How to play Teamfight Tactics
Welcome to the world of Teamfight Tactics, Riot Games’ take at the popular “Auto Battler” genre that blew up with Auto Chess! If you never played Auto Chess and are new to TFT then don’t worry, we’ve got you covered!
Despite existing in the League of Legends client and using characters entirely from its universe, Teamfight Tactics plays like an entirely different game. For starters, you’ll enter a game of TFT the same way you would for any other game mode, but that’s about the only similarity. But what about when you’ve gotten in game? Then what? Well, let’s start with the basics.
Teamfight Tactics is an 8 player free for all where you’ll be pitted against 7 other players. The game is broken up into rounds where you’ll compete against a different player at random each round. However, you won’t be the one competing, at least not directly. Your team will. Each player will construct and position a team of champions that will fight to the death against the other players’ teams each round. This is the core of TFT and the “Auto Battler” genre.
When you first get into game, all 8 players will start off on the same “island.” Each player will be represented by a “Little Legend” which functions the same as your standard League champion. On this island, there will be a “carousel” of 10 champions rotating in the middle. Once the golden ring around the “Little Legend” disappears, each player will choose one champion to use in the first round. To choose a champion, simply walk into them with a right click. If you haven’t picked a champion when the time limit expires, you’ll be automatically assigned one. Each champion also comes with an item, but we’ll get into that later.
Once the “carousel” round finished, you’ll be teleported to your own board. This is where you control your units and play the majority of the game. During this first round, you’ll notice two things. The champion you selected will be on your “bench” at the bottom left of your island and there will be two minions waiting on the board. These minions represent a “neutral round.” The first three rounds of every TFT game are neutral round, and are used to give players time to construct their team. After you’ve taken everything in, move your champion to a space on the board. Left click to pick them up and a left click to place them. Once the timer in the top middle of the screen reaches zero, your champion and the minions will start fighting automatically. This is how every round of TFT will play out. The champions on your side of the board will automatically fight the enemies on the other side until one team is victorious.
Congratulations, you’ve finished your first round of TFT! Now what? At the end of every round, you’ll earn 1 gold for winning, plus an additional fixed amount of gold. Once the next round begins, you’ll be shown a pool of five random champions who can be purchased from the shop using the gold you just earned. Any champion you buy will automatically appear on the bench we previously mentioned. Buying new pieces is what lets you grow and strengthen your team, so always be on the lookout for new units!
But this doesn’t mean you amass a 30 unit army. In fact, the number of units you can have is always fixed, and depends on your level. If you’re level 1, then you can have one unit. Level 2 grants you two units, and so on up until the cap at level 9. You’ll earn 2 experience at the start of every round, which’ll propel you to the next level in the early game. You also have the option of buying levels, but we can touch on that another time.
As we mentioned earlier, the first three rounds are PvE matches against creeps. During these rounds, you’ll want to repeat what you did for round 1 while buying new units to build up your team. Any creep you kill has the chance of dropping an item component. These items can be given to your champions to give them bonus stats. To do this, simply left click on the item, drag it over the champion, and click again. Any two items can be combined into a bigger, more powerful item. The item you’ll get depends on the combination, but we have an easy cheat sheet here on ProGuide to help you out! The game will also show you what item you’ll get before combining, so you don’t have to learn things the hard way. Keep in mind that you can NOT remove items from your units, so think carefully before assigning them. Once you get to round four, you’ll start battling other players. This is where the real fun begins.
Post Round 3:
After you finish the 3rd neutral round, you’ll continue like usual except you’ll start competing against other players. If you win the round, you’ll win one extra gold. If you lose the round, you’ll take 2 points of damage plus bonus damage depending on the number of surviving enemy units and their tier. Everyones’ health bars are displayed on the right side of the screen and go down as they take damage. When a player hits zero HP, they lose.
In between rounds of battling your opponents, you’ll occasionally have another creep or carousel round. The next type of round is displayed at the top of the screen, so you don’t have to plan too far in advance. But for those of you interested in the specifics here’s the order of rounds after the first 3 creep rounds: 3 Player Rounds > Carousel > 2 Player Rounds > 1 Creep Round.
These future creep rounds all feature different monsters from League of Legends’ jungle like the Krugs, Wolves, and Raptors to name a few. Each of these creeps acts a different way, so you’ll want to reposition your team accordingly.
As for the future carousel rounds, they function almost identically to the one you did at the beginning of the game except for one small catch. Instead of every player running to grab a champion at the same time, each player will be released from their golden cage in reverse health order. This means that the player with the least health will pick first, while the player with the most health will pick last. This is designed as a comeback mechanic and helps players get back in the game.
