Teamfight Tactics (or TFT) is an autobattler by Riot Games. On PC, it is currently only playable through the League of Legends client as a game mode, with a standalone application available for mobile. It was first presented on June 10, 2019, available on PBE on June 18, 2019, and available across live servers on June 25–28, 2019.
TFT is an 8-player free-for-all drafting tactics game in which the player recruits powerful champions, deploys them, and battles to become the last player standing.
There are three types of rounds in the game: Carousel, PvE battles against monsters, and PvP rounds against teams fielded by other players. Champions are recruited from the Carousel and the store, while items are obtained through the Carousel and PvE rounds.
Description[]
Assemble an army of your favorite champions in Teamfight Tactics, the PVP strategy autobattler from the makers of League of Legends.
In Teamfight Tactics, you'll draft, deploy, and upgrade from a revolving roster of League of Legends champions in a round-based battle for survival. Devastate with demons, bruise with brawlers, or transform the battle with shapeshifters—the strategy is all up to you.
- BATTLE IT OUT
Outplay and outlast your opponents by building an elite squad of League of Legends champions ready to fight on your behalf. Random drafts and in-game events ensure no two matches ever play out exactly the same.
- PICK UP AND GO
Cross-platform support means you can play with your friends (and crush your enemies) across PC, Mac, and mobile.
- RANK UP
Full competitive support and matchmaking. From Iron to Challenger, climb or fall on the ladder based on your final standing in every game.
- COMPETE FROM DAY ONE
Everything you need to succeed is unlocked from the start—full stop.
- STRATEGIZE AND EVOLVE
Continuous free game updates and content drops ensure a fresh, ever-shifting meta and infinite strategic depth.
- STYLE ON 'EM
Express yourself with your Little Legend by dancing, emoting, and generally showing off. Earn new Little Legends by playing TFT or purchasing them in the TFT store.
Client[]
- For Tutorial, see Tutorial (Teamfight Tactics)
Teamfight Tactics has both a lobby for pre-game customization, and a main tab for rewards tracking. Matchmaking queues include normal and ranked.
The mobile version has access to the same interfaces. It does not have summoner profile settings or in-game chat, but it has a unique Team Planner feature that allows the player to plan a unit composition.
Normal Games[]
Ranked Games[]
- Ranked uses a similar league system as in Summoner's Rift, but without promotion series.
- As soon as a player reaches 100 LP, they will promote and carry over any extra LP with them.
- Players can queue together in parties up to 3 players.
- Players win or lose LP for each person they place higher/lower than, based on their (and the other person's) skill.
- Players gain significantly more LP when they finish a game in first place, since they have won against seven other players. Players typically gain LP if they finish 4th or higher, and lose LP if they finish 5th or lower, but spots in the middle only cause fairly small changes in LP most games.
- Players only demote if they lose a game while at 0 LP.
- Players gain more LP per game when things go really well, and lose more LP per game when things go really poorly.
- Grandmaster and Challenger players who are demoted go directly to Diamond 1.
Gameplay[]
Little Legend[]
- Main article: Little Legend (Teamfight Tactics)
The Little Legend is the player-character for games of Teamfight Tactics. Players can control their Little Legend using , although this has little gameplay function other than moving to collect item orb and pick a champion from the Carousel.
The default Little Legend given to every player is the River Sprite. A Little Legend is fully customizable in the pre-game lobby. Players unlock new Little Legends mostly by buying eggs, but also by progress in Passes and reach high rank. Players can also spend Star Shard to upgrade them.
Arena[]
- Main article: Arena (Teamfight Tactics)
The Arena is the island that encompasses the battlefield of Teamfight Tactics, which includes the battlefield for champions to fight, the champion bench, and the Gold Generators.
The Arena is able to be customized with numerous different skins, some of which can be earned by playing the game while others are store or event purchases.
Gold[]
- Main article: Gold (Teamfight Tactics)
You accrue gold over the game that you can spend on experience, champions and re-rolling your champion pool. Choosing when to spend your gold is one of the pillars of mastery for Teamfight Tactics.
Gold can also drop like items, requiring the Little Legend to retrieve them.
