If you’re a League of Legends player, you’re probably familiar with the Practice Mode, which allows you to experiment with new champions, items… without bothering anyone. Even when you buy a new skin, the Practice Mode is where players can try it out and evaluate if the skin looks good and fits the champion they own.
The popularity of the Practice Mode in League of Legends has led some Teamfight Tactics players to wonder why this game doesn’t have a similar mode. Even the Project Director of Teamfight Tactics, Riot Mortdog, received this question during a recent stream. According to Riot Mortdog, Teamfight Tactics does not need a Practice Mode, or worse, it could ruin the game.
Riot Mortdog: “We believe that a Practice Mode is unnecessary and it could ruin Teamfight Tactics. If there were a Practice Mode, players would just go in there and find ways to roll 5-cost 3-star champions without bothering to play ranked anymore. This is not good at all, so the development team at Riot has decided against creating a similar mode.”
In fact, on the test server, Riot Games has a mode similar to Practice Mode called 1v0. Here, players can freely use gold to build their team compositions, but there are no opponents for the champions to actually battle. This mode was created for players on the test server to get acquainted with the champions of the new season, at the time when players use the test server the most.
However, this 1v0 mode quickly became a place for players to just ‘pose for pictures,’ as Riot Mortdog shared, with players going in just to roll 5-cost 3-star champions. Therefore, Riot decided not to implement it on the official server, as they want players to enjoy the game through actual matches rather than just ‘posing for pictures’ like that.
Essentially, Riot Games is right with their decision as Teamfight Tactics continues to thrive into its seventh season without needing a Practice Mode like League of Legends. For a game with strong interaction between players like Teamfight Tactics, directly experimenting in-game is the best way to go.