Teamfight Tactics

Gather your Troops and Prepare to Fight!

This time around Riot Games gives us a little spin-off in the League of Legends universe with this “new” creation, which has the name of Teamfight Tactics. First of all, you still have some familiarity with the same Champions we get to see from time to time. In contrast to the main game, in this case, you work alone to prepare the best team out there and remain battling as long as possible. As a result, you have the option to take a little break in that continuous fight to climb the ranking ladder and play a couple of matches in this peculiar “mini-game.”

Moreover, instead of the classical fives versus five random match that we are accustomed to, now you have an eight-player game, free for all. Therefore, you’ll be having different opponents that want to drain your health and kick you out of the match. Indeed, to prevent this from happening, you need to gather your bests strategies and create a team that withstands any possible threats.

What is precisely “Teamfight Tactics” game mode?

Basically, in just a few words, Teamfight Tactics can be related to a board game which is familiarly known as Chess. Therefore, the characters that we know as “Champions” take the role of one particular “chess piece.” Similarly to the original “ancestral” game, every piece has its rules related to movement and attacking the opponent’s strategy. Additionally, you play around a square “Board,” where you have the chance of moving your pieces and come up with the best plan that you can master.

You can summarize all the flow of the game with the next steps:

Recruit:

“Choose a Champion from the store and recruit them with gold. Then, drag them from the bench to the battlefield to deploy them.

Combine three of the same Champion to create a stronger, two-star version of that character.”

One of the first elements to see when you start a random match from this particular mini-game is the option to choose the starting roster. In contrast to the game of chess, you do not have a preset of an exact number of pieces in every match. Therefore, in Teamfight Tactics, you buy your Champions instead. As a result, you probably need to have great luck or pray for the RNG (Random Number Generator) to give you some of the best options in the game and begin the match with some fantastic pieces.

Deploy:

“Champions have traits and earn bonuses when deployed with other champs that share those traits.

Positioning matters! Experiment with different layouts to find the best results.”

Even though the playing map looks kind of similar to the accustomed Chessboard, like Recruiting, you have the freedom of placing your pieces on the board. Furthermore, in Teamfight Tactics, you do not have the limit of two “Knights” or “Bishops,” instead, you can have more Champions that practically can achieve the same function in the game. Hence, you have different ways of improving the strategy of the game and create exciting combinations that can protect your health from any harm. Additionally, every champion in this mini-game come with more properties that have the chance of creating combos when appropriately used. Most noteworthy, if the pieces with similar characteristics become together on the board, they have the option of becoming more precise.

Battle:

“Each round, your team teleports to an enemy’s arena (or vice-versa). Champions fight automatically, and if your team is defeated, your Little Legend takes damage.

When your Little Legend’s health reaches 0, you’re out of the game.”

As stated before, this time around, you’re playing against eight players in a “Free for All” match.  Above all, the effectiveness of your pieces will give you a better performance on the board and keep your Health points intact. Therefore, you need to gather the right Champions and place them correctly on the board so that they can withstand any possible attacks. Furthermore, every time a player loses an encounter, they receive damage, and consequently, leave the match when the total health is zero. As a result, one by one of the eight players may leave the encounter once they ran out of HP (hit points), leaving the last player of the match as the winner.

How did it all come to be?

It looks like history is repeating itself about the conception of this mini-game. First of all, we have Warcraft 3 and its “Tools” that gave them the freedom to their players to do new scenarios and create different rules in their custom maps. As a result, different people from around the glove suddenly had the means to create almost everything that their imagination lets them. Most noteworthy, around that time, one of such custom scenarios became famous rapidly, a “MOBA” with the name of Defence of the Ancients (DotA). Due to the increase in popularity and its possible revenue with different eSports tournaments, some companies saw this gaming genre with exciting eyes.

Due to this particular “Mod” later on, different games with the same mechanics began development. Soon afterward, the gaming world became enriched with League of Legends from Riot, and Heroes of Newerth from Garena. Furthermore, with the continuous success from the MOBA genre, Valve some arrangements with the last developer of the original custom scenario and entered this particular “world” with DOTA 2.

What goes around comes around. Consequently, one of the features of Valve’s game could create custom maps with different rules and instructions. Hence, we were introduced to another innovate and fun modification with the name of “Dota chess.” Now, due to the success of this particular custom map, different developers have taken the reins and join the hype train as well. Above all, we now have the opportunity to play Teamfight Tactics with the champions and theme we already know and became familiarized through all these years.

How does it differ with the regular League of Legends?

Besides the most noticeable difference that each of the games has a different genre, there are other things to consider in Teamfight Tactics:

• You’re alone against the rest of the community: This means that you depend only on your skills and knowledge of the custom map. Therefore, the more you play the game, and understand the rules accordingly; the better you’ll get. Most noteworthy, you’ll have fewer troubles with “teammates” that doesn’t seem to cooperate at all.
• There are no roles that defy every champion: Let’s clarify thing up; you still see some abilities that represent some attributes from a support or a carry. In contrast to the real League of Legends, in Teamfight Tactics, you always have the option to gather only “supports” and survive the round.
• This time around, you depend more on your luck: Everything in here feels a bit more RNG than usual. For example, the champions that you’ll have from the start of a random match are most likely to change in each session. Furthermore, you have less control when the “action” starts, you only see your pieces moving, but you have no option to activate or “land” abilities.
• Gold usually has different uses in the game: Unlike a classic match in LoL where you need this precious resource to buy equipment, you have other alternatives. First of all, every single champion can only be available in your roster only if you exchange some Gold for him/her. Furthermore, you require this resource to reroll the pieces that you can buy and to increase your level.
• There’s no planning phase at all: No need to worry if your Carry or you need to have as many last hits as possible. This time around you goes directly to the action, where your champions fight for survival. Therefore, it’s advisable that you think about your possible strategies and stick with your plan from the start.
• Every Piece that appears in that Mod acts without restrictions: That’s right, you don’t need to spend champion shards or real money to unlock all the items in this custom game mode. Withing Teamfight Tactics, the only resource that you require is the gold to “buy” any piece in a particular match.

Which steps you have to take to start playing?

There’s always an easy way to start your queue in this fantastic “custom” adventure, thanks to the League of Legends main client. Therefore, if you have the latest patch, you need to find the custom game mode and start your journey in Teamfight Tactics. As a result, you don’t need to create another account or wait to download/install a completely different program. Furthermore, since it practically uses the same assets from the main game, it doesn’t use too much space on your hard drive.

High on Demand, Low on Servers

Due to the sudden popularity of this custom game mode, it felt that Riot had some struggles with the demand. As a result, without proper servers to contain all the community, people had some troubles. First of all, it felt like an eternity with how much you had to wait after you press the queue button. Due to the lack of main servers, some players cannot have a proper allocation and begin to play the game. Above all, things are getting better as each day that passes by, with more server available to play, the queue time has drastically been reducing for the better.

Conclusion

Thanks to the addition of the custom game mode with the name off Teamfight Tactics, we now have more options to play the game even further. Therefore, if you need a little break for the constant fight to climb the ranking latter, you have now the option to queue for this as well. Most noteworthy, due to the accessibility from the main client, you don’t need to create a different account, add friends, or download various programs. As a result, with the aid or a couple of clicks from your Mouse, you can easily queue for this custom mode without too much effort.

Due to the different gaming rules and mechanics that this particular mode possesses, we now have different ways to use our beloved champions in exciting ways. Furthermore, due to the concept of the game, it requires more strategy and a little bit more knowledge to earn some victories. Above all, it’s always fun to play once or twice in a gaming session.