Spirit Blossom Festival in TFT

A week ago, League of Legends launched another in-game event – the Spirit Blossom Festival. Carried out in the oriental style, the event offers an interesting story, which unfolds as you play in League of Legends. There is good news for Teamfight Tactics fans: this time the balance is set in the way that allows us to complete the Spirit Bonds mini-game playing exclusively in the autobattler. What's more, boosting in TFT seems to be quicker!

Players of the standard League of Legends modes orient at long series of killings, wide sight and other fundamental parameters, and their set will require diversification of one's own gameplay in order to succeed relatively quickly. Narrowly focused tasks in TFT include building 3-star Ahri and playing for the Rebels. Spoiler: when just playing TFT, the characters progress quite fast. During the remaining three weeks, you can, without haste, collect all the prize tokens of the event hidden in the Spirit Bonds mini-game.

But it's just a nice add-on. Let's talk about those strategies/compositions that perform quite well in the patch 10.15. This time we emphasize two of them – Astro Snipers 2.0 and Bang Pilots.

Bang Pilots

This strategy is not very common at Platinum/Diamond ranks, and with its help, the author of this build managed to gain over 200 LP without losing a single battle. The main idea is quite simple: there is a Mech, which at the front line can absorb a lot of damage and also devours a certain amount of enemy's health, and the backline providing main damage. This tactic can be called the evolution of the old Mech strategy, which consisted of a Mech and three Infiltrators in the previous champion set.

Concerning weaknesses. Firstly, Infiltrators. If someone plays against you with Shaco or Zed targeting your Viktor, it may end up fatally. Secondly, this strategy isn't particularly effective against AoE: again, Shaco and Viktor have high priority in attacking items, so they're quite vulnerable. Usually, they don't fall into the epicenter due to their remote location, but if the action takes place on the Dwarf planet, make sure you think twice before applying this strategy. In the rest, Bang Pilots are powerful enough, and with this strategy, you can definitely fight for victory.

How to play?

The opening phase can be played pretty much any way you want: one of the good options is a duo of two Vanguard champions (e.g., Leona + Poppy), and two Infiltrators or even Snipers – in general, you need two damage dealers on the backline. The Vanguard agents will stay in the front line until the Mech is ready (if you're lucky you may have an early Fizz, otherwise you'll have to endure it). The backline is formed as the heroes arrive: Cassiopeia, Shaco and Viktor deal damage, Karma provides Shaco with a solid buff, and all of them are covered by the front line.

In fact, the key item is the Hush on one of the heroes of the Mech (e.g, on Rumble). Spear of Shojin and Morellonomikon will be fine artifacts for Viktor, whereas items providing physical damage will benefit Shaco. Defensive items can be safely given to Mech Pilots – just remember there should be no more than three of them in total. The economy is generally standard: level 6/7/8 upgrades should take place on average before stages 3-2, 4-1 and 5-1.

Astro Snipers 2.0

This strategy was described in detail in my analysis of patch 10.12, so we will not repeat and will only analyze the changes.

1. Four Snipers is too much. There are Mystics in Meta now, so it's worth having Karma (she shows excellent synergy with Jhin) and Soraka or Lula (excellent utility champions who will help in any situation).
2. Since we get two slots free after Snipers, we need someone to fill them. The pace of game speeds up and the ninth level is difficult to take, so Karma shifts from the "ninth champion" to the "base", and the game should be played now with the group of eight completed by a Chrono warrior. Personally, in the late game, I really like the idea of Thresh who can pull champions from the bench, but if he isn't available, Blitzcrank will do.
3. If Jhin doesn't arrive, he can be replaced by Vayne, and Ashe can for a while be replaced by Teemo.
4. The priority in items is the same – let's state them again just in case: physical damage for Jhin, magic buffs for Teemo. Defensive artifacts go to the heroes of the front line.

This strategy provides enough freedom for experiments and is relatively easy to implement. The main problem is that many players currently like to use Snipers, which means there will be great competition for the favorite champions and low chance of their appearance. Therefore, be attentive and check the other players' compositions for repetitions regularly.

All in all, these two strategies should be enough to spend time at Spirit Blossom Festival with pleasure and ease. May your game be fun and event tokens hunt be fruitful!