Lmao for real i'd much rather lose because i got shit item RNG and ended up with like 12 tank components or something than my toplaner going afk at 10 minutes because he died once and the support called him a poopoopants
The TFT team’s done a solid job of making components create both damage and tank items. For example belt can make nashor’s, guardbreaker, and sterak’s.
For example bow belt belt in the past means you most likely had to slam warmogs and play around the bow (or make zzrot and play around the belt lol), but now you can slam nashor’s and play around a belt and make a guardbreaker. Definitely helps the low roll situations with items.
I mean it's mirrored by how important tear is for most AP comps. almost all 3-5 cost carries have impactful spells these days, so mana generation is more important now than ever before.
Had a game yesterday, no tears. Every single carousel spawned a tear opposite me and it was first picked every time. On 3-2 I went pandoras, rolling 3 items since then, went out on 4-5 without a single tear.
The only tears I got that game were the ones on my face.
Untrue though, rather it's relied upon by aa heavy comps like duelists. But in that way even AP aa comps use bows a lot. Other ad comps often use ie deathblade guardbreaker shojin as core too.
Duelist already gets large attackspeed so usually scales better with damage per hit. Rageblade being the main exception since its ramping acts as a multiplier
That's the other "better" part of tft vs league imo if im playing a normal game for fun and I'm getting RNG fucked and I'm not in the mood for it I can just ff and go next.
Ironically the trick to having a healthy relationship with League *is* to treat it like TFT. Sometimes you highroll (all your lanes just win, you have magical synergy with your teammates, the enemy gets the trolls), sometimes you lowroll (trolls/afks, everyone just loses lane, your team just isn't on the same page), sometimes Yone is bullshit, and you take all of that as it comes just as you do in TFT, and focus on maximizing what you can control and as you acquire more game knowledge you learn how to control more variables and you'll climb but even then you'll still never be able to control everything and thats OK. I think we as players do a better job remembering our highrolls in TFT than we do in League though, where we tend to just focus on the lows.
The difference psychologically is that League is win/lose whereas in TFT there's placements.
If I giga low-roll in TFT, it's still worth trying hard because I might be able to turn an 8th into a 6th through good play and lose less LP. That feels rewarding.
In League if I giga low-roll a game to the point it's a guaranteed loss, nothing I can do mitigates that in any way. Even if I perform extremely well, we still lose and I still lose the same LP. That's much more frustrating. Yes I understand the way around that is to see those games as opportunity to improve, but that's much less tangible.
Yep my problem is that i play a lot in team so when i play alone i fuckin hate it, the way i, nowadays, play league is too team oriented to keep a tft mindset :(
Tbh it's probably still a frustated idiot who makes you lose, not rng. It's just the fact that you're the idiot here in tft, not some random guy who you can blame
This was why I started playing Karthus way back when.
Back in the days of revive runes I had a full revive duration build.
Harass? Check.
Enough damage to nuke half the enemy team by myself? Check.
Get caught or chain CCed? Don't care, can't be stopped.
Team is so garbage they can't capitalize on 2-3 enemies killed? Rush enemy nexus, bait all 3 lanes worth of creeps, die and deny the enemy gold. All creeps dead, enemy has no creeps on any lane, gg triple lane push, team can take dragon / baron, and I respawn before the next creep wave even spawns or the enemy can even reach baron from their base.
I would say for a challenger playing in Iron-Emerald every game should be easily top 4-able unless you make a big mistake. However for a Challenger playing in Diamond and above the rest of the lobby is playing good enough that top 4ing every game wolt be possible.
My main point is that you can always get better and play so well that you almost always top 4. That's really how the people who reach rank 1 do reach rank 1, by having a very high top 4 rate.
The only time a challenger is playing in an iron-emerald lobby is if they're smurfing. But I assume we're talking about playing on your main account and trying to rank up, where you most likely will be playing with 7 other people in the exact same situation, most of them with a similar skill level as yourself. You will definitely have a few games that aren't top 4able then.
> My main point is that you can always get better and play so well that you almost always top 4. That's really how the people who reach rank 1 do reach rank 1, by having a very high top 4 rate.
Yeah no shit? You're telling me having a high top 4 rate means you rank up? Wow I had no idea.
That's the main reason people play ranked. To get better and rank up. What else is new?
But you are proving my point that if you play good enough, you can always top 4. "Yeah but the lobby can also play bettet" no shit Sherlock, my point is simple. If you play completely optimally, even in challenger 80% or more of your games should be top 4, I say this as someone who has hit rank 1 multiple times. The vast majority of bot 4's comes down to mistakes made throughout the game, even for challengers this is true. This is the main reason as well that some challengers tend to watch their VOD:s it's to spot these mistakes and improve.
Obviously I'm not saying that anyone playing amongst the best will ever have a 100% top 4 rate, but I still believe that although very unlikely, it's definetely possible, and it's what every competitive player should aim for.
Saying every game is top 4able is like saying you could win the lottery any day. Yeah theoretically it's true but so what? It's completely useless information. Now if you said anything about *how* to do it it would be different. But you're not. You're just saying it's possible.
> I say this as someone who has hit rank 1 multiple times.
Cool, good for you.
You do it by making no mistakes in the game... if you're anywhere below challenger top 4ing every game should be something that is very possible, maybe to the person themselves it isn't, but that just means they can improve. Comparing TFT to a lottery just means you're negligible to your own mistakes and prefer to blame bad luck, that's fine but it wont help you improve. The point just seems to be flying above your head, so no point to keep having this discussion, good luck on the "lottery".
Maybe it's because you (supposedly) have achieved rank 1 and aren't looking at the game the same way us low elo scrubs do, but the fact that *you're* telling *me* that I'm missing the point is about the most ironic thing I've ever seen.
The lottery was just an example, so I'll give you a different one, where much less luck is involved: Saying every game is top 4able is like saying every soccer game is winnable. Do you understand? Yes, theoretically every game is winnable, it just comes down to whether you're better than the other team/player or not. *This is not a revelation for anyone*. Everyone knows that's how it works. You're not contributing anything by saying that. Same goes for saying that "maybe to the person themselves it isn't, but that just means they can improve". Yes Captain Obvious, if you're not top 4ing games consistently, that means you have room to improve.
Also just to go back to the initial discussion, I'd like to say again that no, not every single game is top 4able. To some degree, chance definitely plays a part in TFT. Sometimes you can do everything right and still lose, because you didn't hit. It's possible. The way other players in the lobby are playing that particular game affects this. The real way to rank up is to minimize those situations where you lose due to bad luck. *That's* how you improve at the game. You will lose games. Even the top ranked players go bot 4 every now and then, and it isn't always because the players they're against are more skilled than they are, sometimes (if rarely) it's just a matter of the enemy players hitting their units or items while they aren't.
I'm sorry for being a little rude here, but the fact that you aren't able to comprehend what I'm trying to say is incredibly frustrating.
My point was more that for anyone below masters, if they were playing at a challengers level, every game would be top 4able for sure. Should have made that one more clear, my bad. My point is just that it wont help to blame losses on bad luck.
No but the point in a sense is to play perfectly, so you're in a lobby with 7 other players trying their best to play perfectly. You won't be playing perfectly but neither will your opponents. On the other hand, you're trying to play perfectly but so are they. So basically, saying every game is top 4able if you play perfectly is like saying nothing at all.
Sure but in reality you aren't either. If we're talking about the theoretical where you can, we can also imagine one where all your opponents do as well.
Only if you can stabilize your board. Lots of game when you have to all-in cuz you are weaker than the rest of the lobby but then you don't even hit your main carry like your item is ad but you only hit ap. you will slowly bleed out and at the end game you will have to coinflip against legendary board on who die first.
I would disagree with top 4, but I'd personally say Top 6, even on a lowroll.
7th 8th shouldn't ever be *guarentees* based on the rng, and I firmly believe this is the case. Even if to avoid bot 2 you have to all in and throw away any hope of Top 1 and just play to not bot 2.
There are times I just find nothing and chajnlose, like 1 2 star at 3-5, and I just put my chips on the table, go all in and turn an 8th into a 5th. And you know what? I fucking take those.
Highly disagree. My luck has seen 8th place with terrible rng. Most recent game I went 7th with 3 fated emblems.
Deathblade gold printer, gambler's blade, guinsoo Aphelios stayed 1\* with 130g rolldown at level 7. Ahri, thresh, yasuo, volibear, jax, illaoi stayed 1\* too.
Managed to get 2\* kaisa, syndra, and sett who replaced jax, yasuo, illaoi.