That’s about all there is to each round of Teamfight Tactics. Your goal should be to construct the best team possible and to defeat your opponents in a blaze of glory. While that might sound straightforward, there are tons of extra layers we’ve yet to get into. These layers complicate the game but also make it that much more exciting and rewarding!
Champions: Everything you need to know
If you’ve played League of Legends than you recognize the champions. They’re some of your favorite, and most hated, video game characters. But just because they look the same doesn’t mean they act exactly the same. Let’s start with upgrading your champions. Unlike in League, you can have multiples of the same champion. In fact, it’s actually encouraged. Purchasing 3 of the same champion will automatically upgrade them into a more powerful version. All of the champions you buy in the store are one star units, so if you combine 3 one star units then you’ll get one two star unit. Likewise, if you acquire 3 of the same two star unit then it’ll combine into 1 three start unit.
But wait, there’s more! Every champion has a class and origin assigned to them, which come with their own unique traits. If you want to read more about their class or origin, simply hover over them and a tooltip will appear. These classes and origins give your units specific buffs that’ll make them more adept at fighting your opponents. These range from more damage, to more tank stats, to even more gold! Typically, you’ll need at least 2 or 3 units from a specific group to get the bonus. The tool tip will tell you exactly how many units you’ll need, but you can also look on the left side of your screen for a more condensed version.To learn more about the classes and origins and the champions that belong to them, check out our Classes and Origins cheat sheet here on ProGuides.
While League champions have 4 abilities and a passive, TFT champions only have 1 ability, either a passive or an active. Passive abilities will take effect as soon as the unit enters combat, while active abilities will automatically cast once the unit’s mana bar is full. Units gain mana from dealing AND taking damage, so position units you want to ult accordingly!
Speaking of positioning, it’s yet another important aspect of TFT! Typically you’ll want your tanky, CC champions in the front while keeping your ranged damage dealers in the back. This general concept is really similar to league or any other class based game, but there are even more specifics, so make sure you pay attention to your composition. Here’s a specific example. Let’s say you’re running Guardians. Guardians grant bonus armor to their adjacent allies at the beginning of the round. If both of your Guardians are far away from the rest of your units then you aren’t getting the most out of the buff. Instead, you want to position them in a way where they’ll give the bonus to as many allies as possible. This is only one example, but you’ll come across many more the longer you play!
Gold: How to Earn and Spend it
Gold is an essential resource in TFT. It lets you do pretty much anything you want. But with great power comes great responsibility. While gold can be your saving grace in a pinch, it can easily shoot you in the foot if you aren’t spending it correctly. Before we get into how you should spend your gold, let’s go over what exactly how you earn gold and what you can even spend it on. If you’d like to know more about how you should be spending your gold then check our our guide on the subject!
These are the different ways you can earn gold:You’ll earn 5 gold at the end of every round no matter what.Riot has not specifically stated how these operate yet, but you do get bonus gold for winning or losing multiple rounds in a row.At the end of every round, you’ll earn 1 additional gold of interest for every 10 gold you have. So you if you have 33 gold at the end of a round, you’ll earn 3 gold in interest. This interest gold caps out at 5 per round, so even if you have 70 gold, you’ll still only get 5 gold in interest.If you win a round against another player, you’ll earn 1 additional gold which is factored in before interest.If you’re unhappy with a champion, need to clear out space, or have no further use for them, you can see them back to the store for a full refund. To do this, pick up the champ and drag them over where the store normally is.
And here’s how you can spend your gold:Every champion in the store will cost you gold. $1, $2, $3, $4, or $5 to be exact. You’ll need to by champions at some point, but be smart about how much gold your spending on each and how much champion gold you have sitting on your bench.If you’re looking for a specific champion to complete your class or if you need that 3rd Darius to level it up, consider refreshing. Simply click the refresh button in the upper left of the store, spend 2 gold, and you’ll have an entirely new set of champions to choose from. You can repeat this process as much as you want, as long as you have the gold!You can spend 4 gold for 4 experience points. To do this, click on the experience button on the bottom left of the store. If you have extra gold, are close to leveling up, or want to put in another unit, then it might be worth investing in some experience.
That concludes our beginner’s guide to Teamfight Tactics. You won’t be a master from just reading this, but it’ll set you in the right direction. Check out our other TFT guides here on ProGuides for more in depth content or use our tier lists and cheat sheets to give you a strategic edge in game!
