Welcome to my in depth Twisted Fate guide! I'm Yeager, a high elo midlaner in league of legends, consistently reaching at least master tier on EUW since season 5. I spend some of my free time creating high quality educational content to help you improve and become a better player. Why should you play Twisted Fate? If you want to carry games through superior macro play, then this is the champion for you. You don't pick this champion to win the lane, you pick it to win the map and get your team ahead. Twisted Fate is all about putting the enemies under constant pressure and creating favourable fights for his teammates with Destiny. It's a champion that will teach you the fundamentals of mid lane.

Pros + Strong waveclear + Great splitpusher + Forces the entire enemy team to play around him + Excellent roams with Destiny + Gold generation passive + Easy to CS Twisted Fate is a great pick for solo queue because of his powerful roams and massive global splitpush presence with Destiny. The moment a Twisted Fate is out of vision, the entire enemy team is forced into a defensive playstyle, or they will risk getting deleted 1 by 1. He offers good utility in teamfights with 2 second stun on gold card(max rank) and AOE slow on red.

Cons - Immobile - Many bad matchups - High skillcap - Squishy Twisted Fate is squishy and does not have any escape tools, so he is extremely vulnerable to enemy ganks. This of course means positioning is really important. He also requires superior map awareness in order for you to be succesful with Destiny.

SUMMONER SPELLS - FLASH: Pretty self-explanatory. Always take this. HEAL: Decent rune if you're going to skirmish a lot with your jungler since it's stronger in 2v2 compared to Barrier. Ignite: Ignite is without a doubt the best summoner spell on Twisted Fate as it gives him a lot of kill pressure both in the laning phase but also when roaming. CLEANSE: Underrated spell. If you are playing against a heavy CC mid + jungler, then you want Cleanse. The benefit of having cleanse is the fact that you don't need to buy Quicksilver Sash, and can focus on buying your core items so you don't lose out on damage. EXHAUST: This helps alot against champions that rely on burst damage to finish you off. Champions this can be good into, are something like Fizz, Zed, Rengar, Talon, Ekko. Having Exhaust also makes your 1v1 splitpushing alot stronger. BARRIER: The more selfish summoner spell compared to Heal. It has lower CD and is a much safer pick against opponents with burst on low cooldown like LeBlanc where Exhaust wouldn't work because she can just bait out.

Electrocute: Works well with Twisted Fate's trading pattern. He wants to go for short trades and then back off until abilities are ready again, so Electrocute is a perfect fit. It's extremely easy to proc with a basic combo while also giving you some kill pressure. Taste of Blood: This gives you a little bit of extra sustain for the early game. Alternatively you can also use Cheap Shot as it synergizes with your Pick A Card gold card. Eyeball Collection: Stacking rune that will grant you more combat stats as you get takedowns. Every option in this tier is viable on Twisted Fate so it mainly comes down to preference. Ravenous Hunter: By far the best rune in this tier as it gives you a ridiculous amount of sustain once fully stacked. Alternatively you can also go for Ultimate Hunter if you want a lower cooldown on your ultimate instead of sustain. Magical Footwear: This is mainly used to save you 300g to get the core items faster. You won't have boots for the majority of the laning phase so be careful not using this rune when you're in a match up where you would need boots early on. (Examples: Syndra, Cassiopeia, LeBlanc etc). Against champs like these you can go for stopwatch instead. Minion Dematerializer: It has several uses for midlane, but the number one use, is to improve your waveclearing abilities. A lot of the times when you don't have Minion Dematerializer, you will find the backline creeps survive with little to no HP left. This can be really annoying, especially if they die to your minions right after. By using dematerializer we can prevent that from happening. How to use: Use all Minion Dematerializer on the caster creeps, so you will oneshot them at level 9 with Wild Cards.

PASSIVE ABILITY

Loaded dice (Passive): Upon killing a unit, Twisted Fate rolls his 'lucky' dice receiving anywhere between 1 and 6 bonus gold. Because of this passive, we will actually win lane just by going even in CS.

Q

Wild cards (Q): Twisted Fate throws three cards, dealing damage to each enemy unit they pass through. We max this first because this is our main waveclear ability.

W

Pick A Card (W): Twisted Fate chooses a magic card from his deck, and uses that for his next attack, causing bonus effects. We max this ability second. Red card deals AOE(area of effect) damage. Use this in combination with Wild Cards to waveclear super fast. It's also good if the enemy champions are stacked on top of each other, as you will damage and slow all of them. Yellow card stuns the target for up to 2 seconds at max rank. This is typically the one you use when ganking someone with Destiny. This also let's you reliably hit Wild Cards on the target, because they will be stunned and unable dodge. Blue card has the highest base damage out of the 3 options, and refunds some mana on use. Most commonly used when you don't want to push the wave. It's super good for lasthitting the caster creeps under tower since 1 normal attack won't be enough after a towershot.