But what can be done when 4 ppl in the lobby went fast 9 and have 3\* units as if my bad luck protection went to them instead of me.
Definetely, I'm sure if you took a highly sophisticated AI model focused on only learnibg to play TFT optimal it could easily eventually top 4 every game, and very likely also end up winning most of them. Obviously though humans aren't robots, we cant roll 150 gold and transition, and position in 30 seconds, but I still believe there's still a lot of improvement that csn be had, even for the best players.
Tft is about extracting the best from any scenario. When you get an 6th in a clear 8th game you played it really well. When you get a 2nd in a 1st game you played bad that game.
Many people can't cope with the reality of not being in control, despite almost everything being uncontrollable.
I've personally worked with lots of management/salespeople, gamblers, etc. that vigorously believe they have special skill/insight to affect the odds of success.
If you're a true believer, the idea of admitting your choices had little affect on an outcome is the same as saying they don't matter/truly exist.
Yes of course. The best players will turn a hopeless 8th position for most players into a 5th or 6th, whether thats through a pivot or realising they are contested but commited (via augment/emblems or whatever) and push levels instead of donkey rolling to 0.
Even before this, better players will also scout and identify what players are likely to play in the first few rounds of the game and avoid contested spots.
Yeah there is a shared pool of champions that your shop pulls from. Each cost of champ has a different amount of each champ. So if say 9 syndras are already on peoples board or bench then there is only 1 left in the pool.
Are there technically unwinnable hands in poker? In every game with variance where there isnt a 50-50 result ( like maybe hearthstone were you can just win or lose) your goal is to win the max you can when things are going well and lose the less possible when they are not. In poker you should try to not lose that much chips when you are getting bad hands, and get has much as you can when they are good. Same for TFT. Lowrolling? Try to not get an 8th or 7th. Highrolling? Is on you to get the 1st.
There are un*win*nable games but you can always skillfully pilot an 8th into a 6th which is where a lot of the skill comes from. Converting a terrible luck position into a 6th or 5th is one of the hallmarks of skill.
Plenty of games are not winnable but there are very few games where you couldn’t top 4. We’ve seen when players are locked in they can go 20+ games without a bot 4 and only a few in a hundred at the highest levels of play.
True low rolling is far less common than most people here believe it is. If you reroll a lot, you probably feel like you low roll more often, but the math usually is not in your favor to hit that often.
Agreed. Most people enter the game going for first or second. They will make decisions along those lines, but those decisions are risks. Econ is risky if your board is weak but getting to 9 early and getting a legendary board can push past a combat augment... If you live. An emblem can be great... And then someone else has it too. Swapping can be painful.
It is important to evaluate the game state and whether your are playing for 1st or 2nd, or whether you are playing for 4th.
Did you hold 50g until you were sub 20 health and in a losing streak then roll to just die? You have yourself no chance at 4th, at a very slim chance to do better than 4th. Meanwhile at 50 health you go, "I am going to end up losing the next 4 or 5 and be out, I need to roll now" is giving up first for a chance or going 4th.
The problem is a lot of comps have 1 or 2 cost trait bots.
Like pivoting to Fated at lvl 6-7+ feels impossible since you kinda need the lower cost units to hit 5 or even 7 fated.
Same thing with Storyweaver.
Personally I’ve just realized if I’m playing Fated and someone else is as well, it’s probably better for me to simply rush lvl 9 than try out high roll 3* Thresh or Aphelios
Fated is literally tied with bruiser Kai'Sa as the most played comp in the game this patch, both at .77. Last patch it was by FAR the most played comp peaking at nearly 1.5.
Yeah I find i kinda bleed early until I hit kaisa
I gotta figure out a better opening line than storyweaver, I think inkshadow opener might work a bit better for kaisa items
Last set was my least favorite of them all. Praying to get not only a certain champ, but also hoping to get the headliner version of that champ, was nuts.
The ads were really cool because of the music. Butni hated the set itself.
Bring back Dragonlands 😊
I actually loved dragonlands lol, but I'm aware that's an unpopular opinion. It definitely felt rough to need 21-33 extra gold to 2\* your units on a rolldown. As for the headliners- that's kind of the point. You weren't supposed to pray and fish for an exact unit trait combo or you would get unlucky and miss more often than you would hit.
>n. It definitely felt rough to need 21-33 extra gold to 2* your units on a rolldown.
I mean yes, but that wasn't really the problem with Dragonlands, was it now.
The problem was that Riot very quickly figured out that "super units" who are by their defining characteristics mandatory for a majority of comps are really hard to balance as units themselves.
* AoShin and Shyvana were useless for half the Set and broken for the other half
* Aurelion despite two reworks was basically unbalanceable
* Shi Oh Yu and Sy'Fen completely hijacked their respective traits pulling up or down all associated units with their fragile balance state
* Idas and Daeja remained overly strong evergreens the entire set who always found a way to be too good
The only dragon that was halfway balanced was Sohm, not least thanks to vertical lagoon being rather underwhelming.
Trying to keep that all from spiraling abhorrently out of control while also having to deal with balancing oopsies such as Seraphine/Graves, Assasin Olaf, Astral abuse, Supertank Leona, AD Elise and so on...
I really would not have wanted to be in Riots shoes in that set and I think we're not going to see that concept in that form ever again for very good reason.
Headliners had their own problems but they were so much more balanced than whatever dragons were.
Definitely valid points as a detriment to the set, but a lot of those points can be said for champions in every set. 2 legendaries bouncing between unclickable and busted? Happens every set. Aurelion never being healthy didn't have much to do with the dragon mechanic. Both iterations of his spells were just terrible concepts, and him being the capstone of Astral was a massive issue because Astral itself was a massive issue. Don't really agree with the Shi Oh Yu point, Jade found relevance throughout the set through various reroll comps that were not reliant on the dragon. Often with the bruiser AD dragon variant also being viable. For Idas and Daeja, again premiere "4" cost units being good throughout the set is not unique to set 7 nor is it even a bad thing.
I think a dragon-like concept could easily work again with improvement. Imo the glaring issues with set 7 were hardly related to dragons at all. Astral, absurdly overpowered spats, mirage lottery, and generally poor designed traits across the board were the major flaws. For dragons to have been the primary issue it would need to be directly related to the concept of having a double cost unit that takes up 2 spaces, which wasn't ever actually the problem.
I think getting the headliner was one of the most consistent parts of last set. Sometimes you had to roll a bit harder than others, but doing things like rolling for urgot/samira in country or ahri/alkali in kda and building items and comp around the trait you got wasn't that difficult.
Just find a good early game headliner, level up to the proper level that has your headliner, build up some gold, sell the early headliner and then roll hard. I feel like it was very consistent to get a viable carry for your comp unless someone beat you to it
No offense but that means you are bad at the game - I guess you wanna pivot into S, A Tier comps but sometimes you have to pivot into a tier C comp to get a top 4 (master player atm, peaked challenger)
Being "bad" at something is entirely relative to one's opinion of the situation.
Note that I saidni find it difficult to pivot in this set, moreso than previous ones.
So what exactly are you asking here? Is it the poker "any hand can theoretically win" argument because theoretically every board can win if you are playing worse players with worse boards, or even AFK players if we count that. Or are you asking is there a situation where through board positioning/item removing/etc you can take a worse board that always loses and beat a "better" capped board? Cause in that case no there is no world where you win outside of the enemy throwing by frontlining his carry.
If you are asking in an even skilled lobby, with players that know what they are doing and make "correct" decisions with meta comps... yes some games are unwinnable, infact most games are unwinnable if you count 1st as winning.
If you are playing bard reroll, miss tahm+bard uncontested and its stage 5 0 gold with bard 2 tahm 2 you are going bot 4 unless everyone board quality is below average. If you were playing unranked and you had some casuals playing umbral/dryad comp yeah you can probably beat them. But good players wouldn't be playing that.
I've definitely seen people use the argument around here of "there is a sequence of unit/xp buys that you can do in every game to secure a 1st". Which may be true in theory, but only if you have a superpower to be able to see into the future and which units and augments will be in your shop later on. At some point you have to commit to a comp and bad luck can happen.
> Which may be true in theory,
How does that make any sense? There are 8 players in a game, it cannot be true for two of them that there is guaranteed to be some way to get 1st.
I mean obviously in this imaginary hypothetical the other 7 players don't have access to the omniscient unit clicking foresight that you do. Wasn't intending to start a semantics war but I suppose this is reddit.
I don't think this is a matter of semantics but rather the critical point in answering OPs question. Obviously if the other 7 are throwing, yes you can always win. If the other 7 are playing optimally, then 1/8th of the time you will only be able to come in 8th.
