TFT is 90% luck, 10% skill

Arya Stark FTW·Jul 4, 2019·12 votes·8,984 views

Ok, so Ive played about 25 TFT matches so far. This game mode has absolutely nothing to do with skill whatsoever, and its all about luck and RNG. Its not fun to play. If you dont get the item drops, youre facing a player that may have 3-4 fully completed items while you have 1 completed item, maybe 2. You wont win that fight. You cant outplay the other person, their items outscale yours. Its not like in Summoners Rift where good positioning, vision and smart moves can allow the lesser fed team to win team fights. In TFT you cant control what items drop and when they drop. You cant control which champs are made available to you. Youre level 2 Vayne has no chance against their level 3 Graves. TFT is all about luck and RNG. Its a shame, becuase this game mode could have been fun, but if the RNG doesnt favor you, especially in the first 3 rounds vs minions, you've already lost.

23 Comments

Fear the KaynJul 4, 20198 votes

I completely agree. There is not 'outplay potential' or really anything like that in tft. I'm not bashing on the game too hard because I know there are a lot of people who live for the RNG games, but personally I've played it for around 5 hours and I just don't find it very fun at all. If anything the game seems like a massive snoozefest and especially at night it honestly puts me to sleep playing it.

Rock MDJul 4, 20194 votes

If you're losing, you have the opportunity to get the strongest items off the carousel for making a comp. You literally get first pick at making your late-game comp if you're behind.

If you're losing fights, you can restructure your units. You can choose new champions to put items on. The only glaring issue, # of items distributed, is already considered a problem Riot is working on fixing.

But even with bad RNG, there's a reason the best players win consistently. They have the game knowledge on how to pivot their comp, take advantage of good events and bad ones alike, and will always find a way to stay relevant. Saying TFT is all luck/RNG is what bad players say to soothe their ego after being unable to pull a win when they spend all their gold at stage 3 on rerolls, lmao.

Arya Stark FTWJul 4, 20192 votes

Ok, lets say you pick Draven off the carousel. Then only 1 more Draven drops for you the rest of the game. He helps you get a win here and there, essentially ruining your bonus gold from having a losing streak. You trade him in for the gold and pick another good champ like Katarina, and only 1 more Kat drops the rest of the game. How do you win TFT with that sort of luck? That happens all the time.

Rock MDJul 4, 20193 votes

[{quoted}](name=Arya Stark FTW,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=oEtAndRL,comment-id=00020000,timestamp=2019-07-04T10:59:44.348+0000)

Ok, lets say you pick Draven off the carousel. Then only 1 more Draven drops for you the rest of the game. He helps you get a win here and there, essentially ruining your bonus gold from having a losing streak. You trade him in for the gold and pick another good champ like Katarina, and only 1 more Kat drops the rest of the game. How do you win TFT with that sort of luck? That happens all the time.

Oh, you use carousel for the characters.

Lmao that's all I needed to hear.

Arya Stark FTWJul 4, 20195 votes

[{quoted}](name=Rock MD,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=oEtAndRL,comment-id=000200000000,timestamp=2019-07-04T16:32:01.744+0000)

Oh, you use carousel for the characters.

Lmao that's all I needed to hear.

Why wouldnt you? To completely ignore the champs available in the carousel, you would have to be an idiot. Sure, sometimes a champ you need or want isnt there, so you pick the champ thats worth the most gold and sell it. But why wouldnt you take a draven in carousel and hope more Dravens become available as the game progresses?

Rock MDJul 4, 20193 votes

[{quoted}](name=Arya Stark FTW,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=oEtAndRL,comment-id=0002000000000000,timestamp=2019-07-04T21:25:46.514+0000)

Why wouldnt you? To completely ignore the champs available in the carousel, you would have to be an idiot. Sure, sometimes a champ you need or want isnt there, so you pick the champ thats worth the most gold and sell it. But why wouldnt you take a draven in carousel and hope more Dravens become available as the game progresses?

so you pick the champ thats worth the most gold and sell it.

