TFT Set 10 Guide: How to Play Heartsteel

If you’re new to Set 10 and want to check out all the information, check out out Set 10 Reveal Page!

How Heartsteel Works

The Heartsteel trait is going to be the new economy based trait for Set 10. In the past, we’ve had traits like Fortune, Underground, and Piltover be fan favorites, and Heartsteel will hopefully carry on the legacy.

However, Heartsteel is looking to be a less polarizing trait. Instead of going all in on the lose streak mechanic, Heartsteel looks to be a bit more consistent, while also lowering the high roll ceiling of the trait.

Because the “cash out” occurs every few rounds, you can still get a huge cash out as long as you have a lot of Hearts. While this makes the trait more consistent, it does lose a bit of that risk reward feeling.

Even still, you can still opt to try and go for the full loss streak with the Heartsteel rework. By raising the stakes, you can accelerate how many Hearts you generate, but you lose out on a lot of you accidentally win a round.

Heartsteel Trait Bonus

Earn Hearts by killing enemies. Gain even more by losing player combat. Every few player combats, convert Hearts into powerful rewards! The number of Hearts you gain increases for each HEARTSTEEL member in play.

Raise the Stakes! – Now after every 4 turns, you can cash out like normal OR you can choose to raise the stakes. If you do, your box turns golden and you are in high risk mode. You gain double the hearts, but if you win a combat, you lose 50% of your current total. If you manage to lose 8 times in a row, gain an additional 8 bonus hearts.

• (3) 1x Hearts
• (5) 2.25x Hearts
• (7) 5.5x Hearts
• (9) 10x Hearts

Heartsteel Synergy

Here’s a list of all the traits that you can branch into from the Heartsteel units.

• Sentinel
• Rapidfire
• Bruiser
• Mosher
• Edgelord (x2)
• Crowd Diver
• Big Shot

The list of traits varies quite a bit. There are no easy overlaps for Heartsteel except for the Edgelord trait. Even then, the Edgelord trait is shared between Yone (3) and Kayn (5). Kayn is a 5-cost unit, meaning you likely won’t find him until the late game if at all.

Overall, the traits vary quite a bit, so you’re going to be sacrificing some early power in order to gain the extra loot from Heartsteel. This is usually the case with economy traits, as getting a strong board and extra loot should never be the case. You also want to lose streak early if possible to leverage the Heartsteel trait more anyways.

Heartsteel Champions

Let’s briefly go over each Champion in the Heartsteel trait and what you can do with them.

K’Sante – Heartsteel + Sentinel

[Link to Champion Page]

K’Sante is the only 1-cost Heartsteel unit, and he is a fairly straightforward frontline unit. The Sentinel trait is the new “Bastion” trait which simply provides Armor and MR, so you can pair him up with another early game Sentinel for a quick frontline.

The main difficulty will come at trying to find 2 additional Heartsteel units as early as possible, as there’s only one 1-cost unit for the trait.

Aphelios – Heartsteel + Rapidfire

[Link to Champion Page]

Aphelios is the only 2-cost Heartsteel member, and his ability is more utility than damage based. Furthermore, because the Heartsteel trait is economy based, he won’t perform as well as other 2-cost backline units.

You still will want to pair another Rapidfire unit with Aphelios early to get some backline damage, or else you’ll bleed too much from losing fights.

Because Aphelios is Rapidfire, it’s more likely that you will want to build AD items with Heartsteel, rather than AP. This trend continues with the rest of the units as well as we go higher in cost.

Sett – Heartsteel + Bruiser + Mosher

[Link to Champion Page]

Sett is the first of two 3-cost Heartsteel units. If you are able to get an early Sett from loot orbs, you should definitely consider playing Heartsteel in your early board. Sett also boasts 3 traits, making him quite flexible even if you don’t commit to Heartsteel.

His ability is a mix of damage and survivability, and his traits also follow that pattern. Mosher will grant him some Attack Speed and Omnivamp while Bruiser will grant him additional Health. Having 3 traits is quite impactful in the mid game as you’re able to power up your board through a variety of units.

Yone – Heartsteel + Edgelord + Crowd Diver

[Link to Champion Page]

Yone is the other 3-cost Heartsteel unit, and he also has 3 traits. Edgelord will grant Attack Speed while Crowd Diver will grant bonus damage and give a little bit of CC as well.

Yone is almost like a squishier up version of Warwick, as he’s a melee damage dealer that gains a stacking bonus through his ability. Yone will likely be a strong item holder in the mid game with AD items until you transition into your late game units.

Once again, having 3 traits is also big for the comp as the potential supporting units you can run outside of Heartsteel are numerous.