Experience and Levels[]
- Main article: Experience (Teamfight Tactics)
Experience in Teamfight Tactics is primarily used in-game for gaining access to additional and stronger champion units.
Champions[]
- Main article: Champion (Teamfight Tactics)
Champions are units in the Teamfight Tactics game mode that fight in arenas to protect the Little Legend. Unlike Champions in League of Legends, these units are not directly controllable once placed on the battlefield. They are characters taken directly from the League of Legends intellectual property and can take appearances from the Runeterra Prime universe, as well as from a wide variety of alternate universes depending on the current playable set. Players can buy, sell, reposition, and equip items on champions as well as upgrade champions depending on certain requirements of certain champion.
Rounds[]
Carousel[]
- Main article: Carousel (Teamfight Tactics)
The Carousel, also known as shared draft, a special round where players can choose a champion.
PvE[]
- Main article: Monster (Teamfight Tactics)
All rounds indicated here are the neutral rounds, where you either face a group of monsters/minions, or a round of shared draft (or carousel). All the other rounds are PvP. In the event that the player does not get an item during a PvE round, one of the minions, monsters, or epic monsters will now drop gold instead. Epic monsters always drop a random combined item upon defeat.
PvP[]
During every round that isn't a neutral wave or shared draft, players will be randomly assigned an opponent, and one player's team will be teleported to the other's map. The teams will then fight until either one team is defeated or 40 seconds have passed. A player is counted as defeated when there are no surviving champions or summoned units, including untargetable units. The losing team takes damage proportional to the tier and upgrade level of each surviving champion on the other team. If the timer runs out and neither team has been defeated, it is considered a loss for both players and they are each damaged accordingly.
When there are an odd number of players remaining, one player will be paired against a copy of another player's team, also known as a ghost army. If it wins the round, it deals damage to its opponent as if it were a real team. If it loses, nothing happens because it vanishes at the end of the round anyway.
Once the match is down to three players, the highest-health player always faces off against a duplicate team and the other two players always fight each other. This gives the two lower-positioned players more time to build up their teams without being crushed by the player in the lead, making the eventual duel for first place more competitive.
Loss and Victory[]
Players start with 100 Life Points. If a player is brought to 0 Life Points, they are defeated. Defeated players are presented with the options of exiting the game or continuing to watch, and if they continue watching they may quit at any time with no penalties.
In Set 3, there are galaxies that can change the game rules. Some of them change the starting health of players.
Players are ranked based on their current life points and the order they are defeated, and the last player standing is declared the winner.
Phases[]
Planning[]
Each round begins with a 30-second set-up phase, during which players can position their champions ready for combat.
Arrival[]
Some players are transported to other player's arenas to battle them.
Battle[]
If your unit capacity isn't fully used, the left-most champions on your bench are automatically positioned in the bottom center of your battlefield until the cap is reached or no more champions are on your bench. The champions positioned on the battlefield then engage in combat. You can still buy champions but they won't affect the ongoing battle. You can equip items to champions and their effects will work as usual from then on, with the exception of effects that trigger on the beginning of combat which won't activate retroactively.
URF Overtime Mode[]
After 30 seconds into every battle, URF Overtime kicks in and speeds things up for 15 seconds.
- × 3 attack speed.
- 100% increased ability power.
- 66% reduced crowd control duration.
- 66% healing and shielding reduction.
- 30% increased affection towards maritime mammals.
Resolution[]
The losing player takes damage to their Life Point total, based on the current stage plus 1 damage per surviving enemy champion. A losing player always takes a minimum of 1 damage.
Stage | Base damage |
---|---|
1 | 0 |
2 | 2 |
3 | 5 |
4 | 7 |
5 | 9 |
6 | 11 |
7 | 17 |
8 | 150 |
Final position in the standings is determined once all combat has ended. Players eliminated in the same round finish in order of:
- Least negative health total.
- Most health in the round prior to elimination.
- Randomly determined.
doubles the damage taken from losing a round. costs Little Legend health instead of gold.
Departure[]
The battlefield transitions to the next round. Players are transported back to their arenas.
