Hey, I’m ZL, a TFT Player from Austria mainly playing on the EUW Server.
I’ve always been one of the first players to reach Challenger on a new set because I’m quick to learn and adapt to new metas.
Because I’m also a Software Engineering Student, I’m mostly playing decay games after 2 weeks into a set and doing TFT Coaching in my free time.
On rare occasions, you can also catch me streaming at www.twitch.tv/re_zl.
Neeko Fabled Vanguard Mystic Guide
Neeko Fabled has been one of the most consistent top 4 comp in the last patches.
This is what the standard level 8 comp could look like:
In order to make this comp work, you need the Fabled trait because it gives Neeko’s third spell explosion a 50% dmg boost and Nautilus gets a 50% dmg reduction for 5 sec after casting.
If you don’t have a Fabled chosen Nautilus or Neeko, then you will have to play Cho’Gath and his spell will knock up every enemy on the board.
Neeko is a mystic and Nautilus a vanguard unit, therefore, you play this comp with a mix of vanguard and mystic units to stall time for your Neeko to kill the enemy team.
Units
First of all, let’s take a look at all the vanguard units:
- Aatrox: Aatrox’s spell allows him to pull the 2 farthest units towards him and deal magic
damage to the area in front of him. This is good against cornered enemy carries! - Braum: Braum takes less dmg from the direction his shield is facing, which allows him to stall for a long time.
- Garen: Garen spins around dealing magic damage while gaining magic resistance.
- Nautilus: Nautilus knocks people in front of him up for a few seconds and gets a 50% dmg reduction for 5 seconds if he has the fabled trait activated.
- Ornn: Ornn’s spell travels from the farthest enemy towards him and slows the Attack Speed of enemies hit by 50% for a few seconds and headbutts his spell to another distant enemy, stunning for 1.5 seconds. He also makes an item every 4/3 rounds.
- Sejuani: She will fire her spell at the closest enemy, which will explode after 2 second stunning everyone in a huge radius around the center of her spell.
- Wukong: Wukong bonks his target and stuns them for a few seconds.
With the information given above, you can just play the best VG units you get for your comp and swap them out once you find someone better.
VG Tierlist in this comp: Nautilus > Aatrox / Sejauni > Orn > Braum > Wukong > Garen
Last but not least, let’s head over to our mystic units:
- Janna: Janna shields her lowest-Health allies for 4 seconds while also giving them some Attack Speed.
- Neeko: Neeko throws her spell at a random target that explodes 3 times with each explosion affecting a bigger area than the last.
- Shen: Shen dashes past his target, shielding himself and taunting all adjacent enemies.
- Yuumi: Yuumi will dash to the lowest-Health ally, healing them for % of their missing Health and granting them Attack Speed for 5 seconds and then repeat the spell on the farthest ally.
- Zilean: Zilean grants his lowest-Health allies a “Guardian’s Angel”, which will revive them if they die while giving them bonus Attack Speed.
Mystic Tierlist in this comp: Neeko > Yuumi / Zilean > Janna / Shen
Note: Zilean and Janna can be used to position against Aatrox and Asol.
Leveling Pattern:
A typical game would look something like:
- Level 4: If you feel strong, you can pre-lvl at 1-4 or lvl at 2-1 else natural at 2-3
- Level 5: 2-5 and make 10g, else be sure to keep a winstreak; 3-1 if you just want to losestreak
- Level 6: 3-2 and roll a bit depending on how strong the lobby is compared to you
- Level 7: 4-1 and roll for Neeko 2* and fabled trait
- Level 8: if you are not slowrolling for 3*, Neeko/Naut level when you have most of your units 2*
- Level 9: in very rare cases, you level to 9 after having everything else upgraded
Strengths
- Easy to set up because your carry Neeko is a 3* instead of a 4* unit.
- Playable from behind due to the reason above and being able to roll for comp on lvl 7
- Flexible items because you don’t need perfect items to top 4.
Weaknesses
- Last Whisper being a highly popular item in the meta.
- Random targeting from Neeko’s spell might win or lose you rounds.
- Contested units because Sejuani and Aatrox are played in every comp.
Item Guide
Neeko items
Generally, you want 2 offensive items and 1 defensive item for Neeko.
Offensive items:
Rabadon’s Deathcap: Gives a lot of AP to boost Neeko’s dmg. Make this item when you have a lot of rods.
Jeweled Gauntlet: Gives AP and Neeko’s spell can crit. Make this item if you have gloves.
