How To Optimize Your Economy in TFT Set 11 - Economy Guide

Gold is the most important resource in TFT, there are many ways to earn more gold but there is an infinite number of opportunities to waste it. Making more gold means you can buy more exp and level up faster, buy more expensive units, and refresh your shops more often so you can find the units you want to play.

This guide is here to help you manage your economy like a Challenger player so you can win your games simply by having more gold than your opponents. We will go through all the different ways you can get more gold and then I will show you the most efficient economy management strategies you can use to win games!

By the way, hi! I am Frobei, I have been Challenger multiple sets in a row and I've been making TFT guides for years so stick around or follow me for more content!

First of all, let's have a look at how everyone can get gold every single turn.

Every turn you can get gold from:

• 5 base gold per turn, this is given to everyone without exception
• 1 gold if you win a PVP round
• 0 to 5 gold thanks to interest
• 0 to 3 gold thanks to having a streak

So the maximum amount of gold you can get per turn is 14 if you are on a winstreak, win your PVP round and have 5 gold from interest.

INTEREST

The more gold you have, the more you will gain from interest with a rate of 10 to 1. Meaning if you have between 20 gold and 29 gold at the end of a round, the game will give you 2 more gold. There's a limit and you can't get more than 5 gold of interest per turn so there is no point in keeping more than 50g at the end of a round (there is an augment that allows you to go past the limit but we'll see that later).

STREAKING

Streaking means you had multiple PVP fights in a row that ended with the same result: win or loss. So if you win, or lose:

• 2 to 4 fights in a row, you get 1 additional gold
• 5 fights in a row, you get 2 gold
• 6 or more in a row, you get 3 gold

We will this piece of information later to establish the best strategies to snowball your economy!

There are also many other ways to get more gold, some of them are regular (orbs and carousel) and some others are more random (augments, portals, and encounters). Let's have a quick look at them:

• Orbs: these are the loots you get from PVE fights and can contain many things like items, units, gold, spatula, tome of traits, etc...
• Carousels: at the middle of every stage you have a carousel round where you can select a unit with an item, if you sell that unit, you can have more gold
• Augments: at stages 2-1, 3-2 and 4-2 you will be offered augments to choose and some of the augments can give you a lot of gold if you decided to pick them
• Portals: at the beginning of the game you will have to choose between 3 different portals and some of them give more gold or units (that you can sell for more gold)
• Encounters: you can randomly meet an encounter that will give you more gold

And then you have some other ways to get more gold but it's rather rare or difficult to get regularly:

• Fortune. This trait allows you to get rewards if you play it and lose multiple rounds in a row
• Artifacts. Some artifacts give you gold if you complete some conditions (eg: Mogul's Mail gives 2 gold if you can stack it 40 times in a fight)

I'd like to add more details about augments. There are many augments that help you have more money but don't forget that if you pick such an augment, you lose the opportunity to have an augment that directly makes your board stronger. So it might be great to pick 3 augments like Rich Get Richer, Late Game Specialist and Balanced Budget to be rich but you will most likely lose many fights against people who chose to get 3 augments that make their board stronger like Inspiring Epitaph, Cybernetic Bulk and Healing Orbs.

Now that you know all sources of earning gold, let's use practical examples to show how you can optimize your strategies to increase your odds of winning games!

The first example we will use is with a 1 cost reroll comp such as Fated Yasuo / Ahri. The leveling and gold management strategy I'm about to describe is efficient for all 1 cost reroll comps and not just the example I'm providing here.

If you want to play 1 cost reroll comp, here's the leveling strategy you want to follow

STAGE 2

• Never buy any exp
• Aim for a full loss streak (lose all 5 PVP fights) by intentionally making a weak board
• Rush your interest threshold as fast as you can to get more gold
• Only keep units you will want to play (here: Yasuo, Ahri mainly and other fated units)
• Pick a 3 cost champion at the carousel with a relevant item
• Aim to have at least 40g before fighting Krugs (number can go higher if you have more gold with encounter, portals or augment)

STAGE 3

• Slowroll for your 3 stars (slow roll means you stay above 50g and use the extra gold your earn every turn to refresh your shops a few times to find your units)
• Once you get the 3 stars you wanted, you can start investing gold into exp and rush your levels
• From this point and until the end of the game only push to your next level if you can keep at least 30g after. This is important because if you lose too much gold interest then it'll take too much time to get back to 50g.

In this example we will use is with a 2 cost reroll comp such as Gnar / Senna reroll. The leveling and gold management strategy I'm about to describe is efficient for all 2 cost reroll comps and not just the example I'm providing here.

If you want to play 2 cost reroll comp, here's the leveling strategy you want to follow

STAGE 2

• Never buy any exp
• Aim for a full loss streak (lose all 5 PVP fights) by intentionally making a weak board
• Rush your interest threshold as fast as you can to get more gold
• Only keep units you will want to play (here: Gnar, Senna, Jax, Aatrox, Reksai and Caitlyn)
• Pick a 3 cost champion at the carousel with a relevant item or a relevant 2 cost unit
• Aim to have at least 40g before fighting Krugs (number can go higher if you have more gold with encounter, portals or augment)

STAGE 3

• Keep losing until stage 3-2
• Push level 6 at stage 3-2 and roll to stabilize your board (eg: find all relevant 2 cost units and most of them are upgraded into 2 star units)
• Rebuild your econ back to 50g
• Slow roll until you find your 3 star units
• Once you get the 3 stars you wanted, you can start investing gold into exp and rush your levels
• From this point and until the end of the game only push to your next level if you can keep at least 30g after. This is important because if you lose too much gold interest then it'll take too much time to get back to 50g.

