All you need to know about Teamfight Tactics: Inkborn Fables
Art meets adventure as mythic legends and fantastic spirits descend in the highly anticipated game update of Teamfight Tactics (TFT), titled ‘Inkborn Fables.’ Set to launch on PC and mobile on March 20, 2024, Inkborn Fables will be available for free for all players.
During the TFT Remix Rumble Championship Finals on March 3, Riot Games unveiled a first look at Inkborn Fables, showcasing gameplay highlights such as mechanics, traits, augments, and champions, including two all-new characters.
Inkborn Fables introduces a new gameplay mechanic called Encounters, where players will meet fantastic spirits and mythological champions at random points in the game. These legendary figures will give players different bonuses or alter the game, providing exciting surprises for players. With over 80 different Encounters available, gameplay remains fresh and interesting.
Lynda Tang, Set Lead Designer for Teamfight Tactics at Riot Games, shared that Inkborn Fables aimed to explore a different vibe in TFT and transition players from the party vibes of Remix Rumble into something more relaxed. Inkborn Fables takes players on an adventure to a new mystical and natural world filled with beauty, but the unexpected can still occur during their journey. Players will discover the set’s myths and legends across Inkborn Fables’ champions, traits, augments, encounters, and more.
Among the 59 champions coming to Inkborn Fables, two new champions from the world of Runeterra will be making their gameplay debuts in Inkborn Fables. Alune, Aphelios’s twin sister, finally steps onto the battlefield as a champion in her own right. Inkborn Fables also introduces a brand new character not just to a TFT set but to the world of Runeterra. Kobuko, the Joyous Paw, is a never-before-seen Yordle martial artist making his debut appearance in Inkborn Fables.
The set will feature 27 traits and more than 100 augments. New Tacticians will also be introduced, including a new Little Legend, Hundun, and new skins for some of our existing Little Legends, including Spirit Blossom Kanmei Dowsie, Ink Squink, and Ink Sprite. Inkborn Fables will also introduce three new Chibi champions, including Chibi Morgana, Chibi Majestic Empress Morgana, and Chibi Spirit Blossom Ahri.
Peter Whalen, Game Director for Teamfight Tactics at Riot Games, shared that the team would continue to deliver diverse and immersive experiences for strategy players while preserving the whimsy and charm that TFT players love.
Below are some of the highlights of in-game content and gameplay that players will experience in Teamfight Tactics: Inkborn Fables.
Please note that this is not an exhaustive list of all gameplay updates for the upcoming set.Riot has many surprises still to come.
Set Mechanic: Encounters In Inkborn Fables, players will meet fantastic spirits and mythological champions in the new gameplay mechanic, Encounters. At random points in the game, players will stumble across these legendary figures – sometimes on their board and sometimes on the carousel. These figures will give players different bonuses such as Azir offers some free rerolls, Aphelios gives two item components, and Tristana gives some gold.
However, not all encounters are created equal or are so simple. For example, some encounters will: ● Offer the player a choice: Cho’Gath will permanently devour a shop slot, but offer the player components in return. Or the player can decline to feed the beast.
● Modify the carousel: Orrn will throw a random artifact on every unit to make gameplay more interesting.
● Change the game for a limited time: When Sett appears, he’ll give every player two training dummies but after 3 rounds, they vanish.
● Challenge fundamental assumptions about TFT: Take Lililia who makes everything a bit less predictable by randomizing the rounds that augments appear at.
● Completely transform the game: Kayn will return late game to make a player’s standing the final results in the game.
