In-Depth Teamfight Tactics Guide for Beginners

What is Teamfight Tactics?

Teamfight Tactics is a variant of League of Legends where you don’t individually control one champion but instead control the entire team. During draft phases, each player picks their champion from a random pool of available heroes to serve on their side. Heroes can be positioned on different hexes on the board between rounds.

During a Teamfight Tactics round, the champions fight each other automatically, without interference from the player. How each hero is positioned, what their levels are, and what items are in use, dictates the winner. To win, you must learn how to synergize your champion picks, counter enemy tactics, and strategically use your items. Our Teamfight Tactics guide for beginners will get you up to speed and ready to dominate your competition.

What does TFT Stand for?

TFT stands for TeamFight Tactics.

Teamfight Tactics: Objectives

At the beginning of a TFT game, each player’s “Little Legend” avatar starts with 100 health points. Whenever a player loses, their avatar loses health points proportional to how badly they lost. If a player wins with only one champion alive, they only take a small number of health points away from their opponent.

At the beginning of a TFT game, each player’s “Little Legend” avatar starts with 100 health points. Whenever a player loses, their avatar loses health points proportional to how badly they lost. If a player wins with only one champion alive, they only take a small number of health points away from their opponent.

If, however, they win with many heroes still left alive, they will remove a higher number of health points away from the loser with their victory. When a player reaches 0 health, they lose.

The objective in TFT is to outlast all other opponents and be the only one standing with health remaining. The order in which players are eliminated dictates their final positions. Players who place in the top 4 spots are considered winners and earn ranking points while players in the bottom four positions lose rank. The amount of points you win or lose is dictated by your actual placement, with placements 1 and 8 significantly affecting your standings.

How to Play Teamfight Tactics

A Teamfight Tactics game proceeds through successive TFT rounds. It is split into several different phases: shared draft, between combat champion select, combat vs monsters, and combat vs other teams. We will cover each.

In this tutorial, we won’t go into a lot of detail on particular intermediate or advanced strategies. This guide is intended to be a Teamfight Tactics guide for beginners. For more advanced TFT tips and tricks, you should check out our How to Get Better at Teamfight Tactics guide.

Shared Draft Phase

At the beginning of the game and periodically throughout the game, players will be pulled into a shared draft. You will see champions circling in the middle of the stage. Each hero will have an item above their head.

Run into the champ you wish to select. Hurry, though, as you are competing with everyone for the same pool of champions and items. The hero you get will be turned over to you after the shared draft phase with the item they had above their head.

Tips for Shared Draft in Teamfight Tactics

• Don’t just look for the best champion. Consider the items. Sometimes, it’s better to focus on getting the item you need over a new champ.
• The TFT meta is constantly changing, especially as patches are released. Don’t get stuck trying for one playstyle or champion combination. Be open to adapting your selections to the current TFT meta and options available to you in-game.
• If you complete a set of three champions with a champion that causes the set to level up, and one has an item, that item will be brought onto the new higher-level champ. That may be desired, but if one of your other champions in the set of 3 also had an uncomplete item, both items will merge to create a final item. Be careful you don’t accidentally get a champion that results in a final item that isn’t very beneficial for your new, higher level hero.
• The color of the circle beneath each champion dictates their champion level. In general, heroes with higher levels are better. Further, they can be sold for more money if you don’t see any champions during the shared draft you are particularly interested in.

Between Combat Champion Select

Between combat rounds, you can buy champions from the pool of five random, potential champions at the bottom of your screen. The rarity and cost of each hero scale together. The color border around each champ in the store indicates its rarity and price. Champions cost from 1 to 5 gold. Highlights shift from clear to green to blue to purple to yellow to more clearly indicate each champion’s rarity.

If you don’t like the champions available in the shop, you can re-roll for two gold to get a new set of five champions to purchase. Be careful how many times you re-roll in TFT. You can easily waste all of your money that could be put to better use.

How to Upgrade Champions in TFT

If you can purchase or otherwise obtain three champions of the same level (not rarity), they will level up. Currently, there are only three possible levels for each champ in TFT. Every time you level up champions in TFT, their power increases significantly. It is a good idea to try to level up your heroes as quickly as possible. Level two (silver glowing) champs are much more capable than level one champions are. Moreover, level three (gold glowing) heroes are even more powerful.

How to Sell Champions You Don't Want or Need

You can sell champions back to the shop for gold by dragging them back onto the shop in the lower part of your screen. Any items on champions you sell will be returned to your inventory.

Beginner Tips for Champion Select Stage in TFT

• There are a limited number of heroes of each tier and type. For that reason, if multiple players are going after the same team composition or the same champion, it may be challenging to compete. You will all be competing for the same limited resources. Keep an eye on what your teammates are doing to both counter them and to make sure they aren’t interfering with your plans.
• Be careful when you level up champions in Teamfight Tactics. When three heroes merge, their items merge. Make sure you like what item they will merge into, or you could be stuck with a high-level champion who has wasted one of their three available item slots. Worse, you will have lost both items.
• Be strategic with what champions you buy. If you don’t think you will need any of the heroes available in the shop, don’t buy anything. Save your gold in TFT. After each round, for every ten gold you have (up to 50), you will receive an extra one gold. This additional income can be huge, as the base gold income rate is only five gold per round.
• If you accidentally purchase a champion, you can sell it back with a loss. If, however, your purchase causes a hero to level up, the higher-level hero cannot be sold again for the full value of the three heroes that made it. Most mistakes can be undone, but some can’t. Be careful with your misclicks around the shop.

