Which units can solo Stage 1-3 and 1-4? [Patch 13.25]

One strategy that is popular among a lot of players it to sell your units in the early PVE Stages to reach the 10 gold threshold for bonus gold interest. This can help you to accelerate your economy, especially when you are aiming for a lose streak and it won't matter if you keep any of your units.

This guide will cover which units can be used to defeat both Stage 1-3 and Stage 1-4.

Before we get into the units, I do want to quickly explain how gold interest works in TFT. A lot of players don't believe that gold interest works before Stage 2, because they don't understand how passive gold in TFT accumulates. Here is how it works:

• Stage 1-3 -> 2 Gold
• Stage 1-4 -> 2 Gold
• Stage 2-1 -> 3 Gold
• Stage 2-2 -> 4 Gold
• Stage 2-3 -> 5 Gold

In the first two rounds you will only gain 2 gold. Then it gets increased each round and caps out at 5 gold once you hit Stage 2-3. This means if you have 10 gold in Stage 1-3 you should end up with 13 gold in Stage 1-4, since you received 2 Passive Gold and 1 Gold from Interest.

First of all let's cover Stage 1-3, because there are two Portals where it can make sense to only run a single unit:

• 3 Champions
• 3 Cost Champions

Thanks to these two Portals you start with 3 gold worth of units instead of 1 gold. The 2 bonus gold can be quite relevant, because they allow you to reach 10 gold in Stage 1-3 most of the time and make use of the bonus interest already. The Portal "Item Payout" can also work if you don't mind to commit on a specific item right away.

Don't bother using Annie, Nami, Jinx, Kennen or K'Sante for Stage 1-3. Even with items they have a high chance of failure and it's not worth the risk.

This group can technically beat Stage 1-3 by themselves, but they can also fail if they don't have an item. This is because the outcome of the fight can be influenced by critical strikes from either the unit or the minions.

For example a unit like Taric needs to kill the second melee minion with one enhanced attack so he can one shot the caster minion afterwards. If he is missing one attack, then he will waste both enhanced attacks into a single melee minion. This can happen to other units from this category as well. Be careful, if you want to be safe, then only use units from this group with an item.

As for positioning, you can usually put them in front of the right melee minion, except for Corki who wants to be in the bottom right corner.

Olaf and Tahm should never fail in beating Stage 1-3, even if they don't have any items. Their kit is extremely powerful and should be able to handle the minions without any problems.

It is extremely risky to attempt to only run a single unit in Stage 1-4, because there is no guarantee that the unit will make it. The only known units that CAN beat stage 1-4 is Olaf with a Giant's Belt. Tahm with a chain vest has a chance if he gets lucky with critical strikes.

For positioning Olaf wants to start in the middle of the last row. THIS DOESN'T WORK 100%. Please keep in mind that depending on critical strikes this strategy can fail.

The only way to be safe is to attempt this strategy with the help of the Portal "Training Dummy", since you can have the dummy tank the minions, which makes it considerably easier to defeat the PVE round.