TFT Set 5: Reckoning preview – new champions, classes and more

Teamfight Tactics or TFT for short was initially released in June 2019 by Riot Games and almost two years later, the auto battler game is still going strong.

A component built into the main League of Legends client, TFT was introduced to broaden the developer’s horizons as a company and ultimately to attract more and different types of consumers to the universe of LoL.

This is precisely what makes the game so appealing to those who were already familiar with Runeterra and those who are complete strangers. The concept of the auto battler is easy to grasp and different champions with unique abilities allow for players to become attached to the joyous personality that is personified through the game.

It could not be coming at a better time as much of the community, myself included, are beginning to become tired of the same compositions and champions being abused over and over again. For me, it was the Cultist players who were the bane of my experience in TFT: Fates.

The item pool is effectively doubled by the use of Shadow Items, as players will be able to build even more items from the current ones that are already in the game. 

The introduction of Shadow Items have come to replace the Chosen feature of Set 4/4.5, which most players seem to be thrilled about. Personally, I thoroughly enjoyed the Chosen mechanic and thought it was an excellent and unique addition to Set 4, but each to their own.

(Image Credit: Riot Games)

Although Shadow Items will be extremely powerful, Riot have also warned that players should be careful when battling with them. A “high risk high reward” tagline has been given to the brand new game mechanic for Set 5.

Riot Games explains: “With great power, but risky drawbacks, Shadow Items can be mixed and matched with various team compositions to make for powerful win conditions.

“Can you imagine Draven throwing axes faster and faster while dealing damage to himself, but also healing back with a Bloodthirster? That’s a scary build, but it gets even scarier when we talk about the team comp you can run it in.”

Some champions and traits, such as Forgotten units, will also gain extra stats from Shadow Items, so it is essential that you learn all of the different traits and their abilities/interactions.

As mentioned before, there will be 58 new champions and 27 new traits being introduced for Set 5. There will be some familiar faces and repeated classes from before, but for the most part, the traits are completely different so you can expect interactions between the two to be totally unique.

 

Here is the full list of champions, traits and classes:

Abomination

Bonus: When 3 allied Champions have died, the Monstrosity will awaken from its grave. The Monstrosity gets bonus Health and Attack Damage based on allied Abomination units’ Star Levels. The Monstrosity will also receive a random copy of an item from each of the three Abomination Champions nearest the grave when combat starts.

 

Champions: Kalista, Brand, Nunu, Ryze

 

Coven

Bonus: At the start of combat, the Champion nearest to the center of your Coven Champions is chosen as the Coven Leader, gaining 50% bonus Ability Power.

 

Champions: Lissandra, Leblanc, Morgana

 

Dawnbringer

Bonus: Dawnbringers rapidly heal some of their maximum Health the first time they drop below 50%. When this heal occurs, all allied Dawnbringers gain 10% bonus damage.

 

Champions: Gragas, Kha’Zix, Soraka, Nidalee, Riven, Karma, Garen

 

Draconic

Bonus: At the end of each player combat, gain a dragon egg on your bench. The bigger the egg, the longer it takes to hatch, and the rarer the reward. In Hyper Roll, dragon eggs hatch a lot faster.

 

Champions: Udyr, Sett, Ashe, Zyra, Heimerdinger

 

Dragonslayer

Bonus: Dragonslayers gain bonus Ability Power. After the first ally Dragonslayer scores a takedown on an enemy with at least 1400 maximum Health, all allies gain additional Ability Power for the rest of the round.

 

Champions: Trundle, Pantheon, Diana, Mordekaiser

 

Eternal

Bonus: Wolf separates from Lamb to become a second champion. Wolf does not count toward your unit cap, and receives all of Lamb’s item bonuses.

 

Champions: Kindred

 

Forgotten

Bonus: Forgotten champions have bonus Attack Damage and Ability Power. Each Shadow item held by a Forgotten champion increases these bonuses by 10% on all Forgotten champions, stacking up to 4 times.

 

Champions: Warwick, Vayne, Hecarim, Thresh, Viktor, Katarina, Draven, Ryze, Viego

 

Hellion

Bonus: Hellions gain Attack Speed.Whenever a Hellion dies, a Deoppelhellion of the same type (with one less star and no items) will leap from the Hellion portal and join the fight!

 

Champions: Ziggs, Kled, Poppy, Kennen, Lulu, Teemo

 

Ironclad

Bonus: All allies gain Armor.

 

Champions: Nautilus, Rell, Jax

 

Nightbringer

Bonus: Nightbringers gain a shield for 8 seconds equal to a percent of their maximum Health the first time they drop below 50%. When this occurs, that Nightbringer gains bonus damage.