The TFT Meta

TFT’s Meta is constantly evolving. However, there are some general guidelines that will help you understand the current metagame. There are really two different team comp types, one that is built for the early game and one that is built for the late game.

Early game team compositions, such as those built around the Moonlight class, can quickly dominate opponents with early level boosts to their champions. However, as most champions in the Moonlight class are low-level, this composition does poorly in the late game.

Still, this can be a great composition to play in any TFT meta as it usually guarantees you a spot in the top 4, though rarely the winning position. This will let you slowly climb the ranking ladder, but may get boring after a while.

Late game team comps fit into the TFT Meta by focusing on building towards powerful, high-level champions and great item combos. This can lead to some powerful compositions and 1st or 2nd place wins.

Yet, it’s a much more risky approach, as it relies on you getting lucks and getting at least a few, specific, high-level champions and/or item combinations. Yet, when things go your way, it’s awesome!

Combat Against Monsters

At the beginning of the game, and sporadically during later phases, you will phase a wave of monsters instead of player teams. Some waves have special rules. For instance, the krugs like monster will heal the remaining monsters when they are each killed.

At the beginning of the game, and sporadically during later phases, you will phase a wave of monsters instead of player teams. Some waves have special rules. For instance, the krugs like monster will heal the remaining monsters when they are each killed.

In general, monster waves should be trivial, especially at the beginning of each game. It’s unusual for someone to lose against a monster wave. Monster waves, though, are very valuable.

There is a random chance that items, champions, and gold will drop from each monster when they are killed. Killing monsters will be your primary source of items.

Combat Against Player Teams

Most of your combat will be against player-owned teams in Teamfight Tactics. During battle, you will be unable to affect the champions or the outcome very much. You can place items on heroes during combat. However, in general, it’s fair to say you can’t affect combat once it has started.

During battles, you should watch to see if you have any vulnerabilities to the other teams. Further, take note of how they position their champions. This can guide you to better position your heroes.

Beginners Guide to TFT Champions

Champions are simplified a bit from their LoL counterparts. Each hero in Teamfight Tactics only has one ability. Some champion abilities are passive and don’t require mana. For all other champs, they can only use their unique ability once they fill up their mana bar. Champions can fill up their mana bar from a few different sources. The most common ways are taking damage and dealing damage.

To see a champion’s ability, right-click them and hover over the image in the bottom left of the info card that appears. This info card will also show you the champion’s attack damage, ability power, attack speed, etc.

Teamfight Tactics Classes and Origins

Every champion in Teamfight Tactics has at least one class and origin. If you combine multiple heroes with the same class and/or origin, you can receive powerful bonuses. These bonuses can be for the champions of that class or origin, or they could affect all your heroes.

Currently, there are 13 different Teamfight Tactics classes and ten unique TFT origins. We won’t dig into all the classes and origins here. You can check out the nice infographic below that highlights champions and bonuses for each class and origin. For those interested in any particular classes’ or origin’s strengths, weaknesses, or strategies, we’ll be preparing in-depth guides for each soon.

How to Download Teamfight Tactics

So, you’re intrigued by this new League of Legends game variant and our TFT guide, but you don’t know where to download the game? Fortunately, TFT is available from within the regular League of Legends game client on PC. If you don’t have League of Legends installed, you can download it here.

From within the game client, select “TFT” from the top headers to enter the Teamfight Tactics game mode.

Download Teamfight Tactics on Mobile

Teamfight tactics is also available on mobile devices. You can download the game on both Android and Apple devices from these links.

TFT Little Legends Avatars

Players show off their TFT skills through their Little Legends avatar skins. Some can be very rare and difficult to earn. The best way to get Little Legends Avatars is through playing lots of games.

Players show off their TFT skills through their Little Legends avatar skins. Some can be very rare and difficult to earn. The best way to get Little Legends Avatars is through playing lots of games.

How to Get Little Legends Avatars in TFT

You can, of course, pay for in-game money that you can use to purchase eggs and avatars; however, you will need to spend A LOT of money to get the top tier avatars. A better plan is to earn random eggs that hatch into Little Legends skins through ranked play challenges.

Final Thoughts

We hope you enjoyed this Teamfight Tactics Guide for Beginners! If you are a video game enthusiast just coming to Teamfight Tactics, this guide should have helped you improve as a new LoL player and avoid common pitfalls. If you have any questions or comments for us or any suggestions for another TFT guide you’d like to see, please leave us a message below in the comments section.

Images Courtesy of Riot Games.