E

Stacked Deck (E): Every 4 attacks, Twisted Fate deals bonus damage. In addition, his Attack Speed is increased. This helps a lot with farming creeps under tower. You can use the enhanced attack combined with Pick A Card for a quick trade with the opponent. We max this ability last.

R

Destiny (R): Twisted Fate predicts the fortunes of his foes, revealing all enemy champions and enabling the use of Gate, which teleports Twisted Fate to any target location in 1.5 seconds. Grants True Sight on all enemy champions on the map for 6/8/10 seconds. While Destiny is active, Twisted Fate can teleport up to 5500 units away in 1.5 seconds. This is what makes Twisted Fate such a strong solo queue champion. It should be used whenever possible, to roam to the other lanes and get them ahead. It can also be used to reveal and chase down a stealthed target like Shaco, Kha'Zix and so on.

Doran's Ring: The standard starting item for most mages for because of the great early game stats. It also leaves you with enough gold to buy 2 Health Potions. On Twisted Fate however, you only want to start with this item when you're not running Time Warp Tonic.

Boots: If you are playing against skillshot-heavy champions like Syndra, Ziggs, Xerath and think you will struggle dodging their abilities, this is a good choice. It also lets you have 4 Health Potions for more sustain.

Corrupting Potion: If you are against some melee champs, that you can abuse a lot with basic attacks and abilities, then this is the go-to item. This is also the starting item you want if you're in a tough lane where you would get harassed a lot. Quick tip: using Time Warp Tonic in the Inspiration tree will extend the duration of Corrupting Potion by 20% and give 5% movement speed while under the effect.

Refillable Potion: Is a really good item to pick up when you have 150g to spare. The earlier you buy it, the better. It is extremely gold efficient as it gets refilled whenever you base. It can be sold again later on for 60g, so you only lose 90 gold on an item, that can end up saving you a lot of gold.

Core items - Lich bane: This is probably the best item for Twisted Fate. Most of his damage comes from auto attacks so he can fully utilize the Sheen passive for a lot of damage when combined with Stacked Deck and Pick A Card. The movement speed bonus can be the deciding factor when it comes to engaging and disengaging. Zhonya's Hourglass: Twisted Fate is squishier compared to previous seasons, so Zhonya's Hourglass is a must-have to ensure that you survive in fights. It also allows you to position much more agressively without fear of imminent death, which is a big deal when you have a 2 second stun and massive burst in your kit. It also enables the backline Destiny port, where you teleport behind the enemy team, stun the priority target and activate Zhonya's Hourglass before you get hit by CC.

Everfrost: Currently the most popular mythic item on Twisted Fate. You get the best laning component for mages Lost Chapter and a free root on the Everfrost active. This combined with your Pick A Card and Rapid Firecannon turns you into a long range CC bot with a reliable point and click stun.

Hextech Rocketbelt: You get access to Hextech Alternator which gives a huge spike to your overall burst. The active part of the rocketbelt is the main reason you buy this item - More burst and mobility. Mobility is everything on Twisted Fate as it will allow you to better position for Pick A Card during fights, and ensure you hit the priority targets with the 2 second stun.

Luden's Tempest: Gives you more damage in the early game as well as more mobility. You're sacrificing utility in order to get more damage which can be viable against squishy team compositions, as that's where the flat magic pen is the most useful because people rarely opt into magic resistance items early on.

Crown of the Shattered Queen: The season 12 anti-burst mythic item which can be built against assassins and other high burst champions. It's similar to Malzahar's passive in that it makes you take reduced damage for a short duration. You're trading damage for more survivability.

Plated Steelcaps: If you're facing an auto attack heavy team. On top of giving armor, it also reduces the damage you receive from auto attacks (including magic damage), so it works against both damage sources.

Mercury's Treads: Offers magic resist and tenacity. If you are playing against hard CC, these boots are a must-buy. Twisted Fate is very vulnerable to ganks in lane, so these boots will give him that extra bit of safety. Here are some examples of when you should buy Mercury's Treads. When you face Ryze + Sejuani or Syndra + Elise or LeBlanc + Skarner. Basically you want mercs, when you are up against any combination of mid+jgl, that has some form of hard CC.

