Teamfight Tactics Season 5: Decision Day is garnering a lot of attention from the gaming community. Many metas have been explored and then disappeared after various updates and minor patches. However, there is one composition that has shown relative strength, maintaining economy and health, but truly shines after patch 11.10: the Undead composition.
Overview of the Undead Composition
The Undead composition can be considered comprehensive, featuring damage output, crowd control, and tanking capabilities… all the traits of a strong team. However, with only 4 champions and only Nunu being robust, the Undead is often used to complement other compositions, and this is its greatest strength as it synergizes well with any meta.
Kalista is the main damage dealer of the Undead composition, and this champion is always rated as one of the strongest tier 1 gold champions with incredible burst damage potential. Although she no longer has the attack speed of a machine gun like in Season 4 and 4.5, her Spear of Penetration at 3 stars deals 264% attack power and 1000 physical damage (a total of 1566 damage) which is quite a lot for a carry champion.
The remaining names in the Undead composition include 2 spell damage dealers, among which Ryze provides excellent hard crowd control and, like LeBlanc, this champion also interacts very well with the Dark Blue Buff for continuous crowd control. Nunu can take down even the toughest champions with his Consume ability.
The greatest strength of the Undead composition is the summoning of the Mutant Undead, which is not only a very strong tank but also deals significant damage and has attack speed when activating abilities. This is one of the most explosive factors of the Undead composition, helping maintain winning streaks and allowing time for the backline to deal damage. Moreover, after the update, almost all buffs for the Undead composition focus on the Mutant Undead, such as level-based damage, base damage, and additional health…
Common Gameplay Strategy
For champions like Kalista, by mid-game, if you can upgrade to 3 stars, you need to do it quickly because this champion will struggle to take down the enemy frontline if she remains at 2 stars, even with the right items. Additionally, due to her relatively low attack speed (0.75), if Kalista is the main damage dealer this season, items like Guinsoo’s Rageblade and Infinity Edge should be prioritized, followed by other situational items.
Brand and Ryze will require players to consider a lot due to spell items like Dark Blue Buff or Rod of Ages, and even component items are often highly contested. Moreover, if you equip Guinsoo’s Rageblade for Kalista, it will take up an additional slot for the Giant Slayer item.
Nunu generally does not need damage items; tank items are the priority. However, he still needs at least one Tear of the Goddess so that he can use his ability quickly. Fortunately, Nunu’s mana pool has been reduced to 70 after the recent update, allowing for faster ability usage. Therefore, as long as Nunu can hold out long enough to use Consume at least 2 times on the enemy frontline, he has successfully fulfilled his role.
Because of their low attack speed and the fragility of the champions, the Undead composition maximizes its strength when combined with another composition like Legion (activating Kalista’s synergy), Sorcerers – Angels (activating Brand’s synergy and featuring very strong champions like Zyra, Vel’Koz). The Mystics to activate Ryze’s synergy are also quite powerful when there are enough buffs (Lux, Lulu), damage (Kindred), crowd control (Ryze), and can combine with other hot meta compositions like Angels, Demons, or Sorcerers.
Strengths and Weaknesses
As mentioned above, the strength of the Undead composition lies in its ability to synergize with various other compositions and can create explosive moments with the Mutant Undead. Furthermore, the burst damage and crowd control capabilities of this composition are excellent.
However, the weakness of the Undead is that they are too fragile and can be easily burst down except for Nunu. The second weakness lies in the itemization, as there are too many champions that require items to maximize their potential. However, typically when combined with other compositions, the Undead serves the purpose of activating synergies to summon the Mutant Undead and cast abilities as much as possible, so they often carry fewer items except for Ryze.
The Undead composition is currently one of the most favored compositions after the significant buffs in patch 11.10. With expectations of remaining strong in the coming period, metas revolving around the Undead will be effective for players climbing the ranks.