Teamfight Tactics’s big new update has done wonders for Riot’s auto chess game. It had gone stale, the same few compositions favoured, a couple of strategies likely to succeed. Where Dragons dominated the board, Set 2 has injected a much-needed variety to play. Now, with loads of new champions to choose from, loads of new synergies to try out and, crucially, new mechanics to master, it feels like Riot is finally stamping its authority on this most curious of video game genres, rather than simply imitating it.
TFT, post-update, does little to ease you into its fancy new ways. All of a sudden there are new, unfamiliar units with unfamiliar abilities, Origins and Classes to consider. Old favourites such as Aurelion Sol and Draven are ditched in favour of the likes of Annie and Olaf (the Hextech douchebags have been booted out, too, thank god).
I should point out that I am not a League of Legends player, so all the new champions are unfamiliar to me. But then this adds a thrill to this early doors experimentation. I’m not sure what to do, to be honest, so I’m just trying things out, going for different compositions and seeing what’s good for what. Riot has launched Set 2 without ranked play, which is a good decision because there’s nothing at risk. As a result, I’ve had a lot of fun learning about how the new Light origin works, for example. Here, when a Light champion dies, all other Light champions gain attack speed and are healed for 20 per cent of their maximum health. It’s pretty cool to see this pop off during a fight, each death making the rest of your Light champions stronger.
Source: Eurogamer Teamfight Tactics Set 2 breathes new life into the stale meta