Destined for a Twist of Fate
Riot·5/5/2014, 6:06:23 PM·0 votes·2,876 views
Twisted Fate was one of the dominant champions in Season 2 and 3. His ability to exert global pressure changed how the game was played. While he faded away for a time, largely due to the assassin meta, he has returned in full-force with dominant victories globally. What has made him so strong?
Largely, it's his versatility. Two of his skills can be used in wildly different ways, allowing him to make intelligent decisions about his actions at any point. This allows him to have wildly varying builds, while fulfilling a number of different roles.
The simpler of the two skills is Pick a Card. Twisted Fate has 3 options:
Blue Card
Blue Card does the most damage of the cards, while also returning mana to Twisted Fate. This allows him to sustain while poking, even if he chooses not to get Athene's Unholy Grail first. Blue Card in combination with Lich Bane lets him push towers quickly, while giving him extremely high single-target damage.
Red Card
Red Card gives good AoE damage, and the slow can be brutal vs easily kited teams. It also allows Twisted Fate to push waves extremely quickly in combination with Wild Cards. And Rabadon's Deathcap gives him strong pushing power and a good amount of poke.
Gold Card
Gold Card is excellent for ganking and initiating, allowing Twisted Fate to show up in lane and lock a target down immediately. In combination with Zhonya's Hourglass, this can allow him to initiate almost risk-free.
Low Cooldown
The most important thing about Pick a Card is its low cooldown. The single target stun from Gold Card lasts for 2 seconds, while the cooldown is only 6. This means that -- with another champion's help -- Twisted Fate can lock down a champion multiple times during a chase, or stun priority targets throughout a team-fight. Athene's Unholy Grail and Blue Buff bring that cooldown to 4.2 seconds, giving Twisted Fate's stun almost a 50% uptime.
Watch as Hai gets off three cards in a gank top vs Dyrus!
First, he ports bot to take out Leona and Lucian after they tried to dive his bot lane for a gank:
Then, the second Destiny is up again, he ports top to take out Shyvana and Evelynn, who have just tower dived and killed his team's Renekton.
In both cases, Twisted Fate means that every play the other team makes is inherently risky, as Twisted Fate can punish it from afar. In turn, this allows his team to play more riskily, knowing that the Twisted Fate ultimate can be planned for and called in.
Picks
Twisted Fate is good for picking champions off in the mid-game; any positional error the enemy team makes can be punished immediately. Not only will he be there quickly, but he can drop his single-target stun, making escapes hard. Link abused this to continually pick up advantages for CLG in Game 1 of the NA LCS Semifinals vs TSM.
This ability makes coming back against a Twisted Fate very difficult. Normally, if a team is simply ahead of you, you can at least make up for it by challenging different objectives away from them. They're going for baron and too strong to contest? Pick up dragon while they're distracted! But in Cloud 9 vs TSM, we can see exactly how problematic this can be. TSM goes for a counter-dragon to Cloud 9's baron, but Hai is able to get there easily in time to pick off Bjergsen, allowing his team to take Dragon as well.
Pick a Card
The simpler of the two skills is Pick a Card. Twisted Fate has 3 options:
Blue Card
Blue Card does the most damage of the cards, while also returning mana to Twisted Fate. This allows him to sustain while poking, even if he chooses not to get Athene's Unholy Grail first. Blue Card in combination with Lich Bane lets him push towers quickly, while giving him extremely high single-target damage.
Red Card
Red Card gives good AoE damage, and the slow can be brutal vs easily kited teams. It also allows Twisted Fate to push waves extremely quickly in combination with Wild Cards. And Rabadon's Deathcap gives him strong pushing power and a good amount of poke.
Gold Card
Gold Card is excellent for ganking and initiating, allowing Twisted Fate to show up in lane and lock a target down immediately. In combination with Zhonya's Hourglass, this can allow him to initiate almost risk-free.
Low Cooldown
The most important thing about Pick a Card is its low cooldown. The single target stun from Gold Card lasts for 2 seconds, while the cooldown is only 6. This means that -- with another champion's help -- Twisted Fate can lock down a champion multiple times during a chase, or stun priority targets throughout a team-fight. Athene's Unholy Grail and Blue Buff bring that cooldown to 4.2 seconds, giving Twisted Fate's stun almost a 50% uptime.
Watch as Hai gets off three cards in a gank top vs Dyrus!
Global Pressure
The biggest thing Twisted Fate brings to the game is his ultimate, Destiny. Destiny allows him to teleport from the edge of one lane to another. What is compelling about this ability is that it can used in a multitude of different ways. Early Pressure First, Twisted Fate can be used to heavily punish solo laners, creating 3v1 ganks on isolated players in conjunction with the jungler. This is even stronger in the 4v0 meta, because one player is in a tower-less lane, and pushed far up, making them very vulnerable to Twisted Fate pressure. Counter-Ganks However, Twisted Fate doesn't have to initiate plays to have an impact on the game. His presence also makes it harder for the enemy team to make risky plays, especially if Twisted Fate gets ahead. We can see this especially in Samsung Blue vs CJ Frost, where Dade uses Destiny to get to fights that his team is losing just in time to clean them up.
First, he ports bot to take out Leona and Lucian after they tried to dive his bot lane for a gank:
Then, the second Destiny is up again, he ports top to take out Shyvana and Evelynn, who have just tower dived and killed his team's Renekton.
In both cases, Twisted Fate means that every play the other team makes is inherently risky, as Twisted Fate can punish it from afar. In turn, this allows his team to play more riskily, knowing that the Twisted Fate ultimate can be planned for and called in.
Picks
Twisted Fate is good for picking champions off in the mid-game; any positional error the enemy team makes can be punished immediately. Not only will he be there quickly, but he can drop his single-target stun, making escapes hard. Link abused this to continually pick up advantages for CLG in Game 1 of the NA LCS Semifinals vs TSM.
This ability makes coming back against a Twisted Fate very difficult. Normally, if a team is simply ahead of you, you can at least make up for it by challenging different objectives away from them. They're going for baron and too strong to contest? Pick up dragon while they're distracted! But in Cloud 9 vs TSM, we can see exactly how problematic this can be. TSM goes for a counter-dragon to Cloud 9's baron, but Hai is able to get there easily in time to pick off Bjergsen, allowing his team to take Dragon as well.
