Twisted Fate Build Guide by Papa Tango

Introduction

Hello everyone and welcome to Making the Most Out of Twisted Fate. Here we'll learn about building a Fate that suffers in no category, but excels in several. Most people, as you may well know, prefer to build AP Twisted Fate in order to do tremendous damage with Wild Cards. The other, much less solid, option is ADC Twisted Fate, where you build him almost identical to every other ADC in League, letting his Wild Cards fall apart but capitalizing on Stacked Deck and Pick A Card. There exists a third option that I experimented with for quite some time, but still found lacking (somewhere between AP and ADC): Hybrid Twisted Fate. Equal parts AD and AP with a healthy dose of Attack Speed. These underwhelming builds only served to fuel my need to succeed as Twisted Fate, pushing me to develop the Heavy AP Hybrid Twisted Fate. With this build you sacrifice nothing in the way of AP while still mixing in a fair amount of AD and AS, making the most out of all the abilities given to you.

Pros / Cons

Pros

Cons

Massive Range/Damage Poke with Wild Cards Stun/Slow/Mana Regen with Pick A Card High map presence and vision control with Destiny Loaded Dice makes farming less of a burden Full utilization of Twisted Fate's kit

Challenging to play Requires quick reaction times Easily blamed for failures Squishy and slow early game, susceptible to ganks

Summoner Spells

Runes

Most Ability Power rune pages choose Marks of Magic Penetration, but for Fate because Nashor's Tooth is a later game item and Attack Speed is so essential the biggest boon you can grant yourself is Attack Speed Runes to make your early game Stacked Deck a much more frequent occurrence.

Armor is where TF is going to hurt the most. You might ask "Why not Magic Resist since most mid lane champions are Casters?" The reasoning is that early game any rune MR you have isn't going to matter a whole lot against low power AP anyway, but since this build has no real armor items that ADC on the other team will eat through you in seconds. Not to mention many junglers are AD based and as stated in the Cons, Twisted Fate is a terrible liability for ganks.

Ability Power Glyphs are self explanatory. This Fate, while not relying as heavily on AP as a straight Caster Fate, still requires lots of AP to get the job done.

Again, self explanatory. Quintessences of Ability Power because AP is the focus while not being the end all, be all of this build.

I don't use scaling runes, as you may have noticed. My firm belief is that runes are purely for gaining an upper hand on the enemy in the early game and laning phase. Scaling runes look nice on paper, with greater dividends in the long run than a flat-out rune, but when you've already built 500 AP with items that piddling little 3.06 you've been accruing over the course of the game makes next to no difference.

Masteries

Masteries, like Runes, are far more important in the early game than the late game, though some masteries continue to be helpful well into the final minutes of the game.

Offensive

For TF I've put together a very "Hybrid" offensive page, splitting the common 21 points into both Attack Damage and Ability power, as well as Spell Weaving , Blade Weaving and Arcane Blade . As Twisted Fate's kit seems on the surface to be very much designed for hybridity the best way to accent his ability compliments is to make full use of his basic attacks while still building up his Ability Power.

Utility

For Utility I've gone with a pretty standard Mage 9 point Utility. Meditation is a must for all Mages, even Fate and his Blue Card. The hard fact is that sometimes you'll be fending off a gank or the enemy will gang up on you and you need a red or gold to stay alive. Or perhaps you drop the enemy mid so far they have to base, but they've started to teleport way too far from their turret and Wild Cards sucks away the last of your mana. Summoner's Insight is great for giving easy access to more teleports and more frequent escapes. Vampirism Is one of those masteries that starts good and stays good, so even having one point in it can make the difference between basing and farming your lane.

Skill Sequence

#1 - The utility value of Pick A Card is just too good to pass up to start the game. Always get one point in this first.

#2 - Wild Cards is the primary damage dealer, even when you're not building 100% AP. As such it is the second point placement and priority for later leveling up.

#3 - Most people will tell you to hold off on Stacked Deck until 4th level or so for an AP Fate, but due to the importance of basic attacks, attack speed, and our core goal of utilizing Fate's kit to the fullest put your third point into this power. As most people will tell you it is the lowest priority, even for this build.

#4 - Destiny, like most Ultimate Abilities, should be leveled when it becomes available. This decreases its cooldown, mana cost and increases duration of vision granted.

#5 - For this build Wild Cards and Pick A Card are nearly equal in importance. Wild Cards takes the lead, but not by the wide margin a purely AP Fate's Wild Cards would. Pick a Card is still going to be important and trying to rush Wild Cards to full is going to make a lot of TF's versatility suffer.

Items

Most people will give many, many options for every stage of the buying process, usually sighting the differences from game to game, enemy to enemy. I say this is not only unnecessary for this particular Fate build, but somewhat dangerous. Twisted Fate, while being a challenge to master, can boast relatively high reliability, performing at the same level from game to game. This build is not going to differ from Summoner's Rift match to match. As with any build the last few items might not get built, but should the match stretch on for long enough items 5 and 6 are not going to change. Nashor's Tooth and Hextech Gunblade are the perfect devices for the very specific function of the build, but are the least important of the items selected, so your game won't suffer greatly by not getting around to them.

As for why I've chosen these items, I'd like to go on an item-by-item basis:




Yes, the Boots of Speed and the x5 Health Potions are no accident. Twisted Fate has a relatively slow base move speed and with nearly infinite mana when rationed this combination of starting items can be the most beneficial buy of your lane. Very few opposing mages will walk as fast as you at the start of the game, making it surprisingly easy to run up to basic attack range with a Gold Card held high and executing a stun> Wild Cards>Basic attack strike to tear away chunks of the opponent's health. When timed correctly this can even help reliable junglers to execute ganks, often catching them by surprise. With the extra move speed even if they see it coming there's a damn good chance you'll catch them with a Gold Card.

Please keep in mind that this Fate build is designed to perform a niche roll amongst TF players and as such if your play style isn't reflecting well on these items then a different guide entirely might be in order. I recommend these guides: Platinum AP Fate, Hybrid Fate, ADC Twisted Fate

Summary

Lots of players seem to be of the attitude that Twisted Fate is either broken or underpowered to the point of being unplayable. In truth, much like Lucian when he first came out, the trick is to find a build that allows all of the strengths of the champion to shine through. I believe this is the build that will accomplish that for Twisted Fate.


I started playing League of Legends after being shown the game and upon investigating Champions I learned of Twisted Fate. I fell in love and made him my first bought Champion. I've played him many ways and through a few nerfs, but nothing hurt more than being told that my teammates dread Twisted Fate on their team. I've played him with this build several times and convinced my teammates that he CAN be worthwhile. With a dependable jungler and practiced play, Heavy AP Hybrid Fate is your best bet for a satisfying, reliable Twisted Fate.