Teamfight Tactics iOS Review – Making Chess Cool Again

Developers are taking battle royal mechanics and truly making them their own with other titles. One genre to emerge through all of this is auto-chess, which doesn’t sound as fun as it is. Riot Games, released their auto chess variant Teamfight Tactics on mobile devices, becoming one of the better auto chess options for fans of the genre.

Teamfight Tactics initially released on PC in 2019 until it was recently brought to mobile devices with crossplay options. If you’ve played the PC version or any other auto chess game, you can probably already guess what this game is about. Eight players go at it in a free-for-all auto chess battle with various League of Legends champions. Each champion will cost anywhere from one to five gold, with the higher cost pieces being better choices.

During a match, picking duplicates of the same champion will turn them into two or three-star pieces with higher stats. Furthermore, putting together individual champions on the board will activate different bonuses. For example, putting together the two sorcerer characters, Annie and Syndra, will grant additional spell power to all allies on the board. Learning the best combination of bonuses to have on the board, and switching those bonuses out depending on the situation can help you during a match.

One of the more exciting differences about Teamfight Tactics, when compared to other auto chess battlers, is the carousel rounds. Every few rounds, each player will get to waddle their Little Legend character over to a literal carousel of champions who each have different items to boost a piece’s stats further. It can get pretty intense if you and another player can move at the same time, and both head toward the same piece.

This phase adds a unique layer of strategy and an overall chaotic experience that I hadn’t seen in other auto chess games before. You may want that additional Master Yi piece to complete a two-star Master Yi or pick a random piece with an Infinity Edge to boost the attack damage of your current three-star Caitlin. While a lot of this game is heavily based on RNG, just like other auto chess games, the strategic element of having the right units to earn specific bonuses is something you can always control. And if you think you’ve mastered a particular strategy, you can always hop into the beautiful world of ranked matches and climb the infamous Riot Games leaderboard.

As of now, Teamfight Tactics is in its third season. Every season brings new champions, which drastically change the gameplay across the board. Currently, we are in the Galaxies season, which has the current set of champions in their space or cybernetic themed skins from League of Legends. Hopefully, we can see more thematic updates that allow for more skin changes for the champions. I’d personally love to see the KDA and True Damage (a K-pop and rap group) skin lines appear in future updates.

While the game is free, there is a battle pass available with rewards for those who wish to get serious with the game. The pass provides you with a variety of emotes, chessboard visuals, boom visuals (when your Little Legend attacks another after winning a match), and eggs to hatch new Little Legends.

Teamfight Tactics is one of the more substantial auto chess games available. Given that there’s already a familiar player base from the League of Legends community, this title has the community and development backing to evolve with the genre, which shows up prominently in this mobile version. With the addition of crossplay and ranked modes, if you’re going to get into auto chess, this is perhaps the best the genre has to offer.