TFT Set 12 Economy Guide

Have you ever wondered why you never hit your units? Why does your opponent always hit their units first? This could be due to poor economy management. Today we will break down one of the most important fundamentals in TFT, that has been relevant since set 1, which is how to manage your gold/economy.

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4 ways to get Gold in TFT

You can find more information here.

Passive Income

This is the most straightforward way to earn income. Each round players will earn passive gold, which scales up to a maximum of 5 gold at stage 2-2.

Interest

At the start of each round, players earn 1 extra gold each round for every 10 gold saved. This interest gold caps out at 5 extra gold while saving 50, but this cap can be exceeded with augments such as All that Shimmers or Hedge Fund.

Streaking

Streaking is important to managing your economy in TFT that we will discuss later in this guide. For now, just know that although numbers may change between sets, you make more money while continuously winning or losing. This streak gold carries over into PvE rounds, so it is good to try to streak into them if possible. The current streak gold for set 12 are as follows:

3-4 Streak: 1 Gold
5 Streak: 2 Gold
6 Streak: 3 Gold

Winning rounds

Winning a round in TFT gives you one gold. This is extremely relevant in the early game, as it allows you to make higher interest breakpoints sooner or push levels in order to maintain a win streak.

Streak Gameplan

General

Now that we are aware of all the ways to make gold in TFT, how should we approach the game? Ideally, at stage 2-1, we need to decide if we want to try and win a streak or play for interest/loss streak gold.

Win streak

Firstly, we need to decide if our spot is good enough to try and win streak in the current lobby. To do this, we need to analyze our 2 star units, synergies, items, and our first augment in order to do this.

The first part is simple, if you have a lot of 2 star units, then your board is most likely stronger than an opponent’s board with many 1 star units. Even without synergies, in the early game 2 star units are generally more important than synergies.

Next we need to analyze our synergies and see if we have any strong openers. This can differ from set to set, but some strong opening synergies currently in Set 12 are 3 eldritch and 3 portal. You can find some strong openers in the current patch here.

Next we need to consider the items we can make, as making a full item can be the difference between winning and losing a round. You should generally try to make use of all your components if they can make something useful, especially if it allows you to streak. For example, if you have sword, bow, belt, and tear with a 2 star Zoe and 1 star ahri, some players may want to greed their items in order to make adaptive helm on ahri, but the way to be more efficient with your item economy is to slam Spear of Shojin and Nashor’s tooth on the Zoe, and either play for a 3 star Zoe or tempo into a Ryze or karma carry later on in the game.

Lastly, if we plan to win streak, we want to take an augment at 2-1 that helps us do so. For example, band of thieves or sleight of hand are great augments to help us streak, as they give us an extra item, which as we discussed can be the difference in winning or losing the fight. Component augments, such as you have my bow, iron assets, or component buffet can be good to help us streak if it allows us to complete a useful item right away.

Now that we have decided we can play into a win streak, the general rule is to level aggressively, slam your items, and play your strongest board every turn even if it costs you interest. This is because keeping your streak is more important than the interest gold you give up, and you will naturally accumulate more income as you keep your streak. This also means if you have 3 or more pairs, it can often be good for you to roll if upgrading your board will make the difference in winning your next fight.

Scouting is key while playing for a win streak, as you should constantly be evaluating the strength of your board. Leveling, rolling, and slamming items aggressively is good, but if you scout someone and see they are stronger than you, then it is important to evaluate if aggressively spending your resources to level will make the difference in the fight. If you spend all your resources and lose the fight, you might turn a really good spot to play for 1st into a spot that is trying to barely make top 4.

While playing for a win streak, if you can keep it, you will most likely be higher level than every other player in the lobby and play for 1st place.

Loss streak

You should decide to lose streak if you have little to no pairs or 2 stars, no items to slam, and an augment that gives you gold or comes online later. Great loss streak augments include, Fortune favors the bold, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, latent forge, stationary support I, and an upgraded adventure.

