Iso is dead.

In patch 8.11, globally, Iso was being picked and being used pretty successfully. . In fact in Week 2 of EMEA Iso's only loss came in the . . In fact, the ONLY team to play Iso in Week 3 in EMEA was Heretics, who had successfully run it in Week 2. If Woot of all people can't make Iso look good then the agent is in a dire shape.

In other regions, the situation is even worse. In Americas, Iso had a sub-50 % win rate on patch 8.11 and no one played him at all on Patch 9.0. . This actually tracks with what Americas players were saying leading up to Stage 2. . I asked Boostio in his stream what his thoughts on Iso were the day of 8.11 and he echoed a similar sentiment (one that was honestly even more negative than Tenz).

In Pacific, . On patch 9.0 that win rate has dropped to . Talon is pretty much the only team globally that really believes in Iso as an agent and on patch 9.0 so far they haven't won a map (0/3).

Beyond pick rates and win rates, anyone who watches these games can immediately see what Iso's problems are. His shield lasting only 12 seconds means it's very easy to pause the round and wait it out. Iso players were still learning when to pop his shield in 8.11, but in 9.0 it's VERY difficult to get value of it. The more damning nerf though is that Iso doesn't get a refresh on kills so the longer the round lasts the worst Iso tends to be. Basically the worst possible situation for pro play. On top of that players playing 8.11 didn't know how to even play against Iso but that changed quickly. On top of the nerfs, pros now know for example, to peak the Iso shield quickly in the ult to drop it then immediately tuck back in before the Iso can shoot you. Then you take a 1v1 against the Iso without his shield which is extremely winnable. I literally witnessed more than 1 pro player say on stream they didn't know you could shoot Iso's orbs to deny his shield too, so more opportunities to counter were on the way.

So yeah he's a dead agent. Frankly, his current state is his worst state for the game because now there are a bunch of people picking him in ranked and he's not that good there either. I preferred his pre-buff pick rate where he was terrible and no one picked than the current situation. The Duelist patch was intended to bring balance to the Duelist slot but it really hasn't done that at all. Thankfully Neon is more viable now but Pheonix went untouched, the Reyna changes did nothing, and Iso is back to being dead again.

(note: anytime I say win rate I mean non-mirror win rate.)

Has there ever been a perfect sweep in VCT (not challengers)? Like, has a team ever beaten another team 2-0 in a BO3 or 3-0 in a BO5 and not dropped a single round (13-0, 13-0, 13-0)? Just curious as that would be pretty impressive.

..and it’s great!

All you sweats came back when the cars were removed, and I also just find it much harder without cars.

I have to play much more strategically, I get less loot, cuz I can’t just drive around until I find gloves, can’t run away as easily. I’m liking the challenge.

I’ve been trying to climb to Unreal and been stuck at Champ 50% for about a week, and since the cars were removed I’ve fallen down back to 30%.

Preface

Hi, I'm Goody, I make TFT content on YouTube, Twitch and Reddit

With Set 12 approaching, I've been reflecting on Set 11 and its biggest success, Exalted.

I loved this trait so much that I climbed to Master only played Exalted every single game

Here's the Match History for my Exalted Only Account:

While it's not a revolutionary achievement, it's something I'm proud of as I've learnt a lot about the trait

For example, while Exalted is a massive win, it is far from perfect.

And in this post, I'll go over everything I've learned about Exalted

TLDR

[Video Duration: 15 minutes]

5 Exalted was Rarely Worth It

Initially when I began climbing, I always aimed for 5 Exalted every single game.

However I quickly realised that I was only able to do this by consistently hitting level 10 every game

It was not long until I started to be heavily punished for my greed and I could not continue climbing.

Playing 5 Exalted was just too difficult if I wasn't high level and in the process I would bleed a ton of HP

Pre and Post Buffs

5 Exalted has seen numerous buffs since then however I still ran into the same issues when I reattempted 5 Exalted recently

While the extra damage at 5 is nice, oftentimes 5 Exalted weakens your board, particularly your frontline

3 greater than one 5

In fact, I would even argue in some cases that you’re actually losing damage by playing 5 Exalted.

For example, the damage amp from Exalted is additive with Sniper or Inkshadow (and of course itself).

