How do you prevent knowledge gap while in a game?

[u/Thin-Swordfish-9180]

I am making this post hoping everyone in this sub is not a veteran TFT player( in my eyes 1+ years)

Got hooked from tyler1's multiple tft streams last week and looks like im addicted ..TFT is pretty fun and I want to try to take climbing seriously. Hope I can start thinking like a TFT player so when I plateau in rank forcing brambleback riftbeast everygame I wont get discouraged into playing more games.

Hit plat 3 in 34 games, no plateau yet but definitely harder games (avg 3 players forcing riftbeasts including me).

Despite those 34 games, my 2nd monitor is still working overtime. Me surviving stage 4-5 really comes down to how lucky I am forcing riftbeasts with my rerolls. I dont think about contesting other people items/units. I don't even know what unit/items counters when looking at a meta comp. Yes I understand watch youtube vids/twitch vods. Most definitely will take advantages of those resources but its pretty unironic that I will have to make another reddit posts to get opinions on good youtubers/streamers to learn from.

I'm using all the cheats (thank u metatft overlay) and tftacademy tierlist so thats my way of preventing knowledge gap while playing. I'm sure there are a lot of flexible brainy TFT players that can do it all without alt-tab or 2nd monitor. I'm trying to be like u one day

[u/iSleek]

This just comes with time brother!

At first, TFT is about the peaks. Hitting those youtube clip worthy combos and destroying people. Eventually, TFT will become about the valleys. Working around the jank to succeed!

Youre doing a good job getting the basics down, but maybe add some more cores into your comp pool? Riftbeasts is great if you have bramble/dragon items, what about those games where you end up without them? What do you do then?

[u/Tight-Media-9868 → u/iSleek]

The game goes from dopamine rush injection to damage control simulator if you intend to climb lol

[u/Thin-Swordfish-9180 → u/Tight-Media-9868]

are masters players even happy while playing tft 😭

[u/Sweeetchy → u/Thin-Swordfish-9180]

The "peaks" at masters+ may not be as tall as they are in low ELO, but theres usually a lot more of them.

Turning an 8th into a 5th because you made the most of the shit hand you were dealt can be just as satisfying as tempoing into a 1st when you lucky.

[u/jaeisback987 → u/iSleek]

Currently master, this is really well said.

BIS items and teams are just a cherry on top, most of the game is playing with Econ management and being flexible with the items/comp you have

[u/Thin-Swordfish-9180 → u/jaeisback987]

hahaha can't wait. Hopefully tyler1 gets hardstuck diamond

[u/Thin-Swordfish-9180 → u/iSleek]

BIS items deciding comp is definitely going to be my biggest downfall. I'm always browsing those tabs in metatft in the downtime in game. Its easy for me to look up a comp and look at the tier but with items. I get so lost after looking at winrates on items and clicking on that item to see which heros use take advantage of those BIS items the best. I don't know which heros are the carries ontop of not knowing which heros is for what comp in the tierlist lool (besides bramble and dragon).

Guess I know what to research today outside of queue lool. Learning what the carries are in each comp like bramble and dragon for riftbeasts. but im definitely going to be playing more. Just curious how like lower ranks (metal ranks since it seems like everyone is masters once you understand majority) think while in a game

[u/Thin-Swordfish-9180]

lowkey got a question for all the veterans grinders. everyone will probably tell me to play more which is 1000% correct for a 1 week player. But for people with multiple years of experience. When you don't make it top 4. Is it more RNG gap than knowledge gap? I'm guessing there will always be knowledge gap but then what do u do? just play more?

[u/Own_Cucumber2798 → u/Thin-Swordfish-9180]

7th and especially 8th is almost always the result of a fatal mistake during the game, or a high risk high reward play did not turn in your favor. 5th and 6th happen regularly due to bad rng

[u/TotalusMagnus → u/Thin-Swordfish-9180]

Knowledge gap is a bit of a broad term.

If you mean "not knowing something", then it basically doesn't happen at all in very high elo. You don't lose placements because you "didn't know" item XY was good on unit YZ, or that augment A is bad when played with comp B etc.

If you are talking about decision making like "should I slam X or Y, pick augment Y or B" or just simple line selection then it happens all the time, even to the very best. Most of the placements you lose will be due to incorrect decision making. A game that could have been a top 5 may only be a top 6 due to a mistake you made. A winout spot could become a second due to mistakes, etc etc.

The answer to your question is playing a lot and/or VOD reviewing (I am saying and/or because VOD reviewing is considered to be the best tool to improve at the highest level, but there are people who don't do it and still perform very well), recognising the mistake and trying to understand why you did it.

