In December 2022, the new Set 8 was released in Teamfight Tactics. MeinMMO editor Alexander Leitsch has been playing it intensively since release, but recently had trouble finding a good combo. However, for the past two weeks, he has only been relying on the champion Yuumi – and is quickly rising in the rankings.
The new Set 8 in TFT has captivated me from the start. It does without crazy mechanics like dragons that take up two spaces on the field and count three times for an attribute, or a big treasure that provides 5 rewards at once.
Instead, it returns to the basics of Set 2 and 4 without repeating their old mistakes. That’s why I have set myself the goal – as I did back then – to reach Diamond or even Master in the rankings.
However, I stagnated in my progress for a few weeks in January because I couldn’t cope with the current meta. My solution: I always force Yuumi, no matter what start or items I have. And it works excellently. I have climbed from Platinum 4 to Diamond 2 – currently, I belong to the top 1.77%, around rank 15,000 in the European leaderboard:
Every Round Yuumi, No Matter What I Get
TFT places a high value on strategy and flexibility. At the top are players who can make the best combo out of any situation and any items. Of course, there are strong combos like Aegis Arsenal, 8 Duelists, Gunslinger, or LaserCorps, which I have always aimed for as well.
However, the best comps are often highly contested and rely on nearly identical items and champions:
- Both Gunslinger and Aegis Arsenal require champions like Samira, Aphelios, Alistar, and Jannah.
- Duelists and LaserCorps both rely on Zed, Yasuo, and Vayne.
- All four combos and also the Scouts around Kai’Sa use AD items and require accordingly many bows and swords.
For these reasons, I often finished fourth, fifth, or even last. From Platinum 1 I temporarily fell down to Platinum 4 and was frustrated. But then I got the augment “Zoomies” for Yuumi twice in a row. Even with the augment, the combo is currently only considered “A-Tier” by many.
But with Yuumi, I achieved a meteoric rise.
For about two weeks, I have been playing only this champ, no matter what the game offers me. That’s actually completely against the idea of TFT, but it almost always works.
The combo is basically very simple: Find the champions for the Super attribute, find Yuumi, find a Nilah and place all 5 on the field. Build the three core items and roll from the interest of the 50 gold until you have all champions at level 3.
Usually, I stay at level 5 until I have Gankplank or three other characters at level 3. Then I level up to 6 for the champion Rell. If I have at least 5 champions at level 3 or I lose too often, I level up to 7 for Riven. She brings more armor for the team thanks to the Defender attributes and more health for Lee Sin thanks to the Brawler.
The three core items of the combo are:
- Ionian Spark and Titan’s Resolve on Nilah.
- Blue Buff on Yuumi.
Then two more items on Yuumi are important, but here you have some flexibility. Rabadon’s Deathcap and Hextech Gunblade are very strong in combination. However, Giant Slayer and Jewelled Gauntlet can also be built.
For the remaining items, you also have flexibility. Nilah would appreciate the Sunfire Cloak or an Amulet of the Iron Solari, Gankplank loves crit items or Thief’s Gloves.
For augments for the combo, you can use anything that provides additional magic damage, additional mana, additional gold, or additional rerolls. Among the Hero augments, both augments from Yuumi and both from Nilah are extremely strong. A fifth alternative would be Rell’s support augment.
Why am I reaching Diamond with this? It’s quite simple. Currently, no one plays Super and that’s where the strength lies. Since many champions need to be at level 3, the combo should not be as contested as it was at release.
Yuumi is only in 37th place among the most picked champions, Malphite in 38th, and Rell even in 47th place out of 57 possible champs (via Blitz.gg).
Moreover, the items for the combo are currently not too popular, which significantly increases the chances of getting them in the carousel. Another bonus is that the meta has become slightly slower in the last updates; many players are relying on threats or legendaries in the late game. This also plays into the hands of a reroll combo.
How the journey with me and Yuumi continues and whether it will be enough to reach Master as a one-trick pony, will be shown in the coming weeks.
For you yourself, you can take away that you should not only play the meta comps but also look for strong and less contested combos off the beaten path. Sometimes there is even a niche combo that perfectly counters the first player in your lobby.
More tips around TFT can be found here:
