The League of Legends auto battler game called Teamfight Tactics caused a massive jump in the popularity of the League itself. It was a perfect combination of everything that League had to offer and the stuff that it needed so badly to break the never-ending circle of repetitive playstyle and endless patches with useless buffs and nerfs. The TFT brought something totally different and new. It brought new gameplay with the old familiar stuff like champions, items, or the whole world of Runeterra should I say.
Are there any different modes in Teamfight Tactics? The question that is currently asked the most among the new players who don’t yet understand the game at its fullest. The answer to that question is yes! When it came out there were only two basic game modes of TFT and those were normal and ranked, or unranked and ranked games.
Normal games were the ones you practice your compositions on and try to think of a perfect strategy that you will implement on the ranked games. Ranked games were the ones you actually get score and climb the TFT ladder board while you compete against other players.
Since its release. TFT has been blessed with two additional game modes. So, here is the full list of TFT’s game modes and a detailed explanation for each one of them which will help you understand the game as much as it is possible without ever playing it once.
TFT Game Modes
TFT Game Modes – Table of Contents
Normal game
As I previously said the normal game is the game mode where your end game score isn’t relevant to your Teamfight Tactics ranking system and the ladder board. Whatever place you take at the end of the game won’t count on your League rank points. This mode is great for those who really want to focus on their rank in the game since they have all the time in the world to try out different strategies. Whether you are trying that one champion that is currently meta and testing out the best items for him, or you are just trying and testing the compatibility and harmony of different Classes and Origins.
Or maybe you are just trying different positions, it doesn’t matter, the normal game is there for you. On top of this, you just maybe are not in the mood for a ranked game and you think your focus isn’t up to the maximum level and you might lose some LP, but you are really in the mood for an easy game. That is where the normal game really shines the most.
Normal game mode stages
The normal game mode consists of stages and here are they listed below:
In the normal game mode, you start your game with your ‘’Little Legend’’ in the Carousel with 7 other players. In the Carousel, you can choose among the 10 champions, each equipped with the basic item. The champion you will get really depends on your positioning and speed since the champions are grabbed by the first person that catches the champion with their ‘’Little Legend’’. So you need to be quick.
The picked champion can be sold after the first minion fight but the item will stay with you and you can use it as a component to build a better item. The best items to start a game with are The BF Sword, The Chain West, and The Needlessly Large rod. You should always chase for the item and not the champion since the champion can always be sold but the item can not, so the items really dictate your In-game strategy. The best thing of course is if you manage to catch a champion that holds an item that synergizes with it. ‘
Starting out
You start the game with 100 hp and work your way down until you lose all your hp or you are the last man standing. The amount of hp you lose is determined by the length of the game and the amount of the champions that your enemy still has, alive, on their board. If there is only one champion, even in the latter stages of the game, your hp loss will be minimal.
Goal of normal game mode
The goal of the game itself is to be the last man standing, and you can do this only if you combine your champions, origins, and classes perfectly, or just better than the competition at least, and create the perfect synergy of the team. You should be a great tactician, hence the name Teamfight Tactics.
Ranked game
As the name clearly suggests, you play this game mode when you want your end-game score to count in the official League of Legends ranking system. The rank climb or descend will depend on your in-game placement. If you finish first you will receive the most LP and climb the most after that game. If your placement is somewhere between the 2nd and the 3rd place you will still climb, and how much depends on where you finish between those two places. If you end up 4th you will receive 0 points and you will not climb nor descend after that game. Anything below 4th place will result in your ranking down and loss of points, and how much of course, depends on what your final place in the game is.
Ranked game Tiers
Similar to League of Legends (the game TFT is based on), there are nine tiers: Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Master, Grandmaster, Challenger.
Usually, the game tries to match you with players that are of equal rank (for example Silver players match with other Silver players), but this is not a guarantee.
