A Twisted Fate rework would be a winning hand to play, Riot

Allow me to preface this with the fact that I greatly appreciate the work that Riot is doing to improve the champions and shape the meta recently, as well as their transparency with us as the players. Its enjoyable to see that the server difficulties are being worked on, and refreshing that you guys feel like you can communicate those difficulties with us. As such I don't expect this rework to be a priority, or even realistically, to be considered. but I'm dedicated to this champion, so I'm posting this anyway:

I have been playing League of Legends for about a year and a half now, and since the day that I started, Twisted Fate has been my favorite champion. His debonair character concept and lore combined with his slick model and winning attitude led me to immediately perceive him as obviously being one of the best characters in the game. But as I progressed through the levels, I began to find that I was losing more matches than I was winning despite practicing constantly. I quickly realized that my failure may have less to do with ineptitude and more to do with the fact that TF's abilities simply did not reflect the winning attitude that his character seems to portray. The more matches that I played and observed people play with the Cardmaster, the more I recognized that his ability set up leaves powerful weaknesses open for exploitation by his enemies, while also have underwhelming and strangely placed strengths that do not make up for his shortcomings. I hope you who reads this will consider this with seriousness as I am absolutely in love with TF's concept, and I simply believe that he needs to be reworked to be on par with the current champion generations when it comes to continuity as well as power. So after much mental deliberation and the consideration of many possibilities, I've found what I believe to be the most viable alternative to TF's current kit and stats, which are as follows:

Loaded Dice Twisted Fate rolls his dice every time he kills an enemy, randomly gaining 1 to 6 Gold. Naturally, he has a higher chance to receive a large bonus. Wild Card Active: Twisted Fate throws three cards outwards in the target direction, dealing magic damage to all enemies they pass through. Pick A Card Active: Twisted Fate presents a random card which cycles through blue, red and gold for 6 seconds. Reactivating Pick A Card ends the cycle and modifies Twisted Fate's next basic attack to deal magic damage and apply a bonus effect, based on the card he selected. Blue Card: Twisted Fate restores mana. Red Card: Twisted Fate deals magic damage to all enemies around his target and slows all damaged enemies for 2.5 seconds. Gold Card: Twisted Fate briefly stuns his target. Stacked Deck Passive: Twisted Fate permanently has bonus attack speed, and deals bonus magic damage on every fourth basic attack. Destiny/Gate Active: Twisted Fate grants true sight of all enemy champions for a few seconds. After a 0.5-second delay, Twisted Fate can use Gate once for the duration. Active: Twisted Fate channels for 1.5 seconds and, upon completing the channel, blinks to the target location.

So here it is, straight from the mouth...err, keyboard, of a dedicated TF player.

Okay, so on the real, the difficulties that I initially recognized were those of inconsistency, where riot has my main man portrayed as a slick and fluid fighter in the lore, his VO emotes and even cinematically. He is shown to be:

1. Clever in his understanding of his surroundings and enemies
2. Resourceful with the tools at his disposal, selecting the best one for the job
3. Practiced with his tools of choice and able to utilize them in proficient ways This seems to be a concept left underdeveloped in regards to his abilities. Let's start with his current passive, which is a valiant attempt at staying true to his character, but ultimately falls short. It's supposed to reflect his trickery and gamblers attitude, but by end game, this passive no longer serves a purpose, as, if you have full build, you can do nothing with excess gold, thereby making the early boost feel cheap and unrewarding. It's also kind of forgettable, as it doesn't interact at all with gameplay and only affects your fed-ness a near negligible amount (weather this is true specifically or not, this is how it feels). Finally, it is extra useless if you are playing TF support as it only rewards you for last hitting, which is something you can't do in that role. Overall, not fitting for a card sharp that makes use of every tool at his disposal. Here is my reworked concept:

Passive: Slight of Hand With every basic attack or ability applied against an enemy champion, Twisted Fate receives a stack of aces Upon reaching four stacks, TF's next attack becomes empowered. If it is an auto attack, he deals extra magic damage and gains (X)% of the champions gold. If it is an ability, it applies a special effect (Note: multiple stacks can be achieved with AOE abilities or those with more than on projectile.)

This new ability eliminates all the weaknesses that the previous passive had. It has a direct interaction with gameplay, adding a level of complexity as well as incorporating the old passive in a more satisfying way, giving you the chance to score big if you land that last auto on a person with a large stockpile of gold as well as putting a dent in their hard earned funds. It also has the added bonus of acting like his previous E in a less damage intensive way, but being up more often, which leaves that slot open for us to screw around with.

Moving on to his Q, I have two problems with this ability. One, they are called wild cards, and yet in their current incarnation they crawl across the screen, commonly considered to be one of the slowest and easiest projectiles to dodge in the game. Two, there are three points of contact, but all three cards can rarely ever be made use of. More often than not, the other two are used as nothing more than a distraction from the one that is actually targeted at the enemy. I took these two aspects into consideration when redesigning the skill:

Q: Wild Cards Three separate cards are thrown out one at a time in a set direction, each colliding with the first enemy hit and dealing (X) damage with each impact. Twisted Fate is not impaired and can move freely during this cast. Slight Of Hand: If these projectiles are empowered, they will fly more quickly, applying a stacking slow, that builds up to three times. Upon the third hit, it stuns the enemy.