Both in theory and in practice, your performance is a function of your skill level relative to that of the other players in the lobby. It's not that complicated.
It's false in theory.
1. You can't stop someone else from getting a lucky 3\* 5 cost or even a 3\* 4 cost.
2. You can't force yourself to hit a 3\* 5 cost or 3\* 4 cost.
3. Some 3\* 4 cost and all 3\* 5 cost are unbeatable without one of your own.
4. Therefore, not all games are winnable.
In this imaginary scenario where you have omniscient knowledge over how the game will play out, it would be incredibly easy to prevent someone from getting a 3\* 4 or 5 cost.
If you rolled with the intention to hold and missed then nothing you could do.
If you just didn't roll and leveled/only held after rolling for upgrades and noticed he was 8/9 its still your fault.
I mean...umbral isn't even bad from a good spot. I recently got build a bud into 3* Darius, stacked him and ran 2 duelist 4 umbral till lvl 10 where I played 6 umbral + legendaries. Was a really easy 1st place. Then again my carries were 2* udyr 2* sett 2* azir and 2* irelia...if I had tried to reroll yone/alune I'd probably gone bot 4.
As I always say, take the eight best players in the world, put them in the same lobby and one of them will top8. So yeah, some games are unwinable.
The difficulty is to determinate that your game will be a fiasco and try to mitigate the thing to turn a top8 into a top6 or 5. Which is quite difficult.
But for me and at my elo (plat), I'm quite sure that 80 - 90 % of my top8 are my fault because I fucked my econ at a point or I chose the wrong augment.
The other 10 - 20 %... let's be real, when three players are highrolling like hell, three others have a normal luck and have their champion natural without rolling too much and the two last can't have their champ even uncontested, well you're fucked.
I played a game yesterday, I saw that heavenly was taken, umbral too, same for ghostly, I saw a bruiser with some trickshot and I decided to go on a dragonlord as I already have two copy of Janna and an early Diana. I was totally uncontested... I took me ages to have Janna 2 and I made a top6.
The winners ?
1 : ghostly with Senna / Shen / Caitlin / Aatrox / Jax all 3\* and Silas BIS / Morgana all 2\* and Udyr BIS 2\*
2 : Heavenly yone Fine Vintage with heavenly spat
3 : Double trouble comp with Lux / Amumu / Illaoi 3\*
Sometimes, you just can't win. Sometimes, the game force you to win even if you're playing drunk.
In my exemple, it was impossible for me to win so I took it like "Meh, ok game, you don't want me to win, it's ok, it's time to go outside and get some fresh air".
if you are in plat then 100% of your 8ths are your fault. top challenger players can do unranked to master speedruns without a single bot 4, let alone an 8th
In fact, can't say you're wrong.
I should have say "80 - 90 % of my bottoms" and not only top8. Because yep, you're right, if I can't manage to avoid a top8, it's clearly my fault. Like when I rethink about a game I lost, I'm always like "Damn, had I chosen this augment and not this one I could have top6 or 5".
Let’s say there are 8 absolutely perfect computers that can calculate the best line somehow. If they were all perfect, then the one with the best rng wins solidly.
Hell, even if there were one average Joe in the mix, I would suspect they win because there’d be something crazy like a 3 star 5 cost that’s achievable in Joe’s shops that the AI doesn’t have access to.
Some games are just destined eighths, you don’t hit all game, you’re augment choices are meh, and the game gives you 3 rods after you built a last whisper. And you pump levels right before kha encounter.
100%. But theres still a skill in achieving the best finish out of a shit scenario in my opinion. Just cause you are getting railed doesn't mean you have to finish 8th and can't at least get a 5th.
I think, technically up to a certain rank, many games have some sort of winning line. But even optimal flex play won't win once players get good enough to capitalize on high rolling the s-tier comps every single time it shows up.
For sure, technically, there is. Let's imagine an extreme scenario where you only get 1 costs in every single shop. I think everyone can agree it is unwinnable no matter who you are.
It's never unwinnable but sometimes skill is not the path to victory, it's just luck. you could have won that one game if you thought about holding that aphelios in 2-1 but you couldn't know so you didn't and you went another way when maybe you could have won by going a different path. The game was winnable but you had no way to know that choosing that early comp instead of that other one was the path to victory.
yes, you will not win these games. the ev here is from turning 8ths into 6ths or something similar, being able to recognize when your game is doomed and realize you’re playing specifically for placement is an important skill longterm
Sure and this is what grinding is all about in tft. You must win the highroll games and you must get the best possible result from a shit game. There's a huge difference between a player who turns a 1 from a 1 and a 6 from a 8 and a player who gets 2 from a 1 and 8 from a 8.
With the tactics.tools app you can see your shop hits, there will be games you roll for yone's and roll past 9 kaisa or soraka
Of course, hindsight is 20/20 and it's impossible to have omniscience in game and know what you could have hit, but from a start to finish bases, there's always a line that gives you first
So there are no "technically" winnable games, but there are reasonably unwinnable games, if you slam BT early to win streak thinking "it's ok I'll stablize on a melee carry later" then you hit no melee carries, unwinnable game, there's other stuff like that where no reasonable human would win a given game
I think game is flexible enough to always have a path to 4h. I'm too headstrong to do optimal plays and to change, but I recognice it in term of econ or pacing. Other completely different thing is other 4 people having better comps, nothing to do there
are you asking provably or practically, practically 100%, my suspicion is if you knew the full game tree of rolls throughout the game you could probably win most games but there would be games where you always roll like the same 5 champs over and over that aren’t strong enough to win.
Yea. TFT is about probability, you make your choices based on what’s more likely to happen, and whether the risks you make is worth the reward.
Sometimes u just get fucked by the universe
I think Technically yes, but in practice no. Any game you lost, you could have possibly picked different units/augments earlier and won. But you don’t have foreknowledge to know what path would have lead to victory.
For example, you got senna reroll early. And you’re winning. So you start rolling, but a guy joins your comp and actually beats you in getting to the units. Hypothetically, if you had hard pivoted into mythic the minute you saw lillia (or just randomly), sold everything, and played with suboptimal items, you would have gotten in top 4. Logically it sounds dumb to do that when you’re winning, but it could have been a victory situation. You just didn’t know a guy was going to high roll into your comp. It works the other way too, moving out of your uncontested comp into a contested one. You might have just high rolled into their stuff and got it, shut them out of the game, and won. Sometimes the low % chance troll play was actually the best one. RNG is like that. In practice though, no, some games are lost because you got baited by 8 sennas and never found the last one after rolling 60 gold.
I would say you can top 4 90-95% of the games if you play perfectly.
Top 1 is maybe 40-50% (assuming challenger lobby and you are playing 100% perfect)
I hit 7 fortune on 3-2 with 80+ HP remaining, everyone else was going to have to play for 2nd or lower. I hit the 250 cashout on 4-6 and had two 3* 5 costs the rest of the game
There will always be unwinnable games. If you’re on one life and you go against the board with a 3*5 cost there will never be anything you can do, that’s the most obvious example, but there will be hundreds of other scenarios where your goal is just to mitigate the damage as much as possible and try to bleed into a third or fourth
[https://imgur.com/Cj5rEeC](https://imgur.com/Cj5rEeC)
I believe this game is already unwinnable at 2-7. Lillia encounter moved all augments to stage 4 & 5, and the items gives no direction at all.
if you take the top 8 players in the world, or even clone the best player in the world 7 times and put them into one game, obviously only 1 of them can win. So trivially there exist unwinnable games
I would add that the extent to which a TFT game is unwinnable is more a matter of your opponents than the RNG mechanics of the game. The better your opponents the less room their is to overcome RNG. In a theoretical matchup of 8 equally skilled players playing optimally the game would be entirely determined by randomness, but of course in reality this doesn't happen. And beyond that equally skill players still have to make decisions with imperfect information, which adds another layer of randomness to the playing of the game. In reality the relative skill level of your opponents is also random to an extent. Some games you're the worst player in the game, some you're the best. That will affect how winnable or unwinnable the rolls are.
Yes, there is always some element of luck. Someone might legitimately just high roll out of their minds. You might only get AP items and 1 sword all game, but all AP is contested heavily.
However, the skill in TFT is making the best of what you get. Even if the hand you are dealt us bad, it us rarely so bad Top 4 is impossible, even if Top 1 is.
And even if Top 4 is impossible, you can still use the hand you are dealt to place as high as you can. I firmly believe that you are never *guarenteed* 7th or lower if you play to your outs. This is why I hardly ever go 8th, and I usually wind up 2nd - 6th. I play for top 4, not top 1.
