League of Legends TFT: Patch 9.22 champion ability tier list

With a ton of new traits coming to TFT in League of Legends Patch 9.22, we’re breaking down how useful each champion’s ability is.

League of Legends Patch 9.22 is now live and with it, the Rise of the Elements has come to Teamfight Tactics. With 51 new champions coming to TFT in Set 2 (well 13 champions are returning from Set 1, but they all have different abilities or traits or both), it can be difficult to determine which champions are good.

To that end, we’ll be giving our prospective tier list for every single champion in the game, based on the power of their abilities. Unlike our usual tier list aggregation, this tier list will ignore considerations like stat tuning and the power of a champion’s traits. Instead, this is just looking at each champion’s ultimate ability and grading them by which one is the strongest.

S tier

"Yorick (4g) – Blesses his summoned Walkers with the lowest health. When they die, they resurrect as Light Walkers and benefit from the effects of the Light Element.Nami (5g) – Sends a massive tidal wave towards a random enemy, damaging and knocking up enemies it passes through and granting allies it passes through bonus on-hit magic damage.Taric (5g) – After a delay, Taric and nearby allies become invulnerable for a few secondsJanna (4g) – Creates a wind blast that heals all allies for a percent of their max health and stuns nearby enemies.Lux (7g) – Damages enemies in a line. Killing an enemy with this ability grants her 50 mana."

Notice that most of these abilities are heavy team fight abilities or ones that give their allies healing, shielding, or buffs. There are also big AoE damage abilities in the S tier. This tracks with some of the more powerful ults from champions in Set 1 like Leona, Cho’Gath, or Aurelion Sol.

One unique ultimate, however, is Yorick. His ability to spawn units that will benefit from the Light Element can make him legitimately OP. Also, having more units on the field is generally helpful because it will, at the very least, distract the enemy unit’s aggro.

A tier

"Veigar (3g) – Blasts an enemy with magical energy, dealing damage and instantly killing them if the enemy is a lower star level than Veigar.Yasuo (2g) – Blinks to and knocks up the enemy with the most items.Volibear (2g) – Bites a target dealing damage and executing them if they are below 35% HP while restoring his mana.More from Blog of LegendsBee’koz Vel’koz Skin: Splash Art, Price, Release, How to GetKing Beegar Skin: Splash Art, Price, Release, How to GetEMENES retires following leave from Cloud9, cites military serviceEMENES Donezo Manifesto: Former Cloud9 Midlaner airs out grievancesTeam Heretics Perkz: European legend reportedly playing for THDr. Mundo (3g) – Creates a toxic cloud around him that deals a percent of his maximum health and heals him.Master Yi (5g) – Recovers health and becomes untargetable for 1.5 seconds. After that, he gains bonus magic damage on-hit for 6 seconds.Malphite (4g) – Flies towards a random enemy, dealing damage, knocking nearby enemies into the air, and stunning them.Nautilus (3g) – Sends a depth charge that seeks out the farthest enemy champion, knocking them up and stunning them.Olaf (4g) – Gains increased attack speed and lifesteal."

These abilities tend to be more heavy damage abilities and/or ultimates that can make these champions hard carries for the late game. In addition, this tier also has some heavy CC abilities that can hit multiple members or lockdown one enemy for a long time.

B tier

"Zed (5g) – Creates an identical clone of himself that can damage enemies.Twitch (3g) – Gains unlimited range and bonus AD for 8 seconds. All attacks will pierce targets and apply on-hit effects.Renekton (1g) – Swings his blade, dealing physical damage to surrounding enemies and restoring a flat amount of health.Ashe (4g) – Gains attack speed for 5 seconds. During this time, her attacks fire a 5-arrow burst that does bonus damage.Nasus (1g) – Gains bonus health and damaging adjacent enemies for each second of the duration.Singed (5g) – Leaves a poison trail wherever he walks, dealing damage over time.Annie (4g) – Summons Tibbers to deal area damage and auto-attack damage.Brand (4g) – Launches a bouncing fireball that damages enemies.Neeko (2g) – Sends a seed to a random target, which blossoms three times, each time in a larger radius, dealing damage to enemies within.Qiyana (3g) – Dashes to the side of her target, throwing a blast of elemental energy at them, damaging and stunning enemies it passes through.Sion (3g) – Smashes an area, damaging and knocking up enemies."

