Reviewing your replays is very important in Teamfight Tactics compared to other games. This is a game like math in school. You have to study and apply what you’ve learned to improve. Taking yourself out of the game and seeing what decisions you made from a more objective point of view can be super beneficial.

In this article, I want to go over why reviewing your VODs is super beneficial in TFT specifically and how to go about it. I’ll go over some key things to look out for and hopefully make your climb more efficient.

Benefits of Reviewing VODs

So why review your games? I think the biggest reason is to reset your mental game. It’s easy to think you’re playing very well and blame low roll, or simply not know what went wrong. I have also made the mistake myself of thinking I knew what went wrong, when actually I played incorrectly in another area which led to my bot 4. It’s important to properly identify issues so you can address them.

Also, reviewing your games gives you clear things to work on. Maybe you don’t choose proper augments and don’t realize it. You can now take the time to analyze your spot and go to Tactics.tools to see which Augment choice would have performed best with your current units and items. If you have taken a statistics course, using this data becomes a lot easier.

You will better understand how an augment performs by looking at placement with units. It will show you for example that Thrill is much better for Shi Oh Yu compared to Daeja, reason being that Shi Oh Yu bursts single targets far better than Daeja, who wants Celestial Blessing because they do consistent DPS.

How to Review

Now let’s go into how you should review VODs. To start, do not skim. Go through each stage and see what you did. Were you scouting? Did you consider every board you could make and use the best one? Did you position for upcoming matchups?

While more experienced players probably know what to look for and don’t need these questions, a big takeaway for newer players looking to climb is if you aren’t doing these things, you aren’t playing consciously.

Now if you want to focus on one aspect at a time like your Augment choices, that is perfectly fine. But there are things to take away from every Stage and only looking at only the most visibly important parts leaves LP on the table.

A major issue with players when they aren’t improving or stumped is not actively thinking through everything when they play. If you watch a VOD, it becomes obvious that you’re autopiloting at times. We all do it, but when you truly want to improve, you can’t autopilot. Even just 2 or 3 focused games is much better for learning than 10 games of just playing mindlessly.

A great practice when you review gameplay is to look at fights closely. Take this time to look at your positioning and see how different units interact. Sometimes the loss is easily avoidable, but you had a unit in a poor spot. Sometimes it can be also good to take note if a fight was won or lost on RNG as this can help better evaluate board strength.

Second, you should take the time to analyze the lobby. Ask yourself if your comp was countered by the lobby and, if so, whether you could have avoided it. It’s easy to have a good board in a lobby full of bad matchups, like playing Xayah with two Rengar players.

Pay attention to your shops on big rolldowns and see what potential comps you passed on. It’s okay to try and avoid comps you are unfamiliar with and stick to a game plan, but if there was a better line to take based on matchups, then it might be worth learning an out.

How to Use the Extra Time

Using the VOD review time where you aren’t pressured lets you calculate what board was stronger. You can math out what board gave you more HP or if damage was the issue during your early game.

This is a great time to watch pro players and see what they prioritize on stage 2 and how that affects their gameplan, as you can try to emulate this and better understand how you want to play the game.

Something that is also important is to take note of why you succeeded. There is plenty to learn from wins and knowing how to replicate that success is huge. While it isn’t beneficial to go over absurdly highroll games or lowroll ones, you might not be able to identify these.

A great exercise to do is to record some games and pick one where you think you highrolled or played it very well, and take one that you think was doomed. Do you still feel that way after going over it? Mortdog may have actually blessed your game and you just didn’t see it.

To give a quick shoutout if you want to learn, Frodan does a lot of VOD reviews on his Twitch channel of top players or other regions like China. This is a great way to get multiple takes on a game and see how your decisions stack up, as he gives his own insight along with any top players he is watching with. It can be great to have another set of eyes, as even top players can play spots incorrectly and you can better assess the pros and cons of their decision.

Going over VODs from top players is a great way to learn, but you should try to understand the why. An advantage of this compared to watching the stream is being able to dissect it more thoroughly. Pause at key moments and think to yourself “Would I have made the same decision?”

Knowing why decisions are made will help you far more than just copying as so many of these Challenger players lack critical thinking skills and can barely maintain their rank. Use VODs from time to time to help your climb and it will pay dividends. Best of luck and may Mortdog bless you.