This one needs some explanation so it's not immediately perceived as an overpowered ability. I wanted to keep the massive range and the damage output of TF's current Q, while also increasing the speed of the projectiles and their usefulness (determined by how many of the three can be used), so in order to keep the skill balanced, the sacrifice of the unlimited targets (the cards ability to pass through and damage enemies) had to be done away with. However, because there are multiple projectiles in the same direction (if you are confused on how this mechanic looks, think Lucian ult) if you position yourself correctly or wait until your enemy is positioned incorrectly, you can easily hit one or more of these projectiles, even in the laning phase. In addition, the application of the passive turns this into an applicable team fight tool, able to hit the back line through a tanky frontline, as most mages are accustom to doing. The added shutdown possibility with the slow/stun adds a high risk/high reward element to his confrontations.

After all that, we come to an ability that is going to need very little reworking:

This is an excellent ability that reflects TF's practiced aura if it can be pulled off correctly not only to the summoner playing him, but also to those around him. The only modifications I made were to apply the passive to the ability

W: Pick a Card Upon Initial Activation, three cards are flashed above TF's head in repeated order: blue, red, yellow. Upon activating the ability a second time, the card that is currently illuminated is selected, applying an added effect to TF's next auto-attack

Sapphire Eye: Adds an increase of (X) damage as well as replenishing a portion of TF's mana. Slight Of Hand: If empowered, the range of his next auto attack is slightly increased, and TF is granted a small percent of his total health upon impact

Thorned Rose: Adds an increase of (X) damage as well as applying damage and a slow in an area around the target. Slight Of Hand: If empowered, the range of his next auto attack is slightly increased, and he is granted a short movement speed buff.

Golden Bindings: Adds an increase of (X) damage as well as applying a single target stun for (X) duration. Slight Of Hand: If empowered, the range of his next auto attack is slightly increased, and TF is granted a short attack speed buff

(Note: In an attempt to not overpower this skill too much, it may be wise to only make the added effects of his two damaging abilities apply against champions)

I wanted the added effects to reflect different aspects of TF's resourcefulness, the health buff representing his will to live, the movement speed representing his ability to get out of sticky situations, and the attack speed representing his ability to take advantage of his opponent's weaknesses.

Finally, we get down to the massive changes. TF's previous E was a basic damage stimulant, that also added attack speed. It was a boring ability to have and with two passives, seemed more viable as a different part of his kit from the beginning. As we've obviously moved both the excess damage and the attack speed to other parts of his kit, we now have an open space to work with. I used this space to exemplify TF's utility as well as to pull elements over from his ultimate in order to leave space to fix problems over there:

E: Destiny's Eye TF is granted vision of any enemy champions within (X) units of him. In addition, TF's next attack after activation will proc a full cycle of Slight Of Hand (Note: if slight of hand is already up, you get two in a row!)

The vision element is stolen from TF's previous ultimate. The idea is that the range of the ability should be decreased (perhaps between 3500 and 4000 units) in comparison to his ultimate (global) in exchange for a much lower cooldown and an offensive element added, in the form of the passive trigger. This means that this ability can be used to not only prevent suspected ganks, but also, give you a chance to escape those that are already in progress.

And lastly we have his ult. It is cannon in the lore, and it would be foolish to change such a well known ability entirely, but, there are some improvements to be made that would make it just a little more awesome and a little less useless (in certain situations) without totally going overboard:

Ultimate: Winning Hand TF has the ability to teleport up to three times anywhere within a radius of (X) units from the initial cast location. In addition, if there are one or more enemy champions within a short distance of his 1st teleport location, he is given a Cardstorm shield that is increased based upon how many enemy champions there are within his immediate vicinity. This shield lasts for the duration of the ability or until it is expended, releasing a burst of energy upon its expenditure that damages nearby enemies.

This is another ability that seems OP at first glance, but here me out. This ult has a cast time for each teleport, so they can be interrupted (though the cast time should probably be reduced from the whopping 1.5 seconds it is now). The multiple teleports as well as the shield (which ideally would prevent SOFT cc from canceling the channel of TF's ult) now allow TF to actually utilize his ult within a team fight, teleporting onto the back line and ccing the carries, as opposed to simply using it to get there quickly if you showed up late, pick off stragglers, or run away (though all of those things are still applicable uses).

Finally here are a few notes: TF's Q does not effect towers TF's passive will not empower W attacks against towers TF's passive cannot stack on towers TF's wave clear and split pushing capabilities are slightly reduced because of this rework The first projectile of TF's Q applies ability on hit effects such as ludens echo. These ability effects do not build his passive The excess damage of an empowered auto attack can be used against a minion, but no extra gold will be gained This rework was designed to encourage an AP or hybrid build pattern, not one that is AD centered. I strongly encourage buffing TF's defense stats in favor of reducing his physical damage stats, especially for this rework

I thank you for reading all the way to the end, and I'm sorry there is no TL;DR. I hope these concepts made sense and didn't just come across as the ravings of a Twisted Fate-obsessed weirdo with too much time on his hands. Riot, I know you have a lot on your plate, with thousands of requests and alterations desired daily. I'm not asking for it now, just eventually, give me the awesome cardshark that when used correctly, can make a lasting and visible difference in a match without having to have the skills of a diamond player. I just want to have enough reserve utility and capability to wipe that smug expression off of fizz's face! is that too much to ask!!!!

Scincerely, Bradley Irvine (AKA. TheArcWarrior)