Off-meta builds in League of Legends are either welcomed with open arms or quickly removed to ensure the game’s health and longevity. In this case, a certain magician has some new tricks in testing—some that may make his gameplay near-unbeatable.
Riot Yelough, a champion designer for League, provided insight into some crit-focused buffs for Twisted Fate soon to be available for testing on the PBE, offering a bit more help for a build that—though unorthodox—could be used efficiently before. Nearly Twisted Fate’s entire kit is being altered to include some scaling off of his crit percentage, though whether these changes reach the live servers the same way—or at all—is unclear.
Bonus AD ratios are being granted to Twisted Fate’s Q and E, with the latter also granting more attack speed per rank and dealing more damage to towers. The Card Master’s passive can also now critically strike to grant him additional gold upon killing an enemy.
The crux of the crit-focused changes comes with Twisted Fate’s W, where each of his cards has gained a scaling multiplier based on his critical strike percentage. This most notably impacts his blue card, which was already a large source of damage, now dealing up to 57.5 percent more damage based on his crit rate. As a quality-of-life update, Twisted Fate’s W effects will also now work on inhibitors and the Nexus.
In compensation, Twisted Fate’s base attack speed and attack speed growth have been reduced slightly, though this may matter very little with the buffs to his E and the player’s choice of itemization. None of the champion’s base damage numbers or growths have been altered, whether that be his auto attacks or abilities.
Twisted Fate is one of the more peculiar champions in League. While his kit has its strengths, he works better when alongside his team through the use of his ultimate—something that oftentimes doesn’t happen in solo queue—leading to a consistently mediocre play rate. With the sheer impact of these buffs, even without a fully crit-focused build, Twisted Fate is now rewarded heavily for building even just a single item that increases critical strike chance, likely opening even more room for itemization for the champion.
While it is unclear when Riot will push these changes to the live servers, they are currently only in the testing phase, where they are likely to remain for a few weeks depending on how they land with the community. As with previous large-scale and off-meta changes that Riot has tested on other champions previously, it is possible that these changes will be altered heavily during the testing duration or reverted entirely.
In the meantime, players can explore new builds for Twisted Fate and all of the other champions available in League thanks to the start of the 2024 season, which includes the removal of the Mythic item system, changes to the design of Summoner’s Rift, and more.
