Throughout the last 12 months, Teamfight Tactics has gone through three sets, two mid-set expansions and two World Championships, making it the game’s biggest year yet. Of course, this brought many memorable moments and compositions to the player base — but what were the best compositions of the entire year? With five separate expansions, Upcomer has picked out the best composition of TFT sets 4, 4.5, 5, 5.5 and 6.
Divine Warwick (TFT Set 4)
Although the composition peaked in 2020, the infamous culprit of “Warweek” continued to dominate the first month of 2021 before the mid-set expansion for Fates. After the Divine trait got reworked in October of 2020, Warwick proved to be so strong that the community named the patch after him, and to this day it’s mentioned by name.
Warwick’s strength came from how he interacted with the new Divine trait, which let a unit ascend after swinging six times. Once ascended, Divine units took less damage and dealt more. But for Warwick, his spell gave him a crazy amount of attack speed and life steal, which made it easier to exploit those buffs. If that wasn’t enough, when Warwick killed a unit, he feared the surrounding units, stopping others from attacking. This combination was unbeatable and just hitting the comp was enough to win lobbies on the spot.
Even after the nerfs, Warwick was still a viable comp, and in the first patch of the 2021 year which was also the last patch of TFT set 4, Warwick sat at the top which kicked off the year with a bang.
Slayers (TFT Set 4.5)
After the mid-set update for TFT: Fates, many different comps dominated for a patch or two. However, one comp stayed meta throughout the entirety of TFT Fates: Festival of Beasts: Slayers. Riot Games introduced the Slayer trait in the mid-set expansion and it brought along three insanely powerful carry champions: Olaf, Tryndamere and Samira. The Slayer composition thrived on raising its damage to the max while having a surprising amount of survivability thanks to built-in lifesteal. For this comp, offense was literally the best defense.
Olaf, Tryndamere and Samira took turns being the main carry. In patch 11.2, Olaf was the hyper-carry. When he got nerfed, Tryndamere became the top dog in Patch 11.5. And then, of course, Samira had her time in the spotlight. There wasn’t a single patch throughout 4.5 where Slayers were not a top-tier composition, making them the best one of the best comps of the year.
Dragonslayer Mordekaiser (TFT Set 5)
From Slayer to Dragonslayer, to kick off TFT’s fifth expansion, TFT: Reckoning introduced the new Dragonslayer trait alongside another four-cost titan that would once again use high-powered auto attacks to dominate the opposition. But unlike Olaf and Tryndamere, Mordekaiser didn’t hit fast — he hit hard. Mordekaiser had a unique spell that shielded him for a chunk of his spell power and also empowered his auto-attacks for a duration.
Additionally, Legionnaire was his other trait, which granted bonus attack speed. Very early in the set, people realized Mordekaiser wasn’t a tank unit in the Legionnaire comp — he was the main carry. Not only that, his auto attacks did spell damage, which made Hextech Gunblade bonkers on him due to how much he healed with every attack. Not only was he unkillable, but he also killed everyone else.
Even after nerfing the damage, the Dragonslayer Legionnaire comp still ruled the metagame for the entirety of Set 5 before Mordekaiser eventually left the game in the mid-set expansion.
Abomination (TFT Set 5.5)
The Abomination trait was great before the TFT: Reckoning mid-set expansion, but it played second-fiddle to other comps taking the spotlight. Even in the first couple of patches of the mid-set expansions, players still overlooked Abomination. But eventually, players caught on to the strength of Abomination. Even though the trait was stronger at other times, it saw the most time as a top tier composition in set 5.5.
This was due to a couple of reasons. The first was due to the Heimerdinger, Ivern and Volibear core, which many late-game compositions used to close out late games. But with the introduction of Fiddlesticks, this core got even stronger. As a four-cost, Revenant, Mystic, Abomination, Fiddlesticks replaced Ryze and was better than him in every way. By swapping out the Forgotten trait for Revenant, Fiddlesticks turned on the trait’s resurrection ability earlier for Ivern and Volibear, who players used for their guaranteed crowd control spells. Then, the Monstrosity from the Abomination trait would come in and bring even more CC and damage.
There wasn’t a better composition at buying time in 2021 than Abomination. Players still have nightmares of Vel’Koz and Heimerdinger wiping boards with burst damage while they sat there stunned and knocked up thanks to the Revenant units and the literal Monstrosity.
Katarina (TFT Set 6)
Now that we are here at the end of 2021, there is a lot to look back on. Many infamous compositions brought players groans and cheers. And in the same way 2021 started with a powerful comp on top, the year basically ended with a comp that threw everyone for a loop.
Two weeks into the new TFT set 6 expansion, players figured out a way to abuse an overturned two-cost unit: Katarina. After 3-starring her, Katarina’s Shunpo spell would kill any unit in the mid and late game with the right items and traits. Reroll compositions had dominated past meta-games before, but Katarina seemed to be the piece of straw that broke the camel’s back.
Thanks to a popularity spoke from the game’s top streamers showcasing her power, the Katarina Assassin reroll composition took over the metagame throughout Patch 11.23. Soon, every player in all ranks started to spam the composition to the point where players agreed mid-game to hold Katarina on their own benches. Players were griefing their own econ just to make sure their opponents could not three-star their own Katarina.
However, Set 6 is still very new. Even though Katarina became the most talked-about composition so far, 2022 is sure to bring its fair share of top-tier compositions.
