Teamfight Tactics takes to the stars in its newest set: League of Legends' auto battler, developed by Riot Games, that plans to bring players an out of this world experience. TFT's last set focused on the elements, but this time the convergence is an intergalactic battlefield!
Auto battlers are a sub-genre of strategy games where players place characters onto a grid in their preparation phase and then those characters face off against other player's team of characters in the combat phase. There is a lot to learn about any set of Teamfight Tactics, whether the player is a seasoned auto battler veteran or has never come close to playing one. This guide will teach beginners, who have never played an auto battler or League of Legends, how to play Teamfight Tactics: Galaxies.
How Auto Battles Work In Teamfight Tactics: Galaxies
In every round of Teamfight Tactics: Galaxies, players will have a planning phase, where they can rearrange their board or get more units, and a combat phase, where their board faces off against either a set of enemies that can drop rewards or another player's board to fight for survival. All players start at 100 health, and whenever they lose a round (meaning all of their units are defeated before the opponents), they will take damage depending on how many units their opponent had left and how late into the game it is.
Every player's board is made up of four rows of seven hex tiles. The eight rows of hexes made by two player's boards connected create the battlefield for which units will fight for their master's bidding. Units are characters that the player can purchase to fight for them. In Teamfight Tactics: Galaxies, these units are champions that are playable in other League of Legends game modes and they each have an origin and class. It is the player's job to make a formidable board of units, with synergized origins and classes, that will defeat the board of all their opponents. This guide will touch more on the origins and classes later.
To create a formidable board, players will need to utilize items. Items can be equipped to units to increase their stats or grant new powerful effects but can not be removed from a unit after it has been equipped. The only way to get the item off of the unit is to sell the unit, so make sure to be careful when equipping them. There are two different types of items and two different ways to obtain them.
Items In Teamfight Tactics: Galaxies
The first type of item is a component item, which only grants a statistic bonus to the unit equipped. For example, a Tear of the Goddess grants +20 Mana to the unit equipped. When two component items are attached to the same unit, it will create the second type of item: a full item.
Full items not only grant the statistic bonuses of both its components but also have a special ability depending on the full item created. An example of a full item would be a Bloodthirster, which makes the unit's attacks heal for 40% of their damage. Every pair of component items creates a different full item, so there are a lot of different combinations for players to try out.
Items can be obtained either through the carousel or by defeating enemies on a neutral round. The carousel is a special time where all the players are brought together in a ring to each pick one unit from the rotating circle of units in the center. Each one of these units is equipped with an item. Neutral rounds are any round in which the players are not going up against each other and are instead going up against set boards of mobs that have a chance to drop gold, units, or items.
The game will begin with its very first carousel round, allowing each player to get their hands on their first unit and item. After this, the player will play through four neutral rounds that are always the same and are super easy to beat as long as the player purchases units. These first rounds are called Stage 1. Past this point, the stage number will increment and the game will loop through the same pattern of rounds: three PvP rounds, a carousel round, two more PvP rounds, and lastly a neutral round.
Managing Economy In Teamfight Tactics: Galaxies
Gold is one of the most vital resources to any player playing Teamfight Tactics Galaxies, mainly because it is needed to purchase new units to place onto the board. Every round, players will receive a ive income depending on the stage of the game. On top of this, there are two extra ways the player can increase their income: Interest and Streaking.
Players will accumulate one gold of interest each round for every ten gold they have. For example, if a player had 21 gold at the end of a round, the next round they would receive their ive income plus two.
If a player is on win streak or losing streak, they will also earn gold depending on the length of the streak. Players can view information about how much gold they will receive next round by hovering over their gold in the shop menu.
Players can use gold to either gain experience, buy one of the units in their shop, or reroll their shop for new units. The shop is unique to each player and will display five new units that the player can purchase every round. These units will get more powerful and higher in cost as the game progresses and the player increases in level. Any units purchased from the shop will be placed into the player's bench, which can hold up to ten units. Units can then be placed from the bench onto any available hex on the player's field (or will be placed there automatically if the maximum number of units on board is not met).
Purchasing Units In Teamfight Tactics: Galaxies
The goal is to either buy units that share origins or classes with those the player is using, buy the same units as those the player is already using, or buy units that share the same cost as the units the player is looking for.
