TFT Early Game Strats
Hi, I've played in both PBE and Live quite a bit and I have some information on strategies for the early game of TFT that I would like to share.
First
The initial draft is primarily about the item. However, that doesn't mean that you should ignore the champions themselves or the gold value. If you can get an early noble like lucian with recurve or an early reksai for the void composition it might be better to consider those routes. Same thing with pyke and gold spoons. these champs will allow you to get an early late game strategy set up without sacrificing your early game.
once the initial draft is over play your first wave and see what other items you get if any. consider things such as:
- does this item help my comp?
- is this part of another comp I could make?
- should I save this item and wait for the PVP rounds?
- since I didn't get any items do I rush a different strat?
after you've completed the first wave you'll be presented with your first 5 champ selection pool AND you'll be level 2. It's very important that you pick up a second champion for the next pve wave as you wont be able to kill the minions with just your starting unit. IF you combined the items that you got and now have a decent amount of synergy on that one unit you can risk it, but more often than not numbers outweigh items - especially on a squishy unit. consider these things :
- did i get 3 nobles?
- did i get 3 knights?
- did i get 3 of the same unit?
- did i get part of my already existing comp?
- did i get random stuff that I can't do anything with?
- did i get 2 wild?
- did i get a ninja?
regardless of the choices presented weigh your chances of maintaining a win streak versus having to lose HP to maintain a loss streak. Then weigh the dependency on the next draft. Do you have a completed item? do you need a specific unit that you'll soon out level? Is someone building yordles or a heavy crowd control composition? These questions need to be assessed and once you've settled on your first line up you can then begin to build your mid to late game comps. early comps typically consist of 1-4 units and 1-3 completed ability sets.
early game comps to consider
nobles (garen, vayne, fiora ; lucian) one of the easiest to complete with the only loose end being kayle for the gold version. builds into late game pretty well.
knights (garen, darius, mordekaiser) a pretty terrible late game build that is bad on its own. take this one at your own risk.
void (khazix, kassadin ; reksai) a great secondary build that can be built early on should you manage to grab a reksai from the starting draft. can be swapped out later with a chogath if you end up unable to complete one of the level 1 voids.
pirates (graves ; pyke ; gangplank) - requires a bit of luck and early leveling due to gangplank being tier 3. however, you'll likely be on a loss streak anyway and the gold you earn back will make up for it. you can typically get GP from the second draft and pyke from the first draft. graves is a reliably easy level 1 to grab.
wild (warwick, nidalee ; ahri) a very niche comp. fairly decent around mid game, but falls off in late game. consider only getting this one as a secondary build.
gunslinger (graves, tristana, ; lucian) this composition is pretty terrible early on. tristana throws a wrench in it, but grabbing it early with the intent of pirates and nobles will allow lucian the opportunity he needs to shine as all the gunslingers are pirates primarily.
sorcerers (kassadin; ahri, lulu) - difficult unless you start with one of the tier 2s and get lucky on the second one. even then the passive doesn't benefit kassadin as he lacks mana.
ninja (shen, zed) - a tip to this build is that you can have as many of the same ninja as you want and it still counts as only 1 unit. so for example a tier 2 zed and 2 tier 1's is still considered only a single ninja. however, this one is expensive early on and not truly reliable. best combined with a 3 part comp like void or pirates or nobles.
brawlers (warwick ; blitzcrank, reksai) this build is only recommended for early game if you ended up getting pigeonholed into a blitzcrank due to lag or being afk among other reasons. can be powerful late game if you make it there and get lucky on your pool. chogath and volibear make this comp shine.
yordles (tristana ; lulu) - you wont be able to complete this until mid game. dont waste your time. people will see it and start building Rapid Fire Cannons to stop you. this is a mid game build that is super niche.
assassins (khazix ; zed, pyke) - you can get some early wins with this build because the primary counter to it requires mid game. use this build if you think your opponents wont be able to build phantom dancer any time soon. be sure to place at least 1 non assassin unit with high HP to bait the frontline of your opponent.
demon (elise, varus) this group is meh. with kassadin, vayne, graves, nidalee (post transform), elise (post transform), and a huge amount of other reasons this comp is pointless because a lot of the early game champ wont have mana. this comp is best used as a wild card comp for other larger comps to help thin out elementalist and sorcerors (which both gain bonus mana from attacks)
glacial (braum, lissandra) a fairly decent comp. ashe can be picked up alongside volibear once reaching level 4-5. if you're lucky enough to snag one early this comp can be bonkers. there's also the option of using a frozen mallet to make one of your garen's into a frontline defender. This will stack well later on if you should decide to stack nobles with glacials due to the synergy between braum and leona, ashe and vayne, and garen and sejuani. though eventually you'll have to give up on either the noble buff or the maxed glacial buff unless you manage to get a butt load of spatulas and giants belts. (6 for both)
rangers (vayne ; varus) super squishy. one of the few comps i would avoid. extremely weak to assassins and heavily item reliant. build phantom dancer and guinsoos asap
other than these there are also some mid game builds that you should avoid early on unless you're hoping for a late game comback miracle. they are:
dragons (shyvanna, sol) sol is hard to get to. by this point you'd already have died from waiting. this would be a secondary comp to build.
shapeshifters (nidalee ; elise ; shyvanna) for similar reasons to dragon you're better off just focusing on an early game strat that can build into late game and then using this build to compliment it later down the road. tier 3's take a lot of invested gold to unlock and once you have that gold you can't level them easily nor can you go back and get those tier 1's
imperial (darius ; katarina) kat being a tier 3 means that you likely wont get her early on and if you do she's going to steal the buff from darius half the time. a great counter to late game nobles, but early on it has a ton of issues.
elementalist (lissandra ; kennen ; brand ; anivia) literally impossible to get for early game. it requires 3 units of the 4 with anivia being a tier 5 and brand being a tier 4. amazingly powerful, but unobtainable for early game. consider sticking it alongside yordles or glacials for some intense fun.
guardian (braum; leona) leona is tier 4. that's the only reason why you wont get this one for early game. by no means is this a bad comp. just build it second. - see nobles + glacials above.
blade master (fiora ; shen ; gangplank, aatrox) requires 3 units to activate and most of the units are 3+ in tier level with yasuo being 5 and draven being 4. this build focuses on draven primarily as your carry. don't expect it to carry you through to late game if you aren't preparing for early game with something else.
phantom (mordekaiser ; kindred ; karthus) a great secondary build once you get up high enough. Would not recommend unless you've already invested in a mordekaiser and he's high tier. otherwise get karthus and kindred late game if you end up picking one up from the draft. genuinely a bad comp.
exile (yasuo) literally can't get this comp until level 5. goes with any comp. seems to be a joke class that was added for memes. can be pretty powerful at pulling assassins.
beyond these builds there are of course synergies with items, but in my honest opinion item synergies are secondary to team compositions since you have little control over your items.
please leave comments about what you think of my guide.
