Either I suck so much dick at playing TF that I should just stick to Gangplank, or I'm missing something here. Whenever I play TF I feel so helpless, everything kills me in 2 seconds, 1 cc = death, laning against any assassin is hell on earth, the only thing I do vs mages is clear the wave and ult.
I love TF, the character, the design, but what am I doing wrong here?
Roaming and map pressure is my first guess
Ya he is one of the difficult champions to master. I remember when I first started to play League he was one of the champions I really wanted to get good with but like you was playing terribly as him and rarely touch him.
But I've seen some good players who make it work. You just gotta keep practicing.
He’s a champion who’s actually got very little micromanaging and mechanical skill, but some of the biggest MACRO skill checks in the game thanks to two things, the obvious near global blink, and the point-and-click stun. If you think about it, a single well timed stun can mean death for anyone in the game, and these two fools together make for a champion that heavily rewards good decision making over mechanical skill.
GP on the other hand does reward macro play, but nowhere NEAR as heavily as TF (few champions do). GP rewards players for hitting his barrels, one of the more difficult skills to land, especially against better and better players. Unlike TF though GP can use an abundance of tricks and little mechanincs to outplay enemies. Using passive resets, kiting with such a weird kit, using your Ult as strategically as possible, GP rewards micro play.
So my best advice is to learn the game better, know you’re matchup (which as TF you loose 9/10, but still) know which lanes should be winning, track the junglers position, use the middle lane to constantly shove then move somewhere else. Steal a blue buff, gank bot secure vision on objectives like drag/Barron, gank bot, shove mid, set up a control ward, gank bot, gank top, and then gank bot again.
Actually, tf is doing insanely good vs assassins. He's my counterpick to LB for exemple. It all comes down to few things : wave management, good back timers (one wave before lvl6), good cs'ing and spaming all your minion dematiarilizer on caster minion (to oneshot with Q at lvl9).
He is very hard to play IMO
Watch some dopa tf videos
Play about 50-100 games
And you'll realize how broken he is
He used to be able to kill people with 1 combo of w and q in i think season 6. Now he feels more like a utility champ to me that waveclears, stuns for his team and roams to help other people.
Either I suck so much dick at playing TF that I should just stick to Gangplank, or I'm missing something here. Whenever I play TF I feel so helpless, everything kills me in 2 seconds, 1 cc = death, laning against any assassin is hell on earth, the only thing I do vs mages is clear the wave and ult.
I love TF, the character, the design, but what am I doing wrong here?
Get mejai press r get bunch of assists every teamfight for no fking good reason
TF is pretty helpless into a lot of champions on his own. That's why wave management, card cycling, and positioning are super important to playing him.
Wave management - you're gonna meet a lot of lanes that want to kill you. It's important to know how to set up freezes on your side so you can farm safely until 5-6. That's when you start pushing and pressuring.
Card cycling - you're right. 1 CC = death. Same applies to the enemy. If you don't pick your card instantly there's a chance that you could yellow card flash and I die. Learning how to cycle the cards and walk forward when your card is about to switch to yellow and walk backward when it's blue/red gives you pressure in lane to farm and force other champs off the wave.
Positioning - you don't have much damage so you gotta be safe when you pop up. You generally want to be at the front of the team or in the backline when they can't instantly kill you and next to your carry peeling for him when you can't.
His ult lets him roam and easily gank lanes.
Also a good TF will manage to pressure two lanes at once.
One of the reasons i think TF is pretty viable is that he has very little counterplay when he's ahead. Unless you're a champ that mechanically counters him, there really isn't anything you can do if he ports in on you, gold card E passive with lichbane (which is 150% of his ap in a click shot.) Then Q while you're stunned. You're unlucky enough to be an immobile character and he has Lichbane, Ludens around the 20-15 minute mark. You just got one shot with basically no room for counterplay.
Either I suck so much dick at playing TF that I should just stick to Gangplank, or I'm missing something here. Whenever I play TF I feel so helpless, everything kills me in 2 seconds, 1 cc = death, laning against any assassin is hell on earth, the only thing I do vs mages is clear the wave and ult.
