What’s cooking DJs?
Welcome to our first patch of Remix Rumble. This is an important one as it’s the patch the TFT Vegas Open will be played on, so we’re focused on bringing down our clear winners (Jazz, Country, Superfan, etc.) of the opening patch and lifting the sorest of losers (Yasuo, Yone, Viego, etc.). We’re purposefully avoiding big swings ahead of TFT’s first LAN tournament, the TFT Vegas Open, but expect a follow up patch before the end of the year to keep the meta diverse and genre-inclusive over the break.
In addition to the balance changes, we’ve got new Tacticians arriving just in time for you to style on your opponents at Vegas, or on a second monitor while watching the TVO… can you tell that I’m hyped for TVO? Say hello to Chibi Akali, Chibi Headliner K/DA POP/STARS Kai’Sa, Drip Drummer Choncc, and Power Chord Ao Shin!
Wanna know more about TVO—well, I’ll be there so be sure to say hi! Oh, you need actually useful information? Okay, in that case our esports pals gotcha here.
With our first global LAN, the TFT Vegas Open, behind us, the balance team has set their sights on creating a stage where any band (read: team comps) can shine! Since this will be our last patch before the new year (patch 14.1 goes live on Jan 10th), we’re focusing on smaller changes primarily aimed at buffing things that aren’t quite working yet.
Hitting Level 9 should be typical when you’ve got your econ dialed, which is why we don’t want Level 9 to guarantee you a 5-cost Headliner. Instead we want it to feel like it's where you get 4-cost Headliners, and, similar to when you hit a 5-cost at Level 7, it feels like a high-roll when you hit a 5-cost Legendary, so much so that you may adapt your comp just to fit it in. We're going to test out how these new odds feel, and it’s possible we go to 0% 5-cost Headliners at Level 9 if needed.
Whether it’s as impactful as making 5 Spellweaver a significant jump from 3, or just nudging 6 Bruiser by 5% bonus HP, we’ve gone through and buffed all the traits that have struggled to find their place in our first two patches.
As our hardest trait, with two uncraftable Emblems and a Headliner being required, Spellweaver 10 must be the most powerful trait—which is why we’re adding another 80 AP for each of your Spellweavers.
With her stun and sunder being somewhat unreliable, Vi’s been more of a crowd-pleaser than a crowd-controller. So while we’re not going to increase the reliability of that CC, we are giving her more opportunities to swing those fists with a lowered max mana and increased survivability.
Even though True Damage has climbed the charts, Yasuo has remained a reroll carry that has yet to carry. We’re giving him more survivability and a better AD ratio so you can stack more effectively early, and utilize those stacks better in the late game.
A few community guides to playing frontline Twitch (with healing items and Titan’s Resolve) have utilized his scaling with both AD and AP, as well as his durability from Punk. While we’re not convinced that’s the best way to play Twitch, we want to lean into it more by making Twitch a bit more durable via resistances which increase the effectiveness of HP shields from Guardian and Omnivamp. So go ahead and run the most musophobic (fear of rats) comp we have to offer and slam that BT on your frontliner with a 4-hex range.
With a better AD ratio on Poppy’s ability, note that you’ll still want to itemize Health stats to take advantage of her AD increase from bonus Health. And if you want to make this sad Yordle even happier, remember that Sterak’s Gage is her favorite!
Sona’s Attack Speed form has proven the no-brainer click, but this Mixmaster is ready to mix things up, so be sure to try her other tracks as well!
It’s all buffs. Except for you Qiyana…sorry sis.
We’re opening up Blue Buff as a more versatile item by giving it a small amount of AD. You should expect this to be a much better option for champions like Kai’Sa, Jhin, and Ezreal. This alongside a small nerf to Spear of Shojin should keep these items closer in power and make you think about building each item based on the champion’s mana pool, or your access to Attack Speed, rather than just because one is better than the other. Our nerf to Blue Buff’s damage amplification is to compensate for fixing a bug where it was not correctly applying.
Remix Rumble has seen Runaan’s Hurricane downgraded to a tropical storm. With a bit more AD, maybe you’ll think twice about forgetting your Runaan’s Umbrella.
They’re Training Dummies, not tanking Dummies. Training Dummies are providing too much free frontline, especially in the later levels where their increase in Health (as they star-up) is amplified even more by their high resistances. This change impacts all Training Dummies (including Portals).
While this patch is full of buffs, we do have a few Augment nerfs targeted at the general combat Augment outliers (Three’s a Crowd, Inspiring Epitaph, Little Buddies, Vampirism), but also our True Damage trait-linked Augment, Blinged Out. The HP that these Augments provide has proven to be too useful in the current set due to prevalent Health scaling from traits like Guardian, or readily available resistances from things like Sentinel.
Finally, if you watched TVO, you know just how effective Needlessly Big Gem can be on a backline Training Dummy in the early game (where drip econ is especially powerful). We’ve opted to completely disable the ability for Stationary Support II/III to roll a Needlessly Big Gem, but we’re allowing Stationary Support I to still have a chance at generating the item due to the 7 player combat delay on its arrival.
For more information and videos of the below cosmetics, check out our Pass and More article here! As an extra reminder, Chibi Heartsteel Sett will leave Treasure Realms within 24 hours of these notes going live!