????????

You use the carousel almost EXCLUSIVELY for items. Items are extremely limited, and you need ones that buff up your 2* and 3* units.

The only time you should use the carousel for champions is when it gives you a crucial upgrade to an extremely powerful unit (Draven, Swain, ASol, etc.) or when it's the last champion you need to complete a late-game comp.

Fishing for units is extremely inefficient and risky, and instead of using your head you're throwing your win to RNG and then complaining that RNG isn't good.

Arya Stark FTWJul 12, 20192 votes

Ok, so then you agree with me after disagreeing with me....You use carousel to pick champs if a good champ, like Draven is available. But you never responded to the situation I painted for you: You get 1 Draven, or maybe 2 Dravens but a 3rd never drops. Is that luck or skill?

LordGeovanniJul 12, 20191 votes

He agrees that in a certain situation you can do that but you dont 90% of the time you get the items for their combinations on what you do have as strong and put those items on them. the RNG is ultra bad though. It feeds you certain champions then when you have them on your bench you can go 20 rounds without seeing those champions again i just had a game where i had all but 2 lucian's by round 8 by round 18 i havent seen lucian once and i was rerolling for almost 100 gold looking for lucian so i could combine the 2 lucians i had on the board and get a diffrent unit out (yes 2 lucians on the board because that was what i got early then i got a second one in the carosel with an item on it and gave it an upgrade while the previous lucain already has 2 full items on it and they were 2/3 of my only 2 star units during the time it took me to spend 100 gold i got a 3 star darius evenutally almost as bad rng as lucian but i wasnt stacking the darius i was stacking lucian and nidalee

Rock MDJul 12, 20191 votes

[{quoted}](name=Arya Stark FTW,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=oEtAndRL,comment-id=000200000000000000000000,timestamp=2019-07-12T03:47:45.936+0000)

Ok, so then you agree with me after disagreeing with me....

No. That's like saying you should always follow your opponent in roams, except for meeting these special requirements.

There are exceptions, but they're rare, and you're absolutely not following that rule at all.

You use carousel to pick champs if a good champ, like Draven is available. But you never responded to the situation I painted for you: You get 1 Draven, or maybe 2 Dravens but a 3rd never drops. Is that luck or skill?

The third will drop eventually if you haven't tanked your econ to pick up Dravens.

Units share a pool, so that while there is some luck to it, knowing which 4* units to go for based on what your opponents are chasing (and you can look at their boards), and when you start refreshing for units is a skill you should practice.

Going all in for a 2* unit because you have 2 1* units is a surefire way to say, "yeah this guy doesn't know what he's doing and he's going to lose soon." Thinking it's purely luck when you have so many countermeasures in the game to help you when you do have actual bad luck makes you just look ignorant.

killazdcJul 14, 20193 votes

The items dont matter if you get no good store offers.

XJ99999999999999Jul 4, 20193 votes

Just like LoL

Daddy AntsJul 4, 20193 votes

TFT is 99% luck,

JamareeJul 4, 20192 votes

There are ways to mitigate some of the RNG, like leveling to mitigate which champions you see, placements to throw off certain team comps, etc, but yeah, it's mostly luck.

Crispy0SnakeJul 4, 20192 votes

Something I will say is that it is in Alpha, so there will be balance changes and it will get better

Most of the skill involved in the game is buying units that are likely to give you good outcomes. Going into a game thinking "I'm just going to go for Blademaster+Ninja" or something specific is going to lead to very hit or miss games

Often the person that wins will have twice as much gold spent as they have spent on their lineup (this is my experience on the original autochess) so that means they spend a lot on xp and rerolls that they get from: Interest, Loss streak and Win streak. You really don't want to lose->win->lose->win early because you lose value that you could otherwise get

A lot of the income spent is late game on rerolls and xp, when people spend most of their savings (it's pretty much a virtual bank run, everyone cashes in, don't be the guy to lose with 50 gold) getting a lvl 3 Lulu or Lvl 2 Aurelion Sol (also buying someone elses 5 cost unit so they're less likely to be able to upgrade it) or an extra slot to put a unit in

Unless someone rolls 3 one costs within 4 turns and just snowballs the game, but then they suffer from later interest, no priority for selecting units and no loss streak money, and it's really rare that someone does that so they probably won't know how to build from that point

But ye typing Hope this helps!

