Unorthodox Picks Episode 3 - Twisted Fate ADC

Usually played as a bursty midlaner with a fantastic global presence, Twisted Fate can also rarely be played as an Attack Damage and Attack Speed based carry in the bot lane, bringing plenty of utility with Pick a Card and his ultimate. It does lose out on his presence from the midlane, meaning roams are harder, and he is far less bursty. However, with more consistent damage output he can be useful, and he even has a steroid on his E in the form of stacked deck, which stacks with attack speed. However, he does somewhat lack any burst, and his ultimate becomes less useful due to the lack of a Zhonyas, as well as his Q becoming almost entirely useless.

Why would I pick Twisted Fate ADC?

For a few fun games is the most obvious answer to this. He can be very fun to play, as he is an ADC that can create plays without his support thanks to having hard or soft CC on Pick a Card. This means you can make the picks that your support player would usually have to. For this reason he can be very useful when paired with a high damage support such as a Brand or Velk'Koz, as his hard CC allows his to initiate fights in lane, which your support can follow up with all their damage, as well as having greater self-peel when the support inevitably takes on more of a secondary carry role.

When do I avoid Twisted Fate ADC?

When you need high AD damage and/or a late game hyper carry. ADC's are known for their late game and this is one reason that Twisted Fate is really lacking as an ADC. His only steroid does not scale with AD, and deals magic damage. Thanks to this and his short range and lack of escapes, he can be extremely difficult to play. He is hard to position with in the mid/late game, very weak to AoE spells and has one skill that becomes pretty much useless after the first few levels in his Q. Because of this, he cannot carry as hard as some other ADCs and struggles to fill the role the way a more conventional AD would.

How do I use Twisted Fate ADC effectively? 

Snowball the early game with combined roams of you and your support, and use any CC chain you can to negate the advantage of the enemy ADC having better steroids. They can't fight if they're stun-locked! This pick is all about cheesing the opponent, so wait in bushes and let them face-check, make roams to top and generally do things in an unusual manner and you should be able to really snowball the team and yourself. Later on try to avoid duels, use your ultimate for vision rather than the porting effect and peel for yourself and other carries with your pick a card in a similar way to midlane AP Twisted Fate, except you need to be constantly auto-attacking to get any damage off at all.

Summary

A fun pick that can really change the way you look at positioning, but somewhat forgiving due to his in built stun, Twisted Fate can function as a play-making ADC, which are words not often used together. However, his lack of AD based steroid and mixed damage kit with AP scalings make him fall off really hard, and his short range and no escapes mean he is difficult. However, with a kit that can dominate laning, he can be really fun, and is definitely  worth a go!