Shadow
At the beginning of Season 5, the Shadow team composition with Vayne as the main carry was an incredibly strong team comp with abundant damage. However, in later patches, Shadow was continuously nerfed and rarely reached the 6-unit threshold, especially in patch 11.11. The main reason is that the Shadow team could not compete with the overwhelmingly strong reroll compositions at that time. If you choose Hecarim as the main carry, you will have to compete with Knight players.
However, the Shadow race has become much stronger since patch 11.12 was updated thanks to Riot nerfing the base critical damage stat. At that point, the physical damage and skill damage output from this race will help your team deal damage more effectively compared to relying on critical items. Furthermore, you can also build very flexible items with the Shadow team when you have strong physical carries like Draven, and units that deal good magic damage like Ryze and Katarina…
Celestial
To say the least, Celestial was the race that was completely neglected in patch 11.11. Basically, the playstyle of this race was not suitable for the meta of the previous patch, so you rarely used Celestial teams effectively. You had to find ways to save gold to level up and search for the main carry unit of the Celestial composition, which is Vel’Koz. However, in a meta dominated by fast rerolls, that was nearly impossible.
With patch 11.12, the speed of the matches was reduced and gold-saving compositions like Celestial had the opportunity to shine. Moreover, the Celestial effect increases defensive stats and skill damage directly, meaning this race was hardly affected by the nerf to base critical damage. If you can upgrade Leona or Aatrox early in the game, the advice is to pursue the Celestial team for the most effective rank climbing.
Divine
If you notice, the ability to burst damage quickly of champions in Teamfight Tactics has significantly decreased since the update of patch 11.12. The nerf to base critical damage has diminished the burst damage capability of champions. At that time, the continuous healing effect from the Divine race proves to be extremely strong as your entire team becomes much “tankier,” even with low-health units.
Moreover, the percentage-based damage increase of the Divine race and the buffed main carry Karma have made this composition much stronger than before. Combined with the slower pace of the game, it is understandable that compositions with high-value champions like Divine dominate the meta. The advice when you use Karma in the Divine team is that it is not necessary to assemble Blue Buff. Karma will now always auto-attack between casts, so the Spear of Shojin is not a bad option at all.
