Set 12 is almost here and I took part in a
playtest so I can share my first Impressions on Magic and Mayhem. Keep in mind that everything
shown in this video is still a work in progress, you can expect many changes over the next
weeks and the final release at the end of July might look quite different compared to
what you are seeing today. That being said, are you tired of Encounters? Was the
Inkborn aesthetic not your cup of tea? Then I have good news, because Set 12 is quite
different. Here you can find anything from Bees, Faeries to Eldritch Horrors and
I’m certain that you will have no problems finding something charming. Let’s
take a look at what Set 12 has to offer: Honestly I can’t wait to start pumping out Set
12 content, but before we get into the details, I do have a personal goal for this
Set specifically. I totally wanna beat Frodan’s Subscriber count purely
for bragging rights and I can only do this with your help. So if you’re looking to
support my cause or simply want to stay up to date with all the hidden mechanics Set
12 has to offer, make sure to subscribe! Now there is a lot to cover, so let’s kick
things off with the new Set mechanic called Charms. Every second shop a charm will
appear in your shop on the right. In the beginning these Charms will either be
free or cost very little gold and usually grant a small combat boost to your team
for one round only. If you buy a charm, then you won’t receive a new one
until the start of the next round. While in Stage 2 you can expect to receive
consumables, bonus gold or Target Dummies, in the late game they can have
powerful effects like Stunning the entire enemy team or in some cases
they can even grant you a second life. This set mechanic will take a few games to
get used to and here are some of the things I’ve noticed so far. Since there are over a 100
different Charms in the game, all with varying effects, it will take a while to get used to them,
since you have to read all of their descriptions. This will get easier over time, once you get used
to the more common choices that repeat themselves, but it will slightly increase the hurdle
of getting familiar with this set. In the beginning though, everything
starts off very simple. While you are building up your economy you aren’t
rerolling your shops in Stage 2, so you will only see a Charm every
second shop and you can simply decide if you want to take it or not. The early
game charms tend to be cheap and useful, so you can expect to take most of them with you
for a small combat boost or a bit of bonus gold. Starting in Stage 3, when you might want to
go for a roll down, this dynamic changes a bit. Especially if you are pressed for time,
you will often slip into the habit of simply taking any low cost charm with the intent
of simply preventing any other charms from showing up. This habit will help to focus
on your roll down and quite frankly seems quite necessary in these high pressure
moments, since you are otherwise losing a considerable amount of shops, which will
hurt your chances of finding a 3 star unit. Towards late game the dynamic changes
again. In later Stages you find much more powerful charms, and you might
find yourself in a spot where you can’t really push for the next Level or upgrade
any of your units. I think anybody can relate to this spot and I do think this
is where the Set mechanic truly shines. You can now utilize the remaining gold
in your bank that would be wasted anyways to find a powerful combat charm to hopefully
improve your final placement. Maybe you want to add a huge Dragon on your board to act as an
additional frontline, or have your units dodge all incoming attacks for the first few seconds of
combat to help your carry buy more time. There are a lot of different ways to boost the power
of your team and stay alive one round longer. To summarize, I think Charms will take
a little bit of time to get used to, as you do have to adjust your playstyle
around them, but I do appreciate how they can impact your game in a meaningful way.
I enjoy getting a free Magnetic Remover and Reforger to slightly improve my item build and
it’s nice to know that it’s possible to receive +1 to my highest trait to potentially take out
my opponent with a temporary Prismatic trait. Next let’s talk about the theme, because this
is arguably the strongest point of this set. It’s all about magic, but not always in the
way you would expect. For example with Frost you might expect a lot of crowd control, but
only Zilean is actually capable of stunning someone. Instead the trait is all about
creating Ice Soldiers that fight for you when you take out enemy units. Going deeper
into the trait grants you more Soldiers and they even explode for some significant
magic damage if you max out the trait. But you shouldn’t expect everything
to be about Elements like in Set 2, instead they make some pretty good use out
of their available skin lines. For example Sugercraft has a 2, 4 and 6 piece and you gain
stacks based around your item components. In concept the trait is quite similar to 8-Bit, you
have different levels you can reach to buff your units and if you reach the max stats the game
will start rewarding you with bonus loot. What I absolutely adore about this trait is that
you are literally building a 7 Layer cake. It starts off with some dough and you can visually
see the progress you made with the trait so far. Next to Sugarcraft, another trait that I expect
will be an absolute fan favorite is Honeymancy. While in concept it is quite close to Lasercorps
from Set 8, there is just something so much more satisfying when you're shooting Bees.
