League of Legends: a complete idiot’s guide to Teamfight Tactics

Teamfight Tactics’s ranked queue is live! If you’re one of those who wants to try their luck at this new League of Legends game mode, here’s a guide from someone who stinks at TFT.

The ranked grind begins anew in League of Legends, but with a twist. Riot has announced that the new game mode, Teamfight Tactics, will be launching its own ranked queue in Patch 9.14, with ranked beginning today!

If you’ve never played Teamfight Tactics – or any auto battler for that matter – you’re in luck! For I had never played any auto battler before last week and have only gotten the chance to play perhaps 20-30 TFT games since then.

More from Gameplay Guides

• League of Legends ADC Tier List: Strongest Champions in 13.11
• League of Legends Support Tier List: Strongest Champions in 13.11
• Rell Update Guide: All Changes, Tips and Tricks, Items, and more
• 3 Tips to Rank Up in Season 13
• Let’s Play: Bruiser/Tank Diana

Although I have managed to win three games and consistently end in the top four, I am still a complete novice to the game mode. For those of you poor souls who know even less than me, here is a quick and dirty list of rules to follow when playing Teamfight Tactics, along with some basic terminology.

Terms to know

• Econ: to economize or to spend and save your gold wisely.
• Tier X: The tier of champion corresponds to the rarity of the champion and their cost, going from one (lowest cost, most common) to five (highest cost, least common). The Tier and gold cost are aligned (i.e. all Tier 5 champions cost 5g).
• X-Star: The level of a combined champion. Champions can be combined when you have three of each to “level them up” which will raise their base stats. For instance, having three 1-star Garens will combine them to make a 2-star Garen, and three 2-star Garens will combine to make a 3-star Garen. 3-star is currently the highest level that champions can be combined into.
• Level: The Level refers to your level as a player (from one to nine). Your Level increases with each round as you gain passive experience (you gain 2 XP per round) or you can spend gold to get more experience (you can buy 4 XP for a 4g purchase). Your Level corresponds to the number of units you can have on the board, for instance at Level 4 you are allowed four champions out on the battlefield.
• Hyper-roll: The process by which you amass enough gold to consistently hit the reroll button in order to get a lot of new champions.