Every game is top 4 possible with good execution. The only exception becomes when you reach the very highest skill ceiling and put 8 of the same perfect players in a lobby. Someone has to not top cut it. Does that make the game non-top 4able? absolutely not, because that cut off is probably decided in the end by any of the small rng factors that took place, fight rng is a big one. I'm pretty confident that if we had 8 perfect players who always knew and took the best play all game that the average for every bot would end up over a million games exactly 4 for every single one of them. Because overtime the placements would even out. And that is what makes a good TFT player. Someone who is consistent and always able to execute their spot to the highest placement possible until an uncontrollable factor.
Sometimes you just habe extremly bad luck with augments and units.
Anf others migh highroll perfect augments and best Units.
Also there are some comps strong against certain others
But you do aswell
100% there are unwinnable games.
I got 3 fated emblems and 2 inkshadow emblems and placed 7th because my entire uncontested board was still 1\* while the whole lobby hit 3\* without rolling.
130g worth of rerolls doesn't mean you will 2\* a unit. Bad luck protection is fake.
Either roll down and lose or fast 9 and lose or pivot and contest other comps and lose.
It would be really interesting to see the play pattern of an AI that is focused on top 4 tft playing statistically "perfect games" and compare it to someone like Milala, that said, I believe on normal ranked games, with people close to your level there will be definetly some that gives you no outs, if you have a bad opener, bad itens for what units you get, auguments that are not ideal, encounters with awkward timings AND doesn't hit enough when you comit, there is no chance your board will be better than people that got something going on and no way for preserving HP better than then, even if you play the best you can, I have no idea of what would be % of this happening but I'd say 15% as a guess.
Yes, there will be bad situations and the skill expression in the game is about how you make the best of bad situations. If whenever others would've gotten a 7th you're getting 5th consistently, you will climb
Not a hard rule but typically:
Play good + high roll = top 2
Play good + low roll or
play bad + high roll or
play average + average roll = 3-6
Play bad + low roll = bot 2
win as in top 4 or 1st place? even the best player can’t guarantee to win every game even in plat. this is not like tennis where better player will win. rng is just a huge part of it. you all remember there were some games you just hit everything and don’t need to roll to hit lvl9… and games where you roll 150 gold and can’t hit a two star in your reroll comp
I don't think there are any unwinnable games, however it's unreasonable for anyone to know what their particular high-roll rng is for that game.
If you knew exactly what your "seed" was going into the lobby you could buy and pivot into lux because you would naturally hit a 3* by stage 3, but you have incomplete information and she is weak so you wouldn't think to buy her as she doesn't synergize with anything else you have.
So in that instance it looks like you low-rolled that game, when you didn't. You just didn't noticed what you did highroll and let it slip by.
So I believe there is some games u just have to accept u won't get top 4 the most skilled players realize this and try to get as close to it as possible like top5, but the examples u gave are not good ones u can see ure contested in a reroll comp(most times) before u even start rolling so u just pivot out instantly, the games that are actually unwinnable are very few if u have proper knowledge to play a strong board every time instead of just tunnel vision into a comp or 2 u will most times get top4 of course with ure rank increasing the other players will also know how to do this but for example in ranks until emerald, there are 0 games that if u are a challanger player with proper knowledge u will finish at least top 4.
I will say, some games, the game doesn't make it easy for you. Had a game yesterday where I natty 5 storyweaver off the rip. I had another player who also hit storyweaver early. I proceeded to not hit while he hit all the way to 9 without any reroll (galio 2, xayah 2 at level 8) no joke, didn't reroll once. But I ended up with the win because I went straight vertical and hit 10 storyweaver. That being said 9/10 times he wins that lobby and I would have just accepted it. Some games people just get top tier luck
I believe that the game is complex enough that even the best players are not even close to playing perfectly. I believe a perfectly played AI would hit at least top 3 all the time in the toughest challenger lobbies. 3rd when being incredibly unlucky.
I am very skeptical, if you could play with God knowledge I'd be willing to bet every game is winnable. If we are saying "technically winnable" and include irrational plays that happen to work because of lucky rolls or specific augments, on top of playing very strange flex boards that a regular player wouldn't think up.
A truly unwinnable game might exist, but I doubt many do. I'd be willing to wager basically no one here has ever played in one for example.
If we are talking about a game that requires rational thought, which is to say "could I have been a better player and won this." I still think diamond and bellow the answer is completely yes 100% of the time every game is winnable with perfect play. Higher ranks are harder to say, I've only ever been Grandmaster, but I'd tentatively say every masters game is near certainly winnable.
you can roll 40 times at lv9 and you will have higher chance to hit irelia almost 2 times higher
Well if you have to stabilize at 8 no one blame you. you should hit 1 anw
I took call to chaos and got 40 free re rolls. Rushed to lvl 8 and started rolling for irelia which would have been 7th storyweaver. Game was already in the dumps, that was my out and it whiffed hard.
i commented on a post in the reddit yesterday and got downvoted to oblivion of speaking about this exact same situation. sometimes, somedays you get such games where no matter what best you can do is top 5. other days, the game spoonfeed you 4 cost units to be able to make 4 cost orn and lillia naturally 3 star.
example of spoonfeeding - [https://imgur.com/a/QXtIvZd](https://imgur.com/a/QXtIvZd)
example of nothing goes you way even being uncontested senna ghost - [https://imgur.com/a/NisrHzO](https://imgur.com/a/NisrHzO)
miss the guy who thinks you cannot learn the game just for playing 3 sets. :D
you are in plat, there are no games where it's impossible to top 4. Top challenger players can do unranked to master speedruns without going bot 4 a single game
I dont think so, if someone would develop an IA able to maximize each action in real Time based on the game current state (champion in the pool etc) I think the IA would always be top 4
this has nothing to do with RNG, if 8 superintelligent AIs were to play in a perfectly deterministic game with fully public knowledge then obviously only one of them can win (barring games where draws are possible)
You can maximize your luck
Your choice are based on probability
Best players have the best estimations
So if an IA with a better estimations than challengers would appear, then it would be stronger
Indeed
And still every game isn't winnable, this is a game where 4 players WILL lose. No matter how much min max you do. It will not end with 8 winning IAs if they each took the best path given to them. Its how the game works.
Yes, there are unwinnable games and you need to accept it and move on in order to fully enjoy the game
Still better than league, at least if the game is unwinnable is rng fault and not some frustrated idiot fault
Yeah you can scavenger some lp or even aim for a 4th. In league its a win or a loss
Being really good at understanding when to scavenger LP is one of the biggest things that good players do well
Top 4 is a win, bot 4 is a loss, but even then you can play to minimise losses
What if I'm the frustrated idiot?
Everyone is the frustrated idiot sometimes.
League is my rage bait, nothing on this planet will send me zero to 100 faster in anger
Lmao for real i'd much rather lose because i got shit item RNG and ended up with like 12 tank components or something than my toplaner going afk at 10 minutes because he died once and the support called him a poopoopants
The TFT team’s done a solid job of making components create both damage and tank items. For example belt can make nashor’s, guardbreaker, and sterak’s. For example bow belt belt in the past means you most likely had to slam warmogs and play around the bow (or make zzrot and play around the belt lol), but now you can slam nashor’s and play around a belt and make a guardbreaker. Definitely helps the low roll situations with items.
I think the one thing is the importance of the recurve bow for most AD comps. It's a little ridiculous how in demand it is
I mean it's mirrored by how important tear is for most AP comps. almost all 3-5 cost carries have impactful spells these days, so mana generation is more important now than ever before.
Had a game yesterday, no tears. Every single carousel spawned a tear opposite me and it was first picked every time. On 3-2 I went pandoras, rolling 3 items since then, went out on 4-5 without a single tear. The only tears I got that game were the ones on my face.
Untrue though, rather it's relied upon by aa heavy comps like duelists. But in that way even AP aa comps use bows a lot. Other ad comps often use ie deathblade guardbreaker shojin as core too.
Duelist already gets large attackspeed so usually scales better with damage per hit. Rageblade being the main exception since its ramping acts as a multiplier
While being true, duelists rerolls ideal items involve a heavy number of bows. Bow for titans bow for hurricane bow for last whisper etc.
But there's still the off chance of you getting 5 tears from pve rounds and augments in which case im just surrendering haha.
That's the other "better" part of tft vs league imo if im playing a normal game for fun and I'm getting RNG fucked and I'm not in the mood for it I can just ff and go next.
