TFT Positioning Guide: Front Line, Carries, Divers and AoE

Read the board the way combat does

Your half of the arena has four rows of seven hexes. The row closest to the enemy is your front line, the row furthest away is your back line. When combat starts, most units walk toward the nearest enemy and attack whatever they reach first, so the first seconds of every fight are decided by distance: who touches whom, and in what order.

That gives you one simple question for every unit you place: who will reach this unit first, and is that what I want? A tank should be the first thing enemy melee units touch. A carry should be the last thing anything touches. Everything else in this guide is a variation of that question.

Remember that the enemy board is turned around when the fight loads. A carry the enemy put in their back-left corner does not stand opposite your back-left corner. Before you move anything, look at a fight in progress and note which of your units actually faces the enemy's threat.

Front line: one wall or a lone tank

Our comp boards use two very different front lines, and it is worth understanding why. Spellweaver Ahri & Zyra fills the whole front row with Lillia, Sett, Fiddlesticks, Rakan, Yorick and Taric. Juggernaut Zyra does the same with six Juggernauts. A full wall works when you have five or six durable bodies: enemy melee units are stuck hitting the front row and nothing walks around the side to your carries.

The other pattern is a single tank alone in the front middle with the rest of the board one row behind. Ornn in Veigar & Ornn Reroll, Rammus in Azir & Rammus Reroll, Sejuani in Solar Karma & Yunara Reroll and Malphite in Hunter Sivir & Nidalee all stand like this. The lone tank draws every melee unit into the centre, the third row then hits them from safety, and the enemy loses time walking. It is also rewarded directly by effects such as the Solo Plate augment (bonus max Health for a Gargoyle Stoneplate holder alone in its row) or the Stand Alone wisp.

Pick the pattern from what you own, not from habit. Two real tanks plus three soft units? Do not spread them across the front row, where the soft ones die first. Put your best tank alone in front, the second tank right behind it, and keep the fragile units two rows deep.

Tank placement details that win fights

The unit with your tank items should be the one the enemy carry shoots first. Ranged carries usually target the closest unit, so put your itemized tank on the side of the board that faces their main damage dealer. If their carry sits on your left, your itemized tank stands front-left, not in the middle where a bare unit soaks the hits instead.

Some Set 18 units have placement rules written into their abilities. Taric pairs with one ally and shields allies within 3 hexes when he or that ally drops below half Health, so he goes right next to your main tank, close enough to the centre that the shield reaches the rest of the team. Elderwood plants are placed too: our Elderwood boards put a Stonebark Tree in a front corner to block one flank and the Lifebloom in the back row near the carries. The Blackthorn hex sacrifices whatever stands on it before combat, so only put a unit there on purpose.

• Main tank faces the enemy carry, not the empty side of their board.
• Off-tank one hex behind or beside the main tank, so it enters the fight as the first one falls.
• Units that need to cast early (healers, shielders) slightly behind the front line, not in it.
• Spare bodies in front corners slow down divers that path around the side.

Carries: corners, pairs and splitting

The back corner is the default carry spot because it is the hex furthest from most enemies, and only two hexes can reach it from the side. Most of our comps put the main carry there: Draven in the back-right corner of the Fast 9 boards, Veigar back-left, Cassiopeia alone in a back corner behind six Defenders.

Pairs matter when a trait or item works on adjacent allies. Lunar gives Attack Speed and Ability Power to Lunar champions and their adjacent allies, which is why Kayle and Aphelios sit side by side, and why Kog'Maw stands next to Aphelios in Lunar Aphelios & Nidalee. If a bonus says adjacent, measure it before combat, not after you lose a round.

Split your carries when the lobby has one big dive. In Fast 9 Alune & Morgana, Alune and Ivern stand in opposite back corners, so a single jump can never reach both. Stack them together instead when the enemy has no reliable way into your back line and you want both carries behind the same tank.

Protecting carries from assassins and divers

Know how the dangerous units choose their target, because that tells you exactly where to stand. Kha'Zix leaps to the farthest enemy within 3 hexes and deals extra damage if that target has no adjacent allies, so a carry alone in a corner is his perfect victim. Rengar jumps to the enemy with the lowest percentage of Health within 3 hexes. Brambleback leaps to a new target every time his current one dies, so a weak unit in front of your carry gives him a free bridge. Nidalee's javelin form sends its third shot at the furthest enemy with the fewest items.

Against Kha'Zix, keep a buddy next to your carry so it is never isolated, and consider pulling the carry one hex out of the corner. Against Rengar and other short-range jumpers, keep a durable unit within reach so it, not the carry, is the most wounded target in range early on. Against Nidalee, a cheap unitemized unit in the far corner takes the javelin that would hit your carry.

The classic bait move still works: put a cheap unit in the corner and your carry one hex in front of it. Divers that target the farthest enemy jump to the bait, and your carry keeps shooting. Use this only when you have actually seen a diver in the lobby; against normal boards it costs you a hex of safety for nothing.

Clump or spread against area damage

Area damage punishes clumps, single-target damage punishes spreading. Ahri is the clearest Set 18 example: she launches her spirit bomb at the spot within 4 hexes that has the most surrounding enemies, and it deals damage in a 3 hex radius, weaker further from the centre. If the lobby has a strong Ahri, spread your back line along the row instead of stacking three units in one corner, and keep the units she must not hit apart.

Against assassins and single-target carries the opposite is true: a tight group around the carry means every diver lands in a crowd and gets focused down. Most boards should sit somewhere in between, with one corner cluster for the carry and its helpers and the rest spread along the front.

When you cannot decide, look at the top two boards in the lobby. If both are AoE casters, spread. If both are divers, clump around the carry. If they are mixed, position for the one that beats you more often, because that is the board that decides your placement.

Scout before you position, every round from stage 3

Positioning is a response to opponents, so it starts with scouting. From stage 3 onward, spend a few seconds of each planning phase looking at the strongest boards: where their carry stands, whether they run divers or area damage, and which side their tank faces.

You will not know your exact opponent ahead of time, so prioritise. Early in the game, position for the boards most likely to beat you. Once the lobby is down to four or five players, you meet each survivor often, and adjusting to each of them becomes worth the effort.

Watch the fights you lose. If your carry died in the first five seconds, find out who reached it and from where. If your tank went down while the enemy front line was untouched, your damage is facing the wrong side. One move in the next planning phase usually fixes it.

Positioning checklist and common mistakes

• Itemized tank stands where the enemy's main damage hits first.
• Carry is in a corner or protected pocket, never the closest unit to an enemy diver.
• Adjacency bonuses (Lunar, Taric's pair) are set up before combat.
• Against Kha'Zix: no isolated carry. Against Ahri: no three-unit clumps.
• Blackthorn hex holds only the unit you mean to sacrifice.
• Elderwood plants block a flank or protect the carries; they are not decoration.
• After every lost fight, you know which enemy unit killed your carry and from which side.

The most common mistake is not bad positioning but no positioning: players buy a unit, drop it on any free hex and forget it for three rounds. Look at your board once per planning phase and ask the question from the first section again. It is free, and in a lobby of evenly matched boards it is often the difference between second and fifth place.