TFT Beginner’s Tips Guide – How To Get Better & Improve!

Our Teamfight Tactics Beginner's Tips Guide will walk you through some early information that you will need to know on your way to getting better at the game! We're featuring some early tips and tricks for TFT that will help you get a head-start when jumping into Riot's hit Auto Chess game. This game can be a bit intimidating at first, but once you start to learn the ropes you'll find that it gets a lot easier.

Teamfight Tactics Beginner's Tips & Tricks

Here are some tips that should help you as you get started in your journey with Teamfight Tactics!

The Carousel

Each game begins with all eight players standing on the Carousel for the shared draft. This has random 1-cost units which are paired with a basic item. All players are able to go grab a unit. With time and experience, players will learn which units to grab.

Synergies Are Key to the Game!

One of the big keys in general to understanding these Auto Chess games is combining synergies. Each unit has a couple of classes it is part of, and when you stack a certain amount of these together your team will be granted a buff based on the class.

In Teamfight Tactics, these are known as Classes and Origins. Each unit has at least one of each (up to three), and when you mix and match your team together you will gain bonuses based on the synergies. Here are some examples of Classes (the number next to the buff is the number of units of that class that is required):

Assassins

Assassins leap to the farthest enemy at the start of combat and deal additional Critical Strike Damage.

• 3: +150% critical strike damage.
• 6: +350% critical strike damage.

Related: TFT Cheat Sheets | Set 7: Dragonlands – Origins, Classes, Items, & Champions

Gunslinger

After attacking, Gunslingers have a 50% chance to fire additional attacks.

• 2: Attack another random enemy.
• 4: Attack all enemies in range.

Here's an example of some Origins, there's no real discernible difference between Classes and Origins.

Demon

On hit Demon's have a chance to burn all of their target's current mana, dealing true damage equal to mana burned.

• 2: 30% change on hit to Mana Burn
• 4: 50% change on hit to Mana Burn
• 6: 70% change on hit to Mana Burn

Wild

Attacks generate stacks of Fury (up to 5). Each stack of Fury grants 8 Attack Speed.

• 2: Wild allies only
• 4: All allies

Synergies that you have are shown on the left side of the screen:

You can see that Trainer and Scalescorn only have two tiers of possible buffs, whereas Mage and Astral have more possible tiers. While these synergy buffs are useful in Teamfight Tactics, they are a bit less important than your average Auto Chess game.

Items Are King

Items are probably the most important part of Teamfight Tactics. These can super buff some of your champions, and an early strategy that some players are employing is to get a three-star unit and stack powerful items onto it. One of the more unique factors of this game is that items can be combined together to create a whole new and powerful item. You can grab one of your items and hover it over a unit that already has an item to show what will happen if you were to combine the two items. We've got a Teamfight Tactics Item Combinations Cheat Sheet that will be very helpful for you early on.

The other interesting mechanic in this game is that once you put an item on a unit, you can't get it off of them unless you sell that unit. This leads to some interesting strategies, where you'll place an item on a unit that you don't necessarily plan to keep. That way you can sell the unit later in the game to get the item for a stronger unit.

Items are gained in two main ways. They will drop occasionally after you kill a creep wave at the end of each stage, or you can find them during the Carousel round. This is when all of the players in the game are thrown into a room and are given a choice of champion. The champions are walking around in a circle (hence the name Carousel), and players are able to choose one based on what place they are currently in the game (in order by lowest to highest health). More often than not, you are looking at the item rather than the champion, because this is how you'll end up finding items to combine with others to make more powerful versions.

Make Sure to Collect Interest

For every 10 gold you have (up until 50), you will gain 10% (rounded down) extra gold at the end of a round (interest). This is pretty important and will influence a lot of your purchasing decisions when playing the game. Try to stay above the highest multiple of 10 you have, and spend down to near 50 if you have above 50 because you won't get additional interest for anything above it.

Upgrade Your Units

Upgrading your units is another very important aspect of the game. All units start at 1-star, and they can be upgraded to a max level of 3-stars. To upgrade a unit, you'll need to own three units of the same star level. So, three 1-star units of the same kind will make a 2-star unit, and three 2-star units will make a 3-star unit. Upgrading your units will basically double and triple the amount of damage it can do, along with adding to their mana and HP.

Related: Teamfight Tactics Little Legends – skins list, how to get them, eggs

Losing & Winning Streaks

If you win a few rounds in a row you will start a winning streak. This gives you extra gold per round as long as you maintain it. On the other hand, if you lose a few rounds in a row, you will gain gold for a losing streak. While this is not ideal, you'll still start to gain gold and this can be used as a strategy at times. The key to this is to not lose too heavily. The more units you leave on your opponent's board, the more health you will lose! So, if you're going to go on a losing streak for gold, you'll want to at least put up a fight.

Related: Read about How Threat Champions work in TFT on our sister site, Upcomer.

Early Basic Strategy & Positioning

Basic strategy is similar to a typical MMO like World of Warcraft. You want to have tanks that will absorb damage, and then your back-line will be more of your damaging units. So, look for a mix of tanky heroes like Guardians and Bruisers, and then fill in your team with more damaging type units.

When it comes to positioning, you will utilize this unit build by placing your tankier high health champions in front, and your weaker damage and utility champions behind those. As a future strategy, if you are fighting against Assassins, you might want to place a tank character in your back-line as well. Assassins will leap towards the furthest most minion. So, you won't always want to leave your weak units in the back!

For more Team Fight Tactics goodies, check out Teamfight Tactics (TFT) Champions List (Set 7: Dragonlands) – Champion Pool, Classes, & Origins! on Pro Game Guides.