Teamfight Tactics (TFT) Ranked Mode
All the official info on Teamfight Tactics ranked mode. It will be released with patch 9.14 and feature party queues with a premade size based on your rank.
This article summarizes the information provided by Ed “SapMagic” Altorfer, senior design manager on gameplay at Riot Games and UX lead for Teamfight Tactics (TFT). Be aware that nothing is set in stone: Teamfight Tactics is a new game, so the actual ranked mode might change in the months to come.
Ranked mode release date
Riot wants to add Ranked mode to Teamfight Tactics as soon as possible, so it will be out about two weeks after the game release, with patch 9.14. You can expect patch 9.14 to land at the end of June or in early July (if everything goes according to plans).
Update: Patch 9.14 is scheduled for July 17th.
Matchmaking queues
Teamfight Tactics will have both a normal and a ranked matchmaking queue, and you can play solo or with a party.
In Normal Mode you can even have a full party with seven friends (the number of players in each match is eight).
In Ranked Mode the developers want to offer a fun and social experience to players ranked at Gold and below, while they will tighten the premade size at Platinum and above for competitive reasons.
This is the current plan:
Premades of up to five for Gold and below.
Premades of up to three for Platinum and above.
Teamfight Tactics lobby for eight players - Image: SapMagic
Is Teamfight Tactics a permanent game mode?
Riot developers consider Teamfight Tactics a competitive mode, so they definitely want to support that aspect of the game.
There is a possibility that it will become permanent, and so they building features to support it if that happens, but ultimately how we will play the mode and its success will influence their strategy going forward.
“As a point of clarification for those asking whether TFT is permanent:
We think it has the potential to be a sustainable, permanent mode with its own unique audience from Summoner’s Rift. We also believe competitive features like Ranked would be key to its success.
Basically: We want this to be permanent, but there’s a lot of work we need to do to make that happen so we’re focused on that for the moment.”
Miscellaneous info
The average game should have an ideal duration of 27 to 35 minutes, but the developer team is still tuning the gameplay, so this is subject to change.
There will be about 50 champions at launch.
Initially, there will be fairly simple map (they call them “arena”) skins, but they are planning to work on elaborate ones in the future.
We don’t know yet the exact rank distribution, but as SapMagic talked about Gold and Platinum ranks, we can guess that they will use a system similar to the rank tiers in League of Legends.
Header image: Riot
