TFT Mid Game: The Stage 3 and Stage 4 Decisions

TL;DR: Treat Stages 3 and 4 as one stretch of ten player rounds. A loss costs nearly the same in both, with a base of 6 and then 7, and then jumps to 10 at Stage 5. Those ten rounds pay 50 to 100 gold before wins, and level 7 and level 8 alone cost 92, so you can’t buy everything. Pick one spike and name its round. Work out how many of the ten you can lose: 70 HP covers about 3 at 5 enemy units, keeping more than 32 for Stage 5. Then spend before Stage 5, not in it.

The worked examples are hypotheticals: sums on Riot’s numbers, not records of real games. Gold figures are averages on the shop odds Riot last printed, and level prices are before the free XP you get each round, since no Riot page we found prints that amount. The sums count player rounds only. We have no figures on how the mid game is played, so the calls here are reasoning.

Where does the mid game start and end?

Our early game guide stops at 2-1, and our flexible play guide takes you through the level 5 decision. This page starts at 3-1 and hands over to our late game guide at 5-1.

The game’s data files list the same seven rounds for each of these stages, and Riot’s 18.5 notes place augments on 3-2 and 4-2. The whole list is on senseos.gg’s rounds and stages page.

Round	Stage 3	Stage 4
1	Player round	Player round
2	Player round, with an augment	Player round, with an augment
3	Player round	Player round
4	Carousel	Carousel
5	Player round	Player round
6	Player round	Player round
7	PvE round	PvE round

That’s ten player rounds. Here’s what losing one of them costs. Riot’s rule is a flat amount by stage, and each enemy unit left adds 1. Adding its 14.9 and 16.1 lines, and finding no later change up to 18.6:

Stage	Base damage	Rise from the stage before	A loss to 3 enemy units	A loss to 5	A loss to 7
2	2		5	7	9
3	6	4	9	11	13
4	7	1	10	12	14
5	10	3	13	15	17

Look at the third column. Stage 3 and Stage 4 are almost one price. Riot set it up that way in 16.1, raising Stage 3 so it would keep its weight and trimming Stage 4 so the middle of the game would run longer. So a round’s delay inside the stretch costs about the same whenever it falls, and the first round past it costs more.

How many of those rounds can you lose?

Divide what you can spare by what a loss costs. Our HP guide’s rule of thumb is more than 26 to 32 HP going into Stage 5, enough for two losses there. That’s our judgment, not a Riot number. Take the top of that range and 12 HP a loss, the Stage 4 price at 5 enemy units:

HP going into Stage 3	Losses you can take in the ten rounds	HP left going into Stage 5
100	5	40
90	4	42
80	3	44
70	3	34
60	2	36
50	1	38
40	0	40

We found no Riot page that states starting HP, as the HP guide explains, so read this from your own bar. Do the sum at 3-1 and again at 4-1, because it tells you which plan you’re on:

• Three or more losses to spare. You can afford to wait for your spike, as long as you can name its round.
• One or two. Your spike has to land in Stage 3 or right at 4-1. Waiting for 4-2 needs wins on the way.
• None. Spend now. Your board has to stop losing this stage, and the bank can’t help you if you’re out.

What do those rounds pay, and what do you want to buy?

Less than you want. Income is 5 gold of base income, Riot’s last printed figure, plus 1 gold for every 10 you hold, a rate we work out from a 2021 Riot line. We count no interest past 50 gold, as our economy guide explains. Over the ten player rounds, keeping a flat bank:

Bank you hold throughout	Income over the ten rounds	Bank plus income, your total to spend by the end
0	50	50
10	60	70
20	70	90
30	80	110
40	90	130
50	100	150

Wins add to that: 1 gold each and streak gold. Winning all ten from no streak adds 10 for the wins and 20 for the streak. Now the shopping list. An XP buy is 4 gold for 4 XP and a roll is 2 gold (“Buy XP 4” and “Reroll 2”, seen on the Reroll and Buy XP buttons in a patch 18.5 game on 29 October 2026, with Riot’s Hyper Roll article and 17.2 notes in support, and its 18.2 notes treat 1 XP as 1 gold). Level 7 is 36 XP from an empty bar at 6, and level 8 is 56 XP from an empty bar at 7. Unit prices are the rolling guide’s sum, rolls and buying together:

What you want	Average gold from nothing	Average gold from a pair
Level 6 to 7	36
Level 7 to 8	56
2-star of a named 2-cost at level 6	51	18
2-star of a named 3-cost at level 7	58	20
2-star of a named 4-cost at level 8	81	30

