Notes from SIG: Andy is a graduate of Duke University and a quantitative trader at SIG. Although he only started TFT a year ago, Andy achieved the highest ranking in NA in three Dragonlands events and became the first North American representative for the Dragonlands tournament!
Introduction
Before we discuss some of the complications and ways to solve them in TFT, we should consider some of the main games and tools we use to play. If you have experience with TFT, feel free to skip this section:
Gold: you get a few gold in each area and you can use it in many ways (we will discuss that)
Levels: You can spend gold to level up to play an extra team on your board and get better shop levels for cheap units.
Units: You play them on your board in combat. Units cost between 1 and 5 gold (except for dragons), and stronger units are more expensive. If you get 3 of the same unit, you can upgrade one unit, and you can upgrade it up to twice. Shop: Shop has 5 slots each with one unit you can choose to buy. Turn your store every time you get a new energy unit, but you can also use 2 gold to buy a new store energy every time (it rotates). Battles: Each season consists of five rounds where you fight other players and one round where you fight neutral monsters.
Health: You start at 100, health decreases as you lose to other players, and loses health as other opponents survive. You are eliminated when your health is 0 or less, and your placement in a game is the reverse order of the order in which you were eliminated (8th to 1st).
Augments: In steps 2-1, 3-2, and 4-2, you have a choice of 3 augments (choose 1) that improve your board. Among these, gold is a variable and, as a result, many important decisions in the game affect the expenditure of gold.
What gold can buy
At any time in the game, we can use gold to:
Level up: You can buy experience at the rate of 4 gold coins for 4 experience items. Levels range from 1 to 9 and require more experience to level up.
Volumes: To upgrade your board, you must find units and/or upgrades to your current board by acquiring multiple copies of the same unit. To do this, you can refresh 5 slots in your store every time for 2 gold.
Buying units: units that cost gold and units you don’t play on your board can be put on your bench (up to 9 units). Earn more gold: There is an interest system in TFT, where for every 10 gold you hold in your bank (up to 50 gold) the next spin you will collect 1 extra income gold.
For the rest of this article, we’ll be looking at decisions that primarily debate upgrade and rollover options. Purpose of weight
When we roll, we buy five well slots each depending on our level. For example, at level 6, the chances are (25%, 40%, 30%, 5%, 0%) of getting 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, and 5 values. It is a good EV to convert when the “value” of these options together exceeds the 2 gold we are using. The profit comes from the units we have to buy to play on our board, but that is something that is difficult to define exactly. Before deciding to roll, players analyze the game situation to look for things that can increase EV. It can be:
Board Power: If your board stinks and your opponents’ boards are strong, turning to turn some losses into wins or save health can increase your target. The cost of improvement: if there are many units that you can hit in the shop that can improve your board (for example if you have many “pairs” and another group will be promoted ), getting power from wood and – becomes cheaper in gold because the store can have units that make you stronger.
Total health: If your health is low, you should consider putting your gold before you die to make sure you are as strong as possible. With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the places I found myself on the last day of the Jade Cup and see if you agree with my thoughts!