Players will get promoted to the next rank by earning LP. Players will start with the lowest TFT rank in the IV division. As they progress through the game, they will earn LP. Once they have earned 100 LP, players will be promoted to the next division. However, the grind does not end there. In case players lose LP points, they also stand to get demoted to a lower rank.
This can happen if their LP has fallen below zero. Once players have reached division I, they can move up in the TFT ranks. If players make it to the top in the Grandmaster or Challenger ranks, they will need to play regularly. If they are absent, their rank will start going down. This has been done to maintain the exclusivity of the higher ranks and the number of players in these ranks depends on the region where players are.
Ranked game mode starts with Little Legend
In the ranked game mode, like in the normal one, you start your game with your ‘’Little Legend’’ in the Carousel with 7 other players. In the Carousel, you can choose among the 10 champions, each equipped with the basic item. The champion you will get really depends on your positioning and speed since the champions are grabbed by the first person that catches the champion with their ‘’Little Legend’’. So you need to be quick.
The picked champion can be sold after the first minion fight but the item will stay with you and you can use it as a component to build a better item. The best items to start a game with are The BF Sword, The Chain West, and The Needlessly Large rod. You should always chase for the item and not the champion since the champion can always be sold but the item can not, so the items really dictate your In-game strategy.
The best thing of course is if you manage to catch a champion that holds an item that synergizes with it. You start the game with 100 hp and work your way down until you lose all your hp or you are the last man standing.
HP loss in ranked
The amount of hp you lose is determined by the length of the game and the amount of the champions that your enemy still has, alive, on their board. If there is only one champion, even in the later stages of the game, your hp loss will be minimal. The goal of the game itself is to be the last man standing, and you can do this only if you combine your champions, origins, and classes perfectly, or just better than the competition at least, and create the perfect synergy of the team. You should be a great tactician, hence the name Teamfight Tactics.
Hyperroll
Hyperroll is a relatively new addition to the world of TFT. It is a game mode that lasts shorter than the normal and ranked games, and the gameplay is somewhat different and faster than the previous game modes. This is a great mode when you do not have the time nor you are in the mood to play for 40 minutes. The Hyperroll game mode does not allow leveling up with your in-game gold, and all of the players will always stay on the same level.
You spend your money on rerolling the shop and buying the champions. The game mode was created as an answer to a strategy some of the players had on normal and ranked mode where they would spend all of their gold on hyper rolling the shop to find the champions they need asap. Roll games typically take around 10-15 minutes. That’s because you only have 20 HP as opposed to 100.
Damage taken from Loosing Rounds
In addition to the HP values, damage taken from losing rounds is different. Instead of it being based on how many enemy units are still alive, it’s entirely dependent on what stage you’re on. Early on, you’ll only lose 2 HP, while later you can lose upwards of 6 or 8 HP.
Opportunities to choose items
Another change is that you get more opportunities to choose items, without having to fight other players on the carousel for them. Though you don’t get the same wide range to choose from, it can be useful for finding more optimized builds for champions.
Economy
The economy is also vastly different. The biggest change is that saving gold doesn’t give you more income. This means that, barring some specific circumstances, you’ll want to be spending that gold on rerolls as it comes in.
Another change is that gold often comes in large bursts. At each level, you’ll get an influx of gold, but in the rounds between levels. To make sure you stay ahead of the curve, you’ll have to think fast when the cash flows in.
There’s only one shared draft carousel, and it kicks off every game. After that, you’ll get item components from the Armory, a new feature we’re also adding to standard TFT. The Armory will appear on screen at the start of stages 4 through 6, and lets you pick one of two item components.
Round Structure
The round structure is different. In general, Hyper Roll stages have fewer rounds, especially early on. There is no gold interest in Hyper Roll.
You gain gold 2 per loss.
No gold bonuses from wins or lose streaks.
Gold gain is modified:
Players start with 2.
- Gain 4 at Stage 2-1.
- Gain 8 at Stage 3-1.
- Gain 2 at Stage 3-2.