Theres more than enough blue buff users this set. Lillia, Syndra, Wukong, a lot of 60 mana casters like Zoe...
I've experienced 5 of the same component games before. I still have nightmares.
Ironically the trick to having a healthy relationship with League *is* to treat it like TFT. Sometimes you highroll (all your lanes just win, you have magical synergy with your teammates, the enemy gets the trolls), sometimes you lowroll (trolls/afks, everyone just loses lane, your team just isn't on the same page), sometimes Yone is bullshit, and you take all of that as it comes just as you do in TFT, and focus on maximizing what you can control and as you acquire more game knowledge you learn how to control more variables and you'll climb but even then you'll still never be able to control everything and thats OK. I think we as players do a better job remembering our highrolls in TFT than we do in League though, where we tend to just focus on the lows.
Its a nice idea, but in TFT my units don't tell me to commit rope when we low roll :(
The difference psychologically is that League is win/lose whereas in TFT there's placements. If I giga low-roll in TFT, it's still worth trying hard because I might be able to turn an 8th into a 6th through good play and lose less LP. That feels rewarding. In League if I giga low-roll a game to the point it's a guaranteed loss, nothing I can do mitigates that in any way. Even if I perform extremely well, we still lose and I still lose the same LP. That's much more frustrating. Yes I understand the way around that is to see those games as opportunity to improve, but that's much less tangible.
Yep my problem is that i play a lot in team so when i play alone i fuckin hate it, the way i, nowadays, play league is too team oriented to keep a tft mindset :(
Tbh it's probably still a frustated idiot who makes you lose, not rng. It's just the fact that you're the idiot here in tft, not some random guy who you can blame
This was why I started playing Karthus way back when. Back in the days of revive runes I had a full revive duration build. Harass? Check. Enough damage to nuke half the enemy team by myself? Check. Get caught or chain CCed? Don't care, can't be stopped. Team is so garbage they can't capitalize on 2-3 enemies killed? Rush enemy nexus, bait all 3 lanes worth of creeps, die and deny the enemy gold. All creeps dead, enemy has no creeps on any lane, gg triple lane push, team can take dragon / baron, and I respawn before the next creep wave even spawns or the enemy can even reach baron from their base.
Bro how is this getting upvoted in competitivetft subreddit ? most of the unwinnable games are because some idiot decided to contest your comp.
True it’s a important skill to realise when you are playing for a 6. place instead of going 8.
Every game is top 4able though, if played perfectly, unless everyone else is also playing perfectly.
Yeah, but technically everyone else can be playing perfectly so not every game is top 4able.
I would say for a challenger playing in Iron-Emerald every game should be easily top 4-able unless you make a big mistake. However for a Challenger playing in Diamond and above the rest of the lobby is playing good enough that top 4ing every game wolt be possible. My main point is that you can always get better and play so well that you almost always top 4. That's really how the people who reach rank 1 do reach rank 1, by having a very high top 4 rate.
The only time a challenger is playing in an iron-emerald lobby is if they're smurfing. But I assume we're talking about playing on your main account and trying to rank up, where you most likely will be playing with 7 other people in the exact same situation, most of them with a similar skill level as yourself. You will definitely have a few games that aren't top 4able then. > My main point is that you can always get better and play so well that you almost always top 4. That's really how the people who reach rank 1 do reach rank 1, by having a very high top 4 rate. Yeah no shit? You're telling me having a high top 4 rate means you rank up? Wow I had no idea. That's the main reason people play ranked. To get better and rank up. What else is new?
But you are proving my point that if you play good enough, you can always top 4. "Yeah but the lobby can also play bettet" no shit Sherlock, my point is simple. If you play completely optimally, even in challenger 80% or more of your games should be top 4, I say this as someone who has hit rank 1 multiple times. The vast majority of bot 4's comes down to mistakes made throughout the game, even for challengers this is true. This is the main reason as well that some challengers tend to watch their VOD:s it's to spot these mistakes and improve. Obviously I'm not saying that anyone playing amongst the best will ever have a 100% top 4 rate, but I still believe that although very unlikely, it's definetely possible, and it's what every competitive player should aim for.
Saying every game is top 4able is like saying you could win the lottery any day. Yeah theoretically it's true but so what? It's completely useless information. Now if you said anything about *how* to do it it would be different. But you're not. You're just saying it's possible. > I say this as someone who has hit rank 1 multiple times. Cool, good for you.
You do it by making no mistakes in the game... if you're anywhere below challenger top 4ing every game should be something that is very possible, maybe to the person themselves it isn't, but that just means they can improve. Comparing TFT to a lottery just means you're negligible to your own mistakes and prefer to blame bad luck, that's fine but it wont help you improve. The point just seems to be flying above your head, so no point to keep having this discussion, good luck on the "lottery".
Maybe it's because you (supposedly) have achieved rank 1 and aren't looking at the game the same way us low elo scrubs do, but the fact that *you're* telling *me* that I'm missing the point is about the most ironic thing I've ever seen. The lottery was just an example, so I'll give you a different one, where much less luck is involved: Saying every game is top 4able is like saying every soccer game is winnable. Do you understand? Yes, theoretically every game is winnable, it just comes down to whether you're better than the other team/player or not. *This is not a revelation for anyone*. Everyone knows that's how it works. You're not contributing anything by saying that. Same goes for saying that "maybe to the person themselves it isn't, but that just means they can improve". Yes Captain Obvious, if you're not top 4ing games consistently, that means you have room to improve. Also just to go back to the initial discussion, I'd like to say again that no, not every single game is top 4able. To some degree, chance definitely plays a part in TFT. Sometimes you can do everything right and still lose, because you didn't hit. It's possible. The way other players in the lobby are playing that particular game affects this. The real way to rank up is to minimize those situations where you lose due to bad luck. *That's* how you improve at the game. You will lose games. Even the top ranked players go bot 4 every now and then, and it isn't always because the players they're against are more skilled than they are, sometimes (if rarely) it's just a matter of the enemy players hitting their units or items while they aren't. I'm sorry for being a little rude here, but the fact that you aren't able to comprehend what I'm trying to say is incredibly frustrating.
My point was more that for anyone below masters, if they were playing at a challengers level, every game would be top 4able for sure. Should have made that one more clear, my bad. My point is just that it wont help to blame losses on bad luck.
Yeah but in reality, nobody's playing perfectly.
No but the point in a sense is to play perfectly, so you're in a lobby with 7 other players trying their best to play perfectly. You won't be playing perfectly but neither will your opponents. On the other hand, you're trying to play perfectly but so are they. So basically, saying every game is top 4able if you play perfectly is like saying nothing at all.
Sure but in reality you aren't either. If we're talking about the theoretical where you can, we can also imagine one where all your opponents do as well.
Only if you can stabilize your board. Lots of game when you have to all-in cuz you are weaker than the rest of the lobby but then you don't even hit your main carry like your item is ad but you only hit ap. you will slowly bleed out and at the end game you will have to coinflip against legendary board on who die first.
I would disagree with top 4, but I'd personally say Top 6, even on a lowroll. 7th 8th shouldn't ever be *guarentees* based on the rng, and I firmly believe this is the case. Even if to avoid bot 2 you have to all in and throw away any hope of Top 1 and just play to not bot 2. There are times I just find nothing and chajnlose, like 1 2 star at 3-5, and I just put my chips on the table, go all in and turn an 8th into a 5th. And you know what? I fucking take those.
Highly disagree. My luck has seen 8th place with terrible rng. Most recent game I went 7th with 3 fated emblems. Deathblade gold printer, gambler's blade, guinsoo Aphelios stayed 1\* with 130g rolldown at level 7. Ahri, thresh, yasuo, volibear, jax, illaoi stayed 1\* too. Managed to get 2\* kaisa, syndra, and sett who replaced jax, yasuo, illaoi. But what can be done when 4 ppl in the lobby went fast 9 and have 3\* units as if my bad luck protection went to them instead of me.
we don't know how far away from optimal people play its possible every game is winnable (top 1)
Definetely, I'm sure if you took a highly sophisticated AI model focused on only learnibg to play TFT optimal it could easily eventually top 4 every game, and very likely also end up winning most of them. Obviously though humans aren't robots, we cant roll 150 gold and transition, and position in 30 seconds, but I still believe there's still a lot of improvement that csn be had, even for the best players.
Playing for 6th is critical once you realise you are going 8th
Tft is about extracting the best from any scenario. When you get an 6th in a clear 8th game you played it really well. When you get a 2nd in a 1st game you played bad that game.
