For better or worse, TFT is a game with thousands upon thousands of variables, and each variable can cause the game to be out of line. Some of these variables are visible player facing ones such as health, armor, mana, etc. Other variables include things like animation times, missile travel speeds, and more. In order to balance TFT, you have to have a grasp of all of these to make the right decisions.

In addition, you need to have a good grasp on what the definition of balance really is, and what power is defined as. This is relatively easy for things like carry champions when they are doing too much damage. But this gets much more challenging to quantify when you have to take in trait power and utility into account.

Let’s take a champion like Riven for example. I think most people would look at this champion and agree that her carry potential is very bad and you don’t often itemize her. So we should buff her right? Well, fun fact is that Riven is the most played two cost by a pretty large margin, only falling off as most played champion at 4-1 to Illaoi. It can be dangerous to buff a champ with 3 very powerful utility traits in such a state. Aatrox and Neeko are similar for what it’s worth.

All of this comes together in the original set creation. Putting together a set requires understanding of the various roles a champion will have in army building. Too much utility or trait power and they become the most played champion in the set. Too little, and they become forgettable champions that are almost never bought. But after the set launches, it’s hard to make an adjustment like adding or removing a trait from a champion, for both the change cost to players and the ramifications it has to the entire set.

There’s no major point or lesson to todays post. Just some ramblings as I deep dive into the data this morning as we prep for 14.9. Like I said, for better or worse, TFT is a game with a ton of depth and variables. But that’s also why at least I personally love working on it. Until tomorrow, where I’m sure we’ll talk Artifacts or portals or 3* 4 costs, or whatever hot topic we have, take it easy 🙂