If you’re just starting out with Teamfight Tactics, one of the most frustrating things about playing early on is losing. You’re new and you don’t know all the tips and tricks. It makes sense that you might end up in a lot of 6th, 7th, or even 8th places for a while. However, if you’re tired of the losing slump, here are some of the things you might need to work on to start winning your TFT games.
Getting comfortable with the best TFT builds
One of the best things you can do for yourself in TFT is familiarize yourself with the best builds. Sometimes this means checking out all the meta-tier lists online. Other times it just means playing more games and paying close attention to what the top players are doing. One of the biggest pitfalls early players can fall into is only trying to build “S-Tier” builds when that doesn’t fit into what the people around you are playing. Depending on where you land in the rankings, the meta list may not reflect what works at your skill level.
If you’re seeing a ton of “B-Tier” builds work in your games, you just have to adjust and maybe have to focus more on what the builds are doing. For example, when assassin/rogue style builds are more popular, Bruiser builds might work really well to counter them.
How to play adaptively in TFT
Adapting to the game is a vital part of TFT. Now, you in no way have to perfectly adapt to every option. TFT gives a lot of them and if you pivoted at every opportunity, your build would end up a disjointed mess. For example, because you see an Aphelios early doesn’t guarantee that pivoting to Freljord Deadeye will be smart.
However, early game TFT is really when you should try to be your most flexible. Say you get 3 Ionia (Jhin, Irelia, Sett) before the PvP rounds start. Do your best to get those low-cost units to silver and then adjust from there. If you get that Aphelios, you’re now transitioning to Deadeye. If you get a Yasuo, Ionian Challengers it is. A surprise silver Garen could even mean a solid Juggernauts pivot. You basically want to set yourself up with a decently strong early build, but leave some space to comfortably pivot to a handful of other, stronger later-game builds.
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How to econ in TFT
If you feel like you’re losing because of money reasons, let’s talk about “econ”. This is the idea of saving your money so that you can create a safe 50+ gold collection. You do this by relying on win streaks, loss streaks, and gold bonus interest to build up your in-game savings. This makes it easier to level up and re-roll. For example, if you have 10 gold you’ll earn +1 gold in interest. However, if you have 50 gold, you’ll earn +10 gold in interest. So the more money you save, the more money you’ll earn. Also, if you’re on a five-round win or loss streak, you’ll get +3 gold. A player at 50 Gold with a 5+ win streak could be getting up to 13 Gold per round.
Now let’s talk about how you use that money. While you shouldn’t waste your money willy-nilly and put yourself in a poor position financially, though, don’t be too precious with your cash. There’s nothing more tragic than dying with 50 gold. Generally, if you’re feeling some pressure, rolling down to 30 gold is not a bad idea. Neither is using 4 gold of your savings if it means you’re the first player to get to level 6 in the game. Money is a valuable resource in the game but it’s not worth it if you don’t use it when it can protect other resources like your health. Moreover, if you’re in serious danger, sometimes dropping to 0 Gold but getting level 8/9 or getting a Gold/Three-Star unit is worth deleting your bank.
Game Mode Adjustments
Now, given all this information, there is one serious caveat: game mode types. If you play Ranked TFT versus Hyper Roll TFT you might have very different playstyles. For example, loss-streak-focused builds like Piltover can be very hard to pull off in Hyper Roll because the health loss is too much of a risk. So, if you’re doing great in Hyper Roll but struggling in Normal/Ranked TFT, you might have to adjust what kind of builds you prefer playing to get more wins.
