Teamfight Tactics is all about luck. But luck is a skill. In this post I’ll talk about four types of luck and how they manifest in skill expression.

Type I: Blind luck. There is no skill in this unless you count not being AFK and being able to click on 3 Sennas.

Type II: Motion. “Keep on going and chances are you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I have never heard of anyone stumbling on something sitting down*.”*

In order to benefit from blind luck, you have to roll. How many times have we backseated a friend who refuses to roll on 3-2 despite having 4 pairs? Knowing when to roll is the first and easiest level of skill expression in TFT. If you’re reading this post, you probably already know when you need to roll, as in the common 3-2/4-1 breakpoints. A common criticism of rolling is “what are you rolling for?”; that is, "One must distinguish between motion and progress’'. And while it’s true that at some point you need to make this distinction, I don’t think newer players see any difference between rolling on 3-2 and hitting Garen 2 and rolling on 3-2, hitting nothing, and bleeding out. While we should aim to avoid rolling wastefully (for one upgrade, for a 5* at 7) if you don’t roll until you know that you’re going to hit you’re probably not going to hit.

Type III: Recognition. “Chance favors the prepared mind.” Know when you’re lucky and know when you’re unlucky. This is when skill expression starts to manifest, so this skill comes in a few levels.

  1. Know how to play flex, because first-timing a comp is gonna lead to a fast 8th, meaning you know what units to look for and what items to build on those units, and therefore what components to prioritize on carousel.
  2. Know how to build items that can work in multiple comps that you know how to play.
  3. Know how to rolldown by holding pairs that fit in comps you know how to play or seem broken enough that you can just put units in and win without thinking too much.
  4. Know when to hold pairs so that your level 7 board isn’t just whatever random garbage you find on your rolldown, but also whatever random garbage you found in all the preceding shops.

There are two ways to recognize luck (well, three if you count just looking at the highest winrate comps). You can read comp guides until you’ve internalized the intuition behind decisions and plays. Or you can strike out on your own path, be an innovator, and craft the new meta. Jokes -99% of us are here because we want to netdeck something and get free LP. Recognition is (probably) what enables players to hit Masters, it is the level of skill that can be learned by following guides, and it is (in my opinion) still nowhere near the level of skill required to manifest Type IV.

Type IV: Directed Motion. Make decisions based not just on your game, but also on other’s games and other games. This is the harder flavor of Motion to grasp because it requires not just preparation but knowledge and experience. Rather than micro-level decisions (what to buy in your shop), directed motion dictates macro-level decisions, specifically the two most important decisions in TFT: when to roll and what augments to select.

Applying directed motion to know when to roll requires a level of awareness of other players that most of us cannot obtain because we are too busy watching Netflix. Instead of blindly rolling at 3-2 and 4-1, you might have enough HP to see that all the Aphelios/Zeri players have already hit so instead you’re going to go 7 on 4-2 and get your Azir 2/Nasus 2 for free. Instead of mindlessly slowrolling above 50 when playing reroll, you see that you’re contested and you devote all your energy to getting a higher placement in the mirror, and end up killing off the contester early enough that you can still hit your units and secure a top 4. Every time you lost because someone 3*d a Zeri, it’s because you didn’t roll to deny them. If you roll on 3-2 and don’t hit your units, it might be because you’re unlucky, or it might be because you’re contested and it was still early enough to pivot out.

The role of directed motion in augment selection may go unnoticed today because Tactics.tools separates Gifts of the Fallen from Gotta Go Fast III. But without augments stats, it’s all about your experience, because directed motion favors the individualized action. You can’t try all 200 augments, you need to pick augments because of your unique knowledge or “pocket picks”.

Aren’t these all just the same thing? Yes and no. Motion requires a bias for action, because just by rolling you increase your chances of getting lucky. Recognition requires preparation to recognize when you are getting lucky; if you’re in motion and happen to stumble upon a new path, recognition lets you know whether it’s the path to victory. Directed motion requires tactics, and it enables you to make informed decisions on when to roll and what to play.

Im not OP
Archived source: https://archive.is/KHKDZ