Twisted Fate is now all but viable.

I'm far from being good at this game, and playing TF isn't exactly easy for me, but there are some things I noticed about his play-style after the most recent patches. Maybe none of this is new, but regardless, I feel the need to complain.

TF is not powerful early game, as I came to realize. Very farm heavy and passive, unless assisted by someone else (for me). His base AD is very low, making farming difficult. Not too difficult to handle since he can effectively farm with his abilities early on once he hits 3. The problem with having to do that is while you need to use abilities to farm, most other "meta" mid-laners as of late dominate that handicap. This was especially prevalent in my latest game facing Talon. Any time I would "push up" (I use quotes because I stayed back as far as my attack range would allow me when last hitting and even throw cards from a distance) to get farm, he would blink to me, basic, slow and occasionally ult. Most of the time this forced me to recall, if not kill me. He kept snowballing from his sheer dominating mobility over TF and they won the game, /ff 22. The lack of mobility and late-game scaling made that game a loss from the start, unless I got a very good gank, the other player was blind or I was very lucky.

Another game where something similar happened was a match-up against Zed. It was basically the same thing: I had to farm with my abilities, and whenever my abilities were down, he would ult me, and I would die. If I stunned him the moment after ulting, he would take some damage, but never enough to kill him, or even bring him close to death. He had escapes, I had long cooldowns. TF doesn't have an effective escape, so unless my stun was timed on the very frame he landed the ult, or I Zhonya'd, I would die.

And this is just another bit that's integral to TF, but it annoys me. Once you use his W and Q, you can only basic until they are off CD. His entire kit relies on both of those landing, otherwise you will lose an engagement. With hyper-mobility and his lack of decent base attack speed, you are lucky to land another basic after stun then cards. But if you build attack speed, you sacrifice any burst, making your entire kit more worthless.

He seems like a very poor choice against most other mid laners, and thus, doesn't really have a place in this game anymore. I can't say anything for other seasons since I have only played in 4 and 5, but if memory serves, he was more viable last season because of the "slower" pace in comparison to this season. It saddens me; I enjoy playing him, but I'm not allowed to enjoy playing him.

Again, I'm just here to complain.