Twisted Fate Build Guide by FedNDangerous

Introduction

First of all, welcome to my first Mobafire guide!


As you can see i already started to post *umm* let me say "unique" builds in here.
What I'm talking about is an AP Twisted Fate build with a lot of attack speed included.
TF is one of my favorite champs and also very fun to play. I have already tried a lot of AP and DPS builds but I never had the feeling of playing him right, so I started to try new builds and tactics to play him by myself, to find out the most powerful and fun way to play him, and this is what came out!... a great result in my opinion. ;)

Twisted Fate is an underrated champion which is a shame. He can be played as a AP, AD carry, DPS, or as we see here the most effective way: AP + Attack Speed.
The reason why, can be found at the Chapter "AP + AS? wtf?!" below...

Since his ultimate got nerfed he is often denoted as "completely useless", but most of these who say so just don't know how to play him correctly or are just complete dumba**es.


I hope you enjoy reading my first guide!

(PS: Grammar mistakes are included!)

AP + AS? wtf?!

Now you may wonder how it is possible to have a AP and Attack speed build, and to be successful with it. Well, actually it isn't possible. But Twisted Fate is an exception, because of his great ability Stacked Deck. You may say "Isn't FULL AP Twisted Fate better??"
Well I have to say that AP TF is also very fun to play and he can be very powerful if he is played right but the problem is that he has to get fed to do great damage.
While I was playing there with AP TF, raging about my team that are actually playing pretty average, but aren't giving me any kills, I thought about better ways to play Twisted Fate so you can ALWAYS get fed. I looked at my skills again and thought: "Isn't it a shame that AD and AP TF both got an skill that they dont need at all?" After that i got that idea of playing an completely new Twisted Fate and the result was surprisingly good.

Don't worry if you fail at first. You got to get the feeling of playing a new kind of Champion first, and when you are finally ready, you can make your enemy's feed yourself til' they ragequit.

Pros / Cons

Pros


+ Very strong 1 on 1, late game
+ Can finish of low health enemies easily with Destiny
+ Safe early game because of the amazing range of Wild Cards
+ Got a stun ready every 3-4 seconds
+ Good Farmer
+ Excellent Ganker
+ Really Fun to play!



Cons


- Squishy
- Gets often focused
- Reasonably good team is necessary

Summoner Spells

Recommended

Always good in escaping and chasing situations. In combination with Gold Card it can help you to surprise enemys very easily. In my opinion the best summoner spell ingame.





Great to finish off enemys that are low on health and that are trying to escape. Also very useful in a 1 on 1 against champions that can heal themselves a lot with lifesteal or other things, but still do a lot of damage like Sion or Master Yi.

Other Good Choices

Pretty good chasing ability, too but I still prefer Flash.




Teleport? But we got our Destiny already.
Still Teleport can be very useful, just imagine how far and fast you can push by using your ultimate and than easily get away with Teleport, or the other way round. Of course you dont HAVE TO use one of these spells to escape, but at least you always got something for emergency situations.

Runes

Greater Mark of Magic Penetration: Necessary for every AP champion. Early game that magic pen. will do very good dmg and you will have a great start. Still 6 of them should be enough to cut through their small magic resist early game.


Greater Seal of Ability Power: [...]

Greater Glyph of Magic Resist: Tf is way too squishy to fight 1 vs 1 in mid lane.
Whether your dominating your lane or not, it's still always better to have some resist.


Greater Quintessences of Potency: [...]

What can I say? .. The more ability power the better.

Masteries

Masteries are mostly set in Defense and Utility.



Only set for our Ignite to get more powerful.



So, since we got our damage in our runes we will now build a bit defense in our masteries although we are going to play defensive early game.
Those 8 points in Defense will get us some armor magic resist and health with isn't much but see there are more important things to regard, like our Utility, but I am not going to amplify the Utility anymore it is mostly self-explained. (Spell-vamp, Movementspeed, Cooldown Reduction)

Skills

A neutral passive, it isn't very effective I mean 2 gold for every kill? .. that isn't really money that is raining from above but in my opinion still a valuable passive.