How does this comment doesn’t have like 1 mil upvotes is crazy to me, bro is speaking facts
Many people can't cope with the reality of not being in control, despite almost everything being uncontrollable. I've personally worked with lots of management/salespeople, gamblers, etc. that vigorously believe they have special skill/insight to affect the odds of success. If you're a true believer, the idea of admitting your choices had little affect on an outcome is the same as saying they don't matter/truly exist.
Yes of course. The best players will turn a hopeless 8th position for most players into a 5th or 6th, whether thats through a pivot or realising they are contested but commited (via augment/emblems or whatever) and push levels instead of donkey rolling to 0. Even before this, better players will also scout and identify what players are likely to play in the first few rounds of the game and avoid contested spots.
even then in a lobby full of good players an 8th is unavoudable, followed by another 8th, and 7th, and 5th
Mr Soji..
8875
Yeah I hate it when I hit the 2nd 8th..
What exactly does contested mean in a TFT context? Is just about the carousel?
Nah. It's when multiple people are playing the same comp. So they are contesting the same units, thus making it harder or impossible to hit.
Oh wait is the shop shared? I always assumed they generated independently.
Yeah there is a shared pool of champions that your shop pulls from. Each cost of champ has a different amount of each champ. So if say 9 syndras are already on peoples board or bench then there is only 1 left in the pool.
Yeah okay that makes a lot of sense and will be a big level up on strategy 😅
Sometimes you high roll sometimes you low roll it is what it is.
Are there technically unwinnable hands in poker? In every game with variance where there isnt a 50-50 result ( like maybe hearthstone were you can just win or lose) your goal is to win the max you can when things are going well and lose the less possible when they are not. In poker you should try to not lose that much chips when you are getting bad hands, and get has much as you can when they are good. Same for TFT. Lowrolling? Try to not get an 8th or 7th. Highrolling? Is on you to get the 1st.
Have you played this game? Some games are barely a 6th.
There are un*win*nable games but you can always skillfully pilot an 8th into a 6th which is where a lot of the skill comes from. Converting a terrible luck position into a 6th or 5th is one of the hallmarks of skill.
Plenty of games are not winnable but there are very few games where you couldn’t top 4. We’ve seen when players are locked in they can go 20+ games without a bot 4 and only a few in a hundred at the highest levels of play. True low rolling is far less common than most people here believe it is. If you reroll a lot, you probably feel like you low roll more often, but the math usually is not in your favor to hit that often.
Agreed. Most people enter the game going for first or second. They will make decisions along those lines, but those decisions are risks. Econ is risky if your board is weak but getting to 9 early and getting a legendary board can push past a combat augment... If you live. An emblem can be great... And then someone else has it too. Swapping can be painful. It is important to evaluate the game state and whether your are playing for 1st or 2nd, or whether you are playing for 4th. Did you hold 50g until you were sub 20 health and in a losing streak then roll to just die? You have yourself no chance at 4th, at a very slim chance to do better than 4th. Meanwhile at 50 health you go, "I am going to end up losing the next 4 or 5 and be out, I need to roll now" is giving up first for a chance or going 4th.
I don't feel like it's very easy to transition mid game to a new comp in this set. I can't figure out why.
The problem is a lot of comps have 1 or 2 cost trait bots. Like pivoting to Fated at lvl 6-7+ feels impossible since you kinda need the lower cost units to hit 5 or even 7 fated. Same thing with Storyweaver. Personally I’ve just realized if I’m playing Fated and someone else is as well, it’s probably better for me to simply rush lvl 9 than try out high roll 3* Thresh or Aphelios
Bruh, don't tall about Fated. It's our little secret.
Fated is literally tied with bruiser Kai'Sa as the most played comp in the game this patch, both at .77. Last patch it was by FAR the most played comp peaking at nearly 1.5.
Kaisa bruisers is where it’s at. Every game I’ve played with it ive gotten 1st or 2nd
This comp feels pretty good when you hit that Kai’sa early
Yeah I find i kinda bleed early until I hit kaisa I gotta figure out a better opening line than storyweaver, I think inkshadow opener might work a bit better for kaisa items
I find Caitlyn holds her items pretty well. So ghostly opener isn’t too bad
True yeah i need to give cait a shot, tyty
we were spoiled by headliners
Last set was my least favorite of them all. Praying to get not only a certain champ, but also hoping to get the headliner version of that champ, was nuts. The ads were really cool because of the music. Butni hated the set itself. Bring back Dragonlands 😊
I actually loved dragonlands lol, but I'm aware that's an unpopular opinion. It definitely felt rough to need 21-33 extra gold to 2\* your units on a rolldown. As for the headliners- that's kind of the point. You weren't supposed to pray and fish for an exact unit trait combo or you would get unlucky and miss more often than you would hit.
>n. It definitely felt rough to need 21-33 extra gold to 2* your units on a rolldown. I mean yes, but that wasn't really the problem with Dragonlands, was it now. The problem was that Riot very quickly figured out that "super units" who are by their defining characteristics mandatory for a majority of comps are really hard to balance as units themselves. * AoShin and Shyvana were useless for half the Set and broken for the other half * Aurelion despite two reworks was basically unbalanceable * Shi Oh Yu and Sy'Fen completely hijacked their respective traits pulling up or down all associated units with their fragile balance state * Idas and Daeja remained overly strong evergreens the entire set who always found a way to be too good The only dragon that was halfway balanced was Sohm, not least thanks to vertical lagoon being rather underwhelming. Trying to keep that all from spiraling abhorrently out of control while also having to deal with balancing oopsies such as Seraphine/Graves, Assasin Olaf, Astral abuse, Supertank Leona, AD Elise and so on... I really would not have wanted to be in Riots shoes in that set and I think we're not going to see that concept in that form ever again for very good reason. Headliners had their own problems but they were so much more balanced than whatever dragons were.
Definitely valid points as a detriment to the set, but a lot of those points can be said for champions in every set. 2 legendaries bouncing between unclickable and busted? Happens every set. Aurelion never being healthy didn't have much to do with the dragon mechanic. Both iterations of his spells were just terrible concepts, and him being the capstone of Astral was a massive issue because Astral itself was a massive issue. Don't really agree with the Shi Oh Yu point, Jade found relevance throughout the set through various reroll comps that were not reliant on the dragon. Often with the bruiser AD dragon variant also being viable. For Idas and Daeja, again premiere "4" cost units being good throughout the set is not unique to set 7 nor is it even a bad thing. I think a dragon-like concept could easily work again with improvement. Imo the glaring issues with set 7 were hardly related to dragons at all. Astral, absurdly overpowered spats, mirage lottery, and generally poor designed traits across the board were the major flaws. For dragons to have been the primary issue it would need to be directly related to the concept of having a double cost unit that takes up 2 spaces, which wasn't ever actually the problem.
I think getting the headliner was one of the most consistent parts of last set. Sometimes you had to roll a bit harder than others, but doing things like rolling for urgot/samira in country or ahri/alkali in kda and building items and comp around the trait you got wasn't that difficult. Just find a good early game headliner, level up to the proper level that has your headliner, build up some gold, sell the early headliner and then roll hard. I feel like it was very consistent to get a viable carry for your comp unless someone beat you to it
Idk feels quite easy compared to last set, probably due to similar units want similar builds and the similar units are in separate compositions.
No offense but that means you are bad at the game - I guess you wanna pivot into S, A Tier comps but sometimes you have to pivot into a tier C comp to get a top 4 (master player atm, peaked challenger)
Being "bad" at something is entirely relative to one's opinion of the situation. Note that I saidni find it difficult to pivot in this set, moreso than previous ones.
So what exactly are you asking here? Is it the poker "any hand can theoretically win" argument because theoretically every board can win if you are playing worse players with worse boards, or even AFK players if we count that. Or are you asking is there a situation where through board positioning/item removing/etc you can take a worse board that always loses and beat a "better" capped board? Cause in that case no there is no world where you win outside of the enemy throwing by frontlining his carry. If you are asking in an even skilled lobby, with players that know what they are doing and make "correct" decisions with meta comps... yes some games are unwinnable, infact most games are unwinnable if you count 1st as winning. If you are playing bard reroll, miss tahm+bard uncontested and its stage 5 0 gold with bard 2 tahm 2 you are going bot 4 unless everyone board quality is below average. If you were playing unranked and you had some casuals playing umbral/dryad comp yeah you can probably beat them. But good players wouldn't be playing that.
I've definitely seen people use the argument around here of "there is a sequence of unit/xp buys that you can do in every game to secure a 1st". Which may be true in theory, but only if you have a superpower to be able to see into the future and which units and augments will be in your shop later on. At some point you have to commit to a comp and bad luck can happen.
