Teamfight Tactics Fates: A look back into the set’s legacy

With the Teamfight Tactics World Championship taking place in a few days, the Set 4’s competitive season as well as its expansion, the Festival of Beasts, is drawing to a close.

Since its arrival, this set brought new mechanics and compositions that gave it an identity of its own, not as notable as the impact of Set 3: Galaxies, but which has allowed this autobattler to establish itself in terms of gameplay and metagame.

Today we will review everything that TFT Fates will leave within the game's legacy, as well as what went well and could improve, to give a worthy farewell before the launch of the Set 5: Reckoning.

A traditional and positive theme

(Picture: Riot Games)

Each set of Teamfight Tactics has brought with it something that distinguishes it, taking as examples Set 3: Galaxies which went a step further with new planetary arenas and even a trip to Odyssey, as well as Set 2 that brought us the Rise of the Elements.

For Fates, there were two approaches given the themes in which they came to the game. The first being a fantasy world where spirits abound in environments charged with a lot of energy, places where they can coexist with beings and animals outside of this existential plane.

However, the biggest explosion would come from the side of its expansion, the Festival of Beasts, where on the occasion of the Lunar New Year we went from that natural approach to one of celebration with fireworks, lanterns, and even themed arenas with traditional music remixes courtesy of DJ Ox.

• Read more: Teamfight Tactics patch 11.6b: Balance changes, and bugfixes

This allows Fates to be one of the Sets with the best sense of identity, since like Galaxies, they have managed to maintain and further expand the League of Legends universe by giving us new locations and content that will be remarked upon within future sets.

The Chosen units

Just as the Rise of the Elements had a great influence from temporary sand buffs, and Galaxies had the acclaimed rotating galaxies, Fates for its part implemented a system that, while successful, has not ceased to be the target of criticism: the Chosen.

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Although the number of champions on the set allowed the metagame to be very flexible and had compositions for any type of play style, the Chosen units were always one of the biggest problems because the compositions often depended on them.

Even when the balance team tried many times to remedy this by modifying spawn rates and statistics, this new mechanic was out of the control of the players, so even though you had everything you needed to win, the lack of a suitable unit and its RNG factor frustrated many games.

Not to mention that with each change made to the Chosen, the metagame did not stop evolving too much, so playing a composition in a stable way for two or more patches was not common, something that has its pros and cons, but in the competitive environment it is more complex.

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"Our goal is not to keep making big system adjustments in the mid-set update, but to design a mechanic that reduces the risk of the need for these changes." - Stephen “Mort” Mortimer, Lead Designer, TFT.

New traits and synergies

Something that also left a positive impact was the arrival of new traits within the game, which made the gameplay in terms of its compositions more diverse than in other sets.

(Picture: Riot Games)

Although this was not the case at first, due to the fact that compositions with Divines, Duelists, and Mages used to abound, as this set progressed, new options with different ways of playing could be noticed, whether you are very patient or want to spend everything hyperolling.

This was even more noticeable with the expansion of the Festival, as by bringing new units into the equation and eliminating some units that always caused some controversy, it made the game more flexible and consistent for all those into TFT.

Some traits may disappear as soon as Set 5 begins along with many of its champions, but the diversity of the metagame as well as the ability to build compositions will certainly remain a part of Fates' legacy.

Items and how to win without them

(Picture: Riot Games)

Unlike the previous point, the flexibility of the items as well as their need within each game for a winning composition did not change at all, which is still a problem.

The goal of balancing these within each patch is to give players more options to build anything, and end up benefiting you as the game progresses regardless of whether your champion is missing one of the three recommended items.

But many times this was not the case, objects like the Rapid Firecannon, the Guardian Angel or the Runnan were always fundamental for certain champions, causing around a third of the items available within the set to go unnoticed.

(Picture: Riot Games)

Fortunately part of this could be fixed thanks to the Lucky Lanterns as well as the special Ornn items, which although these are not the best solution, helped many players to get ahead in their games regardless of the disadvantage.

With the arrival of the new set, champions will have a better chance to counter this even if they don’t have their key items, as well as the new items that will be announced on the new set will be more balanced and will allow for better flexibility in each game.

• Read more: Teamfight Tactics Fates early Patch 11.7 notes: Champion and Traits changes

Teamfight Tactics Fates has been a wonderful set since it brought an evolution to a game that is increasingly acquiring a larger player base, in addition to having one of the best visual sections in terms of themes.

Like everything, Fates could have its ups and downs with the passage of each update, but its mechanics and its way of expanding the possibilities of any player to come out with victory regardless of being almost eliminated, has allowed it to earn a good place within the competitive and its community.

Hopefully this continues now that the new set is coming out, and from what the Riot team has shown so far, they seem to be on the right track. Let the Fates mark your next step, we will see you in the Reckoning.