Kalista – Aatrox
After Riot Games nerfed a number of 3-cost carry champions in patch 11.17, the pace of Teamfight Tactics has generally slowed down significantly. Players now often save gold to roll for powerful 4-cost carries at level 8 such as Vel’Koz, Draven, Aphelios… This leads to hyper-roll compositions like Kalista – Aatrox becoming extremely strong as they can create an early snowball and secure long winning streaks.
To effectively operate this composition, you need to purchase all the Kalista, Aatrox, and Leona units you see early in the game. Then apply hyper-roll to level up the 2 1-cost Legion units to 3 stars before round 3-2 occurs. In the later stages of the game, you will add the 4 Knights trait and include Armored units if there are too many players using physical carries. In case there are many players using magic damage, the Mystic trait with Lulu, Lux, Fiddlesticks… is the best choice.
Yasuo – Mage
Among the 3-cost units nerfed in patch 11.17, Yasuo is perhaps the character that Riot Games has “lightly touched.” This champion has been slightly nerfed in terms of base attack speed and skill damage at 3 stars. This has indeed made Yasuo less dominant than before, but this unit is still hard to displace from the meta. The reason is that Yasuo’s strong damage-over-time capabilities remain an extremely potent weapon against the Armored trait.
This has caused the pick rate of the Yasuo – Mage composition to decrease significantly compared to the previous patch, but its top 4 placement rate remains at 50.7%. If there’s one piece of advice for operating Yasuo – Mage, it’s that you should build the Hand of Justice for this unit instead of items that enhance magic damage. With so many strong backline carry champions shining in the current meta, the healing ability of Hand of Justice is extremely valuable, and players should use it.
Gunners – Sentinel
In patch 11.17, one of the most important changes lies in the operation of the Sentinel trait. Now, the first buff to shields and attack speed for this trait will always target the Sentinel champions with the most items. This makes all compositions using this trait stronger, and the Gunner – Sentinel team is no exception. This change allows Lucian to deal damage extremely well without needing too many attack speed items.
You should also aim for the 4 Gunner trait to maximize the aforementioned buff, as Lucian can activate this trait’s effect very quickly. Of course, with a playstyle focused on Lucian as the main carry, you won’t be looking to roll for 3-star Tristana or Miss Fortune. However, you should also equip these units with a certain amount of items such as Infinity Edge (Tristana) or Spear of Shojin (Miss Fortune) to ensure you don’t fall behind before securing Lucian.