Terminology[]
- Main article: Terminology (Teamfight Tactics)Teamfight Tactics has its own share of keywords and terminologies used in and outside of the game, with some terms being used to simplify and facilitate rapid communication.
Trivia[]
- Teamfight Tactics is Riot Games' take on the Auto Chess genre.
- URF Overtime Mode is a reference to the buff in Ultra Rapid Fire.
- On 27 August 2019 Teamfight Tactics was having 20-40% of hours depending on the region, while holding steady. The mode also added net hours to the overall, whereas every other LoL-like mode tends to just move hours around (except ARURF).[2]
- In the Mobile Launch Trailer, the champions that appear seem to imply that the players are playing in a unique set that has both Set 1 units (e.g.
- In the trailer, while seems to imply they are their Set 1 version, Wolf is notably present with Lamb. However, he was absent during Set 1. appearing in their
- Similarly, in the Set 2 Gameplay trailer, Wolf also appears very briefly in his appearance where he transitions from it into his appearance for Set 2.
) and Set 2 units (e.g. ).
Teamfight Tactics: Development[]
By Riot Cactopus and Riot Beernana (June 10, 2019)[3]
Teamfight Tactics is a totally new game mode in League that'll hit PBE later this month.
TFT is a round-based strategy game that pits you against seven opponents in a free-for-all race to build a powerful team that fights on your behalf. Your goal: Be the last person standing.
- How It Works
You'll spend gold in the store before each round to recruit League champions to your team. Throughout the game, your team will become more powerful as you draft champions that share origins and classes to unlock trait bonuses. Additionally, you can combine three duplicates of the same champ to upgrade them into a super version of themselves, and combine three supers to create the ultimate version.
Your team will then travel to an opponent's board (or they will come to you) and a battle will unfold. During combat, your champions will move, attack, and cast spells automatically. Just like in League, you'll need to choose a team comp and position your champs wisely to unlock their full potential.
At the end of each round you'll earn gold to spend in future rounds. Occasionally, everyone will gather for a special event and draft from a single line-up of champions of varying strengths. Players will pick in the reverse order of their current standing, giving the players falling behind the chance to make a comeback. Win teamfights consistently to avoid losing health and deal damage to your opponents. Outlast everyone else to win, and don't forget to spam your emotes along the way.
- How and Why We're Making Teamfight Tactics
Recently, we've been trying different kinds of modes that are deep and unique additions to the League experience. TFT is our next big exploration in that space and the first time we're jumping into a different genre. We've always loved strategy games and recently we've gotten into the new auto-battler genre—folks around the office have been playing an insane amount of Dota Auto Chess in particular. We love it, and it actually got us inspired to create something new as a mode in League.
We're building this one with you. TFT's initial launch is a beta, so expect it to be a work in progress as we work all of the kinks out. Every step of the way we'll be listening closely to your experiences and feedback, so please let us know what you think. For our part, we'll be in frequent contact via dev articles, updates and patch notes.
Part of treating this like a Real Grown Up Game Mode means we'll support it with cool metagame features. That includes ranked. You can expect to see the ranked for TFT start up around patch 9.14. At that point, we should be in a good spot with bugs and initial game balance.
- Introducing Little Legends
With the introduction of Teamfight Tactics, we're excited to bring a whole new personalization option to League: Little Legends. These critters will be your avatar in TFT, dancing, emoting, animating, and generally showing off. After your first few games, you'll unlock your first LL just by playing.
After picking up your one-time-only free Legend, you can purchase additional species in the store for
. We're launching with six species:If you're not yet smitten with these Little Legends, expect more varieties with each patch, just like skins. Additionally, for those of you who want to really pop we'll feature Rare LL Eggs, purchasable for
. Rare Eggs contain special variants of those same species, with an added twist: hatching a variant you've already found will make them star up just like the champions in TFT, powering up their models and effects. Once a variant has reached its third level, it will not drop from future Rare Eggs you open.Little Legends will also join you on the Howling Abyss, where they'll cheer you on from the sidelines while you battle.
You'll see all of the Little Legends emoting their faces off on PBE, but we'll talk more about what they are and how they work before they go live.
Expect TFT to hit live servers during patch 9.13.Media[]
Patch Notes[]
References