What is TFT set 8? TFT set 8 is the latest instalment of the League of Legends auto battler game.
When we ask what makes a TFT set great, there are many things to consider. In some cases, the case could be made that when we think about them we should say “What makes this TFT set bad?”. I will focus on several categories when discussing what makes a set great and how we can apply these to our current set, set 8. Learnability, Variety, and Theme.
Learnability
The cornerstone of every TFT set is how easy it is to learn but how difficult it is to master. The game cannot flourish or be fun if the average or casual player struggles to grasp the basics of the set which are necessary to play the game and do relatively well. At the dawn of TFT, auto chess was something a lot of people did not really understand, the basic level of strategy was not widely understood. This put set 1, in my opinion, in a class of its own. Nothing amazing about it, nothing awful, and let’s be honest, once a new set comes out most people forget the older sets pretty quickly. Set 2 was one of my favourites, although having said that it did feel dramatically different to set 1 in the fact that there were many different champions in that set compared to the first. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, and it’s something we will discuss more in “Variety”. So what is the learnability like for set 8? In my experience so far, set 8 has set the benchmark for learnability with the wide range of improvements that have been made to the game that now, although not making them completely obsolete, makes websites like lolchess.gg less necessary than ever before. These improvements coupled with tracking websites like metatft.com make it more accessible than ever before to much more learning material such as meta compositions that new and veteran players can use to improve.
I would score set 8 an 8 (ironically) out of 10 for learnability. To improve TFTs learnability I would introduce trackers like you can find on some of the websites I have already mentioned so you can track what works for you and what is working for Diamond+ players so you can more easily learn meta compositions.
Variety
Set 8 brings a new flavour to TFT and it is being heralded as one of, if not the best, sets of TFT we’ve had so far. The introduction of non-trait-specific champions in the form of “Threats” to me shows that Riot Games are not afraid of trying new things and taking TFT in new directions. Threats right now are not especially powerful unless you manage to get them to 3 star level, especially the likes of Cho’gath and although not to the same extent still in the same vein, Zac. Set 8 still brings us more in the way of variety with many different compositions being viable strategies when players are trying to reach top 4 or higher. At the start of the set, we saw the abuse of Mecha: PRIME with Jax carry, not quite as potent as it once was, it is still played by plenty of players all over the world and remains a top 4 contender. Samira has risen a lot in priority making her one of if not the best champions in the game as your carry, so once again we see the prevalence of fast 8 compositions, which is not as bad as I feel one might think on the face of it. Anime Squad, Laser Corp and Duelist, to name a few others, are compositions we are seeing a lot of priority on lately. This to me shows that you can pick one team comp and stick to it but you can also pivot if you are being hard-contested or are not quite as powerful as you hoped you would be, and you won’t be as punished as you could be in some sets gone past. I would score set 8’s variety a 7/7.5. This score could be improved with the buffing of Threats and some lower-priority champions, adding a little more spice to games and allowing even more compositions to rear their heads and be more viable.
Theme
The theme of a set hasn’t always been very discernable, at least with the first few we had. The first more concrete theme having come with Set 4 and the Chinese new year. Set 8 has a very set theme of heroes vs villains, the threats being the villains and the heroes having the civilian trait showing they are the guardians of the civilian population. I for one welcome our new set with open arms, something beyond the gameplay that is TFT, into something almost Marvel-esque, if only the threats were more threatening. I would score set 8’s theme a 9 out of 10 because nothing is perfect.
This leaves set 8 of TFT in my eyes an 8 out of 10.
I definitely like the direction we’re going in and hope Riot does too.
