AS/MD TF - He just wanted to learn magic..

Introduction and Reasons

This is a slightly different build for my favourite champion Twisted Fate. There are many viable AP and AD builds for him out there so I wouldn't dare to tell anyone which one is better or more suited to your style, I personally followed Rudmeds "Twisted Fate Royal Flush" guide religiously for a while simply because Infinity Edge + The Black Cleaver were such a good item pairing for TF that it was mind blowing.

But after a while of playing this style I found that it lacked a certain something against mage classes, especially in the early game. This guide is most viable if the enemy is made of a wide array of enemy types, if you are facing a purely magician-team or purely-tank-team an AP or AD TF would probably fare better.

The great thing about this Magic Damage found in this TF guide is that it completely cuts itself off of your AP, no need to scale the AP to get more damage.


Starting with that here are two few pet peeves of mine
- Doran's Blade is a bloody useless starting item and blows around 300G (I only ever bought it when I was new to League of Legends so I might be off on the amount here) by buying and later selling it without any, to me, apparant use. I always start with a Dagger to quickly scale to my boots.

- I will also not post screenshots of my stats, if you try this build out and it is good for you, awesome, if not, no skin off my back. I'm currently testing out champions so my stats look all screwed up, suffice to say this build gives me well over 20 kills with 0 deaths in intermediate bot games regularely and at least 10-15 kills with 0 deaths in PVP.


I hate pro's and con's lists but here you go anyway

Pro's

-Suprising attack speed paired with debuffs make for a pusher that has no equal
-Speaking of pushing, minions will pretty much suicide when they see you
-Magic users who are used to targetting you meet with suprising resistance, and then death.
-Tank classes who specialize in armor and not magic resistance suddenly have to deal with both

Con's

-Tank/Attack Hybrids are a lot harder to take down than with AD or AP TF
-Jungling is not viable for a while

Summoner Spells

There is nearly no arguing this one. With your Ultimate and Teleport you can be anywhere suddenly and suprisingly. Sadly it's not avaible in Dominion.


I use this to score some early kills paired with a gold card and Phage

Other options would be

Surge I've never seen this used well, but you're a AS TF with Stacked Deck which gets better with AP.

Ghost very very nice for picking up early kills with your stun cards and running around or just plain through turrets.

Flash great for running away. Especially since it works through thin-enough forests and obstacles, what one Flash use is for you, is 5 seconds running for your enemy.

Cleanse if you're stunned this will give at least a chance to get away.

Runes

The runes here are by far not the best, however except the Desolation runes I don't really rely on runes all that much in the first place.

9 of these bad boys, what else. You're a Magic and Attack Speed and Attack Damage TF, only armor is in your way of cutting into the flesh of your opponents and giving them wicked papercuts.


9 of these, you're squishy, give yourself a (laughable small) health boost. These runes are the reason why I don't like to rely on runes in the first place, the small health boost is pretty much negligable.


9 of the little useless blue things. Same as Vitality really.


Words cannot describe how much I love armor piercing, even if the runes don't give all that much, doing True Damage to a tank or a mage class is worth spending IP on.


Other viable choices for this build are


You're an AS TF, duh. However you're already getting a LOT of Attack Speed from your items, a balance between damage (indirectly given by Desolation runes), magic (the next set of runes) and Attack Speed is what you're aiming for.



I'm never sure whether the magic damage from items uses penetration, I assume it does, making these a viable option if you want to make your magic damage a little more...damagy.

Masteries

There shouldn't be any questions about this, Offense all the way baby! We all know TF is squishy as the morning dew so Defense second, the only useful Utility Mastery is Summoner's Insight, TF's ability to teleport and appear all over the map is probably his strongest point.

Items

We start with the Dagger and not Doran's Blade as many people do. This is a very economic guide, it does not waste gold on anything unnecessary and blows it by buying and later selling items.

Berserker's Greaves are next, scaling your Dagger with movement speed.

The Recurve Bow appears a lot in this guide for a good reason, it is the B.F. Sword equivalent to Attack Speed rather than damage. This one is for our next item, the first magic attack item.

Wit's End as I mentioned in the Introduction this build is made for a wide array of enemies, this item gives Magic Resist and deals 42 magic damage at the same time as well as buffing your attack speed up by a lot.

Phage is such a needed item for this build of TF. While your attack damage and magic damage is high and suprising, the enemy DOES have the time to flee your attacks. An enemy coming right at you will probably be decimated in seconds, an enemy fleeing, especially with the lost movement bonus of Trinity Force or the Zeal which you would usually get sooner, is usually an enemy lost to your kill count. Having this weapon paired with your insane Attack Speed (4 hits? Yeah gimme a second.) turns a running enemy into a snail for your next escargot salad.

Ionic Spark gives health, attack speed and an awesome little magic attack every 4 hits (which takes you 1.5 seconds to do) it also buffs up your Health Points, which is always nice for a squishy range pusher.

The Black Cleaver the second item every single Twisted Fate that isn't relying on AP should always get. Words cannot describe how good this item is. Get it.

Madred's Bloodrazor armor, attack damage, attack speed and magic damage. I dare anyone to tell me why not to get this awesome item.

Trinity Force the single most useful item for TF ever invented. Ever. There is nothing in the vast array of effects in this item that is not incredibly helpful. It has movement speed, slows down enemies, attack speed, attack damage, AP for your Pick A Card and Stacked Deck, critical chance, health and mana, increases your attack damage to 150% after a skill is cast (which you do a lot with PaC). This thing is the holy grail for Twisted Fate players, sadly it comes last to eat up your Phage in this build as you quickly need to scale up your Attack Speed to be good in this build.

Skill Sequence

Whether you max out Stacked Deck or Pick A Card first is up to you, the point is maxing them both out first and foremost with the only exception being picking Destiny whenever it is avaible.

With Pick A Card you have an array of attacks avaible, be it slowing down a group of people with your Red Card or getting mana back with your Blue Card. The Gold Card however is your main attack tool. Building up the debuff of The Black Cleaver and your magic hits as well as the magic resist buff for yourself from Wit's End takes a little time, with your attack speed and a Gold Card you're set to kill anyone coming your way.

Stacked Deck is pretty self explanatory. Your Attack Speed is your main weapon, the 4 card stack attack is a sudden burst of damage. My main attack tool, and this should be yours as well, is a full stack and rolling a Gold Card.

Closing Words

This was my very first guide and I probably forgot or deliberately left out a lot. Everyone has a unique playing style and I won't talk you into using my tactics to score kills. Whether you take the Recurving Bow or the AD items in your line up to the Bloodrazor for example always depends on the enemy line up, who you are facing regularely and whether or not you think your team is pushing or being pushed.

My last closing word is one of scorn for the need to kill the most people. Don't be too afraid to get into the fight and push a lane to the end to take away peoples attention from your own, nearly fallen lane to a TF suddenly standing in their base and killing turrets with only 5-6 Minions behind him. You have the ability and the obligation to use your insane Attack Speed and Magic Damage to harrass and push lanes and keep the enemy divided. A single AD or AS TF can keep 2-3 enemies occupied for a long, long time. The problem with this is that you WILL sacrifice your kill count. But it's the winner who counts the kills once a battle is over, the loser may have killed more or has better stats, but you just beat them anyway.