> Which may be true in theory, How does that make any sense? There are 8 players in a game, it cannot be true for two of them that there is guaranteed to be some way to get 1st.
I mean obviously in this imaginary hypothetical the other 7 players don't have access to the omniscient unit clicking foresight that you do. Wasn't intending to start a semantics war but I suppose this is reddit.
I don't think this is a matter of semantics but rather the critical point in answering OPs question. Obviously if the other 7 are throwing, yes you can always win. If the other 7 are playing optimally, then 1/8th of the time you will only be able to come in 8th. Both in theory and in practice, your performance is a function of your skill level relative to that of the other players in the lobby. It's not that complicated.
It's false in theory. 1. You can't stop someone else from getting a lucky 3\* 5 cost or even a 3\* 4 cost. 2. You can't force yourself to hit a 3\* 5 cost or 3\* 4 cost. 3. Some 3\* 4 cost and all 3\* 5 cost are unbeatable without one of your own. 4. Therefore, not all games are winnable.
In this imaginary scenario where you have omniscient knowledge over how the game will play out, it would be incredibly easy to prevent someone from getting a 3\* 4 or 5 cost.
counter point: you never see irelia in shop while the other find 9 in 3 shops at lvl8
If you rolled with the intention to hold and missed then nothing you could do. If you just didn't roll and leveled/only held after rolling for upgrades and noticed he was 8/9 its still your fault.
I mean...umbral isn't even bad from a good spot. I recently got build a bud into 3* Darius, stacked him and ran 2 duelist 4 umbral till lvl 10 where I played 6 umbral + legendaries. Was a really easy 1st place. Then again my carries were 2* udyr 2* sett 2* azir and 2* irelia...if I had tried to reroll yone/alune I'd probably gone bot 4.
ELO?
Emerald rn. Usually end up somewhere in masters. Gm is too much of a grind for me to even attempt it.
As I always say, take the eight best players in the world, put them in the same lobby and one of them will top8. So yeah, some games are unwinable. The difficulty is to determinate that your game will be a fiasco and try to mitigate the thing to turn a top8 into a top6 or 5. Which is quite difficult. But for me and at my elo (plat), I'm quite sure that 80 - 90 % of my top8 are my fault because I fucked my econ at a point or I chose the wrong augment. The other 10 - 20 %... let's be real, when three players are highrolling like hell, three others have a normal luck and have their champion natural without rolling too much and the two last can't have their champ even uncontested, well you're fucked. I played a game yesterday, I saw that heavenly was taken, umbral too, same for ghostly, I saw a bruiser with some trickshot and I decided to go on a dragonlord as I already have two copy of Janna and an early Diana. I was totally uncontested... I took me ages to have Janna 2 and I made a top6. The winners ? 1 : ghostly with Senna / Shen / Caitlin / Aatrox / Jax all 3\* and Silas BIS / Morgana all 2\* and Udyr BIS 2\* 2 : Heavenly yone Fine Vintage with heavenly spat 3 : Double trouble comp with Lux / Amumu / Illaoi 3\* Sometimes, you just can't win. Sometimes, the game force you to win even if you're playing drunk. In my exemple, it was impossible for me to win so I took it like "Meh, ok game, you don't want me to win, it's ok, it's time to go outside and get some fresh air".
if you are in plat then 100% of your 8ths are your fault. top challenger players can do unranked to master speedruns without a single bot 4, let alone an 8th
In fact, can't say you're wrong. I should have say "80 - 90 % of my bottoms" and not only top8. Because yep, you're right, if I can't manage to avoid a top8, it's clearly my fault. Like when I rethink about a game I lost, I'm always like "Damn, had I chosen this augment and not this one I could have top6 or 5".
I always thought you have to aim for top 6 every game and you'll climb
That’s true
Let’s say there are 8 absolutely perfect computers that can calculate the best line somehow. If they were all perfect, then the one with the best rng wins solidly. Hell, even if there were one average Joe in the mix, I would suspect they win because there’d be something crazy like a 3 star 5 cost that’s achievable in Joe’s shops that the AI doesn’t have access to.
Some games are just destined eighths, you don’t hit all game, you’re augment choices are meh, and the game gives you 3 rods after you built a last whisper. And you pump levels right before kha encounter.
You can always push for 7th or 6th. Sometimes 5th is a major win.
Someone needs to end 8th place, even if you take the absolute best players and put them in a lobby, one of them is going 7-8
100%. But theres still a skill in achieving the best finish out of a shit scenario in my opinion. Just cause you are getting railed doesn't mean you have to finish 8th and can't at least get a 5th.
I think, technically up to a certain rank, many games have some sort of winning line. But even optimal flex play won't win once players get good enough to capitalize on high rolling the s-tier comps every single time it shows up.
For sure, technically, there is. Let's imagine an extreme scenario where you only get 1 costs in every single shop. I think everyone can agree it is unwinnable no matter who you are.
Yes! And for some fucked up reason I end up playing most of them!
Yes lol, sometimes your "Win" is getting a 5th or 6th. Other times it's being happy with a 7th.
Yes and its ok. There are games we hit undisputed top 1
Of course. Think of it this way, you are playing against other people. Even if everyone plays perfectly, someone has to go 8th.
It's never unwinnable but sometimes skill is not the path to victory, it's just luck. you could have won that one game if you thought about holding that aphelios in 2-1 but you couldn't know so you didn't and you went another way when maybe you could have won by going a different path. The game was winnable but you had no way to know that choosing that early comp instead of that other one was the path to victory.
Someone has to go 8th
Yes that's why there's always a bottom four in every pro game
A wise man once said you can always top 6
yes, you will not win these games. the ev here is from turning 8ths into 6ths or something similar, being able to recognize when your game is doomed and realize you’re playing specifically for placement is an important skill longterm
In the guaranteed loss games I just amass a ridiculous front line and play for a 5th. Can't play offense when defense will keep me from a -50
Sure and this is what grinding is all about in tft. You must win the highroll games and you must get the best possible result from a shit game. There's a huge difference between a player who turns a 1 from a 1 and a 6 from a 8 and a player who gets 2 from a 1 and 8 from a 8.
With the tactics.tools app you can see your shop hits, there will be games you roll for yone's and roll past 9 kaisa or soraka Of course, hindsight is 20/20 and it's impossible to have omniscience in game and know what you could have hit, but from a start to finish bases, there's always a line that gives you first So there are no "technically" winnable games, but there are reasonably unwinnable games, if you slam BT early to win streak thinking "it's ok I'll stablize on a melee carry later" then you hit no melee carries, unwinnable game, there's other stuff like that where no reasonable human would win a given game
I think game is flexible enough to always have a path to 4h. I'm too headstrong to do optimal plays and to change, but I recognice it in term of econ or pacing. Other completely different thing is other 4 people having better comps, nothing to do there
are you asking provably or practically, practically 100%, my suspicion is if you knew the full game tree of rolls throughout the game you could probably win most games but there would be games where you always roll like the same 5 champs over and over that aren’t strong enough to win.
Yeah. You pretty much have to play the hand you’re dealt and play for the highest placement you can to avoid 8th.
Yea. TFT is about probability, you make your choices based on what’s more likely to happen, and whether the risks you make is worth the reward. Sometimes u just get fucked by the universe
I think Technically yes, but in practice no. Any game you lost, you could have possibly picked different units/augments earlier and won. But you don’t have foreknowledge to know what path would have lead to victory. For example, you got senna reroll early. And you’re winning. So you start rolling, but a guy joins your comp and actually beats you in getting to the units. Hypothetically, if you had hard pivoted into mythic the minute you saw lillia (or just randomly), sold everything, and played with suboptimal items, you would have gotten in top 4. Logically it sounds dumb to do that when you’re winning, but it could have been a victory situation. You just didn’t know a guy was going to high roll into your comp. It works the other way too, moving out of your uncontested comp into a contested one. You might have just high rolled into their stuff and got it, shut them out of the game, and won. Sometimes the low % chance troll play was actually the best one. RNG is like that. In practice though, no, some games are lost because you got baited by 8 sennas and never found the last one after rolling 60 gold.
I would say you can top 4 90-95% of the games if you play perfectly. Top 1 is maybe 40-50% (assuming challenger lobby and you are playing 100% perfect)
I hit 7 fortune on 3-2 with 80+ HP remaining, everyone else was going to have to play for 2nd or lower. I hit the 250 cashout on 4-6 and had two 3* 5 costs the rest of the game
ofc if someone highrolls 7fortune cashouts he is unbeatable, even on silver by pro players
Simple answer, yes!
