For the vast majority of Teamfight Tactics players, the priority is to purchase damage-dealing carries first and use them as a foundation to build their team composition. Along with this, players will prioritize combining strong attack items such as Infinity Edge, Guardian Angel, and Bow of the Hunter… to ensure their team can deal significant damage.
However, there will be matches where you do not possess strong attack items after the initial communal selection and the first three rounds of monsters. This could completely throw players off course when they have no foundation to build their carry. So how can you overcome this difficult situation? Let’s find out.
In case you start with defensive items (Giant’s Belt, Cloth Armor, Silver Cloak), your priority when purchasing units will shift to tanky champions. Darius is the most suitable unit in this scenario as he is capable of dealing damage and healing well with his skills. Having additional defensive items, such as Warmog’s Armor or Thornmail, will help Darius be more resilient and deal significantly better damage.
We need to remember that in the early and mid-game stages, most players have not reached significant power milestones like a 4-cost carry with two-star items. Therefore, defensive items and units are extremely important in securing win streaks. If you start with all defensive items, two-star Guardian and Brawler units can help you maintain a good win streak and accumulate gold in the mid-game.
This will give you a significant advantage in the late game when you can level up to 8 soon and roll for powerful 4-cost champions. If you can find suitable attack items, you can transition to compositions like Marksman or Sorcerer normally. In the case you continue to receive defensive items, players need to look for champions that thrive on “tankiness” like Tahm Kench or Cho’Gath.
With Cho’Gath, you can utilize the familiar Mutant – Titan composition to help this unit be more resilient and deal better damage. The situation with Tahm Kench will be a bit more complicated as you need to activate 3 Idol conditions and position this unit accordingly. Note here that you should feed Tahm Kench with Sorcerer units to increase his skill damage stats to balance out having too many defensive items beforehand.
Additionally, Recycling is also an excellent solution for dealing with stray defensive items early in the game. With Trundle and Blitzcrank being melee champions, they can make good use of items like Giant’s Belt and Cloth Armor to help you get through the early game challenges. Of course, in cases of extreme “bad luck,” you should still use Tahm Kench in the Recycling team to seek additional items for Jinx in the late game.
