How Players With LoL Accounts Can Play TFT Mobile Easier

Here’s how you can play your favorite auto chess game on mobile with style.

Since Riot Games released Teamfight Tactics for League of Legends in 2019, things have been a hoot. Auto chess games weren’t the rage in those days, but when Drodo Studios created a mod for DOTA 2 called “DOTA Auto Chess,” it started something new. The popularity led to the launch of Teamfight Tactics, which you can now play on PC or mobile (via Apple iTunes and Google Play Store). Since TFT has crossplay, you’re not missing out on much if you’re thinking of transitioning to a smaller form factor. However, it can be pretty tough to get used to the touchscreen—especially if you’ve been a keyboard-and-mouse user when playing most of your games. In this guide, we’ve prepared some essential tips on how you can master the gameplay and win matches using your phone and LoL account.

Get to Know the Basics

TFT Mobile comes with a handy tutorial when you first boot it up; we highly recommend you do it, even if you’re a seasoned TFT player with a PBE account on PC. That’s because not only does it give you the chance to familiarize yourself with the controls, but you’ll also get a refresher on how champions work in the game.

In Teamfight Tactics, you have a champion shop where you can purchase units. The champion pool in the shop refreshes in each round, but you can also opt to spend gold to refresh it whenever you want. You’ll need to buy new champions with your goal if you want to have a chance of winning a match. Make sure to look at their keywords, too, as placing units with the same keywords together on the board will yield bonuses.

If you buy three of the same champion, it’ll automatically be upgraded to a single two-star unit; this ultimately gives the champion better stats. Should you have enough resources to combine three two-star units, you can get yourself a three-star champion—the most powerful form a unit can achieve in Teamfight Tactics. Champions can also hold items that can shake up the game as well. Note that you can combine items in TFT; dozens of combinations might be overwhelming for a new player, but you’ll get accustomed to it soon enough.

Getting to Know the Items, Champions, and Synergies

If you’ve been playing Teamfight Tactics for years, chances are you know your way around champions and items in the game. But just in case you need a quick refresher, you can tap on a unit on the board to see the summary of their synergies, items, stats, and abilities in TFT Mobile. If you want to know more about the unit’s items or abilities, you can just tap them accordingly to get a full description. Remember that this works across all units on your bench, all friendly and enemy champion units on the board, and champs on your enemy’s bench.

If you’ve noticed the two icons on the top left corner of your phone, you’ll see a hexagon and a chest. This is a toggle between your board’s lineup synergies and the items you have available (on your bench). It’ll show your team’s overall synergies by default, though. You’ll see what it does and which champions have it by tapping any synergy.

Buy, Sell, Roll

At the bottom right corner during a match, you’ll see a money bag that holds the gold you currently have in TFT Mobile. By tapping the bag, you can open up your shop during combat. You can also hide it if you want to see your board between rounds. Then, positioned directly above the bag, you’ll find the Refresh button, the lock, and your roll probabilities.

If you buy a champion, simply tap on their portrait. But if you want to sell the unit, you can pick it up and drag it to the bottom corners (left and right) to exchange it for gold. Note that whenever you sell a unit with items, they’ll return to your unequipped item section, which you can see at the top left.

Getting Into Ranked

If you’re serious about climbing the ranked ladder in TFT Mobile, there are a couple of things that you should take into consideration.

First, remember to get comfortable. Find the optimal setup for your fingers and posture; this will increase your precision. Playing whiled hunched over isn’t exactly an ideal position, after all.

Second, we recommend you play a couple of standard matches first before diving straight into rank just to make navigating the interface second nature to you. Splitting your time into thinking about your in-game decisions and figuring out where things are could easily cost you a match.

Lastly, don’t get jebaited. It’s easy to think that your composition and position are perfect but remember: an early comp won’t stay that way forever. Once you face more and more opponents during the match, you might find yourself getting overtaken in mid and late-game because you only stuck to a single strategy. If you lose a lot of rounds, try to switch up your composition; it’s tempting to save your gold at first, but all that money won’t do you any good if you’re dead.

Tap to Win

Riot did an excellent job designing all of the functions for League account owners that play TFT Mobile. Since you don’t have your usual hotkeys on a keyboard, making new buttons and toggles compatible with smaller screens was an essential task for the company. Just remember the golden rule: if you want more information about something (a champion, skill, or item), just tap on it to know more.