Ashe – Gang
The name that has made a powerful comeback in patch 12.8 is Gang, as the effect of this trait has been comprehensively buffed in Teamfight Tactics. Moreover, the stats at the 7 Gang threshold have also received significant buffs, making players more inclined to reach this threshold with technology cores compared to before. With the ability to heal an incredible amount of health, damage dealers like Ahri or Ashe can survive in battles for a long time and eliminate opponents.
However, with Riot’s direct buff, the Gang reroll composition centered around this archer has an extremely high top 4 placement rate of 60.5%. Remember that in patch 12.7b, Ashe was already buffed with an increased interaction rate with physical damage. Now, with the enhanced ability to counter opponents, Ashe will become a highly versatile damage dealer and a worthy investment in the mid-game. It wouldn’t be surprising if the variants of the Gang team significantly increase their top 4 placement rates in the upcoming version.
Marksman – Inventor
To describe this composition, “resilient” might be the most accurate term as the Marksman – Inventor team has been nerfed quite a few times but still remains in the meta. Even just by not being directly nerfed in patch 12.8, this team comp immediately possesses an astonishing top 4 placement rate of 56.2%. The stability in terms of damage is perhaps the strongest weapon of this composition, with Jhin, Seraphine, and even Jayce being powerful units.
Furthermore, with consistent strength from start to finish, this composition can create an excellent snowball effect and retain a lot of gold. As a result, players will have a large economy to reach power milestones such as 2-star Jhin or 5 Inventors very easily in the late game. The challenge with this composition is that you need to be extremely lucky to achieve the top 1 position; however, for the top 4 goal, simply getting all units in this team to 2 stars (except for Jayce) is already sufficient.
Assassin
Similar to Marksman – Inventor, the Assassin team is also a composition that is hard to displace from the meta due to its extremely high top 4 placement rate. Although it is no longer as hot as before, the Assassin composition with Talon as the main damage dealer still boasts a 55.7% top 4 placement rate when possessing incredibly strong power milestones. For example, having 2-star Talon at level 5 ensures that you can maintain health and gold very well to reach the next milestone of 3-star Talon.
Of course, the previous nerfs have caused the Assassins, especially Talon, to lose the ability to carry the team’s damage. Therefore, to successfully build this composition in patch 12.8, players should pay attention to upgrading secondary damage dealers like Zyra or Syndra to ensure sufficient damage output. Additionally, arranging the composition properly so that Blitzcrank can pull the enemy’s protecting units is also something you should keep in mind.