Teamfight Tactics has entered its second season! TFT Set 2 brings new life to the game mode. And by new life I mean several new items, a highly impactful new mechanic, and an entirely new cast of units. That’s right, nearly every unit in TFT was removed and replaced with new units, or new variations of existing units. This has obviously caused the game to change massively. We’re going to go over some of the biggest changes, and the best units.
Items
The biggest change in regards to items is that Cursed Blade has been removed from the game. Now if you combine a Recurve Bow and a Negatron, you’ll get Hurricane. Cursed Blade proved impossible to balance, and I believe it was a good choice to simply remove it entirely.
Apart from that change, most of the item changes come in the form of Spatula items. You can no longer turn people into Sorcerers, Demons, Yordles, or Knights. In fact, none of those synergies even exist anymore! Now, instead, you can make Inferno, Mage, Warden, Light, and Berserkers using the Spatula and coinciding items.
Elemental Hexes
A far bigger change than the items is the addition of elemental boards. Every time you go into game, one of four elements will be chosen, and then hexes will appear on each player’s board that represent that element. The four elements are Inferno, Mountain, Ocean, and Cloud. Each one will have their hex have a different effect for the unit standing on it. Inferno causes the unit to have 30% bonus attack speed, Ocean causes the unit to start with an additional 30 mana, and Cloud causes the unit to have an extra 20% dodge chance. Mountain is a bit more interesting, and causes the unit standing on it to gain an additional 30 health for every single round it stands there. This is incredibly strong for certain comps, but does promote choosing a composition as soon as possible. One hex will appear at the start of the game, and then a second one will appear after you defeat Krugs (on stage 3-1). This allows you to play around with multiple units.
Note that Qiyana will have her element be that of the arena, with her other role always being Assassin. This can be extremely strong on certain maps, such as Cloud where you can get a very early Cloud buff with her and Yasuo. Something else to note is that the Cloud hex buff is extremely overpowered with Iceborn Gauntlet, causing there to be patches of ice all over the enemy field.
It’s definitely good to have different strategies depending on what field you are on. For example, on Ocean mages and summoners are extremely strong. Similarly, on Mountain, Mages are particularly week as they do not typically have a strong front line, particularly not one that can soak the Mountain buff all game. Figure out what is good for each map and play to your advantages.
Strongest New Synergies
I’ve been playing a ton of TFT the past couple weeks, and I really enjoy the new set. There are some really strong synergies to go for, and some that feel a bit lackluster. There are also some that are very strong early, then fall off late, similar to 3 Nobles or 2 Knights from last set. I’ll try to cover them as best I can.
Early game there are three synergies in particular that I go for every game. The best synergy early game is Woodland. If you can get three Woodland units in play, at the start of each round it copies a random Woodland unit for that round (items are not copied). This is insanely powerful early, effectively being a level higher than you actually are. The other two strategies are Berserker and Predator, both of which are extremely strong with just three units, and can be attained very early. Obviously you’ll want to go for level 2 units over synergies, but these are good synergies to grab if possible.
Late game the best synergies tend to be Poison, Shadow, Mage, and Light. These four synergies are enough to take over games, with Shadow, Light, and Mage dealing overwhelming damage, while Poison simply shuts down the enemy team’s abilities. There are lots of other synergies that do extremely well late game as well, but most are item dependent, such as Blademaster and Ranger utilizing high damage and attack speed items.
Some synergies that I tend to avoid are Ocean and Warden. Ocean simply doesn’t give enough mana fast enough to feel worth devoting units to it, while Warden only affects the Wardens themselves, while they aren’t particularly strong units. There are other synergies that may not be amazing, but these two in particular I do my best to stay away from.
Strongest Units
There are a ton of strong units in the new set. Some are simply strong early, while others are strong enough to take over entire games alone. I’ll try to cover as many as I can!
The strongest late game units in the game, in my opinion, are, in no particular order, Singed, Master Yi, Olaf, and Zed. While you can create hyper carries out of a myriad of other units, these four will be highly conducive to becoming your hyper carry and decimating games for you. Singed with Morellos will Poison and Wound their entire team, while dealing very high damage. Master Yi and Olaf will simply punch through the enemy team with their high healing and high damage (items obviously help here!). Zed is an odd one, but if you put defensive and healing items on him then he can ult over and over again. The best combination is Guardian Angel and Redemption.
Early game, I find that Mundo, Kindred, Diana, and Malzahar are some of the strongest units. They all provide a ton of damage, with the exception of Mundo who simply refuses to die while dealing average damage as well. Again there are many other units that are very strong as well, especially when you include their synergies (such as Woodland), but these are some of my personal favourite strongest units.
Last Words
I may have played a ton of Teamfight Tactics Set Two, but that doesn’t mean anything I’ve said here is gospel. One of the best things about TFT is that it is constantly changing, and everything I’ve said here could be untrue in a few weeks after some meta shifts and balance patches. The game is a ton of fun and very rewarding, just keep trying new things and have fun!