Infinite Edge: Grants Neeko critical strike chance and +1% critical strike damage for every critical strike chance above 100%. Only make this item if you have a Jeweled Gauntlet!
Giant Slayer: 10% bonus damage to her spell and +90% if the enemy has more than 1750HP.
Good vs Brawlers, 3* units and 2* legendary units.
Make this item if you can apply the +90% damage often in your lobby and if you end up with many bows/swords.
Hand of Justice: This item gives Neeko either +40% dmg or 40% healing from her damage at the start of each round (when a new round starts, effect gets reset and applied anew).
Make this item if you don’t have any rods to make Jeweled Gauntlet.
Luden’s Echo: Good item to save HP early and mid-game. Only make if you started with too many tears to save hp.
Defensive items:
Vanguard Spat: Gives a unit the Vanguard trait. Best defensive item for Neeko if you couple it with a gunblade because she will hardly die to anything as long as her frontline doesn’t get taken down.
Guardian Angel: Best defensive item for Neeko if you don’t have a spatula. Neeko tends to die to assassins, Tryndamere, Aatrox pulls, and so on. This item will make her more reliable.
Hextech Gunblade: Heals Neeko by 33% of her spell dmg and absorbs the extra healing into a shield up to 300. This is good together with a VG spat!
Tear items:
Blue Buff and Spear of Shojin are equally good on Neeko because she has 70 mana.
Make either one if you don’t end up with better offensive/defensive items and have too many tears.
Support and frontline items:
Sunfire Cape: Another great early game slam because it gives decent dmg and provides anti heal. Put this on Nautilus if you want to 3* him; else, Sejuani or Aatrox does work too.
Morellonomicon: Same as Sunfire but requires units with AoE spells to make it worth.
Good on Sejuani. This item’s effect doesn’t stack with Sunfire!
Ionic Spark: Reduces nearby enemies’ magic resistance. Make this item if you have too many rods and cloaks.
Chalice of Power: Straight up Ability Power boost to 3 units using up your tears and cloaks.
Put this on Yuumi and have your Neeko besides her. Always make this with your tears and cloaks.
Zeke’s Herald: Same as Chalice of Power but grants Attack Speed instead. Make this if you have too many swords.
Warmog’s Armor: Gives the user 1000HP, good on vanguards because they already get resistance from their trait. Make this item if you have too many belts.
Dragons Claw: Reduces incoming magic damage by 60%. Good vs magic heavy lobbies!
Make this item if you have too many cloaks.
Bramble Vest: Negates bonus damage from crits and deals 80/100/150 magic damage to all nearby enemies if the user gets hit by a Basic Attack (once every 2.5 seconds). Make this item if you have too many chains.
Titan’s Resolve: Stacks up to 25% by being hit or inflicting a crit, at which point the user increases in size and gains 25 Armor and Magic Resistance. Make this if you have bows and spare chains, since bows are the most useless items in this comp.
Zz’Rot Portal: The wearer taunts nearby enemies at the start of the fight and spawns a construct to fight after dying. Good to change the focus of enemy units, such as Assassins and Lee Sin. Make this if you have bows and spare belts.
Locket of the Iron Solari: It gives 5 units a shield of 300/375. Make this with your spare rods and chains.
Statikk Shiv: With the recent changes to Statikk, which reduces enemies’ magic resistance, you can also slam this item early if you have too many bows and tears with nothing better to make.
Redemption: Heals every ally by 800 if the wearer dies. Make this if you have spare tears and belts.
Carousel Priority
Early Game (Stage 1 and 2)
There are many boards you can play for early game.
Some examples would be:
Sharpshooter, Vanguard
Works with Sharpshooter, Dsoul, Warlord Chosen as well!
Just add those traits in as you level up.
Teemo can also use Neeko items instead of Nida!
Brawler
Vi packs quite a punch!
Works with Warlord Chosen Vi too.
Keeper
You might as well play the Kennen comp unless it’s super contested and you’re using it as a transition unit.
If you manage to get a Vladimir 2* early, use him as an item holder with Cultist and Keeper.
Mage
Twisted Fate 2* is not the best but a decent item holder for Neeko.
Can use Veigar as an item holder too with Elderwood and Gunblade.
Note: Cultist + TF combination is in most cases better in Stage 2 than 5 Mage.
Darius Carry
An early Darius with Neeko items can be a great item holder!
Just add any frontline units and their traits.
Neeko Vanguard
Why not just play Neeko herself if you get her early!