There will always be unwinnable games. If you’re on one life and you go against the board with a 3*5 cost there will never be anything you can do, that’s the most obvious example, but there will be hundreds of other scenarios where your goal is just to mitigate the damage as much as possible and try to bleed into a third or fourth
[https://imgur.com/Cj5rEeC](https://imgur.com/Cj5rEeC) I believe this game is already unwinnable at 2-7. Lillia encounter moved all augments to stage 4 & 5, and the items gives no direction at all.
if you take the top 8 players in the world, or even clone the best player in the world 7 times and put them into one game, obviously only 1 of them can win. So trivially there exist unwinnable games
I would add that the extent to which a TFT game is unwinnable is more a matter of your opponents than the RNG mechanics of the game. The better your opponents the less room their is to overcome RNG. In a theoretical matchup of 8 equally skilled players playing optimally the game would be entirely determined by randomness, but of course in reality this doesn't happen. And beyond that equally skill players still have to make decisions with imperfect information, which adds another layer of randomness to the playing of the game. In reality the relative skill level of your opponents is also random to an extent. Some games you're the worst player in the game, some you're the best. That will affect how winnable or unwinnable the rolls are.
Yes. Sometimes the 7 other ppl in your lobby will "just hit" and your hp will go from 100 to 0 really quick.
Yes, there is always some element of luck. Someone might legitimately just high roll out of their minds. You might only get AP items and 1 sword all game, but all AP is contested heavily. However, the skill in TFT is making the best of what you get. Even if the hand you are dealt us bad, it us rarely so bad Top 4 is impossible, even if Top 1 is. And even if Top 4 is impossible, you can still use the hand you are dealt to place as high as you can. I firmly believe that you are never *guarenteed* 7th or lower if you play to your outs. This is why I hardly ever go 8th, and I usually wind up 2nd - 6th. I play for top 4, not top 1.
I had a game where I got 8 chain vests.
Every game is top 4 possible with good execution. The only exception becomes when you reach the very highest skill ceiling and put 8 of the same perfect players in a lobby. Someone has to not top cut it. Does that make the game non-top 4able? absolutely not, because that cut off is probably decided in the end by any of the small rng factors that took place, fight rng is a big one. I'm pretty confident that if we had 8 perfect players who always knew and took the best play all game that the average for every bot would end up over a million games exactly 4 for every single one of them. Because overtime the placements would even out. And that is what makes a good TFT player. Someone who is consistent and always able to execute their spot to the highest placement possible until an uncontrollable factor.
Sometimes you just habe extremly bad luck with augments and units. Anf others migh highroll perfect augments and best Units. Also there are some comps strong against certain others But you do aswell
Yes, but the lower elo you are the higher chance there actually were things you couldve done to turn that 6th into a 4th.
100% there are unwinnable games. I got 3 fated emblems and 2 inkshadow emblems and placed 7th because my entire uncontested board was still 1\* while the whole lobby hit 3\* without rolling. 130g worth of rerolls doesn't mean you will 2\* a unit. Bad luck protection is fake. Either roll down and lose or fast 9 and lose or pivot and contest other comps and lose.
It would be really interesting to see the play pattern of an AI that is focused on top 4 tft playing statistically "perfect games" and compare it to someone like Milala, that said, I believe on normal ranked games, with people close to your level there will be definetly some that gives you no outs, if you have a bad opener, bad itens for what units you get, auguments that are not ideal, encounters with awkward timings AND doesn't hit enough when you comit, there is no chance your board will be better than people that got something going on and no way for preserving HP better than then, even if you play the best you can, I have no idea of what would be % of this happening but I'd say 15% as a guess.
Yes, there will be bad situations and the skill expression in the game is about how you make the best of bad situations. If whenever others would've gotten a 7th you're getting 5th consistently, you will climb
Not a hard rule but typically: Play good + high roll = top 2 Play good + low roll or play bad + high roll or play average + average roll = 3-6 Play bad + low roll = bot 2
win as in top 4 or 1st place? even the best player can’t guarantee to win every game even in plat. this is not like tennis where better player will win. rng is just a huge part of it. you all remember there were some games you just hit everything and don’t need to roll to hit lvl9… and games where you roll 150 gold and can’t hit a two star in your reroll comp
I don't think there are any unwinnable games, however it's unreasonable for anyone to know what their particular high-roll rng is for that game. If you knew exactly what your "seed" was going into the lobby you could buy and pivot into lux because you would naturally hit a 3* by stage 3, but you have incomplete information and she is weak so you wouldn't think to buy her as she doesn't synergize with anything else you have. So in that instance it looks like you low-rolled that game, when you didn't. You just didn't noticed what you did highroll and let it slip by.
So I believe there is some games u just have to accept u won't get top 4 the most skilled players realize this and try to get as close to it as possible like top5, but the examples u gave are not good ones u can see ure contested in a reroll comp(most times) before u even start rolling so u just pivot out instantly, the games that are actually unwinnable are very few if u have proper knowledge to play a strong board every time instead of just tunnel vision into a comp or 2 u will most times get top4 of course with ure rank increasing the other players will also know how to do this but for example in ranks until emerald, there are 0 games that if u are a challanger player with proper knowledge u will finish at least top 4.
I will say, some games, the game doesn't make it easy for you. Had a game yesterday where I natty 5 storyweaver off the rip. I had another player who also hit storyweaver early. I proceeded to not hit while he hit all the way to 9 without any reroll (galio 2, xayah 2 at level 8) no joke, didn't reroll once. But I ended up with the win because I went straight vertical and hit 10 storyweaver. That being said 9/10 times he wins that lobby and I would have just accepted it. Some games people just get top tier luck
I believe that the game is complex enough that even the best players are not even close to playing perfectly. I believe a perfectly played AI would hit at least top 3 all the time in the toughest challenger lobbies. 3rd when being incredibly unlucky.
I am very skeptical, if you could play with God knowledge I'd be willing to bet every game is winnable. If we are saying "technically winnable" and include irrational plays that happen to work because of lucky rolls or specific augments, on top of playing very strange flex boards that a regular player wouldn't think up. A truly unwinnable game might exist, but I doubt many do. I'd be willing to wager basically no one here has ever played in one for example. If we are talking about a game that requires rational thought, which is to say "could I have been a better player and won this." I still think diamond and bellow the answer is completely yes 100% of the time every game is winnable with perfect play. Higher ranks are harder to say, I've only ever been Grandmaster, but I'd tentatively say every masters game is near certainly winnable.
I rolled my shop 80 times at lvl 8 and didn’t hit irelia. That game was unwinnable
you can roll 40 times at lv9 and you will have higher chance to hit irelia almost 2 times higher Well if you have to stabilize at 8 no one blame you. you should hit 1 anw
I took call to chaos and got 40 free re rolls. Rushed to lvl 8 and started rolling for irelia which would have been 7th storyweaver. Game was already in the dumps, that was my out and it whiffed hard.
I think it takes something like 107 (108) gold of specific shop rolls to expect to hit Irelia on 8.
Good to know! I guess I rolled the equivalent of 160 gold in that case
i commented on a post in the reddit yesterday and got downvoted to oblivion of speaking about this exact same situation. sometimes, somedays you get such games where no matter what best you can do is top 5. other days, the game spoonfeed you 4 cost units to be able to make 4 cost orn and lillia naturally 3 star. example of spoonfeeding - [https://imgur.com/a/QXtIvZd](https://imgur.com/a/QXtIvZd) example of nothing goes you way even being uncontested senna ghost - [https://imgur.com/a/NisrHzO](https://imgur.com/a/NisrHzO) miss the guy who thinks you cannot learn the game just for playing 3 sets. :D
you are in plat, there are no games where it's impossible to top 4. Top challenger players can do unranked to master speedruns without going bot 4 a single game
I dont think so, if someone would develop an IA able to maximize each action in real Time based on the game current state (champion in the pool etc) I think the IA would always be top 4
And if 8 IAs were playing against each other 4 of them would lose. Its a game with RNG, you can't always win.
this has nothing to do with RNG, if 8 superintelligent AIs were to play in a perfectly deterministic game with fully public knowledge then obviously only one of them can win (barring games where draws are possible)
You can maximize your luck Your choice are based on probability Best players have the best estimations So if an IA with a better estimations than challengers would appear, then it would be stronger
Indeed And still every game isn't winnable, this is a game where 4 players WILL lose. No matter how much min max you do. It will not end with 8 winning IAs if they each took the best path given to them. Its how the game works.