Traits Each champion has a different origin or class that are called traits that provide special effects to a player’s team. HEAVENLY ● Overview: Drawing upon the power of the heavens themselves, Heavenly units grant unique bonuses to the player’s team, increased by their star level. ● Champions: ○ Kha’Zix ○ Malphite ○ Neeko ○ Qiyana ○ Soraka ○ Wukong STORYWEAVER ● Overview: Build the Hero’s Journey! Storyweaves summon a Hero, Kayle, and add chapters (buffs) to her story. ● Champions: ○ Garen ○ Galio ○ Irelia ○ Sivir ○ Riven ○ Zyra ○ Zoe FATED ● Overview: Stronger together, Gated united can be bonded to one another to activate unique bonuses. ● Champions: ○ Ahri ○ Aphelios ○ Kindred ○ Sett ○ Syndra ○ Thresh ○ Yasuo INKSHADOW ● Overview: The power of art made manifest, Inkshadow grants special items that grant unique bonuses. ● Champions: ○ Aatrox ○ Jax ○ Kai’Sa ○ Senna ○ Udyr ○ Volibear FORTUNE ● Overview: Fortune smiles on the return of this legendary trait, which grants loot orbs for each win. Lose combat and press luck for even more rewards. ● Champions: ○ Annie ○ Kobuko ○ Teemo ○ Tristana ○ Zoe EXALTED ● Overview: Much like how Legends change over time, Exalted units change each game! They gain additional bonuses based on the player’s level and story power in a Core that grants XP when sold. ● Champions: ○ Each game a different set of units is Exalted
5-Cost Units The most expensive and powerful champions in Inkborn Fables. HWEI ● Overview: Hwei joins the fray, painting an expanding zone that rapidly heals allies before exploding, damaging enemies caught inside. He’s also fantastic for team-building, because the Artist trait lets him paint copies of units on the player’s bench so they can achieve that 3-star masterpiece – though high-cost units take a little longer to paint. XAYAH & RAKAN ● Overview: A true dynamic duo, either Xayah or Rakan takes the field based on where they place the pair. The other sits on the sidelines, ready to aid their partner. SETT ● Overview: Sett is back. A Fated/Umbral Warden, he’s revisiting his signature slam – he’ll pick up his target and bring them crashing down on a group of enemies, dealing damage based on his target’s maximum health and his own attack damage. ● At the start of combat Sett will squat the allies to his left and right, gaining permanent attack damage based on the total amount of health he lifts. So get in those reps and make sure players are SETT up for success! IRELIA ● Overview: Irelia appears in full blade-dancing glory as a ranged carry, commanding her blades to dart around the battlefield striking enemy after enemy and sundering everyone she hits. When she casts she recalls the blades before sending out a storm of steel that seeks out and punishes the lowest health enemies. WUKONG ● Overview: Wukong, the Great Heavenly Sage, has a powerful three ability combo and a Heavenly bonus that grants a hefty chunk of attack speed to the player’s team. Wukong is a melee Attack Damage carry we love – and that’s before his Great trait magically extends his staff to let him hit more enemies.
New Champs Two new champions will be making their gameplay debuts in Inkborn Fables. ALUNE
● Overview: Alune, Aphelios’s twin sister, is a character who we’ve seen time and time again in League of Legends and Legends of Runeterra, but only as a part of Aphelios’s kit and lore. Inkborn Fables finally lets her step onto the battlefield as a 3-cost Umbral Invoker, proving that her powers of moonlight can be every bit as strong as the weapons she’s given her brother over the years. She calls blasts of lunar light down on entire rows of enemies – and grants her row a bit of attack speed, just in case her brother was feeling left out. KOBUKO
● Overview: We’re also doing something TFT has never done before: introducing a brand new character not just to a TFT set, but to the world of Runeterra. Kobuko, the Joyous Paw, is a never-before-seen Yordle martial artist who makes his debut appearance as a 1-cost tanky Fortune Bruiser in Inkborn Fables, with a novel stacking health stacking mechanic – whenever the player gains interest, he gains permanent health, which players will love because his spell’s damage scales off his total health.
Augments There are over 100 Augments that are completely new or were absent during Remix Rumble. With the removal of Headliners, Augments that add one towards a trait or offer an Emblem have returned. Players can expect about half of the added Augments to be directly linked to traits, whether that is as Hearts and Crowns, or as a trait-enhancer. ● Sharing is Caring is just that ● Long Shot is a trait linked Augment for Snipers ● And Call to Chaos…well, players will just have to find out what that does.
COSMETICS & PASS HIGHLIGHTS Rotating Shop ● The Rotating Shop, is a new feature where players can purchase in-game cosmetics from a rotating inventory with a new currency earned from Treasure Realms.