On the other hand, sources of AD/AP or crit scale multiplicatively with Exalted

Thus, in many cases, 3 Exalted is stronger than 5 when you commit deeper to other traits, .

5 Exalted could be great if you were playing from ahead. But if you weren't, you'd be losing a ton of HP

Legendary Soup Time?

The extra damage and XP just isn't worth it until you're incredibly high level and you can field every unit and some extra legendaries

However that just defeats the purpose of Exalted in my opinion. Sure spamming Legendaries is strong and likely the most effective strategy with Exalted, but it is not nearly as creative and unique as other possible combinations

Varying Viability of Exalted Combinations

But let’s expand on the Exalted combinations because that is a potential flaw

Some Exalted combinations are phenomenal whereas others are just terrible and there’s no way for you to discern this without looking at the stats

Let’s compare these two combinations

Caitlyn, Teemo, Yorick, Volibear, Syndra

And this one

Janna, Shen, Tristana, Yone, Nautilus, Syndra

Instantly, you can assess that the number of possible comps is greater for the latter because there are more units.

Cost Distribution is Important

However, that's also due to the cost distribution within this combination

With two 2 costs, two 3 costs and two 4 costs, you could reroll 2 costs, reroll 3 costs, or play around 4 costs like Lillia

This permits more freedom to play around the variables in your game such as items, Augments and how you're rolling.

In my opinion, that allows a good Exalted combination. The ability to facilitate the player’s creativity to conjure unique boards

Only 7 Combinations improve at 5 Exalted

Now what's interesting is that only the following

And literally the worst Exalted is the one consisting only of 1 costs

Ahri, Caitlyn, Darius, Garen, Kobuko, Malphite

Now there's actually a lot of information I learnt from this

• 1-costs' lack of base power is VERY detrimental and Exalted does not supplement this

• The more 4/5 costs in the combination, the better

• Better combinations have Reroll and Fast 8/9 potential

• Each of those 7 combinations activate a supportive trait like Ghostly, Heavenly, Dragonlord, or Altruist

• The Seven have little to none backloaded damage

I will also elaborate on why backloaded damage is terrible for Exalted

Why is Teemo terrible with Exalted?

Teemo is Set 11's prime example of a backloaded unit with his ult dealing damage over 8 seconds and applying to different units each time.

Let's look at the aforementioned Exalted combination with Teemo

Caitlyn, Teemo, Yorick, Volibear, Syndra

The options are very limited here but surely you could reroll Teemo and Yorick together right?

Well firstly Behemoth and Trickshot are pretty disjoint where the only overlapping units are Cho’gath and Udyr

But more importantly, Exalted does not favour prolonged combats due to the lack of deep trait investment and the upfront damage amp.

Exalted is not a scaling trait

On the other hand, units like Kai’sa, Lillia and Irelia are great with Exalted as their ults deal an incredible amount of burst damage far sooner into combat

Lillia and Irelia especially have fantastic spell rotations with huge burst and phenomenal targetting. Additionally, they have very little down time even with low investments into their traits.

Units like this will always be the biggest beneficiaries of this version of Exalted

Nevertheless, frontloaded damage helps mitigate the losses of lower trait commitments because enemy units are one shot very quickly into combat

This is why I rerolled so often, frontloaded kits became even stronger.

But as an exception, I loved rerolling Janna with Rageblade and Archangel's as she scaled rapidly, had very little down time, and incredible burst.

In my opinion, the dilemma between back and frontloaded isn't very noticable at 3 Exalted however it is a palpable issue at 5. And if you're playing Exalted, you should be avoiding a backloaded carry

This is one of the biggest lessons I learnt in what qualifies as a good Exalted comp

What constitutes a good (Exalted) Comp?

By playing Exalted Only, you learn what a good comp is because the Exalted trait itself lacks diverse properties; Exalted just grants damage amp and XP

1 XP =/= 1 Gold

As a side note, I have seen some players equate the 1 XP to 1 Gold but it’s actually much weaker than that.

Gold becomes more gold as you reach interest intervals sooner and accrue interest

That is instantly stronger than gaining XP

Criteria

Nonetheless, a good comp usually meets a few criteria

There is a reliable carry with enough single target to get through tanky units.

Some AOE damage that can harass backliners or apply anti heal to tanks (both is great).

