Strategy & Tactics
Most of Teamfight Tactics players will agree that the hardest thing about playing this game is to choose your composition according to the items and champions that you find. The biggest problem that low ELO players often encounter is the inability to take a decision. It's not rare to see people with overcrowded benches, unable to properly build their economy or their composition because their reasoning is somehow blocked.
There is no perfect method to achieve victory in Teamfight Tactics. Nevertheless, it's possible to reach the Top 4 in most situations — especially if you're following some general 'best practices'.
The first Carrousel
Keep in mind that you should never aim for a champion during the shared draft: always target an item. Depending on the current patch, there are some items that we suggest you target:
- Spatula: This is definitely the best item of the game. It brings versatility, diversity, and consistency into your compositions by allowing you to give one of your champions another class trait. Mittens for Shyvana, Darkin for Katarina or Gnar, the possibilities are infinite.
- BF Sword: This item allows you to build either an Hextech Gunblade for your Shyvana or Spear of Shojin for you Aurelion Sol. In both cases, BF Sword is especially strong because it can combine into items that fit into AP and AD compositions.
- Sparring Gloves: They were just introduced with patch 9.19, meaning it's still tricky to argue they're the best item of the meta. However, crit. chance and dodge are always strong in TFT since one dodge or one crit. can actually make a huge difference within a fight.
Leveling
Following patch 9.19, the player damage was lowered which directly impacted the pace of the game. You will now have more time to build your compositions and to actually commit to a specific lineup. Reaching Level 8-9 is now a real possibility, and not something that rarely happens — which means it's now more interesting to build a proper economy than hard-rolling in the early-game.
That being said, it changed nothing for leveling up and you should still try to curve your XP following this process:
Should I still hard roll?
No — just don't.
Hard rolling isn't a bad strategy, but it's certainly a big risk to take if you don't know what you're doing.
Rolling the shop means your sacrificing your gold in order to make your composition stronger. It's a power-play but it's also a bet. What if you don't get what you're looking for? In the current meta, properly building your economy is mandatory if you want to reach the Top 4. Because of the new item drop system, you should get a lot more gold — meaning it shouldn't be difficult to get money.
What is hard is to decide when to use it, therefore we drew the following rules for you. Keep in mind that these rules aren't compulsory, especially if you're an auto-battler veteran:
- Try to build your economy as soon as possible by selling champions you don't need and reaching the interest thresholds (10/20/30/40/50)
- Don't roll over 20 gold except if you're on the verge of dying.
- To reach Level 7 or 8, buy XP with your excedent gold in several times. Do not try to reach them in one turn, since it will destroy your economy.
- Scout other players and try to roll when they're doing the same. Having 50g in the bank is useless if you're constantly losing.
- Be smart with your streaks: protect your winning streak by rolling the shop and leveling up, be cautious with your losing streak and don't hesitate to open-fort* if you feel confident about your survival.
*Open-fort: a strategy which implies intentionally losing to protect your losing-streak and be the first player to pick during the Carousel phase.
What do you think about this guide? Is there any information missing? Would you like a more in-depth analysis? The comment section is yours, and your opinion matters!
We already knew about the Sparring Gloves being delayed to patch 9.19, however, the arrival of Kai'Sa is a piece of hot news! This is the biggest patch Teamfight Tactics has ever received... check it out!