 

Champions: Vladimir, Sejuani, Lee Sin, Morgana, Yasuo, Aphelios, Diana, Darius

 

Redeemed

Bonus: Redeemed have increased Armor, Magic Resistance, and Ability Power. When they die, they pass this bonus split among remaining Redeemed allies.

 

Champions: Aatrox, Leona, Syndra, Varus, Lux, Rell, Vel’Koz, Kayle

 

Revenant

Bonus: Revenants revive after their first death each combat. Once revived, they take and deal 30% increased damage.

 

Champions: Nocturne, Ivern, Volibear

 

Verdant

Bonus: Champions that start combat adjacent to at least one Verdant ally are immune to crowd control for a duration.

 

Champions: Ashe, Taric, Kayle

Now that we’ve seen all the traits, let’s dive into the classes. 

 

Assassin

Bonus: Innate: At the start of combat Assassins leap to the enemy backline. Assassins’ abilities can critically strike and they gain bonus Critical Strike Chance and bonus Critical Strike Damage.

 

Champions: Kha’Zix, Leblanc, Katarina, Nocturne, Diana, Viego

 

Brawlers

Bonus: Brawlers gain additional maximum Health.

 

Champions: Gragas, Warwick, Sett, Nunu, Volibear

 

Caretaker

Bonus: Caretakers deploy with a Baby Dragon that can be placed anywhere on the battlefield. Baby Dragons gain 100% of their handler’s Attack Speed and restore 50 mana to their Caretaker upon death.

 

Champions: Heimerdinger

 

Cavalier

Bonus: Innate: Cavaliers charge quickly towards their target whenever they move. Cavaliers take reduced damage. At the start of combat and after charge, this effect is doubled for 4 seconds.

 

Champions: Kled, Hecarim, Sejuani, Rell

 

Cruel

Bonus:

Cruel champions are purchased with Little Legend Health instead of gold. They can be sold for gold but not Health. You’re welcome. Never underestimate the hunger of a Cruel champion in single combat.

 

Champions: Teemo

 

God-King

Bonus: If you have exactly one God-King they deal 30% bonus damage to enemies who have at least one of their Rival Traits.

• Garen’s Rival Traits: Forgotten, Nightbringer, Coven, Hellion, Dragonslayer, Abomination, Revenant
• Darius’ Rival Traits: Redeemed, Dawnbringer, Verdant, Draconic, Ironclad

 

Champions: Darius, Garen

 

Invoker

Bonus: All allies gain extra Mana from their basic attacks.

 

Champions: Syndra, Ivern, Karma, Teemo

 

Knight

Bonus: All allies block a flat amount of damage from all sources.

 

Champions: Leona, Poppy, Nautilus, Thresh, Taric, Darius, Garen

 

Legionnaire

Bonus: Legionnaires gain bonus attack speed, and their first attack after casting a spell heals them for 50% of the damage dealt.

 

Champions: Aatrox, Kalista, Riven, Yasuo, Draven, Mordekaiser, Kayle

 

Mystic

Bonus: All allies gain Magic Resist.

 

Champions: Lulu, Morgana, Lux, Ryze, Kindred

 

Ranger

Bonus: After 4 seconds, Rangers gain Attack Speed for 4 seconds. They regain this bonus every 4 seconds thereafter.

 

Champions: Vayne, Varus, Ashe, Aphelios, Kindred

 

Renewer

Bonus: Renewers heal for a percent of their maximum Health each second. If they’re full health, they restore mana instead.

 

Champions: Lissandra, Vladimir, Soraka, Ivern, Heimerdinger

 

Skirmisher

Bonus: Skirmishers gain a shield at the start of combat, and gain Attack Damage each second.

 

Champions: Udyr, Trundle, Kennen, Lee Sin, Nidalee, Pantheon, Jax, Viego

 

Spellweaver

Bonus: Spellweavers have increased Ability Power and get bonus Ability Power any time a champion uses an ability, stacking up to 10 times.

 

Champions: Ziggs, Brand, Viktor, Zyra, Vel’Koz

For the first time since its inception, there will now be another mode other than Normal and Ranked queues that you can dive into when playing TFT Set 5. 

Labs is a fun and exciting new game mode that will introduce rotating game mode adaptations for TFT, in the way that Riot has modes like URF, One for All and Nexus Blitz on rotation for LoL.

The first Labs game mode to launch will be called “Hyper Roll”. This game mode will focus on fast matches which will end before the 20 minute mark, as opposed to the longer 30-40 min TFT games. 

In Hyper Roll, players will be relieved from focusing on XP and levelling as you will automatically level up after two fights. All you need to do is roll, as the title says!

There will be more Labs modes added to Set 5 in the future and multiple will be active at once, but for now, the new Set will launch with the one.

The new Set has been available for early access on the League of Legends PBE server since April 14, but Set 5 will officially be going live on Wednesday 28 April, 2021 with the update of patch 11.9.