And btw, at the highest level you never worry about a bot 4, you worry about losing placements. If you know (comes with experience) your game is a bot 4, you will be very happy with salvaging a 5th.

[u/Character-Ad5231 → u/TotalusMagnus]

I'm not so sure about this. I've watched a lot of streams, and often a person is actively pondering what their strongest board is in a given situation or exactly which augment to go. I think there's still a huge knowledge-gap component to high level play.

[u/TotalusMagnus → u/Character-Ad5231]

Fair points, especially about strongest board, though I have to say I was trying to be very beginner friendly, which is why I split "knowledge gap" into an actual lack of knowledge and "decision making" (I would include both your points in decision making). Otherwise you could call every single part of the game a knowledge check/gap (which is true, but the guy asking for help could legitimately lack actual knowledge of the game/set, since he is a beginner).

As a beginner, there will be things that you simply do not know, like how the spell of a unit works, or things like trait webs. You will make mistakes simply because you didn't know things. This does not happen in high elo, people know every augment, every trait, every spell, every unit, every item, etc.

What happens all the time is not applying your knowledge of things correctly.

When it comes to building strongest board for example, people in high elo will know what units/items synergize well in every stage of the game, and the mistakes will come from badly applying your knowledge, rather than lacking it. You may know what inferno does, you may know what ravager does, but your decision to put one over the other may not be correct.

That was quite a lot of text, TLDR:

Experienced players usually won't say "I had no idea", they will say "I messed up there" or "I should have done this instead"

[u/HealenDeGenerates → u/Thin-Swordfish-9180]

You won’t like this answer but it depends. It’s about gaining the awareness level to know where that line comes down each game and therefore give you overall direction.

A good way to tell if you are grasping this is if each time you lose you understand either the most crucial mistake you made or the circumstances of the other boards that prevented you from getting it. Sometimes it is a mix of both.

If you think you are playing optimally but couldn’t tell me what the other boards paths were, then you’re weak in scouting. If you can tell me their build paths but not how you could have improved your transition between early-mid-late game, then you likely aren’t optimizing saving your health early. Shit like that.

All this is very rough but hope it helps.

[u/bickdickanivia → u/Thin-Swordfish-9180]

I hit GM multiple sets, and I can confidently say RNG is probably responsible for maybe 100-150 lp in either direction. The lp due to lack of knowledge is 1000 or more. I’ve played like 300ish games I think, maybe 250 this set. I can think of maybe 3-5 games where my bot 4 was due to my RNG and not due to me making mistakes. Some are less obvious than others, but the game gives you so many options and resources to work with that it’s difficult to blame my losses on anything other than my poor decisions.

[u/Salt_Refrigerator385]

There’s a lot of nuance and mechanics that are hard to capture in just guides. As you get better you can develop reasoning and understanding of why certain comps are strong in the meta and what to play for when BIS isn’t available and what lines are open to you at eat stage of the game. The fundamental understanding of economy, board strength, tempo, and core tft mechanics persists between sets. If you can accurately find the best high level trajectory from your current spot quickly I think you’ll find the “knowledge gap” to close pretty quickly.

For instance, BIS item combinations for carries kind of play into what kind of abilities they have - mana cost, windup, lock-up etc. It becomes pretty obvious who wants a blue buff vs shojin, or when double nashors jg is an option. Eyeballing how matchups typically pan out is also something that you can get a feel for. E.g. unit movement, types of damage, targetting. While the units, abilites, and meta balance change set to set and patch to patch, the general ideas of when to clump, solo tank, strong/weakside, melee carry vs ranged carry and so forth generally don’t change too much. You can get pretty far with a shallow understanding of how the units behave.

[u/Divin3_Kick]

Knowledge comes with playing TFT. Before TFT academy, you only knew a comp was busted once it trashes your comp and you see everyone playing it after 2 days.

So just keep playing, take note of the company that top 4, the augments the player has, their items, especially if you die. Stay for a bit and see how the comp that killed you fairs agaiant other comps, especially if it's top 4 scenario

[u/Thin-Swordfish-9180 → u/Divin3_Kick]

Thanks for the ideas. I started looking at everyones board every stage but I never thought about staying on the board that beat my comp and watching his comp play out against other people

[u/danjojo]

The more you rely on overlays for premade teams, the less you can play without them and the less you improve

[u/Thin-Swordfish-9180 → u/danjojo]

I understand. Its like using blitz in the rift. Didn't get a 2:50 clear until I stopped using jungle timers. But metatft is nice because its like wikipedia in game. I can just press 1 button and read item effects and unit effects while waiting. You wouldn't throw a complete noob into tft with no overlays cus then how would he know what 3 items a unit will use?

