All TFT Sets - Ranked
With Teamfight Tactics celebrating the release of their 10th expansion, TFT: Remix Rumble, the team behind the game has also announced that they will be bringing back old sets for players to play in some form soon. With that said, now is the perfect time to see which sets would be the best to return to as Esports Illustrated’s TFT expert breaks down the Top 10 TFT sets from worst to best.
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TFT Set’s tierlist ranking
S: Set 6, Set 3, Set 4
A: Set 10, Set 9, Set 8
B: Set 1, Set 7
C: Set 5, Set 2
Set 2
Riot Games
After lightning struck with the release of TFT, the developers looked at TFT: Rise of the Elements to bring new concepts to the game. Although some of the champions introduced were memorable, a combination of a lackluster set mechanic, horribly balanced patches and champions that some players found to be fun while others found to be war crimes, TFT Set 2 overall takes the bottom spot of the rankings.
Set 5
Riot Games
A tale of two halves, TFT Set 5, TFT: Reckoning played off the theme of Viego and the Ruination but what it did for TFT was almost ruin the game. The introduction of “shadow items” was to this date, one of the worst-received additions to TFT ever. Creating these high-risk, high-reward items made the game overly complicated and turned off a lot of players.
Although in the mid-set the mechanic shifted to more favorable “Radiant items” which still exist in some form today, the set overall was a step back from the previous two.
Set 7
Riot Games
Perhaps the most infamous set of all time, TFT: Dragonlands took the Colosaul trait from TFT Set 6 and turned it into an entire mechanic. The idea on paper was cool though as every major trait had a “Dragon” that was the premier star and demanded a hefty price tag in the shop to pick up. But with the mechanic locked into “One Dragon per board at a time,” it turned off creativity completely.
In the second half of the set they took away that limit but it ironically killed creativity anymore as the best comp in the game for the entire set was to throw as many Dragons onto the board as possible.
Set 1
Riot Games
The original TFT set was magic. The release of the new king of the autobattler genre is something that almost every single TFT player still talks about to this day. There is no denying the fun times that were had but ultimately, those players who claim this was the best TFT set see the world through rose-tinted glasses.
This set had a ton of issues that simply would not fly today. The Dragon trait which essentially eliminated magic damage carries, Pantheon who was the unkillable king for a majority of the game and the Phantom trait which proved every “this game is luck-based” hater right are all things players tend to forget existed back then. That’s not even mentioning one of the most infamous comps of the entire history of TFT, Void Assassins.
Set 8
Riot Games
TFT: Monsters Attack! Took a huge gamble and said, what if the set mechanic was that we introduce champions that do not have traits at all and make them powerful on their own? While that decision did seemingly introduce more flexibility into the game, the other trait mechanic of “hero augments” ironically forced players into a pigeonhole when at the start of the game.
The mechanic was more fleshed out in the mid-set but outside of some pretty cool units like five-cost Urgot, the set was pretty mediocre overall. Not too bad but not too good.
Set 9
Riot Games
TFT Set 9, Runeterra Reforged was the first set in a while that hammered in a set mechanic that got players excited to play the game. The introduction of Portals which was essentially a revamped version of Galaxies from TFT Set 3 made each game exciting to jump into.
Honestly, there really isnt anything bad to talk about the set and there are definitely some cool positives that the set provided, But the sets above it on this ranking are simply better.
Set 10
Riot Games
The jury may still be out on whether the current TFT set, TFT: Remix Rumble will go down as an all-time great but based on initial impressions, the TFT set that has brought in all the best mechanics from previous sets so far has been a blast to play.
Portals, Augments and Headliners keep players coming back for more and with the all-music-themed set bringing in special music for each trait, Remix Rumble is looking good through the first month of the set being out.
Set 4
Riot Games
The one thing the top three sets have in common is that their core set mechanic was so good that it was brought back again. In TFT: Fates which was themed around the Spirit Blossom event in League of Legends, players were met with the “Chosen” mechanic in which champions in players ’ shops would sometimes appear as an automatic two-star champion with an added +1 to one of the champions’ traits.
While there is debate sometimes on whether the Chosen mechanic was the best for competitive play with some four-cost Chosen champions being significantly better than others like Kayle, the set is remembered fondly for being fun.
Set 3
Riot Games
It wasn't really hard to improve off of Set 2 but TFT: Galaxies was truly a special set. For the first time, an impactful set mechanic warped how players played the game. At the beginning of the game, a random “Galaxy” would be chosen which would alter the rules of the game. Lilac Nebula was one such Galaxy in which four-cost champions replaced the opening carousel. Trade Sector gave every player a free reroll once per round.
These Galaxies helped keep the game fresh and with a cast of memorable champions and traits like Cybernetic Irelia, Galaxies was a smash hit. The concept of Galaxies was brought back in TFT Set 9 and Set 10 with the idea of portals.
Set 6
Riot Games
After what some players would call a disastrous set in Set 5 and with all eyes on the newly released Arcane TV Show, TFT seemed to be at a crossroads, essentially it was make or break time and oh did they ever deliver in TFT: Gizmos and Gadgets.
To this day the absolute best mechanic ever released in TFT was the addition of augments which truly made every game different from the last. The idea was so popular that now two years later, the mechanic is a core part of the game and even a core part of a different Riot Games game mode the newly released Arena.
TFT Set 6 saved TFT and set the game up for success for years to come.
