TFT games kicked off with a carousel round, where players rushed to acquire a starting item and champion. However, in Set 9, the initial Carousel has been replaced by Region Portals. This innovative system enables players to vote on a special rule to be introduced into the game.
Creating Your Initial Team: The Three Minion Rounds
Round 1: Deploying Your Unit
Now that you have obtained your first piece and item from the carousel, it’s time for your inaugural battle! Don’t stress too much— the initial three rounds pit you against bot-controlled minions, making them quite easy to defeat. To gather more information about your unit, right-click on them during a battle or while they’re on your bench. You can also right-click on your enemies’ units.
This interface provides details on your unit’s synergies, health/mana, cost, rank, ability information, and items that can be viewed by hovering over them. To grasp the developments in each round, direct your attention to the top of your screen. You’ll find icons for the first carousel round, two minion battles, and a cube event, arranged from left to right.
Before engaging in a fight, a designated time frame is allocated for preparation, as indicated by the countdown. At this point, your options are limited to adjusting the position of your unit. However, additional choices will become available shortly. For now, simply drag your initial unit from the bench onto the board.
When the countdown concludes, the battle will commence, and your unit will spring into action against the minion bots. Given the minions’ low strength, your solitary unit should easily dispatch them.
Mana and Skills
As your unit engages in combat, observe the gradual filling of their blue mana bar. Your champion accrues mana through both dealing and receiving damage. Upon reaching full mana, champions unleash their abilities. For instance, Ziggs employs the Mini Inferno Bomb, causing damage to enemies within a certain radius.
It’s important to note that not all champions possess casted abilities. Choosing a unit like Warwick won’t trigger this event, as he relies on passive abilities that remain passive.
Obtaining Items
Engaging in battles against AI-controlled minions and monsters presents an opportunity for item drops. Apart from the carousel rounds, this is the sole occasion during which you can acquire items.
Selecting Augments
The introduction of Augments occurred in Set 6, and provides players with bonus effects, whether they are related to Gold or Combat. Augments are available three times during the game at the following stages.
- Round 1-4
- Round 3-2
- Round 4-2
Rounds 2 and 3: The Shop
Following the initial minion round, the game enters a phase where strategic decisions and team composition become crucial. Starting from round 2 and continuing until the game concludes, you will be presented with five champion unit choices in the shop. All eight players draw from a shared pool of finite pieces. For each unit, you can view their cost, synergies, and a description of their ability by hovering over them.
Above the five units, your current gold amount is displayed. Beyond purchasing units, you can use gold to refresh or “reroll” for another set of five champions for 2g or buy 4 experience points for 4g. Additionally, you have the option to sell units from your board or bench, though the value may not always match the purchase price.
You can also opt to lock your shop (found in the top right corner) to prevent it from refreshing at the beginning of the next round.
Important Notes Regarding The Shop
- Refresh: Rerolling may yield the same champions as a previous reroll. Rolling odds will be discussed shortly.
- Buy XP: Your player level determines the number of pieces you can have on the board (e.g., at level 3, you can have 3 unit pieces). Passive experience gain occurs each round, but spending gold allows you to increase your level and the maximum number of units (up to 9 using experience). Your current level and points needed for the next level are displayed on the left of the shop.
- Lock: If you appreciate the options from a roll but lack sufficient gold to buy everything you need, consider locking your shop to make purchases in the next round when you have more gold.
- Sell: Units can be sold by dragging them onto the shop or by clicking them and pressing E.
With numerous options, understanding when and why to buy champions can be challenging. For beginners, the focus should be on building toward unit synergies.
Unit Synergies
Constructing a team based on synergies stands as a fundamental gameplay element in auto chess games like Teamfight Tactics. Synergies come in two forms: class and origin. Each champion possesses at least one of each type, with some champions having multiple affiliations. As we’ve acquired various champions since then, the highlighted synergies now showcase the diverse traits present on our current board.
These highlighted traits represent the synergies currently active on your board, indicating the number of units needed for a synergy’s ability to activate. You’ll observe the unit synergies displayed in the shop as well. When you remove a unit from the board, the corresponding synergies vanish from the left side of the screen.
Ziggs belongs to the Yordle origin. If we acquire more Yordle units (excluding duplicates of Ziggs, such as Vex and Poppy), the trait will activate. Additionally, Ziggs falls under the Arcanist class, providing a distinct avenue with its own set of possibilities, advantages, and disadvantages.