On My Kill ListJul 12, 20192 votes

{quoted}

Something I will say is that it is in Alpha, so there will be balance changes and it will get better

Most of the skill involved in the game is buying units that are likely to give you good outcomes. Going into a game thinking "I'm just going to go for Blademaster+Ninja" or something specific is going to lead to very hit or miss games

Often the person that wins will have twice as much gold spent as they have spent on their lineup (this is my experience on the original autochess) so that means they spend a lot on xp and rerolls that they get from: Interest, Loss streak and Win streak. You really don't want to lose->win->lose->win early because you lose value that you could otherwise get

A lot of the income spent is late game on rerolls and xp, when people spend most of their savings (it's pretty much a virtual bank run, everyone cashes in, don't be the guy to lose with 50 gold) getting a lvl 3 Lulu or Lvl 2 Aurelion Sol (also buying someone elses 5 cost unit so they're less likely to be able to upgrade it) or an extra slot to put a unit in

Unless someone rolls 3 one costs within 4 turns and just snowballs the game, but then they suffer from later interest, no priority for selecting units and no loss streak money, and it's really rare that someone does that so they probably won't know how to build from that point

But ye typing Hope this helps!

this is not true at all. the losing players spend more gold actually on average. if you are snowballing and getting perfect rng going your way your actually not gonna spend any gold at all. some games i've barely spent any gold and stuck to 3-5+ interest because i was getting nonstop lucky champ picks and items. in those games it was almost a full stomp for me and the only times i've lost is when one person built a comp designed to hard counter me. and usually that person ends up being taken out by someone else hopefuly giving me an ez game. so no it is luck. 90% of tft is luck. and its amazing that riot is putting in a ranked mode for a heavily rng based mode like tft.

5050BSAug 12, 20192 votes

That is what Ranked is too

gonna flex on uJul 4, 20191 votes

The item RNG does need fixing. They've already stated they'll be addressing that soon. Other than that and some balancing issues (Fiora is absolutely useless) I think it's a great mode.

Gamma SectorAug 12, 20191 votes

sorry to necro, but Fiora is FAR from useless. Shes outclassed by units like Sejuani and Shen, but if you build her right (basically just full tank items) she just DOESNT DIE. Same with Braum, that motherfucker NEVER DIES

preternaturalJul 4, 20191 votes

man ya'll kids gotta git gud

Darkdemon653Jul 4, 20191 votes

What concentrated power of will, pleasure, and pain?

LordGeovanniJul 12, 20191 votes

Kind of like Match making

VentaisOct 22, 20191 votes

Bruh I just played two games to cool down after a bad ranked game on actual League of Legends and then I literally had all bronze levels and some guy had a gold level shen and just won the game after getting that one shen. I felt like I was wasting so much time and I got like nothing good. If I bought an Ahri I never got another one until I was at 2 health. If I bought a Morg I'd almost never get it I got it like 2 times through out the whole game (30 minutes).

BeLove4everDec 30, 2019

OK, for me, for example, I choose to play mage + summoner, after 3-6, maybe only 2 mage + two summoner (all 1 star) with 50+ coins, I thought I need to make some change know, so I switch to warden, and here comes the most BS, after I switched, the mage and summoner kept coming, and the no warden at all. This BS happens almost every game. This mode is 97% luck and 3% skill.[darius-angry]