While loss streaking, it is important to try to preserve health as much as possible, while keeping your streak. This means scouting to make sure you are the weakest board in the lobby (out of the people you are fighting) while killing as many units as possible. Ideally, while loss streaking you will lose by 1 unit in your fights, but this will usually not be possible.

Since you do not have to spend your gold on levels or rolling to preserve your streak, you should be selling unnecessary units or pairs in order to make every interest threshold possible. A key interest threshold to keep in mind is 32 gold. This is because 32 gold allows you to make 40 gold even if your current streak is lost.

No Streak

This is the most common situation in TFT, so while the situation is not ideal, it is good to understand how to play this situation. Once you lose your streak, you should instantly reevaluate if you can start another streak. For example, while winstreaking, if you lose to the strongest board in the lobby, but you have the second strongest board, you will most likely be able to rebuild your win streak.

While no streaking, it is important to make 10 gold as soon as possible, because once you make 10, it is easier to make 20 gold, and this effect snowballs into 50 gold. A good rule of thumb is to try to make 10 gold after the first carousel and when you spend your gold make sure you have intent. What units are you going to roll for? What unit do I put in when I level? Will breaking my economy for this matter in the next fight? Do I need to roll earlier because I am contested? These are just some of the questions you should be thinking about before you break 50 gold.

Some common intervals to think about to roll and spend your gold past 50 are, 3-1 for 1 cost comps, 3-2 for 2 cost comps, 3-5 or 4-1 for 3 cost comps, 4-1 for 1 cost 3 stars, and 4-2 for 4 cost comps. Keep in mind you can level and roll at any stage and you should be thinking about when you want to spike your board strength.

Economy Early Vs Late Game

Early Game

As mentioned before, gold is really important in the early game, as more gold in the early game not only helps you reach the economy breakpoints sooner, but more gold also opens up more options for you within the game. Gold allows you to decide whether to hold pairs, level, roll, or hold for economy.

Late Game

In most sets, gold loses a lot of value late game. For example, if you have a fully capped out board at level 9, and will not have enough gold to go to level 10 before the end of the game, then your gold is effectively useless unless you hit a random 3 star 4 cost, which most of the time will not happen. This means, especially after raptors, you should be trying to figure out how to spend your gold in order to effectively cap out your board. If you are about to die, you should try and spend all your gold to upgrade your board as much as possible.

Charms Changing the Late Game

Set 12 has actually made gold more valuable in the late game with the charms set mechanic. This is because now, on stage 5 onward charms become available once every two shops. This makes it so most people in the lobby will be rolling for a useful charm every round, usually combat charms, such as Summon Dragon, Lightning strike, or earthquake.

Charms can make the difference in a fight late game, which saves you a huge amount of health for a resource like gold that loses most of its value in the late game. This means if it will take you 3 rounds to save and level up, it might be more worth it to delay the level up of your board in order to roll for 3 rounds worth of charms, especially if one of the charms can win a fight. To find out which charms are currently the best performing, click here.

How Charms Effect Stage 2, 3, and 4

Unlike late game, in stage 2 you will most likely be trying to streak and make interest thresholds, so you probably should not roll for charms. In stage 3 and 4, reroll compositions can roll the 3 shops with ease because they often keep their gold above 50 in order to slowly roll for their compositions every turn. This allows them to make use of these powerful charms easier. Winstreakers are also likely to roll for a charm, especially if it will help preserve their streak.

When to Roll by Cost

1-cost reroll

Usually, players playing a 1-cost reroll will attempt to use the loss streak game plan. Doing this, they will only need to hold units that are directly in their comp, while not holding 3-cost units, especially if they can sell the 3-cost unit in order to make econ. 3-cost units will often be sold until after the krugs round. Only holding these while streaking allows them to make econ thresholds easily and loss streaking allows them to pick an important component for their team comp off of the first carousel.

