TFT Opener Guide Set 17

Patch 17.1b is an incredibly conditional patch so lets start there. If you get a condition, just play it and don’t think too hard this patch.

Guide will be updated every patch

Broken Openers:

• Verticals/Hard Force:
  • None right now
• Conditional:
  • Emblems Augment -> Space Groove Riven, Shepherd Viktor
  • Uplink Drone? -> Shepherd Viktor
  • 8+ Winstreak? -> Vex Fast 9
  • Two Tanky? -> Two Tanky Samira
  • Anima Cash Out -> Mecha
  • Artifacts -> Mecha, Primordian Reroll
• Reroll Check:
  • Stargazer opener? -> Twisted Fate Reroll, Stargazer Xayah
  • No Scout No Pivot-> Twisted Fate Reroll, Cho Ezreal Reroll
  • Early Learnings-> Twisted Fate Reroll, Cho Ezreal Reroll
  • Fizz or Kai’Sa? -> Kai’Sa Fizz Reroll
• Lose Streak:
  • Always play Timebreakers, Anima or Primordians if offered
  • Consider 3 cost reroll lines like Kai’Sa Fizz and Shepherd Viktor

Ideally you play around a Condition this patch.  If you have one of these conditions play into them as they often provide premium uncontested lines as your opponents can’t contest unless they have the exact same set up as you. Scout heavily on 2-1 to pick an uncontested conditional line.

Augments

• Expedition
  • Full open while feeding 3 gold worth of units to the hex each turn. Aim to cash out by 4-1. Look to play Mecha with radiant Gargoyle’s Stoneplate. If you can pair an Anima cash out with this augment it is game winning.
• Prismatic Ticket
  • Look to play Twisted Fate Reroll or another reroll comp reliant on hitting multiple 3 stars.
• Patience is a Virtue
  • Full open and look play a 3 cost reroll line. Kai’Sa Fizz or Shepherd Viktor with Uplink drone are ideal.
• Branching Out/Spreading Roots/Legion of Threes/Trait Tree
  • Take these and allow the game to give you strong direction. Avoid them if you already have a very solid direction you rather play into. Avoid if you already have a strong a strong direction. Ex: TF 2 with a Jax in a good Stargazer constellation.
• Portable Forge/Living Forge
  • Data check your artifacts and hard force any interaction that averages 4.00 or better.
• Worth the Wait I
  • Almost all of these lead to a consistent game.
  • Veigar is very stable early mid game and opens up playing for Veigar 4 in the Veigar Meeple composition.
  • Teemo is the strongest tempo wise and leads to easily to Vex Fast 9. TF 3 can print money making him very efficient.
  • Ezreal and Cho infinitely scale but without a slam can often be a bit too slow.
  • Anything in B tier will be good for a top 4 but if you get to 9 will likely not be part of a fully capped board.
    C and F tier is the stuff you don’t want to see.

• Worth the Wait II
  • Just like 1 cost this augment is pretty consistent. It’s not as good as the power level of Prismatics is much higher than golds, but it is still a great augment.
  • Gwen is very likely to win streak you and will remain strong later on into the game, just make sure you keep 2 Rogue in.
  • Jax 3 is on par with a 2 star 4 cost tank so he solves your front line immediately.
  • Bel’Veth feeds into Primordian Reroll and immediately solves your game.
  • Morde and Meepsie are great 3 trait flex units you don’t mind having 3 starred a lot of the time.
  • Pyke is S if you have Target-Lock Optics as a Psionic item.

• Seraphim’s Staff
  • Play any AP lines and make 2 Archangels if possible.
• U.R.F./URF’s Gambit
  • Emblems are currently very strong and these augments should be prioritized heavily. Prioritize Space Groove and Darkstar Emblems.
• Anima Commander
  • Full open, if you win a fight you are down an augment. It’s kind of hard to take this augment if your lobby is weak and playing into time breakers. If you lose your loss streak you are in a bad spot. Getting extra HP also makes it hard to be in the bottom 2 for reforgers and item anvils.
• Calculated Loss
  • Full open and look play a 3 cost reroll line. Kai’Sa Fizz or Shepherd Viktor with Uplink drone are ideal.
• Two Tanky
  • Play Two Tanky Samira.
• No Scout No Pivot
  • Play TF or Ezreal Cho’Gath Reroll. Any reroll comp you have units for will do as long as you can put something that can stay on your board in at 2-1.
• Early Learnings
  • Play any 1 cost reroll comp, ideally TF but Ezreal Cho’Gath work as well. Your cap is very high if you reroll 1 costs with this augment.
• Solo Plate
  • This augment is very broken and BIS on Mecha.
• If you don’t have direction at all augments such as Expected Unexpectedness and Birthday Reunion provide units to begin playing around.