Put those together into plans, starting from level 6 with an empty bar:

Plan for the ten rounds	The sum	Total
Reach 8, 2-star your 4-cost from a pair	36 + 56 + 30	122
Sit at 7, 2-star two 3-costs from nothing	36 + 58 + 58	152
Reach 8, 2-star a 4-cost from nothing	36 + 56 + 81	173
Sit at 6, 3-star a 2-cost	From the rolling guide	173

Hold those against the first table. On a flat 30 you can spend 110 across the stretch, and on a flat 50 you can spend 150, before wins, free XP, loot and augments. So the plans cost about what the stretch pays, and only one fits. That’s the real mid-game choice. It also shows what a pair is worth: the same level 8 plan runs 51 gold cheaper if you hold one, which is more than a whole bank of 50.

When should you spike?

Riot prints no round for it, and we won’t give you one as a rule. Here’s how to find yours. Take a hypothetical: 30 gold at 3-1, a board that loses every fight to 5 enemy units, and every coin held until you spend. Streak gold isn’t counted, and a loss run would add up to 3 gold a round.

Spend at the start of	Gold you hold	HP those losses have cost	What that gold covers, from level 6 with an empty bar
3-2	38	11	Level 7
3-5	55	33	A 2-star of a named 2-cost at level 6
3-6	65	44	Level 7 and a 3-cost pair finished
4-1	75	55	The same, with 19 gold to spare
4-3	95	79	Level 7 and a fresh 3-cost 2-star
5-1	125	115	Levels 7 and 8 and a 4-cost pair finished

Each round you wait adds 8 to 10 gold and takes 11 or 12 HP. Now check it against your bar. With 70 HP at 3-1, the 3-6 line leaves 26 and the 4-1 line leaves 15. So a board that keeps losing has to spend by about 3-6, on about 65 gold. The bottom row costs 115 HP, more than the 100 that the HP guide infers as the normal ceiling, and even that much gold falls short of the 173-gold plan.

So the two ways to reach a late spike are both about not losing: hold a board that wins some of those rounds, or hold pairs so the spike costs less. That’s the arithmetic behind the streak guide’s advice on what a run is worth, and the HP guide’s worked example does the same sum for a shorter delay.

The third thing to check is the fight itself. A spike only pays if it flips the fights after it. If your gold can’t do that yet, the HP is gone either way, and holding costs nothing extra.

Which spot are you in at 3-1?

Your board decides the plan more than your comp does.

Your board at 3-1	Stage 3	Stage 4
Winning its fights	Hold to the next ten and level on your line’s timing. Spend to protect a run only when the streak guide’s sum pays	Spend the bank that winning built on the level or roll your line wants, while you’re still ahead
Close fights	Buy the smallest thing that flips them: one level, or a pair finished	Roll once at your carry’s level and stop at your number
Losing, with pairs and HP to spare	Name your spike round from the tables above, and hold until then	Land the spike by 4-1 or 4-2, with gold to roll
Losing, with few pairs or little HP	Roll now for any 2-stars that make a board. Don’t wait for the line you wanted	Rebuild. If another line is now closer, our pivoting guide has that sum

Our leveling guide has round-by-round level timings for each kind of streak, and the fast 8 guide has the test for pushing at level 7.

How does your carry’s cost change the stretch?

Riot’s 13.23 notes gave each level a job: 2-costs at 6, 3-costs at 7, 4-costs at 8 and the 5-cost that finishes your board at 9. So your carry tells you where to stop climbing. As an example, here’s how the 21 lines built from our own match crawl (patch 18.6 data) split by carry. It counts lines, not how often each is played, and a 0 is no verdict on a cheap carry.

Carry cost	Of the 21 lines	What Stage 3 and Stage 4 are for
1	0	Roll low for copies, then spend on levels once the carry is done. See the reroll guide
2	0	Slow roll at 6. The 173 gold doesn’t fit in one bank, so your board has to hold
3	3	Sit at 7 for the 2-stars, then decide on a 3-star by counting the pool
4	16	Hold fights at 7, then reach 8 with gold left to roll
5	2	Keep a level 8 board that wins, because level 9 comes after it

Most of those lines have a 4-cost carry, 16 of the 21, and that’s the group the choice at 4-1 and 4-2 is about. The fast 8 guide has the test for it.

What else lands in these rounds?

