Red Post Collection: Patch 11.21 & TFT Notes, Preseason 2022 PBE Preview, TFT Set 6, & More

• Red Post Collection:  QGT: 10/8, Disabling /all chat, TFT News & More
• PBE Preview: Arcane Jayce & Vi, Victorious Blitzcrank

• Patch 11.21 Notes
• Teamfight Tactics Patch 11.21 Notes
• Preseason 2022: PBE Preview
• TFT Set 6: Gizmos & Gadgets News
• Gizmos & Gadgets Gameplay Overview
• Team Up for Double Up!
• Introducing Chibi Champions
• Miscellaneous
• Other Games

Gizmos & Gadgets Gameplay Overview

Gizmos & Gadgets Gameplay Overview

A sneak peek at a few team compositions that arrive with Gizmos and Gadgets. 

Academy is back on Tacticians, so stow your hoverboards, weapons—and would you please stop drinking that Chemtech concoction—cause we’ve got a new set to get into! It’s been about two weeks since we officially announced Teamfight Tactics: Gizmos and Gadgets during Worlds—very hype, I know, so by now you’re probably ready for a big drop of info. Well, here it is, and by now, you know the formula, so let’s say goodbye to our favorite champions from Reckoning and meet the new champs taking over the city! 

The World of Gizmos and Gadgets 

Throw everything you know out the window—and now pick it back up, cause we may be able to put that in the Hexcore. What’s a Hexcore you ask? Well, it’s where all your Hextech Augments go! And if you’re wondering about those it may be stay tuned for more info later! 

But today’s overview is all about champions and traits, so let’s get into some of the brilliantly insane comps vying for power in Gizmos & Gadgets! 

Academy 

Class is now in session. With Academy (2/4/6/8) knowledge is power, but the question is, how do we get this knowledge? Gathering knowledge is easy, you just constantly expose yourself to new ideas, vet your sources, and trust science—oh wait, you wanted to know how the Academy trait gets power… It’s pretty similar actually, Academy champions gain bonus Attack Damage and Ability Power that’s amplified each time an ally casts an ability. 

In our most studious composition we’ll be running all seven avid learners and are hoping to get an Academy Emblem, or Augment that’ll take us to 8!

• Garen: Tier 1 Protector
• Graves: Tier 1 Twinshot
• Katarina: Tier 2 Assassin
• Leona: Tier 3 Bodyguard
• Lux: Tier 4 Arcanist
• Yone: Tier 4 Challenger
• Yuumi: Tier 5 Cuddly, Scholar

Studying can be hard, but with this comp we’ll skip the second half of the book to focus on slow-rolling, starring up Garen, Graves, Katarina, and another Protector or Twinshot to amplify your low cost carries. But just cause you can play the Academy comp as a reroll comp, doesn’t mean you can’t fast 8 to take advantage of Lux and Yone. These two carries have unique ways to access backline threats with their powerful abilities. And there ya go, a recipe for success in under two paragraphs. Knowledge is power! 

Chemtech 

These tormented experiments and demented experimentors are dead set on setting your opponents health bar to 0. Upon dropping below a health threshold, they kick things into overdrive, gaining damage reduction, Attack Speed, and regenerating a percentage of their maximum Health each second. As you add more Chemtech champions to your army your trait breakpoints (3,5,7,9) add to the duration of this effect. 

Here’s the roster of monsters making monsters:

• Singed: Tier 1 Innovator
• Twitch: Tier 1 Assassin
• Warwick: Tier 2 Challenger
• Lissandra: Tier 3 Scholar
• Zac: Tier 3 Bruiser
• Dr. Mundo: Tier 4 Mutant, Bruiser
• Urgot: Tier 4 Twinshot
• Viktor: Tier 5 Arcanist

The more Chemtech champions you run, the longer the buff’s duration will be. With healing that scales with a champ’s max Health, Chemtech can make super tanks even more super. But Chemtech doesn’t just give you a frontline that can keep fronting, it also gives protection to the backline carries of the trait. With Urgot and Viktor, Chemtechs won’t just experiment on themselves, they’ll also test for the solubility of enemy compositions. 

Mutant 

One of our most ambitious traits yet, Mutants will adapt and change every game. The Mutant (3, 5) trait randomly takes one of seven forms for the entirety of the game. During the same game, all players will play with the same activated Mutant trait. The specific trait benefits might look familiar, but that’s just because the champions of this trait learn from the past to adapt to the future! 