Chibi Headliner K/DA POP/STARS Kai’Sa is the Chibi with the longest name and the most stylish moves. Chibi Headliner K/DA POP/STARS Kai’Sa is our first global release of a Prestige-tier Tactician, with brand-new splash, visuals, and finisher. This tier of Tactician is designed for the superfans to express their super fandom. For Chibi Headliner K/DA POP/STARS Kai’Sa, this means a finisher that’ll have you sampling the song POP/STARS so you can play out your foes after you outplay them!
Chibi Akali proves that cold steel, a target, and some ramen are all anyone really needs.
Ao Shin’s songs drag on and on, which is why they’re late to the party. Like Drip Drummer Choncc, they’re available starting patch 13.24 (this one) for direct purchase at 925 RP. Drip Drummer Choncc arrived fashionably late to sport the most fashionable threads (all upsourced from second hand thrifting cause being environmentally conscious is true fashion).
Thanks to collaborative work between LoL and TFT (yeah, we’re good friends like that) we’re able to update our Spectate software to include TFT! This is unbelievably huge for us, as it’s been something many of you have wanted to assist in hosting community led tournaments. It’s awesome to finally have this come together, and we’re thankful for both your patience and the collaboration from the spectate team.
The Emerald pop-up will no longer taunt you upon queuing TFT.
The minimum spec requirement for TFT mobile on Android devices has been raised. As we continually improve TFT we’re no longer able to support a few devices at a sufficient quality level, but these changes should affect about .01% of active players.
We’re taking a pass on portal names to make their character count shorter, especially across different languages where some names are causing UI issues. While we’re at it, we’re going to make them more music-y as well!
As a reminder, large changes are changes we believe will have an impact on the meta.
8-Bit shipped a bit underpowered, and the grand prize was effectively unattainable unless you were already in a position where you had a 3-star 4-cost already—a position where you were already incredibly likely to get first. We’re giving the trait a nudge that will feel most significant once you’ve beaten a few high scores, while also making the grand prize easier to hit (but still appropriately difficult).
Country, Guardian, and Jazz all released with too much power. Carries for Country comps utilized the bonus AS and Omnivamp to allow itemization in greedier stats (e.g. Crit for Samira) without major drawbacks. Guardian shields provided extended frontliner HP bars that would carry over to carries at times. And Jazz comps were quickly perfected to maximize the power of the trait.
If you were in awe at how strong Kennen and his Headliner version were, you won’t be shocked to find that we’ve nerfed him here. Our best 1-cost should still be high-value with his powerful traits, but expect a little less damage coming from the electric True Damage Superfan.
Even with a good opener, Yasuo struggles to come online and scale into the late game despite being our go-to stacking one cost. A better AD ratio means Yasuo will get more out of the permanent AD he gains upon killing enemy champions. Don’t sleep on an early Yasuo Headliner.
Yone has struggled to manage a pop band on top of three different traits. We’re giving him a lift that’ll be most felt at three stars, opening up the possibility of Yone reroll carry lines alongside his other Edgelord friends (read: Riven). Remember to give Yone defensive items like Adaptive Helm, or Sterak’s Gage to allow him to survive enough to keep stacking and popping off!
We’re happy with the power ceiling of our four costs, but the floor is too low. We’re taking a very light pass on lifting the weakest 4-costs here.
Ziggs is the one-yordle-size-fits-all-comps carry that can utilize just about any item to add a destructive source of damage and MR shred. He’s even good in AD comps to give his allies the Hyperpop AS bonus.
We’ve got nerfs to our five best performing Headliners, a compensation nerf to Sett whose Headliner effect wasn’t functioning properly before this patch, and one buff for a Headliner that just wasn’t making the headlines—sorry Zac.
If you were thinking Good For Something I was just too good for anything, well, you were right. The drop chance for gold was bugged resulting in more econ power than intended.
Trait-based Augments were both our most overperforming and underperforming Augments of the release. That’s Jazz Baby took the cake like Amumu at the Remix Rumble (see reference here) as one of the most powerful Augments of the set, while Edgelord, Rapidfire, and Mosher Augments embodied their Emo brethren in emotion only.
With new play styles and strategies, our most playstyle-altering Augments were in need of an update. Endless Hordes was lifted by Jazz that took advantage of the extra units to add even more traits, while Infernal Contract keeping players at Level 7 ended up being much weaker than past sets due to Remix Rumble’s leveling & XP changes.
This section is for changes that we don’t see drastically impacting the meta.
But have you tried Bruiser 3 yet @Mortdog?
3-star Ahri is our worst performing 3-star 4-cost. Part of this is due to her single target focus, where she dramatically overkills enemies with her second cast, making the ridiculous amount of damage ridiculously useless. We’re shifting her spell at 3-stars so she can fire an additional projectile per cast, allowing her to work through the enemy board faster, while still killing her foe with a 1440% AP ratio on the empowered cast.
Pop, Locke, and Tabula Rasa, as the kids aren’t saying.
We’ve added three additional combats to Stage 10 to delay the extreme player damage increase of Stage 11 that could often cut games even shorter than intended.