Champion Costs and Rarity in TFT
Every champion in Teamfight Tactics belongs to one of five cost tiers, ranging from 1-gold to 5-gold. A champion's cost determines how powerful it is, how rare it is in the shop, and when in the game you can reliably find it. Understanding cost tiers is fundamental to building effective teams at every stage of a match.
The Five Cost Tiers
Champions are divided into five tiers based on their gold cost:
- 1-cost (Gray border): The most common and cheapest champions. They have modest base stats and straightforward abilities. You'll see them frequently in the early game and they form the backbone of your initial board.
- 2-cost (Green border): Slightly stronger than 1-costs with better stats and more impactful abilities. They start appearing regularly in the early-to-mid game and often serve as solid mid-game carries.
- 3-cost (Blue border): A meaningful power increase. These champions have strong abilities and respectable stats. They often define mid-game team compositions and can carry you through the middle stages of a match.
- 4-cost (Purple border): Powerful champions with high base stats and game-changing abilities. They become the primary carries in most late-game compositions. Finding and upgrading a strong 4-cost carry is often the path to a top-four finish.
- 5-cost (Gold border): The rarest and most powerful champions in the game. They have exceptional stats, transformative abilities, and can single-handedly swing fights. Most 5-costs are designed as capstone units that elevate a team from good to dominant.
Rarity and Player Level
The likelihood of seeing a champion in your shop depends heavily on your player level. The game uses a probability table that shifts as you level up:
- Lower levels heavily favor 1-cost and 2-cost champions. At level 3 or 4, your shop will be almost entirely filled with cheap units.
- Mid levels (5-7) introduce 3-cost and 4-cost champions with increasing frequency. This is when you start transitioning to your mid-game and late-game carries.
- Higher levels (8-9) significantly increase the odds of finding 4-cost and 5-cost champions while reducing the appearance rate of 1-costs and 2-costs.
This probability system means that you generally cannot rely on finding expensive champions early in the game, and searching for cheap champions late in the game becomes increasingly difficult.
Risk and Reward
Cost tiers create a natural risk/reward dynamic:
- Low-cost champions are easy to find and upgrade (since there are many copies in the pool), but they scale less effectively into the late game. A 3-star 1-cost can be powerful in the early and mid game but may fall off against upgraded 4-costs and 5-costs.
- High-cost champions are extremely impactful even at 1-star, but finding enough copies to upgrade them is much harder. Committing resources to chase a specific 5-cost can pay off enormously or leave you with a weak, unupgraded board.
- Mid-cost champions (3-cost) strike a balance: strong enough to carry in the mid game and realistic to 3-star with some investment, making them a popular target for reroll strategies.
Strategic Implications
Understanding cost tiers helps you make better decisions throughout a game:
- Early game: Build around 1-cost and 2-cost champions that share traits. Don't spend gold chasing expensive units you can't reliably find yet.
- Mid game: Transition toward 3-cost and 4-cost champions as you level up. These will form the core of your final team.
- Late game: Push to higher levels to access 4-cost and 5-cost champions. Spend gold aggressively to find upgrades and complete your composition.
The colored borders on champion portraits provide a quick visual indicator of their cost tier, making it easy to assess the overall power level of your board and your opponents' boards at a glance.