Each of these traits still activate at 3 Mutants and evolve to improved versions at 5. Here are the possible mutations for Mutant:

• Synaptic Web: Mutant champions have reduced mana cost. (Minimum 10 mana.)
• Hyper-Adrenal Glands: Mutants attacks have a chance to trigger 2 additional attacks against their target.
• Bio-Leeching: All allies gain Omnivamp.
• Cybernetic Adaptation: Mutants with at least one item gain bonus Health and Attack Damage.
• Metamorphosis: Every two seconds all Mutants grow, gaining Armor, Magic Resistance, Attack Damage, and Ability Power. This effect stacks up to five times.
• Voidborne: Voidborne Mutants execute targets at low Health. At 5 Voidborne Mutants, they deal true damage.
• Voracious Appetite: When an ally dies, all Mutants gain bonus Attack Damage and Ability Power.

Depending on what Mutation is active for the game, you should pick and choose what mutants you’ll be running as a carry from this roster:

• Kassadin: Tier 1 Protector
• Kog’Maw: Tier 2 Sniper Twinshot
• Cho’Gath: Tier 3 Colossus Bruiser
• Malzahar: Tier 3 Arcanist
• Dr. Mundo: Tier 4 Chemtech Bruiser
• Kai’Sa: Tier 5 Challenger

Running Mutants requires you to adapt each time you play it. Success will be found when you concentrate on multiplicative benefits, such as having a Metamorphosis game and focusing on building super tank carries like Cho’Gath and Dr.Mundo. I’ve had a blast with protect-the-Kai’Sa hypercarry comps while rolling both Voracious Appetite and Voidborne. My advice with Mutants, is figure out what works in the moment and commit hard to it—but remember to have fun experimenting! 

Mercenary 

Oh does fortune favor the bold with this trait. Running 3 Mercenaries gives you a treasure chest on your bench that opens when you win against a player. At the start of each planning phase you’ll roll two dice to add more and more loot to your chest. The longer you go without opening the chest, the luckier the dice get. If you hit 5 Mercenaries, the dice will get even luckier! And hitting 7 Mercenaries will make winning combats roll a third golden die—it’s a roll die or die game at 7 Mercenaries. 

Here’s your high-rolling guns, swords, and golden idols for hire: 

• Illaoi: Tier 1 Bruiser
• Quinn: Tier 2 Challenger
• Gangplank: Tier 3 Twinshot
• Miss Fortune: Tier 3 Sniper
• Tahm Kench: Tier 5 Bruiser Glutton

With this trait, getting an early Mercenary 3 into an Augment that counts towards the trait is a certain recipe for a reaction VOD worthy of fetching the camera. With cashout mechanics similar to Fortune in Fates, there are sure to be some first place or ARRgth moments. But don’t worry, to err is to be human, to arr is to be a pirate, and to make err-arrs is to be a Mercenary. 

Scrap

Sure they look a bit scrappy, especially that laughing fuzzbucket Ziggs, but have you seen what they can do with all that trash? At the start of combat, a number of incomplete item components scaling with trait breakpoints (2,4,6) on Scrap champions turn into ephemeral full items for that combat. Scrap champions also gain a health shield at the start of combat that grows with each item equipped in your army. 

Let’s see what junkers are ready to scrap:

• Ezreal: Tier 1 Innovator
• Ziggs: Tier 1 Arcanist Yordle
• Blitzcrank: Tier 2 Bodyguard Protector
• Trundle: Tier 2 Bruiser
• Ekko: Tier 3 Assassin
• Janna: Tier 4 Enchanter Scholar
• Jinx: Tier 5 Sister Twinshot

Dedicating yourself to 6 Scrap successfully requires planning ahead. At 6 Scrap all item components on your Scrap champions become completed items at the start of each combat, and the Health shield is doubled! To take advantage of turning trash into treasure you’ll have to distribute your components wisely. And if you choose to play Double Up without me, be sure to try this trait out, as no other comp is better at carrying trash. 

Yordle 

I’ve been Yordeling from the mountaintops for this comp. At 3 Yordles, you’ll get a random free Yordle on your bench after each player combat. And at 6 Yordles, Yordle mana costs are significantly reduced. But there’s also something else happening with this trait… something so powerful that I fear typing it here. 

