TFT Beginner Guide Part 3: How to Find Your Comp

Step 3: Items

The final big piece in our Beginner Guide to determining your comp is the items you get in those first two to three rounds of play. In our Champions to Build Comps Around piece, we listed five champions that should be the primary carry in a comp and which items are best on them. In the first three rounds, you should get enough components to build one or two items (but don’t combine them early if you don’t have to).

Take note of what items you can build now and what items you could build later given what is available, then see how they fit with your comp. If you have two Needlessly Large Rods or Tears, that doesn’t quite go with a Jinx or Irelia as your primary carry, just as a Statik Shiv wouldn’t be great on Jhin.

Ask yourself if the items you could get from the three to five components you already have could work on the comp you already have a lot of 2-star units of. If they would, great! Combine the items you already have available and slap them either on your primary carry or on a placeholder secondary carry until you get your primary carry then swap them out.

If your items don’t fit the carries for the comp that you were looking to go, don’t fret. If you think the items would work better on one of the other comps you planned to play, you can simply start buying units for that new comp and begin to slowly move those units onto the board as you acquire enough of them and get them to 2-stars. This is called “transitioning” or “pivoting.”

Your other option is to simply keep going that same comp you planned on going (this is especially advisable if you see other players in the lobby already have champions from the comp you would transition to) and just stack the best items you can on your carry. Yes, an Irelia with Warmogs and Dragon’s Claw isn’t ideal but she will at least be harder to kill. Or, you can stack those less-than-ideal items on a unit that wouldn’t normally be the carry but uses them well (in the above instance, just put them on Vi or Leona).

There is no hard-and-fast rule as to what you should do if everything doesn’t come together for your ideal comp. The skill in TFT is largely based on how you can best adapt to randomness, that is a feature not a bug.

But if you consider all of these considerations, which comps are strongest, which units you are getting a lot of and how the items can be used on them, you can hone in on your comp. Make sure you check in with us throughout the set for more installments in our Beginner Guide and to find those top comps so you’ll be climbing the ranked ladder in no time!