There’s some CC that disrupts the enemy board, slows down their carries and buys time for yours

Furthermore good comps spike in power as you hit substantial intervals such as level 7, 8 and 9.

And there should be a clear comp path to prevent as much HP bleed as possible

You can’t just see the Exalted combination, click all adjacent Legendary units, and somehow

Good Unit + Good Unit = Good Comp

This may sound really obvious to say but a good comp consists of good units.

It can be very tempting to try to activate as many traits as possible and play incredibly horizontally however you should only do that around good units.

Identify your Units

For example, you should be doing this for Lillia as Mythic gives her HP/AP/AD and Invoker drastically reduces her downtime.

Similarly for Ornn, Behemoth and Dryad substantially increase his tankiness

If you're playing 2-starred units like Rek’sai and Volibear, don't invest into them because they're usually not worth it.

Essentially, identify which units are fillers and which units are at the core of your comp

Don't fall into the trap of activating all traits, you don't get any rewards for this. Exalted’s input and output is not like Set 10 Jazz trait or Stand United.

But that’s also why units like Annie and Legendaries are so good, they don’t need much investment to function at all

Reduce Redundancies

There's also another trap many players fall into, playing a weaker unit to activate an irrelevant trait.

For example, playing Illaoi for Warden and Arcanist despite the primary carry being AD, in which case the value of Arcanist, and in turn Illaoi, is diminished.

In this instance, it is better to replace Illaoi with Nautilus to gain CC

A Good Comp has Outs

Every game doesn't go according to plan.

Perhaps you initially intended to reroll but you missed, in that case you need a fall back.

In many of my Janna Reroll items, I missed entirely but still managed to find a Lillia. In these cases, I changed my gameplan and comp to centre around Lillia rather than Janna.

Bag sizes can hurt

This is a common occurrence due to the smaller bag sizes, I usually avoid rerolling altogether if a unit is contested.

From my experience, it just becomes vastly more expensive to continue rerolling than to level

If your comp permits flexibility (and how well it permits that) is another measure of how good that comp is.

If a comp is extremely difficult to transition away from, then it instantly becomes harder to play

Here's a summary of this section in form of a list:

• Enough single target to get through tanky units

• Some AOE/Multi-target damage to apply anti heal to backliners or tanks

• CC to distrupt the enemy board, slow down their carry and buy time for yours

• Power spikes as you level (especially level 7, 8, and 9)

• There are no redundancies

• Outs and alternative routes are available if your initial plan fails

• Support traits/units are present

• Low cost units' presence is minimised (especially 1 costs)

From my experience, good comps have a mixture of these criteria but you can’t guarantee that if you dedicate your comp around the Exalted units.

But your experience will certainly differ to mine, especially for the following reason.

Puzzle Solving and Set Onboarding

Innately, Exalted can never truly be solved as it changes so dynamically each game.

due to TFT's game to game variance.

Of course, optimal comps exist for each Exalted, but that can drastically change based on Shop Rolls, items and Augments

Exalted’s first iteration got the most important feature perfectly correct, its replayability.

There are numerous permutations you can explore with just a single combination (usually) but there’s also an entire 60 unique combinations.

Learning the Set through Exalted

I have been told that some new players to this Set gravitated towards Exalted as it taught them what units to play and how to fill in a board.

For these players, Exalted essentially condensed the Set down to a puzzle and players just put in the other pieces.

Just bear in mind that with TFT and especially playing Exalted Only, most of your learning will be retrospective

Wins aren't always perfect and losses aren't always meaningless. Lessons can always be learned from each game.

Flexibility is Exalted's Strength

For example, you shouldn’t tunnel on the comp you’ve pre-made too much. Exalted usually grants an incredible amount of freedom and so you can play around what you hit

Each Exalted combination has many different comp variations and you will still get the trait output of damage amp and XP

Possible Improvements to Exalted

As I mentioned, Exalted is not perfect and improvements can easily be made

For example, Exalted is more impactful for higher cost units as they’re stronger base units, easy to 2-star and thus very consistent

That’s where we start looking at an incredible property of Exalted where the input and output can be decoupled from the trait‘s functionality

Specifically, the input of your current level and the output of damage amp can be interchanged for other quantifiers entirely

This is what will allow the reintroduction of Exalted

For example, the input could be replaced with the total star level of the Exalted champions so rerolled lower cost units can have an advantage over higher costs