If you want access to that power, try running all of these Yordles:

• Poppy: Tier 1 Bodyguard
• Ziggs: Tier 1 Arcanist Scrap
• Tristana: Tier 2 Sniper
• Lulu: Tier 2 Enchanter
• Heimerdinger: Tier 3 Innovator Scholar
• Vex: Tier 3 Arcanist

Since Yordle plays similar to an econ trait, such as Draconic from Reckoning, you want to hit 3 Yordles as early as possible. Your carries for the Yordle comp are Vex, who should be played and built on the tanky side with resistances that strengthen the shields she creates, and Heimerdinger, who wants AP items and a Blue Buff, but can also experiment with things like Statikk Shiv and Giantslayer. As with all champions, there is no best-in-slot build that’ll carry you from game to game, instead you should adapt to the lobby you are duking it out in—building Giant Slayer to get through Health stacking tanks and Statikk Shiv to crack heavy Magic Resist. 

Innovator 

Innovator will be the last big trait I’ll discuss in this overview. You could say we’ve been building up to this trait. Innovators build a mechanical companion to join them in battle. At 3 Innovators, you’ll get a Mechanical Scarab that projects a barrier on itself and an ally, taunting nearby enemies in the process. At 5 Innovators, you’ll get a Mechanical Bear that definitely wants to play too! The Bear’s spell causes it to surge with Hextech power, granting itself and allies bonus Attack Speed. The final form comes at 7 Innovators, and it’s something I won’t drag-on too much about, but real quickly, it’s a Mechanical Dragon whose roar fears enemies and encourages allies to deal extra damage. 

Here’s a list of innovative inventors imagining Scarabs, Bears, and of course, Dragons:

• Ezreal: Tier 1 Scrap
• Singed: Tier 1 Chemtech
• Zilean: Tier 2 Clockwork
• Heimerdinger: Tier 3 Scholar Yordle
• Seraphine: Tier 4 Socialite
• Jayce: Tier 5 Enforcer Transformer

Every Innovator has a role. Utilize Singed as your frontline, and Zilean to slow down fights, buying time for your mechanical inventions to take over. And if you manage to get to 7 Innovators, kick back and enjoy the success that took gears to make. Even though there are quite a few low cost Innovators, I recommend going for a fast level 8 to take advantage of Seraphine and Jayce, while splashing in another Socialite to amp up your carry! 

Colossus 

Look, I know I said Innovator was the last big trait I’d talk about—that was no lie! This next trait is more than just big, it’s COLOSSAL. Colossus champions are bigger, more powerful, and take up two slots in your army. Having just one of them will make it so all colossus are immune to crowd control effects, but adding another big guy will also grant them significant damage reduction. 

Here are your three Colossus units (that count as six):

• Cho’Gath: Tier 3 Bruiser Mutant
• Sion: Tier 4 Imperial Protector
• Galio: Tier 5 Bodyguard Socialite

To effectively field Colossus champions you’ll need to level, level, level. Lucky for you there are a couple Augments that can help you get the much needed XP. And when you do power level, adding an additional Socialite, can give one of your carries more POWER. 

Okay, that’s it for traits, next let’s discuss some of the 5-costs taking over! 

Jinx: Sister Scrap Twinshot 

Crashing in with her Super Mega Death Rocket, Jinx is causing chaos for friend and foe. Jinx’s ability has her riding a rocket into the sky, then come crashing down near the center of the most enemies dealing magic damage. Of course, she’s not done yet; Jinx will then leave a zone of destruction at the epicenter of her landing. That zone burns friends and foes remaining inside equal to a percentage of their max health. The zone will stay for the rest of combat.

Jayce: Enforcer Transformer Innovator 

Jayce has his own unique trait as well: Transformer. Transformer allows Jayce to switch between Hammer and Cannon form depending on where you position him, which should reflect what role you need him to play in your comp (Melee = Tank while Ranged = Carry). Put Jayce on the frontline to activate his Melee form allowing him to swipe his hammer twice before slamming it down on his foes, shredding their resistances. If you’re placing Jayce in the frontline be sure to give him some tank items in addition to more versatile items like Hand of Justice that will be good on both Melee and Ranged form in case you need to swap throughout the game. Speaking of swapping forms, Jayce’s Ranged form allows him to deploy an acceleration gate, granting allies in the same row bonus Attack Speed and empowering his next three attacks with electricity.