How to find and decide on an Opener

The highest priority when choosing an opener is solid direction. Choosing a solid gameplan early and committing to it confidently. If you see a strong reroll augment, don’t be afraid to commit. If you see an artifact that boosts a comp up a tier, be willing to commit and play a simple but efficient game of TFT.

All tier lists below are focused on how easy it is to 5 win streak with these units, they do not take into account what line they lead down.

Items

Vow and Crownguard are the strongest tank items in the game and enable Nunu later on. Anti heal is needed late game and strong early game. Rabadon’s and DB got buffed and are really strong items by providing really high base stats. Crown is one of the few tank items that dodged nerfs. A tier items are usable but more situational to specific units. B tier items are worse but playable replacements to A tier items. C tier items are too conditional. F tier items are bad and should be avoided.

Win Streak

If you can win streak while taking an econ augment or 2 look to go level 9 as Vex is the highest cap in the game at the moment. Level 8 lines are much easier to play from win streak as you have HP and are able to go 9 to transition to legendaries or play for a 3 star 4 cost. Overall if you can win streak you are less constricted in the lines you can successfully play to a top 4.

• If you have a special condition play into that.
• Your options are incredibly open from win streak.
• If you have to play at level 8 aim to be strong stage 4 as you will very likely be outscaled on stage 5. Rolling on 8 means aiming for a humble top 4. To truly win out you need to Fast 9 and find Vex. If you don’t think you can get to 2 star 5 cost, try to find 3 star 4 cost as an alternative win condition.

When you are playing for a win streak look to complete items on the Gods round aggressively. When you slam an item consider what components you will be left with because you want to be able to continue building items to maintain your win streak. You are likely not going to get your desired items so build items that fulfill similar roles. Ex: Deathblade instead of Kraken even if you might prefer Kraken as they both fulfill the role of providing AD.

Checklist for considering a win streak opener

• A strong item slam on a 2 star unit
• Upgrades
• A item or combat augment
• Thorough scouting of the lobby to ensure it is realistic to win streak for 3+ rounds

Comps to play from win streak

Vex Fast 9, Shepherd Viktor, Space Groove Riven, Stargazer Xayah, Corki Riven, Primordian Reroll, Jhin Fast 9, Vanguard Karma Leblanc

Unit Priority Stage 1

1 Costs

Teemo and Talon are the 2 easiest 1 cost to 5 win streak with. Teemo wants 3 Shepherd while Talon needs 2 Rogue. Vanguards are the best early game front line making Nasus and Leona premiere holds to win streak. Briar offers 2 Rogue for Talon which is a great trait and TF opens up Twisted Fate Reroll and is a decent early game unit.
B Tier units can win streak but it is harder than A and S tier units. C tier units are supportive units and shouldn’t be itemized often.

2 Costs

Gwen and Bel’Veth are 2 hex carries making them much more consistent than normal melee carries. Jax is the tankiest 2 cost in the game. Mordekaiser and Meepsie have 3 traits opening up a lot of possibilities in the early game. Milio does decent damage and matches well with the other early game Timeweavers. Pyke can scam backlines making him a great choice in stage 2. Zoe and Gragas are conditional and are only good if your Arbiter or Psionic item are good. Jinx is very weak and only good if you’re playing Anima.

3 Costs

Illaoi and Viktor open up great lines and are amazing early game units, they are mainly what you want to see out of the 3 cost orbs. Kai’Sa and Fizz are ok units but need an item or 2 to get going so they’re lower in the priority list. The B tier units can be ok if you have traits for them but not very high priority and can be sold to hold lower cost pairs.

Lose Streak

Checklist for considering a loss streak opener

• No/weak direction
• No or low upgrade count
• An econ augment
• Thorough scouting of the lobby to ensure no one is out sacking you
• You must play an econ trait when loss streaking or you will bot 4 unless you have a special condition.

How to Lose Streak

The best econ trait is Anima as it provides over tuned extra items and is one of the easiest and least conditional ways to win the game. At the moment maintaining your loss streak into 3-1 is more important than playing an econ trait on stage 2. This is because Anima stacks gained on loss are tied to your current loss streak, not how many losses you have with the trait in. If you are planning on playing for a 10 loss, it is often better to sell all your units on 2-6 if you are afraid of winning against an opponent.
Even when playing a very weak econ trait board, scout heavily if you are planning on playing into Anima on stage 3. Keeping your loss streak is incredibly important and can be game ending to win a round if you are planning on playing a strategy like Mecha that desperately needs Anima items to succeed.
The second best Econ trait is Timebreaker as it provides a reroll on loss. Playing this from 2-1 and then rolling to stabilize on 3-5 is a very common strategy when your opener is weak. Most of the time this will be around 3 cost reroll such as Kai’Sa Fizz or Shepherd Viktor.

Primordian is the worst econ trait in terms of gold value but is by no means bad. Primordian gives it value in the form of units which can be tempo. By playing this trait with a few lucky generated units you can put together a strong enough board to start winning fights in stage 3.

