Teamfight Tactics Guide: An Overview Of The Arena

  • PC
  • Strategy
Teamfight Tactics battle.
Teamfight Tactics battle. Riot Games

Teamfight Tactics is one of the new entries to the auto battle genre. It has some similarities with its counterparts like Auto Chess and Dota Underlords, but there are of course, certain differences. Here we look at the basic gameplay in order for you to get a bit of a feel to this game.

It is good to start with the board, or in this case, the arena. One obvious difference you'll likely notice is that the arena shows the terrain rather than squares as seen on a chessboard. Don't worry though as the arena has hexagon overlays to actually guide you on where to put your champions.

Now let's look a little closer at the different parts of the arena.

1. Little Legend

This where you can find your Little Legend. The Little Legends functions as your avatar in the game. To get new Little Legends, you can earn them by playing or buy them directly in the League of Legends store.

2. Battlefield

This part of the arena is where the actual fighting happens. You place your champions near you, with your opponent's champions arriving near the top.

3. Bench

The bench is the part of the arena that your purchased champions go before they can be placed on the battlefield.

4. Store

The champions you are going to use on the gallery can be purchased here. This is a shared pool and here you can see a random selection of champions, which include duplicates. Duplicates are important since this allows you create stronger versions of a particular champion.

It's not just about buying champions, as the store itself comes with a number of features:

  • Lock/unlock the store
    • Each new round the store refreshes, giving you access to possible new champions.
    • If there is a particular champion that you want, but can't afford yet, then you can lock the store.
      • This results in the store not automatically refreshing.
  • Refresh
    • If you don't like the current choices in the store, you can actually refresh it instead of waiting for the next round.
      • You need to pay a little amount of gold in order to do this.
  • Buy XP
    • You can actually buy experience points by using gold.
    • The advantage of doing this is that the higher level you have, the more powerful champions you can access in the store.
    • Of course, stronger champions are also more expensive, so try to balance out what you buy.

5. Trait Tracker

This is where you can track the origin, as well as the class bonuses, of the champions you qualify for. An origin describes where the champion comes from or where their allegiance lies. Here are the different origins that you can choose from:

  • Demon
    • Deploying multiple Demons grants them a chance to burn away their target's mana, dealing damage based on the amount of mana burned. This chance increases with more Demons.
  • Dragon
    • Deploying both Dragons makes them immune to ability damage.
  • Exile
    • Exiles start combat with a shield if no other champions are adjacent to them at the start of combat.
  • Glacial
    • Deploying multiple Glacials grants their attacks a chance to stun their target, increasing with more Glacials.
  • Robot
    • Robots start combat with full mana.
  • Imperial
    • Deploying multiple Imperials grants one random Imperial double damage.
    • Deploying every Imperial grants all of them double damage.
  • Noble
    • Deploying multiple Nobles grants one random champion armor and on-attack healing.
    • Deploying every Noble grants your whole team armor and on-attack healing.
  • Ninja
    • Deploying exactly one Ninja grants it attack damage.
    • Deploying every Ninja grants all of them even more attack damage.
  • Pirate
    • Deploying enough Pirates grants you extra gold at the end of each round.
  • Phantom
    • Deploying enough Phantoms curses a random enemy at the start of combat, dropping their starting health.
  • Wild
    • Deploying multiple Wilds grants them attack speed as they attack.
    • Deploying enough Wilds grants your whole team attack speed as they attack.
  • Void
    • Deploying enough Voids lets your team ignore some of their targets' armor.
  • Yordle
    • Deploying multiple Yordles causes attacks against them to sometimes miss, increasing with more Yordles.

A class, meanwhile, describes how the champion fights. It gives additional trait bonuses based on how many unique members of that class is part of your team. There are a total of 10 traits.

  • Assassin
    • Having multiple Assassins give them increased critical strike damage and increases with more Assassins.
  • Blademaster
    • Having multiple Blademasters give their attacks a chance to hit extra times and increases with more Blademasters.
  • Brawler
    • Having multiple Brawlers gives them extra health and this increases with more Brawlers.
  • Elementalist
    • Having enough Elementalists in the arena results in an Elemental being summoned to fight for you at the beginning of combat.
  • Guardian
    • There are only two guardians and when you have two them on the arena, they not only grant armor to themselves but also do the same to allies that start combat adjacent to them.
  • Gunslinger
    • Having multiple Gunslingers gives their attacks a chance to hit additional targets with the chances increasing with more Gunslingers.
  • Knight
    • Having multiple Knights allows them block damage from incoming attacks and this increases with more Knights.
  • Ranger
    • Having multiple Rangers gives them a chance to gain a burst of attack speed which increases with more Rangers.
  • Shapeshifter
    • Having enough Shapeshifters on the arena gives them health on transformation.
  • Sorcerer
    • Having multiple Sorcerers gives your team ability power and increases with more Sorcerers.

6. Item Inventory

This is where you can see items before they are equipped from champions.

To equip an item, all you need to do is drag and then drop to equip. Once equipped, it can't be undone and the only way to remove the item is to sell the champion. Selling a champion results in the items equipped on them to return to the inventory.

Items are also important since they can increase the base stats of your champions. They can even be upgraded to stronger items to give unique effects. In PvE rounds, each monster you defeat has a chance to drop an item. During draft rounds, each draftable champion already has an item equipped.

There are eight basic items:

  • BF Sword: Attacks deal more damage
  • Chain Vest: Take less damage from basic attacks
  • Giant's Belt: Gain health
  • Needlessly Large Rod: Abilities are stronger
  • Negatron Cloak: Take less damage from abilities
  • Recurve Bow: Attack more often
  • Spatula: Provides no stats, but upgrades into various rule-breaking items
  • Tear of the Goddess: Begin combat with some mana

If a champion is equipped with two basic items, they immediately combine to become an upgraded item and have the same combination of stats as its components. Each pair of basic items result in a different upgraded item.

7. Gold Generators

Gold generators appear based on how much gold you already have. Each generator is worth one interest gold at the start of your next turn.

8. Scoreboard

This part of the arena shows the health of all players in the game. You can click on players in order to view their arena.

9. Stage Tracker

This part shows which rounds you won and lost in the current stage. It also shows how many rounds are left to play.

10. Phase Tracker

This tells you what phases you are currently in and how much time is actually left. Each round is composed of a planning phase and a combat phase.

  • Planning Phase
    • During the planning phase you can earn gold and even have your store refreshed with new champions. Unless, of course, you locked the store. This is also where you can deploy your champions on the battlefield. In this phase you have 30 seconds to do all of this.
  • Combat Phase
    • The combat phases last until each battle in the round has a winner and loser declared or when the timer runs out.
    • There are two types of combat in the game:
      • PvP rounds
        • PvP rounds are where you go against a randomly-chosen opponent.
      • PvE rounds
        • In PvE, you fight against AI monsters. Generally, the first three rounds of a match are PvE, as well as the final round. Monsters defeated have a chance to drop items that you can then equip to your champions.

11. Opponent's Side

When going against another player, you can see their bench here. This also lets you see their item inventory and even gold generators.

So did you manage to take all that in? Don’t worry, as we’ll give you time to soak it. Next time we look at the different champions and some strategies you can use.

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