Twisted Fate Strikes Back
Twisted Fate seems to have become quite unpopular especially since the reduction on the range of his ult. I find that with the new masteries however, Twisted Fate is still an incredibly valuable AD/utility carry. In fact, because his auto attacks and skills do so much magic damage, he actually becomes a bit of a hybrid AD/AP carry with only AD items.

I find that Twisted Fate's biggest weakness like many other carries is his squishiness. He also suffers from a absence of a gap closer and lack of speed boost to use in chasing down enemy champs. With red buff, correct usage of his pick a card and itemization, chasing enemy champs and kiting enemy tanks should be no problem.

Twisted Fate fills some incredibly useful roles on your team as well. He has an outstanding ganking and pushing tool in his ult (even with the range reduction). A map awareness tool that reveals all champs on the map for 6 seconds and he is an amazing anti carry. Finally, he is great at kiting and has an extremely low CD stun that can be used for many purposes.

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Marks

For marks I choose 9 Greater Marks of Strength (+ damage). The reason for picking these over attack speed or armor penetration is simple, they effect both your spells and your auto attacks. Armor penetration only effects auto attacks but not the base damage added to Twisted Fates spells. Armor penetration also doesn't effect the total damage output on any of Twisted Fate's spells because it is magic damage. Same for attack speed, it only effects auto attacks and stacked deck slightly but you will have enough AS with items anyway.

Seals

For seals I choose 9 Greater Marks of Resilience (+ armor). The reason for picking these is twofold. First, my build has very little armor from items. Second, because twisted fate is very vulnerable to AD bruisers or assassins, he needs all the armor to get so that he doesn't get bursted down in two seconds and can kite effectively.

Glyphs

For glyphs I choose 9 Greater Glyphs of Warding (+ magic resist). These are a great pick for the same reason as the armor Glpyhs. AP based assassins or casters can burst Twisted Fate down quickly and he needs protection to be truly useful to his team. Because my item build includes a fair amount of magic resist, some of these can be subbed out for mana runes. I find that mana runes are not necessary when I am throwing blue cards regularly to last hit etc... but some people may have mana problems.

Quintessences

For quints I choose three Greater Quintessences of Strength (+ damage). These runes are quite flexible depending on the user's play style. Some more armor runes could also be added here if you feel like AD is causing you too much problems. You could also go with magic resist if early game AP mid is causing you problems as well. I prefer the damage because I think with proper usage of gold cards, Twisted Fate can be a very great 1vs1 champ early game.
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This is a must pick on Twisted Fate in my opinion. It makes your gold card combo that much more effective and is an amazing item for assassins who can gap close while chasing you. As you are relatively magic resist heavy, your primary concern will be AD based assassins or bruisers. With this item, AD will do next to no damage to you. It is also a great item when chasing or for an early kill when someone makes a mistake.


This is also an outstanding choice on Twisted Fate because it allows him to escape ganks or jump walls to chase. Twisted fate is vulnerable when his Pick a card is on CD and this gives him a get away when he gets stuck in an unexpected situation.


This spell is not bad on Twisted Fate if you need to do a lot of chasing in a game and allows him to really fly when combined with boots of swiftness. It really depends on how much cc the enemy team has and how often you think kiting will be possible.


This spell can be great if you want to focus on tower pushing or think the need will arise. It will give you full map mobility when combined with Twisted Fate's now 5500 ranged ult. It is also a good escape if you Destiny in to push a tower or vice versa.


This spell can help with healing based teams but I don't find it that useful on Twisted Fate. It is lacking defensive potential and is also not helping you keep the enemy in range of your auto attack. If they are running it wont stop them from getting away. If they are not running, I find that if you are igniting someone and trying to burst them down, it means you are not mobile. A non mobile Twisted Fate is a dead Twisted Fate.


This spell can be useful against very stun oriented teams. It is very hard to escape hard CC and can also make it very hard to kite. This can be a good spell to ensure you wont be perma stunned or prevented from getting that kill.

This spell has only one purpose with this build, to drop an enemies banshees veil shield. If an enemy squishy buys Banshees to counter your gold card destiny combo, just throw Wild Cards at them before you hit them with the gold card. This will drop the shield and allow you to land your combo. Otherwise this spell is just a waste of time and mana with this build. In some rare situations I could also be used to snipe a single hit kill on a low life champ but it wont really do any damage until very late in the game and even then it will be negligible.