• The 3-2 and 4-2 augments. You know far more than you did at 2-1. Our augments guide has the framework. Since 18.5, augments built for one damage type turn up less when you play the other, so a clear direction helps your offers too.
• The 3-4 and 4-4 carousels. By Stage 4 you should be taking what finishes an item, as the carousel guide explains.
• Your components. Every round they sit in the bag is a round they don’t fight. Our slamming guide has the sum for holding one.
• The 4-7 PvE round. Riot’s 18.1 notes tell players not to miss that loot, and they let anything missed from 4-7 on roll into the following PvE round.

What changes as Stage 5 comes in?

The price. Base damage goes from 7 to 10, so the same loss to 5 enemy units goes from 12 HP to 15. The floor rises too, by the HP guide’s rule: more than 26 to 32 going into Stage 5 becomes more than 30 to 36 going into Stage 6. And in our game length figures, for ranked games from August 25 to October 4, 2026, the median 8th-place finish ended on round 26, which is 5-1. So 4-6 is the last player round of this stretch, and by that median the fights right after it start sending players home.

Go into 5-1 having spent what your board needs. Gold held past that point is on the late game guide’s clock.

What in Set 18 changes this?

These are Riot’s lines at each patch, so read the cards in your game.

• Low-gold Wisps. 18.4 added four 0-cost Wisps you only see under 10 gold, from 4-1 to 5-7, and 18.5 added two of them to Stage 3. So a roll-down to nothing isn’t quite a dead shop.
• Wisps cost rolls. A 3-gold Wisp is 1.5 rolls, plus 1 gold a round if it takes you below a ten. You get one a round, and our Wisps guide has the prices.
• Pandora’s Items. 18.5 added versions at 3-2 and 4-2. If you take one, read the card before you decide what to hold.

What changes when Set 19 lands?

Riot’s schedule lists 19.1 for December 1, 2026, and warns that dates can change. The method carries over: price a loss, count your budget, add up the plan, name the round. Re-run it with the numbers in Riot’s 19.1 notes, because 16.1 changed player damage, XP and odds at a set launch, and a set without Wisps would show more champions per roll. The line split above is an example, so rebuild it from Set 19’s lines.

What should you do in your next game?

Your spot	The call
3-1, any board	Work out how many of the ten rounds you can lose
Three or more losses to spare, board losing	Name your spike round, and hold until then
One or two losses to spare	Land the spike by 4-1
No losses to spare	Spend now on whatever makes a board
Holding a pair of your carry	Plan around finishing it. It takes 51 gold off a 4-cost plan
Your plan costs more than the stretch pays	Drop something. One spike, not two
4-6, gold still in the bank, board losing	Spend it. The next loss costs more

If you want a second opinion on these calls while you play, TFTSense gives econ and leveling calls.

Sources

All read November 4, 2026. Riot publishes no single page on the mid game, so each number links to the Riot page that sets it.

• Riot Games, patch 10.6 notes, published 2020-03-17, for base income.
• Riot Games, Teamfight Tactics: Hyper Roll, published 2021-04-14, for win gold and the XP buy.
• Riot Games, Gizmos & Gadgets Set Mechanic Overview: Hextech Augments, published 2021-10-21, for max interest of 7 at 70 gold, which gives the rate of 1 per 10 used here.
• Riot Games, patch 13.23 notes, published 2023-11-20, for what each level is for.
• Riot Games, patch 14.9 notes, published 2024-04-30, and patch 16.1 notes, published 2025-12-02, for player damage and Riot’s reasons for it.
• Riot Games, patch 14.15 notes, published 2024-07-30, for the XP step to level 7 and copies per champion.
• Riot Games, patch 17.2 notes, published 2026-04-28, for the line that supports the reroll price.
• Riot Games, Enchanted Wilds Overview, published 2026-07-27, for the limit of one Wisp a round.
• Riot Games, patch notes for 18.1 (2026-08-25), 18.2 (2026-09-09), 18.4 (2026-10-06), 18.5 (2026-10-20) and 18.6 (2026-11-03), for loot, the XP step to level 8, the rate of 1 XP to 1 gold, Wisps, augments and the absence of player damage changes.
• Riot Games, Patch Schedule, Teamfight Tactics, for the 19.1 date.
• The game itself: “Buy XP 4” and “Reroll 2”, seen on the Reroll and Buy XP buttons in a patch 18.5 game on 29 October 2026.
• The game’s data files, read November 4, 2026, for the round list.
• Our own match crawl: the 21 comp lines built from it (patch 18.6 data), for lines by carry cost. Our game length page, from ranked games played August 25 to October 4, 2026, for the median last round by placement. Round 26 is 5-1: count 4 for Stage 1, 7 for each later stage already finished, then the round’s position in its own stage, so 4 + 21 + 1.

Update log

• 2026-11-04: First version.