Teamfight Tactics

Based on Dota Auto Chess, a mod for Dota 2, the game centers around eight players who construct teams to fight one another and be the last player standing.[1] The battlefield consists of hexagons, where players can strategically place units on the hexagons on their side of the game board between rounds. Each round, a short battle automatically commences, with two players matched randomly for that round, or else paired against computer-controlled enemies. In the rounds against computer-controlled enemies, each enemy has a chance to drop gold, units, or items that the player can use. Health lost from round losses is calculated with a combination of set damage per round, and how many units an opponent had still alive.

Through a feature called the "Shared Draft", every few rounds players have access to a free rotation of units with random equipped items to select from. During these shared rounds, the two players with the lowest health are able to choose their units first, followed by the next two players with the lowest health,. If there are players with similar health points, the game will randomly choose the order.[2]

Players accumulate gold during rounds and can save it to build interest, which further increases their income per round. Players can also gain additional income per round by either winning multiple rounds in a row or losing multiple rounds in a row. With this gold, they can either reroll the five units offered to them in their shop or purchase experience points to increase their level. The higher a player's level, the more units they can place on the board, which can also be augmented by certain items, and the higher the average rarity of units in the shop. Each unit is able to be upgraded if additional copies of the same unit are found in the shop or Shared Draft. Upgrading a champion increases their maximum health and attack damage.

With some exceptions, units have both a health bar and a mana bar. Taking damage from enemy attacks or abilities will lower a unit's health but increase a unit's mana. When a unit's health reaches zero, they are effectively removed from the round. When a unit's mana bar is full, they cast a unique ability. Some units may start the round with some percentage of their mana bar full but units generally start the round with no mana.

Synergies are activated by a team composition that makes use of one or multiple units with the same trait. Each unit has two or three traits and the effective combination of units will activate synergies that benefit the player. Synergies will usually fall into three categories: effects that strengthen allies, effects that weaken enemies, and miscellaneous effects. Each "set" of Teamfight Tactics corresponds to a unique unit pool, collection of synergies, and usable items.[3]

Teamfight Tactics periodically updates its unit roster. Every three months there is a partial rotation, referred by Riot Games developers as a mid-set update, rotating out traits and units which are problematic.[4] As Teamfight Tactics is a game mode of League of Legends, its patch numbering follows the same as its parent game rather than being labelled differently.

Teamfight Tactics was based on Dota Auto Chess, which in turn was inspired by Mahjong, where players pick up tiles and discard tiles in order to complete a hand by forming a pair and sets such as a sequence, or three or four identical tiles, while preventing other players to complete a hand.[5][6] The game was released within the League of Legends client for Microsoft Windows and macOS on June 26, 2019, and as a standalone app for Android and iOS on March 19, 2020.[7][8] By September 2019, the game had over 33 million monthly players with 1.72 billion hours of accumulated game time.[9]

Teamfight Tactics has its own store separate from League of Legends. The player's controllable avatar, called a "Little Legend", can be customized by buying new ones from the store. Those can only be upgraded by buying from loot boxes called "Little Legend eggs". A season pass is also featured, lasting for the duration of a set. Skins for a player's board, on which the game is played, are purchasable without the use of loot boxes.

• Official website