This is the key to a good Twisted Fate vs a terrible one. It has so many uses and should be practiced extensively so that it becomes second nature to use. The Icon for this is actually wrong and has been updated. Blue cards now return 65 percent mana and all three cards deal pure magic damage. They effectively convert your AD base attack into magic damage output.
Blue cards are pretty strong pokes and great for last hitting creeps. They keep your mana high and do the most base damage of the three cards. Because of the high base damage, they hit towers the hardest. Use them frequently to last hit creeps to keep your mana above 50 percent. Be careful not to use a blue card on a creep and then get initiated on by enemy CC as you will be left with no counter CC until the cooldown is up.
Red Cards are great for harassing enemy champs and clearing waves quickly. They will deal damage to all units around the one hit, including the one hit. They can also be great for slowing a group of pursuing champs and saving allies. It is actually possible to kite multiple targets with only red cards but it takes a lot of practice. Red cards also deal a bit more damage than gold do, dealing the most overall damage to multiple targets by far.
Gold Card this is probably Twisted Fate's most useful ability. The CD is quite low on a spammable stun that can be used for a large variety of things. It can be used to harass enemy champs when combined with an auto attack or two. It can also be used to initiate team fights from a safe distance. It can and should be used to kite melee champs as much as possible. It has the lowest base damage of the three abilities but still does a fair amount when base attack damage is factored in.

Starting Items

When I am solo mid I find that most often I pick this as my starting item. Twisted Fate doesn't have amazing range on either of the skills you will be picking or his auto attacks. Because of this, he needs to be able to take some damage in exchanges or from enemy harass when last hitting. Doran's Shield gives him the life, armor, and HP regen that he needs to be a brick wall when it comes to holding his lane and farming CS. It also helps a lot to prevent enemy ganks. With this item, I would suggest picking away at the enemy with gold or red cards rather than going toe to toe. It definitely hurts your early damage output a bit.

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These items can also be very useful starting items for Twisted Fate. I don't find myself choosing these as often unless I know that I will need to dodge a lot of skill shot or aoe based spells or abilities. Examples include laning vs Brand, Morgana, Ezreal, Casseopia, etc... The potions also give good sustain in lane though maybe not as good as the Doran's Shield.

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I choose this item when I am duo lane bot with a support who can sustain me in lane. It gives more damage output and good health at the cost of some sustain. If I have a support who can sustain me though, this gives better potential for harass and bullying the lane.

Mid Game Items

If I didn't buy these as a starting item, they are the first thing I buy when I back.


I try to save enough for boots and a recurve bow after my first back. This will give a nice boost to damage output from stacked deck.

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My first core item and an incredibly useful item on Twisted Fate. Many builds will recommend a Sword of the Divine first. At first glance it seems that the Sword of the Divine does more damage and would be a better first item. However when you crunch the numbers, the Wit's End actually comes out ahead in damage before you calculate in the active affect. The key factor is not the damage though, it's the magic resist. Wit's End offers 30 magic resist upfront and another 20 after only 4 auto attacks. This means that very early into a fight Twisted Fate is carrying 50 extra magic resist. This magic resist is incredibly valuable vs any magic based champs at this early a stage in the game. It prevents you from being bursted down and lets you auto attack or kite longer to make the most of your stacked deck and pick a card abilities. It also makes you into an early game mage assassin with your ult, gold card combo.

Why I pick Wit's End. Example of the benefits of early MR.Double Kill with Wit's End

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Move speed and cooldown reduction are nice on Twisted Fate. Gives you more ability to use gold card spam and kite.


This will really bump up the damage you deal and take down tanks quickly. A great item for Twisted Fate and will make you into the utility dps you intend to be. This build is relatively cheap and you will dish out some pretty serious damage relatively early in the game when you complete this item. When you first get this, you should really get at least a kill with your ultimate.

Late Game Items

This item really gives Twisted fate the potential to start kiting almost anyone. It gives 35 tenacity for assassins with gap closers you can't avoid and the 20 percent crit is also a nice damage boost. This item makes it really hard to lock down Twisted Fate considering he already has the Boots of Swiftness and it makes him great at chasing.