Boots of Swiftness: Good against opponents whose only CC consists of slows.(Example: Olaf, Kayle, Tryndamere)

Ionian Boots of Lucidity: Gives 10% CDR on abilities and summoner spells. This has insane synergy with Unsealed Spellbook. If the enemies don't have too much CC, i always get these boots to have lower cooldowns on my abilities.

Rabadon's Deathcap: Is very powerful on mages, especially those who build Lich Bane for additional burst. This is usually bought as the 4th or 5th item. If enemies have lots of MR, you need Void Staff first.

Void Staff: If the opponents are stacking magic resistance items, then you want this so you can stay relevant damage wise. Avoid buying it before your 3rd item including boots because otherwise you would be losing out on a lot of damage.

Mejai's Soulstealer: If you're snowballing the game and getting a lot of takedowns, then you want the mejai's as it can give you lots of raw damage to snowball even harder. It's a high risk item as single death can end up costing you a lot, so only go for this if you're confident.

Morellonomicon: Buy this against heavy healing opponents like Swain, Vladimir, Soraka and so on. Most of the time you will be sitting on the component Oblivion Orb until you finished your core items and then you can upgrade to Morellonomicon afterwards.

Banshee's Veil: Provides some some CDR and AP which TF loves, but it also gives MR and a spellshield for tough lanes. If the enemies have champions like LeBlanc, Ryze, Blitzcrank, Thresh who can easily flash CC you, this item will help keeping you safe.

Quicksilver Sash: This is a must-buy against Malzahar and Skarner, as it is the only item that cancels Suppression.

Rapid Firecannon: We buy this item mainly for its passive, which lets you extend your auto-attack range when fully charged. Quite often it will catch people off-guard because they don't expect that long range Pick A Card stun. IMO it should only be bought when you are ahead, and already have at least Hextech Rocketbelt, Lich Bane and boots.

Twisted Fates laning phase is fairly simple. You want to try and harass the enemy as much as you can, but prioritize getting the CS. The most effective way of doing this, is to establish Lane dominance. That is done by shoving the first wave fast, so when you go for trades, the opponent won't have that many minions backing him up. If he decides to trade back, he will take damage from you and your minions. How to shove fast: Use the red card from Pick A Card and hit multiple minions with the AOE. (Bonus points if you can hit the enemy laner too.) We max Wild Cards first as this is our poke and waveclearing ability, Pick A Card second to increase the damage and CC duration, Stacked Deck third because we are not playing on-hit Twisted Fate. Put a point in Destiny at level 6, 11 and 16. Your best way of trading in lane, is to throw a Stacked Deck with Pick A Card when your enemy is going for a last-hit on a minion. This forces the opponent to either take free damage OR give up the CS to trade back. It is a win-win situation for you if played correctly.

With Twisted Fate it's really hard to get any solo kills, so you're better off just farming. Focus on last hitting and surviving the lane phase. You want to plan your recalls at level 5, so you can come back to lane healthy, and with items for a level 6 ultimate to one of the side lanes. Recalling at level 5 is something you should be attempting to do in every single game you play Twisted Fate.
Remember: Twisted Fate is one of the few champs where you win lane just by going even in CS, because of his gold generation passive. Therefore you don't need to take risks in the laning phase.

Don't forget to actively use the Minion Dematerializer on the caster creeps. When you execute a creep with Minion Dematerializer, it permanently increases your damage against that type of minion. This allows our waveclearing ability to come online much earlier, and avoid having minions survive with 5% hp after throwing Wild Cards on them.

Goal for the early game: Focus on playing safe and get all the CS you can. If your opponent doesn't have Cleanse, call your jungler for some easy kills with gold card and Ignite.

By now you should have Hextech Rocketbelt, Lich Bane and boots. This is the phase where Twisted Fate becomes strong, because we have Destiny available for use, and more points in Wild Cards, so we can clear the waves much faster and roam. When your ultimate is up, look at your other laners and see how their waves are positioned. Shove your lane fast with Pick A Card + Wild Cards and look for plays with Destiny. Before you teleport in: Spam ping your teammates to engage first. We do this, so your teammates can bait out any dash/jump/gap-closing abilities the opponents might have, before we port in. Now you click on Pick A Card and let it cycle between cards. (You can select the card you need WHILE in the teleporting animation.) When teleporting: You should teleport close to the target, but in the direction they will flee. Why? Because if they use Flash after you port, you will still be in range to stun them with Pick A Card. If you don't find many opportunities to roam, you should still shove in the wave, and then you go out of vision. This is a high level strategy used by the best Twisted Fate players like Apdo. When you leave vision, it puts all the enemy laners under massive pressure, because of Twisted Fates global presence. It is used to make the enemies back off, and give your teammates the freedom to farm in tough matchups. Goal for the mid game: Shove in waves fast and look for good roams on the side lanes with Destiny. When the enemies are dead from your ganks, use this to your advantage and try securing objectives like outer turrets, rift herald and dragon to create a lead, that can give you and your team enough gold to close out the game.

