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.