This item really completes your damage build and makes you extremely fast. With this item people cant outrun you and cant chase you. It also will give you enough dps total to ult in and rape the enemy carry with a 2 second gold card exhaust combo before they can retaliate enough to kill you. You can kite pretty much any single target with this item if you can get the gold card off on command.


This final item will gives you enough resists that the enemy team will really struggle to burst you down. It will replace your Doran's Shield. It also is an excellent item to use in removing the enemy carry from a team fight. Destiny gold card combo an enemy carry at the start of a team fight and if you die, revive for some kiting and killing of the leftovers.

These items I find are a great choice for most games because they are relatively cheap. Up to the guardian angel is easily obtainable in most games and will make you more effective than if you try for lots of very expensive items early and the game never reaches the point where you can make use of them.

Early Game

Twisted should take either mid lane against an AP champ or bot lane with a support. If neither of these is possible he can solo top but he is vulnerable to ganks. Although this build doesn't require as much farm because items are relatively cheap, he still needs quite a lot amount to get into his damage items earlier.

As mid lane I get a Doran's Shield and play with a relatively conservative style. Twisted Fate will not dish out enough damage early to go head to head battle to the death style. He is much better off playing back and pushing the enemy off last hits whenever he has 3 charges of stacked deck and a gold card. In this case, land your gold card and hit them with the 4th auto attack for the stacked deck proc and then back away. Even if you take a hit from their ranged ability in the process, you will generally come out ahead in damage. You can also harass with red cards. Any time an enemy champ comes close to the caster minions, toss a red card and they will take full damage from the effect. I use blue cards for last hits on creeps or the occasional hit on a tower. You really shouldn't be pushing their tower early in the game though because Twisted Fate is vulnerable to ganks.

As bottom with support the strategy is quite similar but you can be a bit more aggressive. Use gold cards to initiate on one champ that gets out of position. Be careful not to chase though because two champs can quickly turn on Twisted fate after you burn your gold card and you could get bursted down before another one comes up. Instead only chase or go in for the kill if you yellow card on someone that is low to start with. Also if two enemy champs attempt to focus either you or your support, use red cards to slow both at the same time and kite them around. Finally if you can get someone to chase you to within tower range, always remember your gold card will get them owned by the tower faster than they can imagine.

Mid Game

As soon as you are around lvl 6 its time to start ganking. Pay attention to where their jungle is at (if you know) and where the creep wave is at if you are mid. You don't want to leave your lane for a failed gank so that their mid and jungle can push your tower in the process. Also if possible you can coordinate your ganks with your jungle so that you have a 4 man push on a lane. If they have a solo top this can be quite devastating as long as mid tower doesn't get owned in the process. For ganks I use the basic strategy of picking a yellow card then activating my Destiny. I pick the yellow card first so that I use the spell instantly when I arrive at the location. Also because this build isn't purely glass cannon style like some others, exhaust can be used after the gold card wears off to continue the auto attack barrage and prevent them from running away. This ganking strategy can even be used to tower dive with this build but you really have to know what you are doing. By this I mean teleport on the edge of tower range and know how to get in and out of it very quickly.

Destiny is also an excellent defensive item and can be used to bail out a teammate from a jungle gank or save a tower. The most important thing to learn is to not waste the ability.
Continue to farm mid game and stack up as many kills as you can.

Try to get red buff if possible. If your first two ganks go well and you end up 2-0. An earlier red buff and Wit's End will turn you into a nightmare.

Late Game

This is where you will really start to dish out some damage and gain the ability to push towers. After you get your Black Cleaver you will notice some serious damage output, especially on squishy champs. Your main focus at this point in the game should one of the following: Pushing towers with destiny if your team is having troubles getting them. Removing the enemy carry from a fight by gating behind them just after the start of a team fight and bursting them down with gold card exhaust combo. Kiting enemy tanks or bruisers that try to chase you away from your team and eventually killing them. Initiating a good team fight on an enemy champ that is out of position with a gold card. You are also great at keeping awareness on baron and preventing the team from capturing it.

Red buff is pretty amazing on Twisted Fate at this point. He has such high attack speed it becomes a permanent slow. Kiting becomes even easier and damage output becomes excellent. Red buff should be a priority at this stage of the game.

One more tip, don't forget that destiny reveals stealthed champs. Examples include alkali, talon, or vayne during their abilities. It also reveals champs in the bushes.