The trait is filled with lower cost units, so it’s the perfect trait to aim for if you enjoy
reroll comps. With Blitzcrank, Ziggs and Kog'maw you have a great core to roll and while it might
fall off in late game, I still had a good time. The only problem you might find here is
that the trait might become too popular, so you can expect to be contested a lot, but
on the upside Riot is adding more units to the Tier 1 pool and some of the charms
will help you to upgrade your units. One more trait definitely worth mentioning is
Arcana. This is a really cool take on a flex trait that can fit into almost every comp. The way it
works is very simple. Once you activate the trait you get an item that you can use on any Arcana
unit and your entire team receives a specific buff based on the unit you’ve chosen. Ahri is great for
reroll comps, Xerath grants bonus true damage for the amount of charms you bought, while Tahm and
Hecarim are more about a flexible combat buff. Besides traits, I want to talk about some of
my favorite units so far. I absolutely loved playing Morgana. Her abilities summons a
bunch of Bats that target the lowest HP enemies and the Bats also execute enemies
below 25% HP. Everytime a Bat kills a unit there is a chance a 1 Star version of that
unit is transported to your bench. In most cases this simply means you receive some
bonus gold, but the way it is implemented looks incredibly satisfying, making Morgana
easily one of the coolest units in this Set. The other Legendaries have a lot going
on as well, for example Smolder will fly around shooting Fireballs, which is quite
unique since most units are static when dealing damage. It’s not really a Singed
reprint, since Smolder acts more like ADC cruising in the backline and plays around
the fantasy of a Dragon on the battlefield. Apparently we are also getting a new unit
based around a Legends of Runeterra champion called Norra. She spawns Yuumi when you
place her on the board and you can attach Yuumi to any of your units. Legends
of Runeterra is definitely unmatched in regards to design and I hope they continue
to bring along more ideas from them into TFT. Another aspect I want to highlight for Set 12
the visuals. Not necessarily the ability effects, but specifically the upcoming Arenas. Obviously
the Gaccha arena looks amazing as always, but it feels like the last decent Arena
we had in the battle pass came from Set 9.5. I feel like I can’t be alone in
thinking that these last Battle Passes have been absolutely atrocious and made
me not want to spend any money on them. The good news here is that the new Battle Pass
Map looks absolutely stunning and will finally make me excited for a Battle Pass again.
I swear I’m not being paid by Riot here, but I have been really frustrated
regarding this topic, so I feel like I do have to give them some credit when
they are going in the right direction again. The only thing missing right are some
Wizard Dango’s and I have no idea where Riot is hiding them. Maybe they are intended for
the second Battle Pass later into the season, but If i was them I’d be careful, you don’t
want to Blueball the Dango Cult like this. The last topic I want to touch on are
Augments. Like always one of the most impactful changes are all the new Augments
that are coming with a new Set. Only a tiny amount of old Augments are staying, so you
can expect a lot of variety in your future games. I’d say the most important change
regarding Augments is that Riot has decided to not include a Gaccha trait like Fortune and
instead they are introducing Gaccha Augments. For example you can get the
Augment Fortune favors the Bold, that effectively works like Fortune in
Set 11, though the loot table is obviously adjusted accordingly, since you don’t have
to run any units to access the loot table. You can also try the Augment A Golden Quest,
which grants you an itemized 2 Star 5 cost unit the first time you reach 162 gold. I’d love
to show what happens if you fulfill the quest, but sadly math has never been my strong point,
so this will have to wait a little bit longer. Hero Augments are also making a return,
again they are mainly focused on making 1 and 2 cost tanks into carries, but this time
Riot is also adding a 3 cost Hero Augment for Wukong. You can love or hate Hero Augments,
but I do appreciate that they add towards comp variety and allow to fulfill a power
fantasy that wouldn’t be possible otherwise. Finally you can expect a lot more access to
some Artifacts, which is more than necessary after inflating the item pool in Set
11. Some of them are quite powerful, like getting a Suspicious Trench Coat together
with an Unstable Treasure Chest. Combine this with a free Diamond Hands and you set yourself
up with one of the most broken combos in the game. Getting two specific prismatics is
a lot more manageable, especially with the help of some Portals, so you can expect to
see a lot more crazy combos running around. Overall Set 12 has a lot of things going on,
some good and some bad. It is definitely a continuation of modern TFT, so if you
had a good time in Set 10 and 11 then you will likely feel right at home. What
is your first Impression on Set 12 so far? Let me know in the comments. I hope you
learned something and see you next time!