The combinations of the same cost missed the fantasy they were trying to achieve because there just weren’t any meaningful rewards for rerolling these units and combining them into a comp

But the output of damage amp could be replaced with HP and Damage amp like Jazz in Set 10

But there could be other inputs such as

• Current Stage

• Number of Fielded Units

• Amount of Current Gold

And the output could even be similar to Set 4’s Elderwood trait to give it combat scaling

5 Exalted Needs the Most Help

But the most important improvement needs to be made for 5 Exalted

88% of Exalted Combinations didn't improve from 3 to 5 Exalted. Extra damage amp just didn't make up for how much weaker your board became with deadweight units.

And while the extra XP helped getting to late game boards, it did not make your current board stronger

Jazz Enjoyers?

I believe 5 Exalted should have granted some sort of tankiness akin to Jazz

However a HP multiplier is inferior for Bruisers due to it also having a HP multiplier. These stack additively which diminishes the returns for Bruisers whereas it’s multiplicative for other tank traits.

Likewise, this is also true for Armour/MR and Behemoths (although slightly less so as more Armour/MR is always good)

Flat damage reduction is just generally a superior stat to receive

Over-buffing Exalted?

However, if 5 Exalted was buffed like this then what about those 7 Exalted combinations that actually do improve from 3 to 5?

Well frankly, they’re just too good. They have too many late game units, too much overlap and they don’t quite deviate enough

While some of the 5 Exalted problem can be attributed to the combination itself, I believe that the units within a combination should be somewhat disjoint to promote creativity and to not make it too easy.

Is 60 too many?

60 is an incredible number of combinations but it doesn’t really need to be that high

If the sheer number of combinations becomes an obstacle to make sure they’re all in a good state, then I would rather Riot drastically reduce the number of combinations.

I’m fairly certain that during my climb there were combinations that I never saw. So I imagine some being entirely removed wouldn’t devastate the trait

Is DR enough?

But just that should be enough to change the fact that 3 Exalted was consistently better than 5.

Now, in return for drastically warping your comp, your deficits are actually offset

But perhaps there’s an even better additional reward at 5 Exalted rather than tankiness. Let me know what you think.

Augments

There is a concern with Exalted granting tankiness where Augments that do the same become exceedingly powerful

Overlapping Augments

For example, Augments like Three’s a Crowd and True Twos already make your board absurdly tanky depending on the Exalted combination.

A similar example is Stand United.

The AD/AP scales incredibly with the Exalted damage amp and this Augment was an instant take every time for me

But so was Cluttered Mind as the Exalted XP egg counted as a unit. Thus you had more control over your bench, you’re gaining 4 XP a round and the option of Fast 9 and rerolling is kept open

Too many Puzzle Pieces

On the other hand, Augments like Wandering Trainer (or the Portal) were wild coinflips as you may not be able to play around the Emblems.

I avoided Spatulas because I didn't want to overcommit to a specific line in case I get contested or miss

But there was also a similar coinflip

Hero Augments with Exalted

Taking Hero Augments was super risky because other players could contest and make it more difficult to hit.

This is especially true for the 2 cost Heroes due to the existence of the + Hero Augments that can appear at 3-2.

That is not the case for 1 cost Hero Augments and you can instantly know at 2-1 if you will be contested

That’s why 1 cost hero augments are better with Exalted because there is no risk of other players pivoting into or contesting the same line.

Hero Augments were my exception to playing 1 Costs with Exalted

But generally a risk with Hero Augments and Exalted is hard committing to a line at 2-1. Flexibility is your advantage and throwing that away can be detrimental

A Trait you can Ignore

This was pointed out to me but Exalted is a trait in Set 11 that you can ignore altogether and not lose anything.

Exalted is a Set mechanic that adds another layer upon the core traits/origins. Therefore you can play through the entire Set without having interacted with Exalted

Exalted is a non-intrusive mechanic that is only there if you want it to be

This is a substantial contrast compared to mechanics like Headliners and Dragons.

Exalted Gone in Set 12/13

Exalted rewards the player's flexibility and adaptibility and so Exalted is a trait that is very core to what TFT is at its heart.