Twisted Fate does very well in teamfights because of his versatility. The way you play Twisted Fate, is kind of the same way you play ADC. In fights you play with your ADC and gold card the tanks or whoever is in front of you. You constantly CC that person until he's dead and then you move on to the next. Alternatively you can play way more agressive by porting into the backline, gold card their main carry, and pray your team follows up. When you go for these kind of plays, you need to make sure your team knows this in advance, so they can react in time. You can also set up the strategy to flank and kill them, and that's something that a lot of champions can't do except for Twisted Fate. Twisted Fate comes from decision making and playing him well. Goal for the lategame: Pressure by splitpushing and create unfavorable fights for the enemy team. Look below for explanation of splitpushing.

Splitpushing is a strategy you can make us of when:
1. your team is underperforming in teamfights
2. you have a really strong splitpusher that can easily 1v1 anyone on the enemy team, and maybe even 1v2.

The idea is that you have 4 people in a lane, and then you send the most effective splitpusher to a sidelane, and let him push for objectives while distracting multiple enemies.

If the splitpusher is getting chased down by the whole enemy team, the remaining 4 are free to take major objectives like baron/dragon/towers and inhibitors.

If the 4 members are getting engaged by the whole enemy team, the splitpusher is free to destroy towers and maybe even a inhibitor.


Can i splitpush as Twisted Fate? Absolutely. But it has to be under the right circumstances(mentioned above).

Twisted Fate can easily secure you objectives if you play really well with your ultimate Destiny. You are better off splitpushing first, because you want to separate the enemy team. If the enemy team is grouped and you're splitpushing while your 4 teammates are defending a tower, that means you're going to be getting an objective for free. If the enemies decide to come and fight you, you can just back off and use Destiny to the other side of the map, and force a fight with your team, while their champions are trying to deal with your splitpush.

The goal of splitpushing with Twisted Fate is to force unfavorable teamfights for the enemy team. With TF you can splitpush and basically get baron control. You can also use your ultimate to get pick-offs once you see someone overextending. After you killed someone overextending, you can force baron and bait their remaining players to create a favorable fight for you.

Twisted Fate has a high amount of responsibility for getting vision because you are the primary initiator in a sense with your gold cards. It's really important that you don't force bad skirmishes. You want to play the number game, where you are the one using ultimate to make it a 2v1, or even 3v2.

When you splitpush, you need to have your team pushing another lane. They can't be farming jungle or playing passive under a tower.


Another advantage of splitpushing is the fact that you will often get a massive EXP/CS lead compared to everyone else. Why? Because while the other players are grouped and sharing exp / farm, you get everything for yourself. It's not unusual for a splitpusher to be 2+ levels ahead of everyone else.


Splitpushing is very hard to pull off, because it depends on your teammates doing the right thing at the right time. However, if you do manage to pull it off, you will find yourself winning so many games, because the enemies often don't know how to deal with it. Splitpushing can be like a double-edged sword.

Master the minimap to master Twisted Fate: You need to have very good map awareness in order to be succesful on Twisted Fate. Something that can help improve your awareness, are the F-KEYS F1-F4. By holding down one of the keys, you can see the game from a teammate's point of view. This gives you useful information about what's happening in their lane, so you can plan your roams in advance.

The power of vision: Even if you can't roam, shove in your lane and go into fog of war(out of vision). This forces the other enemy laners to back off due to fear from Destiny. It is used to let your teammates farm in tough matchups.

Wild Cards: When trying to snipe/poke someone with this ability, try to aim the outer cards at them. The middle card is easy to dodge, but the outer ones are really difficult due to their animation.

Pick A Card: Can be used to zone the enemy away from minions by walking up to them with w rotating.

When you want to bait out an ability that can be used to dodge your gold card, do one of the following:

Method X: 1. Click W once and let it cycle 2. While it's cycling, use a normal basic attack, to make them think you already selected a card 3. They waste their defensive ability, and you can now select gold card and stun them.

Method Y: 1. Click W once and let it cycle. 2. While it's cycling, you go in melee range and use Wild Cards. 3. This makes it seem like you are throwing the gold card at them, so when they waste their defensive ability, you can select gold card and go for the stun.