- Gain 6 at Stage 4-1.
- Gain 3 at Stage 4-2.
- Gain 7 at Stage 5-1.
- Gain 4 at Stage 5-2.
- Gain 12 at Stage 6-1.
- Gain 5 at Stage 6-2.
- Gain 5 at Stage 6-3.
- Gain 16 at Stage 7-1.
- Gain 17 at Stage 8-1 and beyond.
Hyper Roll has its own Ranked system, using Grey (0 points), Green (1400 points), Blue (2600 points), Purple (3400 points), and Hyper (4200+ points) tiers instead of the standard Iron to Challenger tiers.
Players will get Ranked rewards based on the highest rating they achieve at each stage, starting at the blue tier. Hyper Roll will have its own separate ranked rewards at the end of the set.
Hyper Roll grants a flat 50 XP per game, but players are able to complete missions in Hyper Roll.
Double up!
The newest addition to the world of TFT in the form of modes is the Double Up game mode that allows you to team up with someone from your friends’ list and lets you play as a team together. If you can not find such a person and start your solo queue you will be matched with another random player that has also gone alone in the solo queue, and has a similar rank as yourself.
How Double Up works
In Double Up!, you share your wins, losses, and even some of your champions (more on that later) with one other player. You can queue up with someone from your friends’ list, or you can roll the dice and match with someone randomly. Either way, you’ll never face that player in battle.
You and your partner share the same health pool, which means that if you take a hit, they also take a hit. (No pressure.) But don’t worry, because, in Double Up!, you get double chances! The first time you and your partner go down, you’ll be revived with 1 HP so you can keep on fighting. If either of you loses again though, it’s really game over.
When one partner finishes up their battle at least 3 seconds before the other, they send their remaining champs to join the battle that’s still going. Champions who hop to the other board bring permanent stacks, item effects, and any bonuses from their traits and Hextech Augments, but they don’t gain any new bonuses or add to any traits on the new board. If a trait or ability grants a stack that would usually reset at the end of a round, it resets before champions arrive as reinforcements. Mana also resets, but champions keep the HP they had at the end of their own battle.
Reinforcements in Double Up
While reinforcement champs don’t add any damage to the enemy player upon victory, they do make it a whole lot easier to win in the first place.
Reinforcements are great and all, but how about something a little more permanent? Well, by equipping a Rune of Allegiance to one of your champs, you can send them to become members of your partner’s family for good. But that’s not all! Any items the champion is holding are sent over as well, but instead of staying equipped to the champ, they bounce over in a loot bubble so that the partner player can use them however they want. Every player receives one Rune of Allegiance at the beginning of the game, plus another at stage 4-2 and a third at 6-1.
We all need a little help sometimes. On stages 2-5 and 6-2, one player from each team gains access to an Assist Armory, then the other player gets their chance to return the favor on stages 2-6 and 6-3. This special armory lets you send each other some really helpful stuff, like item components and gold. Heck, in the second Assist Armory, you can even send over completed items and trait emblems!
The Assist Armory can really come in the clutch, so communication is key. Not paired up with a talkative player? Remember that you can take a look at their board to see what they might need.
Double up rating with two people
But how does Double Up Rating work with two people? It’s simple, really: the player with the lower rank determines the change for both players, win or lose. So, if Player 1 would lose 80 Double Up Rating and Player 2 would lose 10, both players lose 10 Double Up Rating. That can be a bit of a double-edged sword because while it means you fall slower, it also means that you climb slower. If you care a lot about ranking, the best strategy is to play with another player whose rank is similar to your own.
Conclusion
For someone that is just starting to play TFT, different modes in TFT can look complicated, but they really aren’t. Once you understand the fundamental basics of the game it is all on the same pattern. You just need to implement the basic knowledge you have learned, hopefully with the help of this article, into every game mode you play. I am sure you will have no problem after a couple of games.
Go on, and dominate every single one of them!