I love TF, the character, the design, but what am I doing wrong here?
so as an Ekko main I can tell you exactly what I have learned going up against TF. if he uses his pick a card either red to clear minions or blue to get mana thats when I go in on him because his stun is down. you must pick the right time to use the pick a card. His Targeted stun is good against assassins with dash as it will always hit (except fizz) so ganking his lane is reliable as long as he gets the stun off. the part where I suck with TF is definitely picking out the ult location. go too far and you will get molested by yourself, but not far enough they will walk away.
Yo,
Play TF with Dark Harvest. Then rush main 2 items Luden's and Lichbane and ideally Deathcap or going Hourglass; the rest should follow the standard burst AP build trend.
Enjoy the 1shot from your WQ combo whenever you have Dark Harvest ready (better if E is also ready). It doesn't matter which card you pull, they all die instantly if you have proper Dark Harvest farm where Pick A Card does damage equivalent to about half of enemy's HP on its own (and close to 1shot on squishies) with all the different procs (and that's not mentioning the Q burst that follows).
Good luck.
Either I suck so much dick at playing TF that I should just stick to Gangplank, or I'm missing something here. Whenever I play TF I feel so helpless, everything kills me in 2 seconds, 1 cc = death, laning against any assassin is hell on earth, the only thing I do vs mages is clear the wave and ult.
I love TF, the character, the design, but what am I doing wrong here?
TF is the easiest champ i've ever played, all i do is go jg with him, build blue bloodrazor, nashors, wit's end, rageblade and then even if you are 0-20-0, you WILL get 10-20 in no time, at that point, you either go tank, or go BORK, and after you build one of these items, you're basically a carry. it's because people underlook the power of twisted fate's E and W, a stun can result to 2-3 auto attacks, and his E does a crud ton of damage every 4th hit. Also with wit's end, you're basically shreding their MR already. i dunno, i just dont like relying on one skill to do damage and even if you do rely on one skill, what if you miss? you'd have to wait a full 3 seconds to unleash it again. well, thats just me, i dunno about you, but if you wanna take the easy route, go atk spd twisted fate. it's literally almost impossible to lose when playing atk spd twisted fate.
this strategy also works on ekko. 
TF is one of those champs that you need understanding of the bigger picture to actually make him good. In other words macro plays a big role in how successful he is on the Rift. Not just because of his ultimate but he almost becomes an assassin or secondary marksman when left uncheck.
I felt the same at first. Now I consistently do well.
You just need to stay back in lane and not fight, If you get engaged on yellow card and run. Wait till 6 then go bot or top.
He has one of the most influential map controls in the game, is easy to master, and has very little tells as to where he's going to ult to react in time?
Don't use your ult to get to lane. Use it to constantly gank.
Oh. And he's one of the only champs in the game who still has a Gold income feature to his kit on top of already having powerful damage.
Q is damn near spammable.
So is W.
Stop trying to duel and just stand back and throw cards when trying to defend a lane. Q is one of the best wave clears in the game.
He's almost better than any jungler at setting up kills.
and defensive boots/other items?Honestly before the Ahri and Kassadin buffs , Twister Fate was the most popular mid laner , a high pick rate and the highest win rate For now he is the second most popular after Kassadin
And to me , Twisted Fate has a simple kit , but he is really hard to play , whenever I play against a good TF player , he is really pain to me no matter what I play Mostly you need to roam and have map pressure
Not useing his AAs enough i'd guess, probably not getting enough defense early vs opponents that can blow you up might also be part of it. Underestimateing the value of blue and red card, especially duering lane also plays into it. You can clear well into most matchups and then roam with you're ult, and vs short ranged opponents you can trade rather well cause you're AAs hurt alot compared to most other ranged midlaners.
Tf is a good measure of a player's skill in my opinion.
First, a good TF player understands when it's pointless to fight in a lane. TF has very limited kill pressure but has safe fall back lane patterns. He's actually a pretty solid and reliable counter to mobility assassins (not fizz), in the sense that if TF plays correctly he can negate all his opponent's kill pressure with careful play, efficient waveclear and a good stun.
Given he's not going for kills in lane, in order to be efficient TF must excerpt his pressure on the map and look for picks. This means that TF requires quick thinking and map awareness in order to be successful, and not many champions have that as a requirement.