Origins and classes are synergies that usually require multiple units of the same synergy to gain the benefits. Players can place a unit onto the board and look at the left side of the screen to see how many more units are required to activate a synergy. Hovering over these synergies will show the player all the units that share that class or origin and give a description of what it does. Here is a list of all the origins and classes and what they do:
Origins:
- Celestial - All allies heal for 12% (2), 30% (4), 55% (6) of the damage they deal.
- Chrono - All allies gain 10% (2), 20% (4), 40% (6) attack speed every 4 seconds.
- Cybernetics - Cybernetics with an item gain 30 AD and 300 HP (3), 75 AD and 750 HP (6).
- Dark Star - When a Dark Star dies, it gives +30% (3), +50% (6) increased damage, plus previous stacks of this effect, to the nearest ally Dark Star.
- Mech-Pilot - At the start of combat, 3 random Mech-Pilot champs are merged into a Super-Mech until it dies (3).
- Rebel - At start of combat, Rebels gain a 125 (3), 200 (6) health shield for 8 seconds and 10% (3), 15% (6) increased damage for each adjacent Rebel.
- Space Pirate - 50% chance to drop 1g (2), and 10% to drop an item (4) whenever a Space Pirate lands a killing blow.
- Star Guardian - Whenever a Star Guardian casts, distributes 10 (3), 20 (6) mana among all other Star Guardians.
- Valkyrie - Valkyrie attacks and spells always crit targets below 50% health.
- Void - Void champs deal True Damage (3).
Classes:
- Blademaster - 25% (3), 50% (6) chance on hit for Blademasters to attack two extra times.
- Blaster - Every fifth Blaster attack fires two (2), four (4) additional attacks that deal double damage.
- Brawler - Brawlers gain bonus Health.
- Demolitionist - Demolitionist spells stun targets they hit for 2.5 seconds (2).
- Infiltrator - ive: Infiltrators jump to the back of enemy territory at the start of combat. Infiltrators gain 60% Attack Speed for the first 8 seconds of combat.
- Mana-Reaver - Mana-Reaver’s first attack (2), all attacks (4) increase the cost of their target’s next spell cast by 40%.
- Mercenary - Mercenaries can be paid gold to upgrade their abilities (1).
- Mystic - +40 (2), 120 (4) Magic Resist for team.
- Protector - Protectors gain a shield for 15% (2), 35% (4) of their max health for 3 seconds whenever they cast.
- Sorcerer - All allies gain +20% (2), +45% (4), +120% (6) increased Spell Power.
- Sniper - Snipers deal 10% increased damage for each hex of distance between themselves and their target.
- Starship - Starships continuously circle the arena and cannot basic attack.
- Vanguard - Vanguards gain 70 (2), 300 (4) armor.
Players should always buy duplicates of units they already have or heavily consider including units into their composition if they appear as a pair in the shop. Units will higher tiers when the player has three of the same unit in the same tier. For example, a tier 1 Poppy will tier 2 after purchasing two more tier 1 Poppys and a tier 2 Poppy will tier 3 after acquiring two more tier 2 Poppys, requiring six more Poppys altogether. Upgrading units to higher tiers will drastically increase their health and damage output, making it absolutely vital to winning rounds!
There are only so many of any given units in the game and this number is shared by all of the players. This means that if multiple players buy the same unit, it will become increasingly difficult to find more of that unit. Players can purchase units of the same cost they are looking for to increase their chances of hitting what they need. Players can also buy enough experience to level up to increase the chances of finding higher cost units or reroll their shop until the unit they need shows up. Keep in mind that gold is a precious resource and should only be spent on these options if it will significantly help the player's board or the player has over 50 gold. If using these methods below 50 gold, attempt to keep as many intervals of ten as possible to keep interest high.
Unique Features In Teamfight Tactics: Galaxies
In addition to normal games of Teamfight Tactics: Galaxies, there is a chance the player will be taken to a Galaxy where the rules play slightly differently. The changes will be minor, but impactful. For example, the first carousel could be all units that cost four gold instead of the usual one gold units. Players will need to adapt their play to take advantage of these changes or will be left at a disadvantage.
Teamfight Tactics: Galaxies is available on League of Legends starting on patch 10.6.
