A Team Fight Tactics Analysis

Any gamer must have heard about League’s newest game mode: Team Fight Tactics (TFT for short). It’s not an overstatement to say that TFT has created enormous amounts of hype, and has left anyone playing it satisfied and wanting for more. But how exactly did TFT began and how good is it really? All this and more will be covered today.

Background

In January 2019, a team called Drodo Studio released a mod they created for DotA 2 (Valve allows its players to experiment with the game freely). The mod was called DotA Autochess and it was a mixture of chess played automatically using DotA units.

This mod gained extreme popularity and in a short amount of time, millions of players and fans. The game was so well received, that auto battlers or auto chess was recognized as the newest gaming genre (and rightly so).

Valve saw this as an opportunity, as the game already was using their game and created their own official version, DotA Underlords, fully supported with ranked mode.

Riot Games employees have also been enjoying DotA Autochess and decided to try and build their own version, and thus the creation of TFT was a reality.

Riot Games released TFT on their beta servers for players to try a little more than two weeks before at the time of this article. The game, as stated, received a huge amount of hype, and everyone wanted to try it.

There were so many people wanting to play that any given player would have to wait more than 9 hours in the server’s queue. Even on the day of its release, the servers were overloaded and queue limitations had to be forced.

TFT even topped the Twitch charts before its official release. And it’s all thanks to its gameplay.

Gameplay

TFT, like all auto battles, is a mixture of chess and… well, League.

What you do is simple; you begin with a League champion that you choose at the start of the game. You go through three rounds of PvE and then, it’s mostly PvP with some PvE every few rounds.

While I say PvP, that does not mean that you do any of the fighting, instead, your placed champions will automatically battle, and the strongest (or sometimes luckiest will win). The loser will lose some HP.

You win by being the last one standing.

The champions you will have are not random, as you will be aiming to create combos and synergies.

Every champion has one or two classes and an origin. When you combine many different champions of the same classes or origins, you gain huge bonuses for those champions!

This is why foresight is key here, as you will always need to plan ahead. you can also combine 3 duplicate champions to create a buffed up super version of themselves, combine 3 supers and you get an ultimate version.

The game is very simple to grasp and play and it doesn’t require an excellent internet connection, nor is it stressful and tense. This is why it’s so popular.

That does not mean it’s simple though, on the contrary, auto battlers have some complicated mechanics.

For example, the economy. Every round you generate money based on your winning or losing streak, and the interest rate which is a key strategic point.

Interest is basically 10% extra gold so that’s 0 extra gold if you have 0-9, 1 extra gold if you have 10-19, up to 5 extra gold if you have more than 50 gold.

Gold is used for 3 actions. The most basic is buying a champion from the shop that refreshes every round. You can also spend 2 gold to refresh the shop manually, or 4 gold to gain some experience.

Experience is needed to level up because as you level up, you can have more champions in the field. Experience is also automatically gained after each round.

The reason I say this is a key strategic point is because you will have to choose between spending gold or saving up for better interest.

And even when you do spend, you mustn’t be unwise with it as you will end up far behind. You can sell champions for their original value, which allows you to buy champion you don’t currently need just in case, and if it doesn’t work, you just sell them back no problem. Again, foresight is key!

There are also shared draft rounds. These also come once every few rounds. Each player is transported to an island in the center of the map where a carousel of 10 champions each holding an item is underway.

Beginning from the last player up to the first, each player chooses a champion to get. Once a champion is chosen, it cannot be picked by anyone else.

Finally, the items. After every shared draft round and (depending on your RNG) after the PvE rounds, you will be getting some items.

There are 8 basic items, the 7 that provide you with a base stat and one special, the golden spatula. Each of those items can be combined on a champion with any of these, even duplicates, to create a better item that grants the stats of both of the previous items plus an extra effect. As for the golden spatula… I’ll let you figure it out on your own.

With the way this game’s designed, it’s accessible to everyone regardless of their personal skill, and it allows for tons of comebacks; it is very usual to see someone stuck in the last position for the majority of the first rounds, only to completely turn it around after they complete their combo.

But, the best thing about it is arguably the fact that you don’t have a team.

Not to bash on team players, but LoL is infamous for its terrible matchmaking, and it can be frustrating trying and getting nervous about a game only for some random person to just destroy it for no apparent reason. This game is solo and there are no excuses for defeat.

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Conclusion

So, does TFT deserve all the hype and praise? Absolutely!

I’ll be honest, I didn’t even want to try it at first.

After I tried it, I actually regretted not wanting to try it out sooner. As a matter of fact, all of my personal friends were kinda “meh” about, and now, they can’t stop playing it!

The fact that it’s gonna be fully supported by Riot, get a ranked system (and maybe with enough support an e-sports scene) and plans to implement all the champion in League (the game as of its start has 50 champions available) make for a game with limitless potential.

Besides, Riot Games, even with all the bashing they’re getting for A LOT of things, know how to get a game right.

So, I urge you to go try it yourself and see, besides, what I covered here is only the surface, there are many micro things to learn and memorize, as well as tactics, synergies, and combos.

One thing is for sure, TFT could easily become just as popular and played as the main game, and with the right support, become a game that is played because it’s liked, not because of lack of options.

That’s it for my thoughts on TFT. Have you tried it yet? Did you enjoy it? Would you like to hear more about TFT (like a champion analysis, or a class/origins analysis or anything else)? If so, just leave a comment, and I will answer as soon as I can.

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