Note: Neeko Stage 2 is usually not that great of a unit since she will be 1* and cast too late to kill units efficiently.
Mid Game (Stage 3 and 4)
Be sure to be lvl 6 at 3-2 with 30g+ and depending on how strong you are compared to lobby you can decide to roll a bit here (even selling chosen if yours isn’t good enough).
If your early game was bad and you managed to losestreak all the way to stage 3, you can sell your chosen at 3-2 and roll it down for Neeko or worst case other item holder units (Early Game section).
If you were winstreaking up to after carousel in stage 3, you can also level to 7 at 3-5 and keep the tempo and winstreak.
Else, level to 7 at 4-1 and sell chosen if it wasn’t Neeko/Nautilus or Mystic Yuumi and roll down to find Neeko 2*, Nautilus 2* and Cho’Gath (if no Fabled Chosen).
You stay at 7 and keep rolling until you are stable (frontline upgrades + Neeko 2*).
Once you’re stabilized, you eco back up and reevaluate if you can go lvl 8 or if you want to slowroll for Neeko or Nautilus 3*.
Your lvl 7 board could look like this:
Late Game (Stage 5 and beyond)
When to Slowroll?
If you have around 6 Neeko or Nautilus, you can consider slowrolling at lvl 7 to 3* them.
Another scenario is when you have a chosen VG, Mystic or Fabled and a VG Spat.
This allows you to fit your whole comp at lvl 7 and enables you to slowroll at 7 without being punished much for staying at lvl 7.
Note: Slowroll means to stay above 50 gold and use the excess gold every round to roll.
Otherwise, it’s always better to go level 8 to fit in 4-6 VG and 2-4 Mystic with Fabled.
It also gives you better odds for finding Sejuani, Aatrox, Ornn and Zilean!
Finding an early Ornn is a win condition because Neeko falls off and the items Ornn makes, will give you a power spike.
Once you are level 8, you roll depending on your board strength to find your 4 and 5 cost units.
If you are stable, you can eco back up to roll for 3* Neeko and Nautilus.
Note: Neeko 3* is more important!
When to lvl 9?
Once you have your board 2* and Neeko / Nautilus 3*, if you decided to roll for them, you can go for lvl 9 and add in a legendary unit like Sett.
Note: In most cases you won’t be able to go lvl 9!
Be flexible because your win condition will be different every game such as playing 6 Mystic or 6-8 Vanguard!
Example Boards at lvl 8:
Example Board at Level 9 + Vanguard Spat:
Note: This is just an example, you can always play 6 Mystic if needed.
Positioning Considerations
Aatrox: You want Aatrox on the opposite side of the enemy carry to pull him towards you.
Neeko/Yuumi/Janna/Zilean: Usually, you want her in a corner so she gets Yuumi’s second cast to boost her AS.
Against Asol, you want to be on the same side and have a Janna/Zilean in the other corner to protect your Neeko.
Against Aatrox, you want to be on the same side and have your Janna/Zilean in the other corner. If you don’t have two units for the other corner, put Yuumi in the corner and Neeko next to her and pray that your Yuumi gets pulled instead when she jumps to Neeko.
Counters
Last Whisper: This item is your biggest counter because it shreds armor! Any AD carry with this item can kill your team. Avoid playing this comp if your whole lobby has LW.
Fun Facts/Tips
What to do when heavily contested
Pivot to
- Asol Carry
- Kennen Keeper
- Kayle
- Darius 3*
- Legendary Board Sett Carry
- Morgana and Swain
Don’t try to win the game, but live longer than your opponents!
Chosens
Rated in that order:
- Zilean Mystic
- Neeko Mystic
- Neeko Fabled
- Aatrox Vanguard
- Sejuani Vanguard
- Nautilus Vanguard
- Yuumi Mystic
- Nautilus Fabled
- Shen Mystic
- Janna Mystic
Most Legendary Chosens are playable, too, if you somehow end up lvl 9 with no Chosen.
Tips
- Against an Assassin Comp, such as Akali, you can frontline your Neeko if she has GA.
- Play 2* Braum over 1* Ornn if you need to be stronger!
- Spread your units apart in mirror matchups due to Neeko’s targeting RNG.
- Target Dummy, Azir soldiers and Janna are good to block Lee Sin’s kick in the corners to prevent your unit from getting kicked out.
- Aatrox on the opposite side of Neeko can protect her from Assassins, as Aatrox will pull the threats away from her.