Tacticians A character used to represent the player during a game of Teamfight Tactics. Tacticians include Little Legends and Chibi Champions. Inkborn Fables will introduce a new Little Legend and a new skin for an existing one: ● Hundun
● Spirit Blossom Kanmei Dowsie
Inkborn Fables will introduce three new Chibi champions: ● Chibi Morgana
● Chibi Majestic Empress Morgana
● Chibi Spirit Blossom Ahri
Arena Arenas are the battlefield ofTeamfight Tactics and can be customized with skins. Inkborn Fables will introduce a new premium arena: ● Heaven’s Celestial Court
Pass Highlights Cosmetics including tacticians, arenas, and more can be unlocked via a new Pass with Inkborn Fables including: Tacticans ● Ink Sprite
● Ink Squink
Arena ● Dreams of Earth
ADDITIONAL TFT GAME UPDATES Team Planner ● Updated Team Planner UX on both PC and Mobile to better suit the new max unit limit to 10. ● Snapshot feature that allows players to save the team that they have currently on the board. It WILL clear out old Team Planner settings, so be mindful when used. Cosmetics Loadouts ● Show Unowned Toggle: Right now players are already able to do this on PC, now the experience on mobile is the same ● Mark Favorites: Players can now mark their favorite tactician, arenas and booms! There is a limit though, 8 per type of cosmetic content.
Finally, The Developers did a FAQ about the Inkborn Fables Update :
What were your gameplay goals when designing Inkborn Fables? We wanted to give players a more subdued set after Remix Rumble. We knew that Remix Rumble got players hyped up about the big party going on in Teamfight Tactics, but after that party, we wanted to give players a set in which they could sit back, take a deep breath, and enjoy a vacation into a mystical and natural world. With Inkborn Fables, we wanted to explore a different vibe in TFT, and see if we could use TFT to tell some wonderful myths and legends.
Lynda Tang, Set Lead Designer
Any unexpected challenges or novelty stories you’d like to share when designing Inkborn Fables? I’ve worked on Teamfight Tactics for a long time but this is my first set on the Gameplay team. I’ve honestly been blown away by all the brilliant devs I got to work with and how welcoming they have been to me as I jumped into the deep end of Set Production. The work that I think really stood out was our new champions. From the first moment I heard about Alune and Kobuko, two of our first original characters in TFT, I was excited to play a part in bringing them both to life for our players.
Alune has been a personal favorite element of the Runeterra IP since her twin brother Aphelios launched. I’m SO pleased that we’ve been able to bring her to life more fully as a playable character. She’s a powerful mage in her own right, wielding the cool power of the moon. What’s not to love?
Then there is our new Yordle Kobuko, the Joyous Paw. He is, in every way, a joy. Literally his smile is enough to brighten my day. It was such a key part of his concept that we actually added more bones to his face to highlight his happiness and zest for life. He’s both fearsome and joyous and I love him so much. We hope players enjoy interacting with him as much as the team did bringing him to life.
Winston Baker, Set Production Lead
An interesting challenge was the Exalted trait. Teamfight Tactics has done a lot of variation based traits like Mutant or Mirage. We’ve also done a few variation based champions like Runeterra Reforged’s Ryze or Dragonlands:Uncharted Realms’ Nomsy. Previously, when we were creating these characters/traits, even when they differed just a little bit, we usually had to literally load in every single version of them at the start of the game. In every Runeterra Reforged game, every single Ryze was loaded into your game even though you only ever saw one! We knew we would have to find a different approach for the Exalted trait, because we were doing it on such a larger scale that loading a new version into every game would probably cause it to crash.
The issue with the Exalted trait brought up a really unique engineering challenge: How do we make sure as many people on as many devices as possible can access our game, while also constantly trying to push the quality bar for design and art? For Inkborn Fables, we actually set up a way for each game to figure out Exalted, or any variation like it, independently of the server. Basically, your game knows what the Exalted units are even before you load into the game, which is pretty cool. End result is the game uses basically no memory for the trait and we can ship a cool trait shape we’ve never done before!