The method by which you grasp information about team compositions varies based on your player style. If you prefer independent learning, feel free to experiment and discover, through trial and error, which classes and origins synergize effectively.
Unit Upgrading
An essential game mechanic in TFT involves combining identical units to create more powerful ones, known as ranking up or leveling up. To achieve a rank up, you must combine three identical units for each tier:
- Three 1-star units combine to form one 2-star unit.
- Three 2-star units combine to form one 3-star unit.
- Consequently, obtaining a 3-star unit requires a total of nine 1-star units.
- It’s worth noting that units purchased from the shop are initially 1-star unless they are Chosen
Upon purchasing Ziggs from the shop, all three copies automatically merge into a formidable 2-star Ziggs. This transformation not only enhances Ziggs’ size but also significantly boosts his power. The rank-up triggers a notification in the game’s chat log, drawing attention from other players, so be vigilant about their activities. Hovering over an ability reveals its scaling—how it strengthens with increased rank. With Ziggs now at 2 stars, his ability deals 425 damage, up from 325.
In addition to crafting a synergized team, it’s crucial to consistently upgrade your units throughout the game. By the game’s conclusion (if you endure until then), most of your team should ideally be 2-star, and strategic play may even yield a few 3-star units.
As you progress in levels, the champion pool available to you and their likelihood of appearing to change (refer to the details in the table below). For simplicity, if you aim for a 3-star unit, delaying leveling up may be advisable, as leveling up could decrease the chances of it appearing. Conversely, if you seek a higher-cost unit to complement your synergy, investing in experience might enhance the odds of its appearance.
Round 2-1: PVP
From Round 2-1 onward, the gameplay transitions into player versus player (PvP) battles after the conclusion of the three minion rounds. As depicted in the image below, there are three consecutive PvP fights, succeeded by a carousel round, two additional PvP encounters, and finally, a creep round.
This sequence continues throughout the match, culminating in a victory when only one player remains (with the top 4 being considered a win). Subsequent sections will delve into the overarching concepts of a match, foregoing a step-by-step walkthrough of each round.
PVP Rounds
In the PvP rounds, you’ll confront a randomly selected opponent, challenging them with your team of champions. The extent of damage inflicted on the losing side depends on the margin of victory. While there is a specific formula for this, for the sake of simplicity in this beginner’s guide, consider it in terms of the surviving units on the winning side.
In a closely contested battle resulting in a 1v1 showdown between the last two units, the losing side incurs a minor amount of damage. Conversely, if the winning side secures a decisive victory with numerous surviving units, the loser suffers a substantial amount of damage.
Carousel
As previously mentioned in the carousel section, player standings hold significance as they determine the order in which participants select their pieces during the next carousel phase. All players commence the carousel phase in a locked state and are subsequently released in reverse order, starting from the last place and concluding with the first place. This arrangement provides an opportunity for players who are lagging to catch up, as they are more likely to acquire the item and unit they need most.
Understanding Economy: Win Streaks, Lose Streaks, and Interest
In Teamfight Tactics, you receive passive income each round. In the initial rounds, your gold increases progressively, starting from 2 gold and reaching a base of 5 gold per round. This means you gain 2g in round 2, 3g in round 3, 4g in round 4, and 5g in round 5 and beyond.
Additional gold is earned based on win/loss streaks and interest. Consecutive wins or losses result in extra gold, following this pattern:
- 2-3 round streak: 1 extra gold per round
- 4 round streak: 2 extra gold per round
- 5+ round streak: 3 extra gold per round
This system rewards successful players and provides support to those facing challenges. (Note: Some players intentionally lose to capitalize on lose streak income and secure advantageous carousel positions, but that strategy is beyond the scope of this article.) Winning a round also grants an additional +1 gold.
Your gold at the end of a round determines the interest bonus at the start of the next round. The interest you receive is linked to every 10 gold you possess, up to 50:
- 10g: +1g interest
- 20g: +2g interest
- 30g: +3g interest
- 40g: +4g interest
- 50g: +5g interest (maximum)
For instance, ending a round with 34g results in an additional +3g interest in the next round. You can monitor your gold earnings per round by hovering over your gold in the shop (highlighted in red). Observing the counters on the sides of the board provides insight into the gold reserves of other players.