There are just 3 cards flying in an special order but then suddenly WHAM! 600 burst dmg for every target that has been hit.
"What about the range?"
Dont even want to talk about it because it is just incredible! Wild Cards is your main dmg dealer early game you skill it first and the most, until you got your first Dagger because at that moment you start building a lot of attack speed and you need to skill your Stacked Deck from there. Of course you can also just follow the skill sequence at the top if you aren't very sure about how to skill, sometimes it's about the game situation.

At this point I want to say that one reason why I dont like to play Twisted Fate as a Ad Carry is that if you only build on Attack Damage your Wild Cards will get completely useless and that's a shame, it's a great spell that does a lot of fun to use.




Without that spell ... Twisted Fate wouldn't be the same.
Pick A Card is a very unique spell. By activate there are 3 cards over your head that are coming and going and you have to get the real timing to choose the card you want to.
We skill Pick A Card at Level 2 and max it last.

Effects:

Blue Card: Your blue card ist the most powerful of all your cards, you want to spam it mostly early game, because it always gives you mana back when it hits a target (Towers included).

Red Card: My favorite card. A lot of people say that this card is useless because it only does AOE damage and her effect isn't as useful as the others but that's not true.
Red Card is fantasic for farming and it can do massive damage to a lot of enemys and slow them at the teamfights. It doesn't do quite as much damage as the blue card but more than the gold card.

Gold Card: Your most important card, the gold card! The reason why it is the most favorite card for alot of Twisted Fate players is because it has a nice little stun that can be used every time Pick A Card is back from Cooldown and that will be late game about ..dunno 3-5 seconds?! Anyways thats the first card you pick when your fighting a single enemy: Pick A Card Gold Card = STUN! and than Wild Cards = and the ad carry for example should be after 2 seconds on about half his health. Always try to get your gold card ready before you use your Ultimate Destiny by the way.





Your main ability when using this build. Stacked Deck is a passive ability that gives attack speed and a burst that is available on every 4 auto-attack. Does that sound familiar to you? YES DAMN RIGHT! We got our Ionic Spark, too which has almost the same effect. Imagine with that attack speed that you will have and those both effects how much dmg you can deal to your target in combination with Pick A Card and Wild Cards.




And now ... the moment you all waited for, the notorious ultimate of Twisted Fate Destiny !!!!
This is your skill for revealing enemys and also teleporting yourself to them if it's just ganking time or they are just low on health. NOTICE: NEVER really NEVER use your ultimate to simply teleport to a lane because you are just to lazy to simply run. Her cooldown is way too high. Of course if an enemys is attacking your tower you can try to surprise him but else do not do that!
Your ultimate can also be a great escaping skill, too so if your Gold and Red Card couldn't save you just pop out Destiny if you are feeling save for 2 seconds and escape, but don't forget that your ultimate can also be interrupted by, for example stuns!

How the Card Master should be played

Notice that there are some information about this topic in the section "Items", too.


Early Game:

The game starts as usual, you get your Doran's Ring and head to the mid lane.
(I prefer mid lane, if you have to go somewhere else, you can of course)
Now the first ability you skill is your Wild Cards. You should be able to harass your enemy a lot with that skill. You won't get low on mana until you reach level 2, when you skill your Pick A Card. Try to use your blue card a lot to always have enough mana to get in a fight maybe, or to survive a gank. If your enemy is getting more aggresively, scare him with your Gold Card and Q skill, and if hes low on health you can always try to finish him of with your Ignite and your auto-attacks. After level 4 your Stacked Deck should be skilled the most after your ultimate of course.

Farming

Farming will be pretty easy with Twisted Fate. Try to hit low health minions with your Wild Cards if you can't reach them because of your enemy.
Try to use your Pick A Card to last hit, it doesn't matter if it's the blue or the red card, you will have to know which card you use.



Mid Game:

You should have reached level 6 now and thats the moment when you start preparing a gank.
Always look for opportunities to use your Destiny and surprise enemies. Don't forget to grab your gold card first. Everytime Destiny is available look out for the other lanes. If somebody is trying to gank YOU than you know what to do ... Gold Card Stun and than get the hell outta there! While on level 6-12 you should have build quite a few attack speed and you can try to play more offensivly. Get yourself fed, it really isn't hard with such an ultimate.


