Riot aim to get Teamfight Tactics on phones in mid-March
Phoning it in
We always knew the wizards of Teamfight Tactics were too powerful to be contained on personal computers. Riot are planning on spreading League's autobattler to mobile telephones in mid-March, and will include cross-platform multiplayer. That's also when they'll kick off Set 3, and they've hinted at what that big update will include through the unholy medium of over-stressed puns.
As the two wizard managers managing wizard management mention above, they're planning on jumping to mobile "in a way that feels intentionally built for the platform", rather than a hasty port.
They also mention the next couple of months will still see updates to Set 2, bringing "new champions and origins" as well as "some pretty key item reworks". (If you're new here - Origins are one of TFT's words for unit types that share buffs when fielded together. Here's a handy primer, while we're at it.)
We don't know much about Set 3, apart from the following atrocity by design lead Stephen Mortimer: "It's a pretty large PROJECT, but with so many STAR champions in the League universe, it's been a blast trying to figure out how to make SPACE for all of them, especially now that we're getting our finger on the PULSE for what makes a good set."
Those refer to skins for four League characters: Project Fiora, Odyssey Jinx, Star Guardian Poppy, and Pulsefire Shen. Chances are those characters will be added alongside appropriately named Origins.
Considering we're talking about the fate of a genre invented twelve months ago, it's interesting that TFT is running away with this autobattling malarky while Valve's rival Dota Underlords seems to languish. Riot don't regularly release player numbers, which leaves Twitch viewers as the best way of gauging success. As I write this on a Tuesday morning, TFT is on 14.8k viewers, while Dota Underlords only has 287. I'm looking into why, so look out for a piece on that this week.
Ubisoft announced an autobattle royale based on Might and Magic yesterday, so it will be interesting to see if that can make a dent.