For a while now, I’ve been hearing nothing but good things about this game. I didn’t know much about it, other than I needed to give it a shot. I didn’t understand the hype for this game. That is, until now.
I’m talking about Teamfight Tactics or TFT, an auto battler made by a small indie company that goes by the name of Riot Games. The company is best known for its game League of Legends, but you’ve probably never heard of it. Fun fact: Teamfight Tactics started as a game mode for League of Legends for PC, but it later became a full game for Android and iPhone. What? What do you mean it wasn’t fun?
Full disclosure: I’m not the biggest League of Legends fan, so I knew completely nothing about the League of Legends universe, or Teamfight Tactics, other than it was an auto battler, also known as Auto Chess game.
Teamfight Tactics is kind of a King of the Hill game. You enter a match with eight other players and your goal is to survive for as long as possible while defeating the other players.
To survive, you’ll use several champions from the League of Legends universe. You’ll buy these champions in the store, with gold you earn in your fights. You’ll also choose a champion at the beginning and the middle of the match.
You’ll start by placing your champions on the board. There are different hexagons where you can put your champions, but you’ll need to be strategic about placement since some champions are better on the front line and others work better as support for other champions.
You’ll fight in a match with several rounds, where you’ll face other players or in-game enemies, which drop equipment and gold. You need to choose the best champions available, making use of their class and their abilities to defeat the other player. When the opponent or you are defeated, you’ll lose a bit of health. If you lose all your health, you’re out.
On paper, TFT’s gameplay sounds easy enough, but it’s much more complicated than you might think. Just like the description of the game says, you’ll have to use your big brain to master this game. If you’re not familiar with the champions, you’ll struggle at first trying to figure out what the best placements and combinations are.
You’ll have to learn about the different classes, items, abilities if you want to even have a chance to win a match. Even before that, you’ll have to dig deeper to figure out what the meta is and how to play like the best.
At first, I found myself struggling with the game. There’s a lot of things happening on the board once the champions start fighting. Since you can’t interact with them once the fight starts, you don’t if you’re doing great or you’re getting your behind kicked.
But the more I played, the better I got at buying the right champions and I even managed to beat some of my opponents. Don’t get me wrong, suck, but I found myself sucking less every time, which felt great.
Sadly, I’m not as familiar with the League of Legends universe as other people. But I feel like fans of the original game would appreciate a large number of champions available.
There’s a bunch of champions to choose from, all of them with different classes, effects, and attacks. It’s amazing how vast and unique the League of Legends universe is. Each character has its own personality and the artwork behind it all is just as compelling.
Even if you don’t know any of these characters, figuring out how every champion works it’s part of the fun at first, whether you’re playing casually or not.
I can see Teamfight Tactics not being a game for everyone. It’s not a casual game, but a game where you invest your time, and even your money, but become a top player. That being said, if you’re not looking to be the very best like no one ever was, you can still play and enjoy TFT casually.
Still, you need to keep in mind TFT’s matches aren’t short. They can take a little longer than you’d expect. Combine that with the steep learning curve and you can get frustrating from time to time.
The thing with TFT is that, no matter how much you lose, you want to get back and try again. It’s like what they say about how League of Legends players hate the game but still play it anyways. That’s what you can expect from Teamfight Tactics, a love-hate relationship where you’ll fight against other players, against the game, and sometimes against yourself.
But, if you don’t want that type of relationship, there are other Auto Chess games you can play. Fortunately for you, we’ve already discussed which is the best Auto Chess game for mobile. Feel free to check it out.