In this tier, we have a mix of damage abilities, healing, some single-target crowd control abilities, and healing. I would say that none of these ultimates are really going to make these champions into primary carries for their team unless the champion’s numbers and/or trait synergies make them incredibly strong. These abilities all fall into the “good, not great” tier.

C tier

"Azir (3g) – Summons a sand soldier that allows both the soldier and Azir to attack.Jax (2g) – Dodges attacks for 2 seconds before stunning nearby enemies.Taliyah (1g) – Raises the ground under the enemy with the highest mana, damaging them and throwing them towards or away from her.Kha’Zix (4g) – Stealths before attacking the lowest-health enemy with a guaranteed critical strike that will restore mana.LeBlanc (2g) – Launches an ethereal chain towards an enemy damaging and stunning them.Sivir (3g) – For 5 seconds her attacks bounce up to 10 times dealing bonus damage and applying on-hit effects.Soraka (3g) – Creates a zone at an enemy’s location, dealing magic damage and preventing mana from being restored to enemies inside.Kindred (3g) – Wolf rushes at the target of Kindred dealing damage while Lamb jumps away from the target."

These abilities are a bit more in the “good, but underwhelming” category because they are either a bit unreliable or likely will not be impactful unless the ability’s numbers are just out of whack. I could see any of these abilities having a big impact in some games, but not consistently. I’d compare them a bit to Karthus’s ability from Set 1, which could be a massive game-changer in some games or absolutely useless in others.

D tier

"Thresh (2g) – Throws a lantern to the lowest-health ally, shielding them and nearby allies for a few seconds.Malzahar (2g) – Opens a dark gate, summoning dark spirits to fight alongside him.Diana (2g) – Creates a shield (lasting three seconds) with three orbs around her that explode and deal damage.Aatrox (3g) – Cleaves the area in front of him, damaging enemies inside it.Varus (2g) – Channels and fires a piercing arrow dealing damage to all enemies in the line.Zyra (1g) – Summon two untargetable Flame Spitters on corners of the arena that will attack the closest enemies.Ivern (1g) – Gives the lowest health ally a shield for 5 seconds."

In the D tier, we have abilities that are likely to be low-impact in terms of damage (Aatrox and Varus are the two exceptions, but as we saw in Set 1 their abilities are both fairly useless unless their numbers are out of whack).

There are also a lot of shielding abilities in this tier, something we didn’t have a lot of in Set 1. However, shields tended to be a bit useless on champions in Set 1, again, unless the numbers were ridiculously strong (shudders at the memories of the Locket meta).

F tier

"Vayne (1g) – Hitting the same enemy three times deals true damage equal to a percent of the target’s maximum health.Warwick (1g) – Pounces on the lowest health enemy, stunning and dealing damage while healing from himself.Nocturne (3g) – Every third hit Nocturne is strengthened and inflicts damage on all nearby enemies while restoring health.Rek’Sai (2g) – Knocks up and deals damage to an enemy.Vladimir (1g) – Damages a target enemy and heals himself for damage dealt.Ezreal (3g) – Fires a frozen shot at the lowest HP enemy, applying on-hit effects.Kog’Maw (1g) – Shoots a projectile that lands on a random enemy after a delay.Syndra (2g) – Conjures a Hydro Sphere at a target location damaging enemies.Maokai (1g) – After being damaged by an enemy spell, Maokai’s next attack heals him.Skarner (2g) – Gains a shield for 8 seconds. While the shield is active, he gains bonus attack speed.Braum (2g) – Raises a shield reducing incoming damage from that direction and blocking projectiles."

Finally, we have the worst of the worst, the abilities that really just tend to have no impact. These tend to be three-hit abilities (like Vayne) which require items to be useful or single-target damage.

You’ll also see self-heal and self-shield abilities in here. While granting shields or heals to teammates can be huge in some points, self-heal or shield tends to be much lower impact (it needs to be timed perfectly with the unit being attacked so the shield or heal mitigates some damage. These are abilities that are probably never going to have an impact in fights other than a few narrow instances.