Thus my disappointment was immeasurable when I read in the Learnings Article that Exalted will not be in Set 12 and likely not in Set 13 either

While something like this doesn’t make sense to be in every set of TFT, it added a healthy type of variance to the game in a way that players of all skill levels could enjoy. This is likely something that we could see coming back in the future, especially since we can change the output of the trait (what the trait does) each time, as long as the concept of “a rotating trait” sticks around. So yeah, definitely one of the highlights of Inkborn Fables, and something we’ll revisit someday!

Personally, I am very sad at this news because Exalted kept me engaged in ranked as each game was vastly different to the last.

Initially, I didn't understand this. But comments on my video enlightened me

Occupied Design Space?

Many pointed out that the designs for Set 12 and 13 are likely locked in at this point and they don't have space to fit Exalted in

Or that the design space that Exalted occupies is taken by another trait. Previous Sets have had rotating traits/units like Set 8 Janna or Set 7 Mirage.

But most importantly, Exalted can't just be shoehorned into a Set, the context of the Set matters

For example, Exalted can be somewhat counter intuitive in conjunction with other Set mechanics like Headliners or Dragons as you're playing horizontally opposed to vertically.

Fin.

And I think that's it for this post!

That's was a lot to go through but hopefully you learned something or you found it interesting.

Personally I am eagerly waiting Exalted's next appearance perhaps alongside some other spicy changes.

Let me know if you have any questions

And thank you for reading <3

S: TL A: c9, g2 B: Fly, SK C: Fnc, Bds, 100t, Dig D: d stands for doesnt deserve to be ranked

I think that honestly, KT/DK/HLE are all S tier level or higher if we were to pretend they are western teams. Tbh i wish Tl just played in lck even if they miss playoffs

Was just watching TL vs T1, and TL honestly ran circles around T1 around the map and they all had a good game individually. Mind you T1 just beat BLG.

The way some people talk about APA in this sub like he's some complete nobody who shouldn't even be on a team speaks a lot about the fanbase and their understanding of the game. Or the way people talk about TL like they are not allowed to breathe the same air as FNC. That losing to a team like TL is just unacceptable.

Maybe some people really need to accept that TL is a damn good team, and the LCS and LEC are close in level, maybe with LCS even being better. If it wasn't for Caps, they would probably be straight up be the better league rn.

In understanding this simple reality, maybe some people can tone it down with the wild and frankly degenerate takes they have around here. No, FNC is not complete dogshit. They are just not as good as TL now, not by a huge margin, they should have won game 2 and then game 3 who knows, but they have the kind of issues that a team in the true sense of the word, will simply punish and abuse. No, losing to TL is not something completely unacceptable, losing game 1 is also not unacceptable to me, where they tried some shit, it didn't work at all, whatever, but, the game 2, the way that they lost is what's unacceptable to me, where it's not about champs, patches, individual skill, but just egregious and totally avoidable mistakes that a professional team should simply not make.

And, to add to this, when people realise that if you don't show up well on the day, or you don't have an optimal read on the meta and patch, you are just out, against any team, you can just be out, like what happened to GenG vs TES.

That's it. I really like their casting. That's the post.

Small rant but I want to start by saying Saadhak staying with Loud was a mistake.

We know he got offers from non brazilian orgs such as NRG, and could possibly be playing alongside Aspas right now while getting a huge bag. But he decided to be loyal to Loud, and what did he get from it?

Had to change the team's playstyle and comps to help qck settle in while adapting to a new coach as well, and then when it didn't work and qck got dropped he got blamed (even by himself).

After that the org signed a player that would likely cause role issues and the result was Saadhak having to step up as their duelist cause no one else wanted to, and now that it obviously didn't work he's being blamed again. According to some LOUD fans he's apparently an egomaniac that doesn't listen to the coaching staff and won't let Tuyz play duelist when in reality Saadhak just wants to protect him from all the hate and Aspas comparisons.

I won't pretend like I know eveything that's going on with the team and that he's not responsible for some of it but I'm just fed up with the way he's being treated.

The worst part is that this season probably tanked his reputation as an IGL, and now he may not have as many opportunities. Honestly this org and and these fans don't deserve all the glory they got from signing Pancada & amigos, I hope the players go elsewhere for the next year so I can drop this flair for good.

Ok not that small of a rant, don't quite know if it breaks any rules, if so I'm sorry but I needed to post this.