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Riot Games' Teamfight Tactics auto chess hits open beta today

League of Legends' entry into the auto chess genre is now available to everyone, as Teamfight Tactics launches its open beta.

Ozzie Mejia

June 26, 2019 10:40 AM

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Gaming's Auto Chess trend continues to grow in popularity by the day. Shacknews has recently been following Valve's jump into the growing genre with Dota Underlords, but MOBA competitor Riot Games has also thrown its hat into the Auto Chess ring. League of Legends is throwing in its effort in as a separate game mode called Teamfight Tactics, with Riot officially releasing the open beta.

How does Teamfight Tactics work? Games start with a planning phase, where you'll earn gold and purchase League of Legends champions. Players will then take their champions and deploy them on the battlefield. When the Combat Phase begins, champions will automatically do battle with an opponent's champions based on where they were positioned. Rounds will end with one team left standing, with both sides earning gold based on wins and streaks. All players will then level up and proceed to the center of the Convergence, where they'll pick a fresh group of champions. Similar champions can be combined to unlock superior versions of themselves, which reduces a team's numbers, but gives a team a slight edge in strength. There are eight players total taking part in a Teamfight Tactics session, with only one winner at the end.

This is understandably a lot to soak in, which is why Riot Games has offered a gameplay guide for the uninitiated. There's a bit more to Teamfight Tactics, including PvE rounds, item usage, and origin/class bonuses. Just like in League of Legends, each champion is distinct and comes with their own abilities. There are 50 champions available right now, with the roster set to grow in the weeks ahead.

At the end of the day, the best way to learn Teamfight Tactics is by jumping in head-first. Fortunately, the time to do that is now with the start of the open beta. This is just the beginning for Riot, as Teamfight Tactics looks to implement a mission and beta pass system by next week, along with a ranked mode that's set to be deployed with the League of Legends 9.14 patch in just a few weeks. Teamfight Tactics is available now in open beta on the League of Legends website.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?