While playing a 1-cost reroll, it is important not to push any levels, as the player wants to stay level 4 as long as possible. At 3-1, without pushing any levels it will be the last time you are level 4. During this turn, the player will usually roll down trying to hit as many units as possible until 32 gold. As mentioned before, this is a good threshold because it will allow you to make 40 gold even if you lose your streak. Afterwards, you should slowly roll for your composition while remaining above 50 gold. Rolling while staying above 50 gold is called slow rolling. At about stage 4-1, if you have not hit the necessary 3-star units for the comp, you should consider rolling below 50 for your units.

There is another type of way to play 1-cost reroll called hyper rolling. Hyper rolling is when you roll down til 10 gold at 3-1 in order to try to quickly hit your 3 stars. This strategy is used in two main situations. The first is the very rare case where you are win streaking while playing a 1 cost reroll. In this situation it is very beneficial to roll down until you hit, and if you have time, level and put in an extra unit after hitting the necessary 3 stars.

The second situation is when you have 7 or more copies of your main carry. In this case it makes sense to try to hit your 3 star in order to try to preserve more HP in the early game. Ideally both of these conditions are met when you are going to hyper roll, but that is extremely unlikely. After hitting your 3-star, you ideally build up your economy so you can spike your board on later rounds.

2-cost reroll

In the case of 2 cost comps, stage 2 can go either way. Most of the time, the player will try to lose streak stage 2 for a good component and economy. In the case where you hit your 2-star 2 cost carry early with a good item slam on that unit, then it is common to play for a win streak from this position.

Regardless of stage 2, from 3-2 onwards, most 2 cost comps will want to level to 6 and attempt to roll down for at least 2 stars of all your 1 and 2 cost units, and at least a 1 star of 3 cost units. This rolldown can go down til 10 gold because it is important you hit in order to try and win the rest of stage 3. You can stop when you feel like your board is stable.

Afterwards, you will build up your economy and slow roll until you hit your 3 star 2 costs. The latest you should slow roll until is stage 5. Once 5-1 hits, if you do not have your 3 star 2 cost, you should all in to try and find them. After the required 3 stars are found, you can level-up and continue to play your strongest board.

3-cost reroll

3 cost rerolls should ideally only be played when you are win streaking, have a strong economy augment to hit 3 stars early, or are healthy and have 2 or more copies of the unit before the 1st roll down. Meeting these conditions, the first rolldown for your 2 starred 3 cost should happen at stage 3-5 if you have enough gold. If you think you will not be able to hit a 2 star, then you can roll down at 4-1. After your first roll down, you will slow roll until you all-in or until you hit your 3 stars. Usually you can all-in if you have 7 copies of a unit to try and find the 3 star.

The reason why you need to be healthy or hit fast in order to play this comp is because if you are not healthy enough, a 2 starred 3 cost unit will not be able to stabilize you on stage 4. This will force you to all your gold before you have good odds to hit your 3 stars and you will most likely lose the game.

4-cost Comps

While playing 4 costs, you will want to try and go to level 8 on 4-2 or 4-5 to roll down for your units. Afterwards, you roll for 2 stars or go to level 9 in order to cap out your board.4 cost comps can be played from a lot of situations, but ideally you are healthy or have a lot of gold. If you are contested for a 4 cost comp, it is important to try to roll earlier than your contestor, so taking economy augments will be beneficial.

Conclusion

In Teamfight Tactics (TFT), managing the economy is crucial to achieving success and climbing ranks. The economy strategy primarily revolves around efficient gold management, which includes decisions on saving, spending, and leveling up at the right times. By maintaining a healthy gold reserve, players can earn interest, which boosts their income and allows them to afford stronger units, key rerolls, or upgrades when needed.

The balance of economy-focused strategies, such as “slow-rolling” or “hyper-rolling,” can be tailored to different stages of the game, offering players flexibility to adapt based on their opponents and the game’s pacing. Mastering economy mechanics gives a significant edge, allowing players to stay competitive during mid- and late-game rounds with a robust lineup, ensuring higher placement and a better chance at victory.

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Thanks for Reading! If you want to gain more in-depth knowledge about TFT, check out many helpful articles here!

Good luck to you! – Cheng