Teamfight Tactics: Four new champions and new Hextech trait revealed

Riot Games have announced four new champions coming to League of Legends-based autobattler Teamfight Tactics.

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Riot have announced that Teamfight Tactics is getting an all-new Hextech origin and four champions to fill it: Camille, Jayce, Vi, and Jinx. The new champions will be first playable on the PBE from July 31, and will reach the live game with Patch 9.16 on August 14.

Each Hextech champion fits a different tier from one to four, and they also help to fill out some of the existing classes, with Camille being a Blademaster, Jayce a Shapeshifter, Vi a Brawler, and Jinx a Gunslinger.

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The Hextech origin introduces an entirely new mechanic to the game as it is designed to counter abilities. With two/four Hextech champions on the board, a random two/four of the opponent’s items will be disabled at the start of combat.

• Read more: TFT Patch 9.15 notes: New champion hints, trait overhauls, more

Such an ability could prove immensely powerful, especially in the late game when completed items can be hugely influential in the outcome. It also has the potential to counter many of the strategies that involve stacking items on key champions, rather than spreading them out across multiple units.

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Below is a look at each new champion’s traits, abilities, and how Riot intend for them to impact the game’s meta.

Teamfight Tactics Hextech champions

Camille

• Class: Blademaster
• Ability: Hextech Ultimatum – Camille roots and damages her current auto-attack target. Camille’s abilities that can attack that target will switch their current target to do so.
• Meta: Ideally, Camille can single out an enemy and help her team focus fire them down. Explicit external control over AI’s targeting is a new effect, and we’d like to see players consider who they want to target on the enemy team.
• Skin: Base
• Tier: 1

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Jayce

• Class: Shapeshifter
• Ability: Thundering Blow + Transform Mercury Cannon – Knock back his target then change to ranged, gaining max attack speed for a few attacks.
• Meta: Jayce is able to break up the enemy frontline fairly early on in the fight, a premium and rare effect in TFT. Jayce has particularly low mana cost for a shapeshifter (50).
• Skin: Base
• Tier: 2

Vi

• Class: Brawler
• Ability: Assault and Battery – Vi targets the furthest enemy and launches towards them, knocking aside everyone else while knocking up and dealing damage on impact with her target.
• Meta: Vi provides backline access on priority targets. Something we particularly wanted for Brawlers.
• Skin: Base
• Tier: 3

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Jinx

• Class: Gunslinger
• Ability: Get Excited – Jinx gets more excited as she scores takedowns. After her first, she gains attacked speed. After her second, she pulls out Fishbones for AoE damage on Autos.
• Meta: Jinx is a ramping AoE AA carry (opposed to Draven ramping single target AA carry). She’s a particularly squishy, high risk/reward carry.
• Skin: Base
• Tier: 4

Riot have also confirmed that Teamfight Tactics is in fact here to stay as a permanent game. While this might not come as too big a surprise due to the success of TFT, it will still be welcome news to long-time League of Legends fans that may have seen modes they enjoyed be discontinued in the past.