A new way to play Teamfight Tactics will launch in April with the release of Set Five Reckoning, Riot Games announced today.
Hyper-roll, a new Lab mode within TFT, will become available to play on April 28 with the release of Set Five Reckoning. Similar to Legends of Runeterra, Lab modes will rotate. The rotation and length of a Lab will be based on its popularity and demand.
Riot revealed its first TFT Lab today via the Set Five Reckoning announcement, a Hyper-roll quickplay game mode that starts players at 10 HP.
Labs are a new and experimental way to play TFT that will have a “separate and slightly different system than core ranked [game play],” according to lead designer Stephen “Mortdog” Mortimer. A player’s health will start at 10, reducing by one HP with a round loss. As the game enters the later rounds, the loss of HP will increase to “two and three.”
The Hyper-roll Lab won’t contain gold interest and many other core systems that players are used to will operate differently. Players can expect changes within neutral minion rounds, item drops, the leveling system, and the carousel, according to Mortdog. Lab rounds are expected to last around half the time of regular ranked games. Other Labs will launch after Hyper-roll, although no details regarding those game modes were revealed today.
Riot also revealed four of the champions within Set Five Reckoning: Darius, Garen, Draven, and Teemo. The set will have a good vs. evil theme, with Darius and Garen pitted against one another as god-kings. Draven will make his return to TFT, having been absent since Set One. And Teemo returns to Set Five with powers equal to a Legendary champion whose purchase cost from the store is HP rather than gold.
Players will get the opportunity to test out new Set Five champions and traits via the PBE server prior to Reckoning’s launch on April 28. It’s unknown at this time if the Hyper-roll Lab will also be available on the PBE prior to launch.