Why Twisted Fate?
AP Twisted Fate is all about enabling your team and roaming, without a team that can enable you, you can't really carry. TF is a really strong solo queue pick though, not the strongest in the current meta but I would still recommend playing him if you want to learn how to roam effectively and position yourself in teamfights.

Pros and cons of playing TF
Pros
- Great roaming potential
- TF teaches you about macro play
- Can help the team if you aren't winning your lane
- easy to pick up

Cons
- Like most mages very squishy
- Hard time against some assassins
- Difficult to master
- Doesn't have 1v9 potential


Practice a lot.
I feel like the best way to learn twisted fate is to just play him, you will probably lose a lot at first but when you understand his role and what he does best you can become a better player mechanically overall.

Abilities

Passive: When TF last hits a minion you randomly get 1-6 bonus gold, of course you want to utilise the passive as much as possible because we all love getting extra gold.

Q: A skillshot that shoots cards three ways, deals magic damage + 65% bonus AP, really strong wave clear if you want to push the wave early on. Be sure to poke your enemy laner using this ability.

W: TF picks a card out of a blue, red and yellow one.

Blue: This card does the highest amount of damage, when you hit this on an enemy you get more mana back than you spent on your W.

Red: Second highest damage, this card is very useful if you want to push the wave, it does damage in an area around the target hit also slowing them.

Yellow: This card is only used if you want to setup a play or want to trade damage, it doesn't do a lot of damage but stuns the enemy hit by your attack.

E: Passive ability, grants extra attack speed and gives you bonus damage every fourth attack. You will see cards floating around you when your fourth attack is ready.

R: First R phase gives you true sight on all enemies meaning you can also see invisible enemies. The second phase of your ability allows you to teleport to a location where you want to be in a big range.

In Lane
As Twisted Fate you want to be careful when you trade or push your lane. Your only escape tools are Yellow W and Flash, when you don't have these abilities you have to play safe, you can't walk up if you don't have vision of the enemy jungle considering he could be in a bush right beside you. If you do get caught try to W the champion you think will be the biggest threat.

If you warded one of the mid bushes play on that side, you know when the enemy jungle or top lane might come gank your lane, and if they are at the unwarded half of mid you can just walk towards your tower before they get too close to you.

Teamfights
unlike some other mid laners TF shouldn't be the champion to engage in fights, he's not a mobile champion so you will have to ask your jungle or support to engage for example. You can deal a lot of damage from far away with your Q and can get in Auto Attack range if you think it's safe enough.

Roaming
When should you roam? There are many factors to roaming some good times are.
- If you pushed your lane and your enemy mid is basing
- If you see someone pushed up towards a friendly tower (don't 1v1 against someone like Fiora)
- If the enemy jungler is bot and your jungler can't counter-gank consider helping
- If your jungler can countergank consider split pushing or helping top lane for example

when do I ult?
The most obvious answer would be to secure kills. You can teleport in a huge range so you can teleport behind an enemy who is running and collapse with your team.
A good time to ult is when your enemy mid laner is low, and about to recall.
If your enemy mid is roaming like Katarina you can counter roam the same way to assist your team.

what does ulting do?
Enemies will always play safe considering you have ult, if they push into your bot tower you can ult behind them and collapse onto the lane that is pushed. A great function of the ult is knowing where everyone is, this gives you an idea about the enemy jungler and the people that are in the fog of war. Don't be afraid to use your ult, but make sure you can get your team something out of it.

Even though many people believe AD TF is a lot stronger I feel like AP TF has more tools for your team overall. if you can land your abilities correctly you do a lot of damage and make plays happen with good slows or stuns. AP TF might be harder to play but overall he's more rewarding if you can pull it off correctly.

I have 2 sets of runes, both can be used and a lot of the time it comes down to what you prefer overall.

Why these runes?

Domination

Predator or Electrocute?
Take Predator if you want the extra mobility/damage to engage your enemy mid laner.
Take Electrocute against other mage mid laners, they can't get away from your damage so you can quickly burst them with your abilities and auto attack.

Cheap Shot: This allows you to do just that little extra damage when you hit your slow or stun, helps you burst down an enemy just a bit quicker.

Zombie Ward: Zombie Ward gives you a free ward when you kill an enemy's ward, killing an enemy ward also gives you bonus AP or AD

Ultimate Hunter: 5% ultimate cooldown reduction. For each unique enemy champion you kill your gain a stack, ultimate cooldown gets reduced by 4% (5 stacks max 1 for every champion)

Sorcery

Manaflow Band: Every 15 seconds you can hit an enemy champion to gain 25 extra mana, this stacks up to 250 mana.(10x) If this mini quest is completed you regenerate 1% of your missing mana every 5 seconds, this means you can play more aggressively and use abilities more often.

Absolute Focus: When above 70% health you deal bonus AD or AP which allows you to be more aggressive.




Second option

Sorcery

Arcane Comet: Arcane comet guarantees that little bit of extra damage from using your abilities against immobile champions. You should utilise this ability as often as possible for the extra damage.

Manaflow Band: Every 15 seconds you can hit an enemy champion to gain 25 extra mana, this stacks up to 250 mana.(10x) If this mini quest is completed you regenerate 1% of your missing mana every 5 seconds, this means you can play more aggressively and use abilities more often.

Absolute Focus: When above 70% health you deal bonus AD or AP which allows you to be more aggressive.

Gathering Storm: Every 10 minutes you gain bonus AD or AP, this allows you to deal more damage later in the game, the scaling of this ability keeps you a bit more relevant in the game even if you are behind.

Inspiration

Perfect Timing: You get a free stopwatch at 10 minutes which prevents you from dying once. This rune also reduces the cooldown of items you build stopwatch into by 15% which means you can use hourglass more often for example.

Cosmic Insight: Reduces all your cooldowns (items summoners abilities) by 5% you can use everything more often which is really useful at any stage of the game. Be careful to not run out of mana though!

When should you choose which?

Personally I prefer going Domination first into matchups where I feel like winning lane won't be too hard. (Lux, Zoe etc)

I go Sorcery first into matchups I feel like I will lose a lot and need to play more safe. (Fizz, LeBlanc, Katarina etc)

Why build what?

- Lich Bane is a strong pick because you do bonus Ability Power after using an ability, this means that using your Q followed by your W will make the auto attack do 50% of your ability power.

- Rod of Ages is a must pick because it allows TF to scale and is overall just a strong first item

- Zhonya's Hourglass any mage loves this item because it helps you survive tricky situations. A must pick against assassins.

- Rabadon's Deathcap one of the strongest AP items in the game because it gives you so much extra.

- Void Staff extra magic penetration is situational considering some champions don't build magic resistance.

- Rapid Firecannon the extra range and powered attacks will help you burst enemies more quickly, the attack speed will allow you to activate your E more often.

- Nashor's Tooth strong item because your auto attacks will deal extra AP damage, you can spam abilities more often because of the cooldown reduction and the attack speed will help you activate E more often.

- Luden's Tempest is a strong item for most mages and that includes TF, you have a better waveclear with this item.

Thank you for reading this guide! May the luck be on your side.
Feel free to discuss in the comments and tell me if I forgot anything (no I'm not making an AD guide :P)