Late Game:

This is where you can proof your strength. Try to NOT get focused else you should be down pretty fast (If you haven't bought your Rylai's Crystal Scepter yet). Try to spam your gold card as much as possible and of course don't focus the tanks first.
Try not to miss your Wild Cards you can't afford this by that cooldown.
Make sure you always attack somebody if you aren't getting focused, your Stacked Deck and your Ionic Spark should do TONS OF DAMAGE to your opponents.

If your team isn't doing pretty well and you don't have destroyed a lot of towers, than always remember: You are a very very very fast pusher.
Push 1 or 2 towers away and than f*ck off with your Destiny, GUARANTEED SUCESS!

Items

First you want to start with an Doran's Ring, "why not with Boots of Speed and 3 Health Potion ??"" .. Because it depends on which enemy you get in mid.
Long ranged enemys like Cassiopeia should do quite a lot of damage to you if you want to farm well. Than it's not bad to have some potions but else keep your Doran's Ring. You can harass your enemy's easily with Wild Cards and if your low on mana just use your Blue Card. Later you get another Doran's Ring, it's a good way to stabilize Twisted Fate again with those 100 extra health, and you get a few mana regeneration and ability power that will be great for early game.




After you first return to your base, get your Boots of Speed.
It's very important for Twisted Fate to be quick in fights and of course you will have to chase enemies well, for example while you are ganking. That's why you have to get those quickly.




Now that item is practically MADE for this build.
Malady got everything we need for an AP - Attack Speed build = Attack Speed, Ability Power and your physical attack reduce the magic resistance of your enemys and do bonus magic damage. When you got this item you can start to play more aggresively.




Sorcerer's Shoes will be needed for the 20 magic penetration.
Other boots aren't recommendable.




This item is perfect in addition to Stacked Deck. You will deal another 110 magic damage on every 4 hit, right .. this won't be much at late game but for early game that bonus damage is perfect. Also it doesn't deal damage to only ONE enemy. Up to FOUR enemys can be damage, now isn't that great??

Oh yeah .. notice to get your Recurve Bow before your Ruby Crystal.




Do you need an explanation?

140 ability power
Increases ability power by 30 percent.

Necessary for every AP.





This is one of your MOST important Items while playing AP/AS Twisted Fate.
Your survivabilty will be increased by a lot with some of that spellvamp.




At this point we want to get TF a bit more survivability and Rylai's Crystal Scepter is almost perfect for it. Not only it gives you 500 health, it also got you a nice amount of 80 ability power. Additionally you get a chance to slow enemys with your abilitys.
Make sure you buy your Giant's Belt first when you want to get it.




MORE SPELLVAMP YAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!

Other Good Items

If your enemies do a lot magic dmg it's always good to buy a Wit's End.
It gives you attack speed and magic resist, and the unique passive is also great!




This could be also a very good item for our build but the only disadvantage is that it gives you also attack damage and we dont want to waste our gold for something that we really can't use. There are just better items than Guinsoo's Rageblade, but if it fits your playstyle more than you can buy it.




Definitlely a good choice, if you are dominating your enemies a lot, but that item needs a lot of gold and we don't want to antedate it to Rabadon's Deathcap.
So if you want to buy it, buy a Stinger first .. than get your Rabadon's Deathcap and afterwards continue your Nashor's Tooth if you are not feeling about buying more health ( Rylai's Crystal Scepter). If you are thinking about REPLACING Ionic Spark with Stinger than you should forget that...
The passive of Ionic Spark is just way to effective to waste it.




Late game, you will already be a tank destroyer but well who knows?
You gain +40 percent magic penetration and 70 ability power, after that you will destroy the tanks even more. But well it really depends on the enemy, if they are building sooo much magic resist, i guess u dont have a choice.

Summary

Now, that was my first guide, i hope that it could help you to reach better stats and win more games. I will try to add some of my scores to this guide to make a "proof" about how effective this way of playing Twisted Fate is.

Please vote and comment, and try out my build .. you won't regret it :)