Teamfight Tactics season 5 is proving to be incredibly exciting as almost any champion can “carry the team.” While 4 and 5-cost champions are undeniable, the standout names so far have been those priced at 3 gold or below, such as Nocturne, LeBlanc, Vayne, and Warwick…
Strong champions are essential, but they must also have powerful items to truly “shine.” However, not every item can be used, and not every player can choose the right component items to execute their strategies. Nevertheless, there are some component items that can ensure a victory if acquired early in the initial rounds.
Wooden Bow
In the current meta, aside from LeBlanc, the hottest champions require the Wooden Bow to combine into items like Rageblade, Rapid Firecannon, and Infinity Edge… Even on the stream channel of Riot Mortdog – the team lead designer for TFT, when he used a Warrior composition, his core champion Mordekaiser had a Rageblade equipped for maximum quality. The Nocturne Blender meta has also returned with the signature item being Rageblade.
Not only for champions with high attack speed or strong damage, the Wooden Bow is also an item for magic damage champions. The mechanism in TFT is that when you attack quickly, energy regenerates faster. Therefore, it’s no surprise that some high-ranked players even combine Statikk Shiv for Teemo.
Giant’s Rod
The next “guaranteed win” component item is the Giant’s Rod. Similar to the Wooden Bow, the Giant’s Rod is also a component of “signature items” in the current metas, such as Rageblade, Archangel’s Staff, or Infinity Edge. Adding 10 ability power even when not yet combined into a complete item is enough to survive the early game, and afterwards, any damage item, or even a Warmog’s Armor or Silver Cloak, becomes incredibly useful.
Due to its versatility, the Giant’s Rod is also a highly contested component item. However, if you can obtain these rods early, you can easily execute compositions with LeBlanc, Lissandra, or Karma as your stronghold, which are currently very powerful.
Dark Tear
There’s no need to elaborate on this item as it can not only combine into a powerful Dark Blue Buff, restoring 50% energy when its owner drops below half health, but this mechanism also synergizes incredibly well with Guardian Angel – reviving its owner with 400 health. This devastating combo created the “chain god” LeBlanc, causing players to “cry out” during the days before patch 11.9b was updated.
Additionally, Dark Tear helps recreate the Dark Sorcerer composition even if players lack any key champions or try alternative metas when LeBlanc is nerfed, notably exemplified by Vladimir carrying the recently discovered Dark Sorcerer emblem.
However, this is also a rather “50/50” item because with some other items, it forces players to play with pre-existing advantages. Therefore, this item is often only contested in high ranks or when players want to build a composition with Dark Blue Buff or three Archangels.
Dark Star Spatula
Surpassing all the aforementioned component items, this is considered the “guaranteed win” item, especially if combined with a Dark Star Spatula or another common spatula to create a Dark Natural Armor – providing 2 additional champion slots in a match. At that point, players just need to follow the formula “overpower the opponent” to succeed.
Moreover, the Dark Star Spatula can also be used to create many strong traits/systems that are currently hot in the meta, such as Dark Sorcerer, Vengeance (centered around Vayne but combined to activate the trait), or Evil (activating the 7 Evil trait grants Evil champions 125% attack speed)… For this reason, it’s no surprise that the Dark Star Spatula is the most contested item, and if you’re not at the bottom of the leaderboard during each selection round, you have almost no chance of obtaining this item.
However, if you cannot combine useful items, then the Dark Star Spatula may sometimes be a choice that causes disadvantages for players in the selection round because if you pass it by, you might have chosen a much more desirable item.
These component items are not only hot due to their power and capabilities they offer but also because they synergize best when used by the currently hot meta champions such as LeBlanc, Vayne, Vladimir Dark Sorcerer composition, Karma Divine composition, Vel’Koz Mage… Naturally, they will be nerfed or heavily contested, so players need to consider carefully before choosing to acquire the most useful items for themselves.