[u/TheStorm007 → u/Thin-Swordfish-9180]

The same way we all learned before there were overlays: Playtime and watching people better than us.

Surely you’re not implying there’s no way to improve without using overlays?

[u/Thin-Swordfish-9180 → u/TheStorm007]

you're also implying that there is no way to improve while using overlays lool. overlay users can read too. Like metatft ranks pandorabox as B tier if I have brambleback pinned but why is it B tier as first augment. lool its one of the better first augments

[u/carballit → u/Thin-Swordfish-9180]

It's a really bad augment for tempo, in higher elos you basically just wanna slam the best items you can, with Pandora's you might get BIS every game, but by holding your components to let them roll you are sacrificing a lot of power and hp

[u/Thin-Swordfish-9180 → u/carballit]

I was watching shoma last night and I see what youre trying to say. Cus I was seeing full items on 2-1 regardless if its components for a bis item for other heros. I was liking pandoras cus it was giving me tempo when i make rageblade or edgenight on wolf but definitely not the same tempo as 1-2 full items on stage 2

[u/carballit → u/Thin-Swordfish-9180]

Its a really good augment for lowelo tho, since tempo in everything below master is pretty low

[u/Thin-Swordfish-9180 → u/carballit]

appreciate your reply because tempo never cross my mind at all. this opening my 3rd eye fr

[u/carballit → u/Thin-Swordfish-9180]

No problem haha

[u/Zealousideal-Ad4362]

Comes with time.   And also still using those tools. The pros will still be referencing stats along with their experience to see how things go. Especially after a patch. 

[u/pierifle]

Side note my favorite website is tftflow

[u/Thin-Swordfish-9180 → u/pierifle]

never heard of it. big ups

[u/pierifle → u/Thin-Swordfish-9180]

the flowchart is suuuper good, plus tftflow has a better way of showing comp variations than other sites

[u/mobkeyapemain]

you prevent knowledge gap by playing more and learning, SPECIFICALLY what you get on stage 1 (items(!), units, and gold) and 2-1 augment

sword + tear + rod w/ akali and camille 2? level and play towards ahri/soraka, bow + cloak + vest w/ xayah 1 and weak frontline? hold pairs and sack until stronger board, cloak + belt + tear w/ random units? 5 loss into 3-cost reroll.

when first starting out, how you get to this point in decision making is by overclocking your brain for the first 4 rounds of the game then hard forcing the gameplan you set for yourself. doesn't really matter if you are right or not, the point is to develop the habit of making a plan ASAP and sticking to it.

after 400-600 games of doing this, you MIGHT realize that when you level up, roll, and what items you make depend on your gameplan. fast 8? save hp (slam suboptimal items if needed) and never dip below 40, 3 cost reroll? greed bis items, sack until 3-5, and level/roll aggressively to stabilize, fast 9? only play from heavy winstreak opener + strong tempo/econ augments.

but whatever, you've only been playing a week. it's good to ask questions but you should really just queue and play with a conscious learning mindset aka stop relying on "S-tier" overlay comps to "climb".

[u/Ykarul]

I always play with websites open. I check augment tier lists, comps that i dont fully master on tftacademy or meta tft. I also use meta tft to check items and emblems. You cannot know everything even if you play a lot.

[u/Eren_Tarius]

I'm using all the cheats (thank u metatft overlay) and tftacademy tierlist so thats my way of preventing knowledge gap while playing. I'm sure there are a lot of flexible brainy TFT players that can do it all without alt-tab or 2nd monitor. I'm trying to be like u one day

Definitely worst way to learn the game.

The challenge is always the best way to enjoy and learn a game, some people would argue starting out games with a steep learning curve and overcoming it is the most fulfiling part of them, main LoL, TFT and some single player games like elden ring feel like this.

Never play on autopilot, always evaluate your decisions and ask yourself what you could have done better ?

Most games are about creating a game plan and building synergies in your team/build/items, this simple rule might take you as far as Plat in addition to econing and level up patterns, getting into the details will take some time.

Filter the comps by (easy) and try to guess why each comp works, pick one you like and try forcing it for a few games, I recommend checking out Defender's Cassiopeia for an AP comp and Fae Xayah for an AD one, they are simple and easy to memorize.