In Teamfight Tactics, adapting on the fly is one of your strongest weapons. Often you will find yourself changing up your team composition halfway through a match. Unfortunately, when that happens you can’t just sell or break down your items. And sometimes what you have will not be the best for your new build.
However, there are a few ways to pick the right items early on to strategically maximize their usefulness, regardless of where the game goes.
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Loss Streak versus Win Streak
One thing you can decide within the first few rounds of a Teamfight Tactics match is your overall strategy. There are currently two leading approaches that most players gravitate towards.
One, the Economy strategy, relies on playing passively early on to save money. You focus on building a 50 gold bank to milk for interest. Conversely, the Early Game Wins strategy is about maximizing your composition right away, spending your gold on rerolls, and trying to dominate the match from the start.
These two standard Teamfight Tactics methodologies can also be described as Loss Streak and Win Streak Strategy, respectively.
Win Streak Strategy items
When trying to win fights in the early game, your go-to picks should be items which give a lot of power to a single champion. Early on in a match, you won’t typically rely on a complete unit synergy. You also won’t get a lot of mileage out of aura items due to how small your team is. But as long as you can turn one of your champions into an unstoppable monster, you will pull ahead of the opposition.
Teamfight Tactics has a number of good items for this purpose. But three of them really shine in the early game while still remaining useful later on.
B.F. Sword + Chain Vest = Guardian Angel. This item revives the defeated champion wearing it with 500 health. This gives your uber-champion more mileage, almost doubling their durability in the early game when most enemy champions will be 1- and 2-stars.
Recurve Bow + Needlessly Large Rod = Ginsoo’s Rageblade. Each attack grants 3 percent attack speed, stacking infinitely. A self-explanatory item, it is unstoppable early on when enemy champions can’t easily chain-stun, banish, or otherwise stop you yet. The Rageblade is particularly powerful on a number of tier 1 champions, including meta-favorite Kassadin.
Recurve Bow + Tear of the Goddess = Statikk Shiv. Every third attack deals 100 spell damage in an area around the target. This item hits really hard in the early game, and can still be useful later on as the board crowds up.
There are, of course, other strong choices in the Teamfight Tactics item roster. Make sure to factor in your team’s composition when deciding what to build. And if you favor a more passive early game, check out our Loss Streak Strategy item guide!