Yuumi: Academy Cuddly Scholar 

Are you ready for the final test? Did you read the final chapter? Yuumi sure did! Yuumi’s ability, Final Chapter, launches waves towards the furthest enemy, each dealing magic damage and stunning enemies for 0.5 seconds. But that’s not Yuumi’s only trick. As the true principle of the Academy, Yuumi has her own unique trait, Cuddly. Cuddly allows Yuumi to attach herself to her nearest ally at the start of combat, granting the ally a shield equal to a portion of Yuumi's maximum health. When the shield breaks, Yuumi will detach and after a short time on her own, she’ll look for the lowest Health ally to attach to—all in the purrsuit of chin scratches! While attached Yuumi is untargetable and can't attack, but gains mana per second, and mana whenever the ally attacks. Yuumi’s a clawesome add to the Academy roster, and a great substitute teacher for hiss-tory class, but she’s not the only 5-cost cat joining the TFT roster—more on that next!

Tahm Kench: Bruiser Glutton Mercenary 

As I just mentioned, Yuumi isn’t the only 5-cost cat joining the roster—and yes, you just got catfished. Tahm Kench’s unique trait, Glutton, allows you to feed a unit to Tahm Kench granting him permanent bonus stats once per planning phase. The more valuable the unit you feed to Tahm Kench, the bigger the bonus. To uninhibit the ribbit, hover a unit over Tahm Kench until his mouth opens, then release—just don’t choke the croak. 

Tahm Kench’s ability, has him devour an enemy unit, storing them in his belly for a brief duration dealing magic damage over the duration. During this time, the devoured unit is invulnerable to other sources of damage and Tahm Kench takes reduced damage. If the enemy unit dies inside—like you during the first line of this section—Tahm Kench will spit out a random item component they were holding, or the cost of the unit in gold. Otherwise, he spits them towards the farthest enemy, briefly stunning targets they impact.

That’s all there is for now! Hopefully this gets you as excited as we are to create your own inventive comps with some of the traits and champions discussed here. But, if it wasn’t enough, here’s a brief overview of literally everything in a handy dandy cheat sheet of Traits and Champs coming in Gizmos & Gadgets! 

And here’s a high quality version for my high quality readers! 

With so much excitement around the release of Gizmos & Gadgets, it can be hard to keep all the dates straight, so allow this blurb to help. Gizmos & Gadgets comes to PBE on October 19th, then goes live just after that on November 3rd (patch 11.22). The Gizmos & Gadgets Pass will be available later that day at 11:00 a.m. PST. Double Up will be the last thing hitting live servers on November 17th (patch 11.23), giving us a full patch to learn the ins and outs of the new set."

Team Up for Double Up!

Here's MinionsRPeople2 with info on the latest TFT lab, Double Up:

"Team Up for Double Up! 

Double Up is Teamfight Tactics’ new 2v2v2v2 lab, coming to you with the second patch of Gizmos & Gadgets, patch 11.23 (Nov 17th)! All you need to start playing is a partner—and before you ask, I’d love to! Already have a partner? Then you better link them to this article, cause we’re about to cover everything you need to know about Double Up!

TL;DR

• You can queue up solo or with a preferred partner that you’ll share health with. Once your health pool runs out for the first time, it’s set back to 1. Any loss thereafter eliminates the both of you.
• With the Assist Armory, you can gift your partner item components, gold, and other boosts at key points in the game.
• Use the Rune of Allegiance to gift champions and items they may be holding to your partner. Everyone gets one at the start of the game, but you can get another via the Assist Armory.
• If you beat your opponent’s army before your partner beats theirs, after a short delay your surviving champions will hop onto your partner’s board to help them out!
• Double Up goes to PBE on Nov 2nd and live on the second patch (11.23) of Gizmos & Gadgets. We’ll be adjusting it periodically based on your feedback!

How to Win: Don’t Lose

Like standard TFT, but different, the last one double standing wins. Even though it’ll be displayed as two separate health totals, you and your partner will share a health pool. That means every time your partner suffers damage, you suffer damage—and vice-versa. Sound risky? Don’t worry, the first time your shared health pool would hit 0, it gets set to 1. After that, any loss by either partner will eliminate you both. You’ll know when this is about to happen thanks to a visual indicator on your Tactician’s health bar, but we’ll also warn ya with text cause the last thing we want is for you to lose the next round. 

How to Not Lose: Assist Armory and Rune of Allegiance 

Now that you know how losing works, let’s talk about how to avoid that with the ‘Best Friends Armory’—I mean... the Assist Armory. In stage 2-5 and stage 6-2, one player from each team will see an Assist Armory. Whoever sees the Assist Armory can gift their partner things like item components and gold. The Assist Armory on stage 6-2 has even cooler loot like completed items, trait emblems, and the Rune of Allegiance (more on this in a sec)! Worried about giving without receiving? Don’t be! Your partner will get a chance to return the favor on stage 2-6 and 6-3.

