Hey there! I'm Wax, a Silver player that values experimentation and creativity in gameplay. Despite being very new to the game (about ~2 months of play) I've been heavily fascinated with devising interesting builds and playing oddball picks to keep the game fresh for myself every day. Since TF is my main mid champ, I thought I'd want to play around with his meta build a bit.

I'm not gonna learn you how to make Twisted Fate do a thingy. There are many, many guides that cover basic gameplay tactics and ways to handle him as a big bad burst mage. What I AM going to teach you is what this build will do for you and possibly some general tips on getting a bit better at TF. Fun stuff!

PROS

+ Great DPS in late game
+ Eat towers like tall, stone Twinkies
+ Good hybrid damage output
+ Awesome Stacked Deck synergy
+ Still gives you some real nice AP

CONS

- Your burst game ain't strong no more
- Auto-attack dependent
- You're still squishy! This isn't Tanker Fate!
- Your full potential is more of a mid-game thing compared to the early game spike of full-AP TF

Ever wanted to eat laners like you built Devourer, but you're an AP midlaner? Welcome to this build. Lich Bane is a pretty standard rush item for TF since he's so dependent on his autos due to his Pick a Card, but I thought finding a way to build him that emphasizes that specific part of his build would be an interesting idea. Wit's End with the Lich Bane makes his Sheen procs sting even harder during the course of a trade, and the M.Resist gives you some good defense in the early-mid game against your laning opponent. Nashor's Tooth seals the deal by stacking with your Stacked Deck and stacking WE even FASTER, making you inhale enemy defense and eat them alive.

"Wait a second," you exclaim, "if this emulates a Devourer, why not build AD?"

Ah, see? Flexibility! Being focused on hybrid damage, this build would also absolutely destroy enemies if you build AD. With a stun in your pocket and some wicked-quick autos, just imagine if you replaced your Lich Bane with a Trinity Force. Better yet, replace your Void Staff with a BotRK as your 5th item for even more hefty damage! Experimentation is the name of the game; I just decided to focus on AP because TF naturally has fantastic AP scaling. Just have fun!

This section is just focused on some quick tidbits that can be useful to know if you understand the basics of TF and want to get better.

- Your Q range is absolutely absurd, which makes it fantastic for poke. But you should always remember that it's actually so long, the cards disappear into the Fog of War at their max range. If your laning opponent backs off, kite behind the tower and see if they're snooping around back there. I've picked up a few easy kills from enemies sticking too close to the tower after a trade.

- If you're being chased, your first instinct is to try and get that luxurious Gold Card to make a clean getaway from your aggressor. Most TF pros tell you that since you have a 33% chance of actually nabbing the card at random, it's better to just mash W and kite with whatever card you get. I think this is really stupid, given that you also have a 33% chance of using no CC whatsoever by drawing a Blue card. What you SHOULD do is hold for a split second until you get EITHER a Red or Gold card (which is a 66% chance of being your first card); there's no worse CC than no CC whatsoever.

- Your Blue cards deal lots of sexy, sexy magic damage to enemy towers, so proc them constantly while you're whittling away. While I don't know if the following is viable, my friend tells me Red cards are good too, as you'll be dealing AoE damage to minions while you push. This is likely a really silly idea, but if it nets you some CS while you push, good for you.

Thank you for taking the time to read through my build! If it wasn't super obvious from my ranking or time spent playing (or my profile, for that matter), this was my first written build. I really just wanted to get this down in writing and work through the pros and cons of it, so I figured MOBAFire would be an excellent place to do so. Once again, thank you so much!