Stacked Deck: In the laning phase, you can often surprise the enemy with a quick combo. Auto attack the minions, and as soon as your enhanced auto is ready, you instalock a random Pick A Card and throw it at them for a big chunk of damage.

Destiny: You can pretend you are ganking a lane by intentionally moving through one of the enemy wards, to make the enemy midlaner follow you. Then you turn on him with Destiny and your jungler for a free kill.
This ability also reveals any stealthed units, so you can use it to catch someone like Shaco, Vayne and Kha'Zix.

Do you find yourself dying to jungle ganks way too often? If so, we can solve that by improving 2 things:

- Warding
- Wave management

The first thing you want to do, when you get into a game, is look at enemy comp. What kind of mid and jungler are you up against? Aggressive or Farming? Is the enemy midlaner good at setting up ganks? Based on the answer, you should adjust your playstyle to give you the best possible chance of success.


Example of Aggressive junglers: Graves, Elise, Nidalee, Kha'Zix, Lee Sin, Shaco, Twitch and Zac. These junglers will often look to get a advantage early game by ganking vulnerable lanes over and over, or invade enemy jungler. Shaco, Twitch and Jarvan IV have strong level 2 ganks, so be careful and play passive when they are out of vision. For the lvl 2 cheese ganks, you want to put a ward close to the raptor camps when the red buff spawns.
The other junglers can go for lvl 3 ganks. For those you ward at opposite side of where they started at around 2.25. Freezing the wave can be a smart way of ensuring your safety.


Example of Farming junglers: Shyvana, Master Yi, Hecarim, Fiddlesticks, Amumu. The farming junglers prefer to farm and scale, because their ganks pre-6 aren't the best. You can play more aggressive when facing these types of junglers with proper vision. I know that Hecarim and other farming junglers can gank early, but they are quite easy to avoid if you ward properly. Farming junglers can be punished very hard if they decide to gank early without it leading to a kill/assist, because your jungler can invade and steal jungle camps.


As soon as minions get into lane, your job is to figure out what side enemy jungler started. This is really important, because it lets you know where to ward. If one of the laners arrive late, you know they helped the jungler. At this point you know where the opposing jungler started. At around 2.20 you want to ward the opposing side of where their jungler started. Let's say they started at blue, at 2.20-30 you ward the red buff side and play around the side where you have vision.

If the enemy team did a Fake leash, you have to play safe until you know where the jungler is. There will be some games where you can't track the enemy jungler, and the only option here is to place some wards on 1 side, and play around that side until you spot their jungler!

Explanation of fake leash: It means that both top and botlane wait before going into their lanes. It prevents giving away info on which side the jungler started, so it's much harder to get invaded, or for laners to know when/where to ward against jungle ganks)



Here are some examples of where you can ward for vision control. The white and yellow spots, are excellent for Control Ward, as they tend to survive longer and gives good vision of invading/ganking jungler/supports.

The purple spots gives better river vision, but there is a high chance of them being spotted by enemy jungler or midlaner. It is a great spot for vision, but i advice placing it there IF you have lane control, so you can defend the ward.

If you use a Control Ward in the midlane brush, be sure to place it CLOSER TO YOUR SIDE, not in the middle of the brush, or closer to the enemy. This forces enemies to step closer towards your side, and put themselves at risk when attempting to kill the Control Ward






Freezing is a advanced technique that lets you deny your opponent exp and cs if done correctly. Freezing a lane means that you kite/tank the minions without letting your tower hit the creeps. You need to make sure the enemy minions always beat yours. After the enemy killed your entire wave, you let 2-3 of the enemy creeps live, and kite them until the next wave is here. When the next wave arrives, the wave will freeze right outside of your turret range.

By doing this, you are safe from jungle ganks, while your opponent takes a big risk everytime he overextends for a cs.



You can Freeze the wave when you and the enemy are even or ahead, and it can be used to help you win back the lane after you screwed up and died. You can attempt to freeze the wave already from level 1, leaving your opponent vulnerable to jungle ganks or be within your kill range, if you are able to kill them. When you get a lead, and you can solokill an overextended enemy laner, that is exactly when you want to freeze the wave. You force the enemy midlaner to either be in your kill range, or miss a ton of cs and exp, putting them further behind.

Freezing a wave is a great way to snowball a lead, if you have no objectives to fight for, such as dragon, herald or towers.

Here is a youtube video that explains wave management very well. I recommend watching the entire video. All credits for this video goes to Blitz Esports LoL

And that wraps up my Twisted Fate guide. If you have any questions, feel free to ask!