If you end up winning and snapping your loss streak. Don’t full open from this point. Keep playing your econ trait but otherwise play strongest and look to kill units or beat other people opening. If you can’t keep the loss streak look to save HP instead.

It is recommended if you don’t have a special condition listed above such as an Emblem, that you play 3 cost reroll and look to be strong from 3-5 on. The sooner you can spike and start saving HP the easier it’ll be to top 4. There are some players that meet crazy conditions and almost automatically top 4. If you are not one of them, play for HP so you can take hits from them.

If you are heavily loss streaking and you are not one of the players playing the almost auto top 4 spots, you are likely bot 4 depending how high roll your lobby is. This patch has a lot of variance in how high a lobby caps due to certain comps only being accessible with certain conditions such as emblems, augments and cash outs. If you can’t string together something broken to win out from stage 4 on look to play something that spikes on stage 3 to save HP.If you think you are 5 losing on stage 2 and don’t have a special condition play:
Twisted Fate Reroll, Rogue Reroll, Shepherd Viktor, Miss Fortune Reroll, any reroll variant you have copies for to spike on stage 3

Lose Streak Comeback Mechanic

When playing loss streak your main advantage is a hidden comeback mechanic of getting anvils on neutral rounds instead of random components. Your top priority is item quality. There is no need to slam subpar items if you know you are likely to lose fights anyway. Look to greed BIS so you can spike hard on stage 3 around a reroll carry.

Generic Openers

These sample boards are generically strong and can be flexed into different lines depending on your augments.

Flex

These boards can carry both an AD or AP carry easily. There are a lot of comps with duo carries in the meta at the moment so these flex boards hold for duo carry set ups extremely well.

This board can go directly into Twisted Fate Reroll if you natural enough copies in a good Stargazer and are uncontested. If you choose to level it can play into Xayah or Vex Fast 9 if you win streak for long enough. If you have the Boar Stargazer and win most of stage 3 take augments to go fast 9 as you will be very rich.

Comps to play:
Twisted Fate Reroll, Stargazer Xayah, Vex Fast 9, Shepherd Viktor

2 Rogue + Front

Gwen with 2 Rogue is very consistent at win streaking. She has a lot of damage and is very safe compared to full melee rogues and has a lot of scam potential. Almost any slam is good in this opener as Talon can hold almost any AD items and Gwen can hold any AP items. This is the opener you want to play if you find a Space Groove spat as it’s very good on Talon who will almost permanently be in the Groove due to his ability costing 30 mana. Overall a premium win streak opener due to how strong Gwen is early game.

Comps to play:
Vex Fast 9, Space Groove Riven, Vanguard Karma Leblanc, Shepherd Viktor, Kai’Sa Fizz

Timebreaker Fateweaver

A weaker opener around Timebreakers to build econ but still has access to flexible carries that can hold any item you might want to slam. Look to slam items for a 3 cost reroll comp that can reliably spike on stage 3 if you are planning to loss streak.

Comps to play:
Kai’Sa Fizz, Shepherd Viktor, Twisted Fate Reroll

Generic AD

Gnar Meeple

Gnar is a great user of Guinsoo’s and can win streak you into fast 9 but not much else.
A risky opener that needs to win streak. Can consider Xayah if the Stargazer is good.

Comps to play:
Jhin Fast 9, Vex Fast 9, Stargazer Xayah

Primordian

Win streak opener around Bel’Veth and Akali holding AD items. Great if you have NOVA Emblem. Like the opener above AD openers really need to win streak as they don’t have a level 8 default to play into and really want to go level 9 if they don’t meet a special condition.

Comps to play:
Primordian Reroll, NOVA Marauders, Vex Fast 9, Jhin Fast 9

Timebreaker Snipers

Loss streak AD is not recommended. Gnar and Ezreal have good single target and will get a decent amount of kills however. Look to play 3 cost reroll or into some sort of special condition. Xayah in a combat Stargazer can be considered.

Comps to play:
Kai’Sa Fizz, Samira Reroll, Stargazer Xayah

Generic AP

Shepherd Vanguard

Any 2 Vanguards and 3 Shepherds with Teemo work for this opener. Guinsoo’s Teemo is a very consistent win streak and so is 3 Shepherd opener. Vanguard provides front line so the Shepherd summon reliably cast.

Comps to play:
Vanguard Karma Leblanc, 7 Shepherd, Vex Fast 9, Shepherd Viktor

Zoe Leona

Opener to play when Arbiter is good. If you are not planning on playing LeBlanc or a a line that keeps Leona, prioritize econ Arbiters. Otherwise look for Arbiters gain max HP on 50 Mana spent to make a huge Leona or anything that produces copies of Leona to cheat out Leona 3. If you find a lot of copies of Teemo and Leona with a scaling Arbiter consider Leona Teemo Reroll.

2 Replicator