In both Standard and Double Up in TFT right now, there are way too many 3* 4 costs, so we’ll be making changes in 14.9 to try to help address it in both modes.

When discussing this problem, people usually jump to point out a singular issue as the cause. “It’s all the encounters!” “It’s the player damage changes!” “It’s the meta and nerfed 3 costs!” etc. I spent some time researching it, and the scary thing is everyone is right…because it’s often ALL of these things, but not necessarily combined.

Some games it’s because Scuttle Puddle into a Duplicator drop into a Kha’Zix encounter. Other games it’s due to a high econ augment into another augment. It really varies each time, which means there isn’t one magic solve that addresses all the issues. It’s a sort of “death by 1000 cuts” kind of problem, and we need to apply some band-aids to some of the cuts.

For 14.9, the band-aids include some player damage follow up from our last patch, making level 9 a bit more expensive, and some shop odds adjustments. For Double Up, these swings are even harder due to how low pressure the early game is. Combine these with buffs to underperforming champs in the 2 and 3 cost space, should help address the issue in the short term for next patch. Yay.

BUT….ultimately this is actually one of TFT’s most cursed design problems that to this day, we haven’t come up with an elegant solve that doesn’t drastically rework the game. It feels like our version of MT:G’s mana problem. And that is the following statement:

“The more people that are pulling champs from the same cost bucket, the better it is to play in that cost bucket.”

No matter how big or small the bags are, no matter the meta or balance, this fundamental statement has been and will always be true unless we change something. And it’s weird, because logically the game is built around “If I play something uncontested, I’ll have a better time.”…but that’s only true inside the confines of the cost structure.

Who knows. The game is still young, and there’s lots of time and key moments to try taking swings at this problem. The TFT team is getting much better about longer term vision for the game, and we’re talking about stuff 1, 2, or even 3 years ahead…Some pretty exciting stuff cooking! I’m going to go work on that stuff now! Have fun, and take it easy 🙂