Playing for 1st

A question I often get is “I am good at top 4’ing but I rarely go 1st, what should I do?” (and also occasionally the opposite).

There could be a myriad of reasons (not knowing endgame comps, bad positioning, etc.), but the most likely answer comes down to risky vs conservative play. Risky play is also often described as “greedy” or “high econ”, whereas conservative play is often described as “aggressive” or “high tempo”.

You can make different decisions to play risky or conservative with your Items, Augments, and Economy. I’ve provided one example of each below.

Even though both of these TFT Coaching members have the same average placement, the left player has a riskier playstyle which leads to a higher 1st place rate, while the right player is more conservative and has a higher top 4 rate.

Itemization is one way you can choose to play riskier. The conservative play here may be to make both Adaptive Helm and Guardbreaker on Senna which would be the strongest board, but Soju decides to play greedier and make only the Guardbreaker and saves the Tear and Cloak for more desirable items. While he is willing to lose a round and some gold and HP in order to have better items in the late game, he also recognizes his board is very strong and may not need both items. He ends up full streaking the Stage anyway, but picks up a Bow off the carousel to combine with Tear and make Shiv. His risky play pays off as he ends up in the exact same spot, but with better items.

If you have a good top 4 rate but struggle going 1st, consider being greedier with your item components throughout the mid game so you can end the game with more ideal items. If you want to boost your top 4 rate, consider slamming less perfect items instead of sacrificing HP by leaving them on the bench.

Augments is another way to play riskier or more conservatively. Here Soju is on a 3-win streak, so taking an augment to continue streaking is a reasonable conservative play- Unified Resistance works great with the raw health given from Warmogs and Crownguard. Crownguarded is tempting given that he already has one, but is low value as it will likely end up alone on a 1-item unit as he needs to prioritize carry items next. However, Soju opts for the risky play of taking Little Buddies, which doesn’t give him any current board strength at all but will be stronger in the late game. He is healthy and doesn’t mind losing HP during stage 3, especially because he has Heartsteel.

If you are top 4’ing a lot but rarely going first, consider taking some riskier augment options that give less benefit now, but cap out higher in the late game (usually teamwide buff augments, Vampirism is another great choice). If you have a low top 4 rate but a high win rate, consider making more conservative augment choices to save HP in the midgame (item augments tend to be strong in the mid game).

Economy is the single most impactful factor of risky vs. conservative play. Here SpicyAppies can choose to make a risky play of leveling to 9 after the minion round on 6-1 and rolling about 30 gold on level 9 to try to spike his board very hard. However, he recognizes that from his current spot it probably wouldn’t be enough to go 1st anyway, so he instead makes the conservative play of rolling on level 8 here to see if he gets anything worth leveling for. After hitting this Ziggs, he spends all of his gold to level for it. While it means he will have a weaker board in Stage 6, every single fight is impactful at this point in the game and the additional Ziggs can make the difference in the next fight and gain him another life and a couple placements.

If you are want to go 1st more, try to make as much interest as possible throughout the game. If you want to top 4 more, spend your gold more liberally throughout the mid game to save HP- some good options are rolling a couple times at level 6 on 3-2, and rolling down to 0 gold on level 8 around stage 4-2.

If you have any questions or comments, check out the discussion thread in the TFT Coaching Discord!