After patch 10.8B was released a few days ago, the game meta has seen some changes, with Shadow and Star Guardian no longer dominating and having to give way to other traits and classes. However, these updates are just a stepping stone for the upcoming major version 10.9, which will be released in a few days with numerous changes. Just a few hours ago, Riot Games announced the first details of patch 10.9:
According to what Riot Mortdog, the lead designer of Teamfight Tactics, shared, this patch will focus on buffing cheaper units (costing 1 to 3 gold) that are not very effective. As we can see above, many 1-gold units are on this list, most of which are decent champions early game but gradually lose strength and later only serve as trait activators.
In addition to the cheaper units, two other expensive units, Gangplank and Aurelion Sol, are also receiving notable buffs. It’s unclear how Riot Games will buff these two champions as they have been heavily nerfed in previous patches, both directly and indirectly. For traits, three defensive classes—Vanguard, Guardian, and Brawler—will receive beneficial changes, while the Assassin trait is hoped to be buffed back to regain the strength lost due to Shaco being heavily “purged” earlier.
Moving on to the nerfs, the traits that are being nerfed represent major combos and specific team compositions. The Cybernetics trait seems to be the most unfortunate as it continues to be nerfed even when not many people used it in the previous patch. It’s also quite understandable that the Witch and Star Guardian duo are getting their power reduced since they are currently too strong. These will likely be the traits most heavily nerfed.
According to the latest updates on the PBE server, Blademaster, Gunner, and Divine are receiving slight nerfs to prevent them from becoming too overpowering. It seems Riot Games is accepting a meta where Kayle can sweep the entire enemy team but doesn’t want this unit to do it too quickly and early, as seen at present.
Regarding the new features in patch 10.9, we will see a rework of the Chrono trait and Yasuo. The Chrono trait will change from increasing attack speed at fixed intervals to providing a fixed amount of attack speed, with the activation frequency increasing when activating the thresholds of 2/4/6 units. This is expected to make Chrono a viable team composition in the upcoming patch, while details on Yasuo’s rework have yet to be updated on the PBE server.
The two new Galaxies will be Treasure Trove and Star Cluster, promising to bring many gameplay changes to those Galaxies. In the Treasure Trove Galaxy, all NPCs in the monster rounds will drop loot chests. From our observations and direct experiences on the PBE server, in the first three monster rounds, you can receive a maximum of 1 item each round, while the rest will be chests containing gold or champions.
The Star Cluster Galaxy hasn’t even been tested on the PBE server yet, but according to previous shares, this could be the universe where 2-star random champions appear during the shopping phase. We are not sure if Riot has any limitations, but getting a 5-cost 2-star champion when you’re losing a lot in stage 4 would be quite inappropriate.