Anurag Papineni, Set Engineering Lead
How did the design of Encounters come together? Was it based on player feedback or suggestion? It’s definitely not based on any single piece of player feedback or any player suggestions, but we do know players are hungry for new mechanics, new variety, and new ways to experience Teamfight Tactics, and we like to find thematic ways of exploring that. Rather than start with a specific mechanic in mind, we started with the idea of a journey into a world of myths and legends, and looked at mechanics that supported that!
We decided that getting to interact with champions in a cool new way rather than just as units on our board was very compelling, and the rest fell into place from there! We built a wide variety of gameplay-changing elements into the various encounters to help convey the fantasy of distinct champions who each have their own unique powers in the scroll world of Inkborn Fables. We also try to capture some champion personality in Encounters where we can: Kobuko wants players to dance with him. Tahm Kench demands you collect fish for him. Sett gives everyone some workout tips to become BIG. While we can’t always do this, these little moments really help sell the experience.
Michael Sloan, Set Gameplay Designer
We take a similar approach with Champions and Traits. We try to create larger than life fantasies using skinlines and Runeterra lore where we can have Lissandra in her Porcelain skin cooking enemies in a teapot, or Storyweaver, a trait that uses the Mythmaker skin line, summoning a hero and telling their story. When we see an opportunity to really play up a skin line or an individual character’s story, we take it!
Noëmi Couté, Set Gameplay Designer
Why did you decide to implement the Rotating Shop? Were you hoping to address a specific player pain point? We went into the design of the Rotating Shop for Teamfight Tactics with some key goals in mind, namely to increase player satisfaction with Treasure Realms and increase player agency over the content they get from random drops. We found from talking to players that this was a major pain point in the way we currently distribute content, and wanted to make changes to improve the purchase experience. The updates to Treasure Realms and the Rotating Shop were designed to complement each other, and we think that all TFT players will benefit from the ability to save up currency from different sources like Treasure Realms, Pass, and Events to purchase the content they resonate with the most. We’re excited to see what players think of the Rotating Shop when it’s launched later in Inkborn Fables.
Alex Yang, Cosmetics Lead
What are the future vision or plans around quality of life updates with Teamfight Tactics? We’re continuing to invest in the quality of life space as Teamfight Tactics grows and evolves. Player behavior, feedback, and needs change over time as well, so we’re constantly keeping that in mind when we think about what areas we need to improve. For instance, there might not have been a need to favorite your preferred Tacticians in the past because we had a smaller selection. However, since we now have more Tacticians and it’s harder to scroll through all the options, the need for having that feature has increased! And that’s why we took the opportunity to add it recently.
Team Planner is something that we’ve increased investment in as we saw good usage rate and heard that players were loving the feature. We’re planning to have more updates to share around Team Planner with the next set.
Quality of Life updates aren’t just limited to visual and UI improvements. Our Tools and Engine Initiative have continued to spearhead efforts to optimize the game and improve performance. This is an ongoing effort but we are committed to continuing to level up the player experience across TFT.
Christine Lai, Around-Game and Ranked Initiative Lead
How does Inkborn Fables support the overall goals and roadmap for Teamfight Tactics this year? This year, Teamfight Tactics is doubling down on novelty. Between set revivals, more events, and three full sets, we’re focusing on delivering a wider range of new content. Inkborn Fables is a crucial part of that; not only is it the first of our three sets this year, it represents a tonal shift from Remix Rumble. Where Remix Rumble was over the top with a frantic wild energy, Inkborn Fables is a more serene set filled with powerful, larger-than-life champions. TFT’s thematic space is broad and it’s important for us to explore something new with every set while still maintaining the whimsy and charm players love. We see this on the mechanics side too. Where the Remix Rumble’s Headliner mechanic focused on crafting compositions around a super powerful star, Inkborn Fables’ Exalted trait and Encounters mechanic provide a wide variety of experiences to keep the game consistently fresh. This constant evolution is one of TFT’s greatest strengths and something we’re excited for this year as we keep the game fresh while preserving the core our players love.