League of Legends: an idiot’s step-by-step guide to the Teamfight Tactics early game
By Josh Tyler
If you want to improve at Teamfight Tactics’s early game, we have a guide to conquering this League of Legends game mode!
A lot of League of Legends players who come to play Teamfight Tactics don’t realize how important the early game, including those first few minion rounds, can be to your success or failure. The metas of TFT may change in terms of which champions or items are best, but the general theory behind the early game should largely remain the same. In this guide (by an idiot who is still just trying to make it to Platinum) we’ll explain how you can reduce the Teamfight Tactics early game to a step-by-step checklist.
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The Carousel
On the Carousel round, you should be focused on trying to get the best item above all else. The champion you’re getting doesn’t matter at all since you’re very likely to sell it. In order, here are the items you should be going for:
- Spatula (this is almost always an item you should go for until after Raptors round)
- Recurve Bow
- Needlessly Large Rod
- Chain Vest
- BF Sword
- Negatron Cloak
- Giant’s Belt
- Tear of the Goddess
That top three of Spatula > Recurve > NLR is probably going to remain the ideal order for some time, but items after that will vary depending on the meta. The point is, do your absolute best to get the best item possible, regardless of which unit it’s attached to.
Opening (Round 1-2)
There’s no thinking to be done in Round 1-1 because you only have access to that first champion from the Carousel. The real decision-making will begin on the second round of the first stage when you have access to the shop for the first time and have to make some key decisions:
- Do I sell that first item from the Carousel?
- Which units do I buy?
The answer to the first question is almost always no unless your shop rolled either two pair or three of a kind and you have to sell the Carousel unit to get those. For instance, if you have TF from the Carousel but your shop gives you three Fioras or two Vaynes with two Darius’s, you need to sell TF in order to buy those units (unless you got gold from the first minion round).
This leads us to the answer to our second question, buy any units you get a pair in at the start of the game. If you get three, thank your lucky stars and upgrade that sucker to a 2-star unit. In the early game, your goal is just to get the strongest units on your board, regardless of their synergies to other units you have or items.