So, you’ve picked the perfect partner for Double Up—I’m really happy for you both—but does your partner know how to use the Rune of Allegiance then? No? They don’t? Then maybe you don’t have the perfect partner. Anyways, the Rune of Allegiance is given to all players at the start of the game, as well as stage 4-2 and as an option in the second Assist Armory. It’s a consumable that, when used on a champion, sends that champion and all of their items over to your partner’s board (in a loot bubble). If that champion is holding items, the items will become unequipped, allowing your partner to repurpose them as you see fit. Nifty, right?

Winning with Friendship: Team Reinforcements 

Okay, now for my favorite part of Double Up—winning... with friendship! AKA team reinforcements. Let’s say you’re really crushing it one round, but your partner is struggling. If you quickly win your battle that round, your surviving champions will hop over to your partner’s board after a short delay to help them out. Now that’s friendship! True to their original player’s board, board-hopping champs will carry over Augment bonuses, item stats, trait bonuses, and stacks, such as Cho’Gath feast stacks. Reinforcement champions will not benefit from Augments of their new home. And although borrowed champions might swoop in to save the day, upon victory they won’t cause any damage to the enemy player. Your partner’s gotta learn to carry some of the weight for y’all to make it all the way to Double Tier! Oh, that reminds me, Double Up will use the same ranking system as Hyper Roll. You’ll gain or lose points with each win or loss, climbing from Grey tier (0 points), to Green tier (1,400 points), to Blue tier (2,600 points), to Purple tier (3,400 points), and eventually, the coveted Double tier (4,200+ points).

Double Up Tune-Ups 

We’ve been experimenting lots with Double Up to make it as fun and unique of an experience as possible. To that end, we’ll be watching your feedback closely when Double Up hits PBE on (Nov 2nd). After that, Double Up goes live with the second patch of Gizmos & Gadgets, patch 11.23 (Nov 17th). And some time after its release, we’ll be taking it back to the lab for tune-ups based on your feedback! 

With so much excitement around the release of Gizmos & Gadgets, it can be hard to keep all the dates straight, so allow this blurb to help. Gizmos & Gadgets comes to PBE on October 19th, then goes live just after that on November 3rd (patch 11.22). The Gizmos & Gadgets Pass will be available later that day at 11:00 a.m. PST. Double Up will be the last thing hitting live servers on November 17th (patch 11.23), giving us a full patch to learn the ins and outs of the new set."

Introducing Chibi Champions

"Getting zapped to life with the release of Gizmos & Gadgets (patch 11.22) are our newest Tacticians yet, Chibi Champions! Chibi Champions are bite-sized versions of their League of Legends counterparts, with all the team-fighting talent and portal-making power of Little Legends. Making their debut on the Convergence first? Chibi Ekko, Chibi Jinx, and Chibi Vi! 

Chibi Champions are similar to Little Legends, with a few key differences. First off, Chibi Champions are purchasable directly from the store for 1900RP. That’s because they don’t come from eggs, they come from—well, we’ll reveal that at a later date. They also won’t join you in ARAM games, because giving an Ekko a Chibi Ekko to echo their movements would be... confusing. Oh, and once you do get one, or all three, you won’t need to spend Star Shards to level them up, cause they’re already stars—aaaaannnd they don’t have 2 or 3-star variants. 

These pint-sized playable characters are super mega cute, but don’t let that fool you. They’re packed with special features just waiting to break from the vault. Chibi Champs come with their own boom animations (which can be unequipped at will), that’ll allow you to deliver super-sized damage to your opponents in chibi-sized style. So while they may be smol, they are also mighty. 

As the fun, TFT-y versions of their Runeterran counterparts, Chibi Champions also come packed with personality, sporting some of our coolest dances, taunts, and laughs to date. Jinx and Vi unleash their inner angst on their very own punching bag bot, while Ekko and Jinx perform chibi-fied covers of their favorite songs. And then there’s—eh, I won’t spoil them all, but scope the animations below and let us know what ya think! And who knows, if you love Chibis as much as we do, then there’ll surely be more to come!

With so much excitement around the release of Gizmos & Gadgets, it can be hard to keep all the dates straight, so allow this blurb to help. Gizmos & Gadgets comes to PBE on October 19th, then goes live just after that on November 3rd (patch 11.22). The Gizmos & Gadgets Pass will be available later that day at 11:00 a.m. PST. Double Up will be the last thing hitting live servers on November 17th (patch 11.23), giving us a full patch to learn the ins and outs of the new set."

Miscellaneous

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