Each counter signifies the amount of interest a player is accruing. The counters on the left indicate your interest – with 50g in the bank, you’d receive 5g in interest, hence the 5 counters. Likewise, the opposing player has a minimum of 40g, evident from the four counters on the right. While you can’t precisely determine your opponents’ exact gold amounts, this provides a helpful estimate.
Unit Placement
While efficiently handling your economy, acquiring units, and constructing your team are crucial, their impact can be nullified if you neglect the proper positioning of your units. Ensuring that your units are situated optimally enhances their value, leading to increased consistency in their success during battles.
- Place units strategically to generate mana through combat, ensuring they actively deal and take damage without risking premature deaths.
- Prioritize casting abilities at least once during battles; if units perish before doing so, address any potential issues.
- Craft team compositions with a sturdy frontline shielding a vulnerable backline of damaged dealers and utility units.
- Adjust unit positioning as the game progresses and player numbers decrease, providing a clearer understanding of opponents and their compositions.
- Efficiently swap units by dragging one onto another, seamlessly rearranging them on the board or bench for quick adjustments to your team setup.
Frontline and Backline
At its most basic level, consider organizing your units into a frontline and backline.
Frontline Units: These typically possess defensive traits such as Bruiser or Bodyguard, enabling them to absorb damage from enemy teams. Since they are usually melee units, placing them at the front eliminates the need for them to cover distance before engaging enemies.
Backline Units: In contrast, backline units often specialize in providing damage, exemplified by champions like Caitlyn, or utility abilities such as healing and shields. These units tend to have sufficient range to target enemy frontline units without requiring extensive movement.
While not delving into specifics, this general concept applies to most compositions. Additional nuances may involve positioning towards the right or left sides, or even at the center of the board. Certain synergies might also influence whether you place your units close together or further apart.
Combining and Allocating Items
This section addresses the best practices for item utilization and why prioritizing specific items is essential. Here are the key points you should be aware of:
- Item Capacity:
- Each unit can accommodate a maximum of three items.
- Permanence of Item Attachment:
- Granting an item to a unit is a permanent action. To transfer an item to another unit, you must sell the current holder of the item.
- Item Types:
- Items come in two categories: basic and combined. Combining two basic items will yield a combined item.
- Strategic Item Use:
- Utilize items to enhance the strengths of your team composition. Items range from providing basic stats like health and attack speed to game-breaking effects, such as surpassing the maximum unit limit.
- Enhanced Winning Chances:
- Equipping the right items on appropriate units significantly improves your likelihood of victory, especially when facing teams that don’t optimize their item usage.
FAQ
Should I spend gold early or should I save?
Typically, if your goal is to sustain a winning streak, it might be more advantageous to seek upgrades and extend your momentum. However, consider the practicality of your odds in doing so.
If you find yourself not winning in the early stages, it’s likely more beneficial to save up—unless you’re facing significant damage and losing substantial HP. Establishing a losing streak while maintaining good health positions you to maximize interest and puts you in a favorable position during carousel rounds.
When the Champions are the Strongest?
It implies that most units have a specific period when they are intended to be at their peak strength and other times when their effectiveness may diminish.
Typically, attack speed proves more effective in the early game, while raw burst gains prominence in the later stages. Single-target abilities tend to shine in the early game, whereas AoE abilities become more impactful in the late game.
Giving up Tank Items or Back Line?
Generally, offensive items are preferable for your carriers and damage dealers, while survivability items are better suited for tanks. Utility items, such as Zeke’s Herald, often complement both types of units.
Where do I position my units?
The placement of your units hinges on your team composition and the specific units at your disposal. As for other players, their diverse positions reflect their attempts to discover optimal placements for their teams for the rest of the competition.
Small adjustments can sometimes yield significant differences, especially as the games progress and the player count dwindles, underscoring the heightened importance of strategic positioning.
Does the initial carousel have a significant impact?
You can certainly secure a victory with almost any unit as your initial choice, particularly since they are low-cost and easy to replace. However, obtaining a contested item that holds strength in the current meta can provide a robust start.
Is it useful to save items or use my items right away?
In essence, your goal is to secure optimal items for your preferred champions. If it’s early to mid-game and there’s ample time to find the ideal combinations, it might be advantageous to hold onto your items rather than create weaker combinations.
On the other hand, in the late game, when survival is crucial and basic items are still on your bench, your best strategy might involve using those items immediately to create stronger combinations and enhance your chances of staying in the game.