In Teamfight Tactics season 5, players recognized that the Shadow Items provided additional power but also forced players to accept certain disadvantages that came with them. In season 5.5, Riot introduced Light Items. These items are as powerful as the Shadow Items but do not require any trade-offs; however, players can only acquire a single Light Item throughout the match, which can be obtained in rounds 3-6 (unless the player chooses Light Thief’s Gloves, also known as Glove of Precision).
However, despite the strength of these items, while they all provide some advantage, there are still items that are not strong enough compared to the meta or only suitable for specific champions. Recently, the player MismatchedSocks, a rank Challenger in TFT, created a ranking of items that sparked considerable debate.
The initial assessments of this male player faced numerous objections from the TFT community. Specifically, the Light Statikk Shiv is truly a “monster” item in the hands of champions that interacted well with it in the previous patch like Teemo, and especially the new name Akshan.
As for the Hirana Lance, the core item is Shojin Spear for AP champions, which now feels like a 100% upgrade. Moreover, some other champions also interact very well with the Hirana Lance, such as Senna or even Aphelios. With such power and popularity, this item cannot be ranked at tier D according to MismatchedSocks’s initial opinion.
Feeling that his ranking was too controversial, MismatchedSocks had to create a new list along with admitting that he had to play the game more to accurately assess each item.
It can be seen that there are no items rated as terrible anymore. The items in group D are mostly items for specific champions or only effective for certain names. Common items that almost anyone can use, such as Light Cannon, Bloodthirster, or Glove of Precision, God’s Glove, Light Lightning Bow, all reached tier A. However, some items considered extremely powerful if in the hands of damage dealers, like the Aegis of the Legion, only ranked at tier C, still left many people not fully agreeing, including Riot Mortdog.
In a game with many variables like TFT, and each match filled with surprises, it is not unusual for items to be useful at one moment but useless at another. To truly improve skills and rankings, players need to play and learn a lot, honing their situational reading skills to adapt well to every scenario that the match presents.