In this example we will use is with a 3 cost reroll comp such as Yone / Alune reroll. The leveling and gold management strategy I'm about to describe is efficient for all 3 cost reroll comps and not just the example I'm providing here.

If you want to play 3 cost reroll comp, here's the leveling strategy you want to follow

STAGE 2

• Aim for the win so push level 4 at stage 2-1 (play with your 2 star units, use your items and position yourself)
• If you won 3 fights before the carousel, push level 5 at stage 2-6
• Aim to be level 5 with 20 gold before fighting Krugs (expect more if you have more gold through Encounters, augments or portals)

STAGE 3

• Push lvl 6 at stage 3-2
• From this point try to reach 50g as fast as you can to maximize your gold income
• Always try to make your board stronger with the shops you have (play around with your 2-star units, replace 1 cost with 3 cost units, etc)
• Buy any relevant 3-cost units, even if you don't play them immediately

STAGE 4

• Push lvl 7 at stage 4-1 and roll to find 2 star units
• Rebuild your econ back to 50g
• Slow roll for your 3 stars
• Once you get the 3 stars you wanted, you can start investing gold into exp and rush your levels
• From this point and until the end of the game only push to your next level if you can keep at least 30g after. This is important because if you lose too much gold interest then it'll take too much time to get back to 50g.

You also have a much more dangerous strategy but sometimes you will have no other choice but to use it. I only recommend it for advanced players who know how to play with risk:

STAGE 2

• Never buy any exp
• Aim for a full loss streak (lose all 5 PVP fights) by intentionally making a weak board
• Rush your interest threshold as fast as you can to get more gold
• Only keep units you will want to play (here: Gnar, Senna, Jax, Aatrox, Reksai and Caitlyn)
• Pick a 3 cost champion at the carousel with a relevant item or a relevant 2 cost unit
• Aim to have at least 40g before fighting Krugs (number can go higher if you have more gold with encounter, portals or augment)

STAGE 3

• Keep losing until stage 3-5
• Push level 7 at stage 3-5 and roll to stabilize your board (eg: find all relevant 3 cost units and most of them are upgraded into 2 star units)
• Rebuild your econ back to 50g
• Slow roll until you find your 3 star units
• Once you get the 3 stars you wanted, you can start investing gold into exp and rush your levels
• From this point and until the end of the game only push to your next level if you can keep at least 30g after. This is important because if you lose too much gold interest then it'll take too much time to get back to 50g.

In this example we will use is with a 4 cost comp such as Invoker Lillia. The leveling and gold management strategy I'm about to describe is efficient for all 4 cost comps and not just the example I'm providing here. For comps like these, it's recommended to go for this comp only if you don't have a weak early. if you lose too much health during the early game, you will most likely die before you have the opportunity to find late-game champions.

If you want to play 4 cost and 5 cost comps, here's the leveling strategy you want to follow

STAGE 2

• Aim for the win so push level 4 at stage 2-1 (play with your 2 star units, use your items and position yourself)
• If you won 3 fights before the carousel, push level 5 at stage 2-6
• Aim to be level 5 with 20 gold before fighting Krugs (expect more if you have more gold through Encounters, augments or portals)

STAGE 3

• Push lvl 6 at stage 3-2
• From this point try to reach 50g as fast as you can to maximize your gold income
• Always try to make your board stronger with the shops you have (play around with your 2-star units, replace 1 cost with 3 cost units, etc)

STAGE 4

• Push lvl 7 at stage 4-1 and roll a little if needed to find upgraded champions (but stay above 30g!!)
• Rebuild your econ back to 50g
• At stage 4-5, push lvl 8 if you have at least 40g to roll after to find and buy your costly units.
• Roll until you have most 4 cost units with 2 stars then stop rolling
• If you are healthy enough and win most your fights, rebuild your econ to 50g (if you are about to lose, use all your golds every turn and try to survive)

STAGE 5

• There is no "good" stage to push level 9, basically try to push lvl 9 with at least 30g left so you can roll and buy the 5 cost units but sometimes you might push sooner so you can survive a round or two and this can make the difference between ending 4th and 5th so don't hesitate to play a bit more aggressive if it can make you save a bit more HP!

I hope this guide will help you optimize your gold income in TFT and most importantly, will help you use it efficiently so you can always end up in a good situation!

If you want to go deeper with TFT, I've got a guide where I share 10 tips and tricks to help you get started on TFT: https://www.tacter.com/tft/guides/set-11-tips-and-tricks-for-beginners-7055f5b

And if you are already an intermediate player, you might be interested in this item cheatsheet I update every week: https://www.tacter.com/tft/guides/best-items-for-all-champions-in-tft-set-11-36d59dfe

See you at the top of the ladder!