Ezreal – Heartsteel + Big Shot

[Link to Champion Page]

Ezreal is the 4-cost Heartsteel unit and he’s a typical ranged AD carry. The Big Shot trait grants bonus Attack Damage, so you can look to scale Ezreal up with other things like Attack Speed, mana generation, bonus damage, etc.

Ezreal’s blink ability can potentially be very good if he can avoid danger. However, there’s always a chance with abilities like this that Ezreal will just blink right into danger.

Kayn – Heartsteel + Wildcard + Edgelord

[Link to Champion Page]

Kayn is the final unit of the Heartsteel trait and will likely be one of the carries you look for in the comp. Edgelord pairs with Yone very easily, making Heartsteel easy to fit into your late game board if you want.

His Wildcard trait is his unique 5-cost trait. If you win your fight, Kayn will turn into Shadow Assassin, and when you lose a fight, he will turn into Rhaast. The Assassin will grant gold every 2 champion kills, while Rhaast will heal your tactician instead.

Once again, Kayn will look to utilize more AD damage items. Since he’s a melee unit, he will benefit a lot from hybrid damage tank items such as Titan’s Resolve or Sterak’s Gage. Lastly, a sustain item such as Bloodthirster will go a long way as well.

Heartsteel Best Augments

For this section, I’ll be covering some Augments that particularly synergize with the trait. Lots of Augments are universal, like economy based Augments or item Augments, but I’ll try to cover particular synergies to look out for.

I won’t be able to cover every single Augment, just some notable ones. You can check out the full list of Augments here.

Heartsteel Augment – Heartthrobs

Keep 20% of the Heartsteel hearts you convert into rewards. Your Heartsteel champions gain 100 Health. Gain a K’Sante and an Aphelios.

The Heartsteel Augment is of course a great pick if you’re going vertical Heartsteel. 100 Health on a majority of your board is great, and keeping hearts after cash outs lets you build up into even bigger cash outs.

Getting the K’Sante and Aphelios is nice, but it won’t make or break your game. Getting them to two star will be nice to conserve HP, so that is something to consider as well.

HP Augments

In general, Augments that heal your tactician in some way are usually good with economy based augments. However, Heartsteel is different in that you don’t need to commit to a big losing streak to get a good cash out.

You can even win streak a majority of the game and still get tons of value if you can reach 7 Heartsteel for big cash outs.

Even still, it can be nice to give yourself a little health buffer as you’re committing to a comp that hinges on finding an Emblem or Kayn at level 8.

• Tiny Titans
• Metabolic Accelerator
• Tiniest Titan

Heartsteel Team Comps

Team comps are very fickle, but we’ll try to keep this section updated with the best team comps you can play around.

If you want an updated look at team comps, be sure to check out our Tier List.

Heartsteel 7 Comp

[Link to Team Comp Guide]

This is an example of a comp you can look to build to get the big cash outs. Heartsteel 7 is where you start getting a lot of hearts, and this will give you the bigger loot.

You don’t have to worry too much about getting Heartsteel early, you just need to find a Heartsteel Headliner AND Kayn. This will likely be at level 8, so just try to preserve HP in the meantime.

If you have things like a Heartsteel Emblem, this can make reaching 7 Heartsteel much easier. Once you get your big cashouts during Stage 5/6, you can look to overpower your opponents with item power, gold to reach level 9, etc.

You can also consider dropping down to 5 Heartsteel after a big cashout to replace lower cost units like Aphelios and K’Sante for higher cost units like Illaoi, Zac, etc.

Heartsteel Loot Table

Lastly, let’s quickly cover the loot table for Heartsteel. These values were datamined, but keep in mind that these values will definitely change over the course of the set. (Probably multiple times)

Keep in mind that each of these thresholds are minimum requirements. This means that if you have 77 Hearts, you will get the 60 Heart cash out rather than 80. Unless otherwise stated, completed items and components given will be random.

• 0 Hearts: (~4 gold)
  • 50%: 4 gold
  • 25%: 3-cost + 1 gold
  • 25%: 2x 2-cost
• 20 Hearts: (~6 gold)
  • 50%: 6 gold
  • 25%: 2x 3-cost
  • 25%: 2x 2-cost + 2 gold
• 40 Hearts: (~8 gold)
  • 50%: item component
  • 25: 2x 3-cost + 2 gold
  • 25: 8 gold
• 60 Hearts: (~11 gold)
  • 50%: 3x 3-cost + 2 gold
  • 25%: Thief’s Gloves
  • 25%: item component + 3 gold
• 80 Hearts: (~14 gold)
  • 50%: item component + 6 gold
  • 25%: 2x 4-cost + 6 gold
  • 25%: Thief’s Gloves + 3 gold
• 100 Hearts: (~17 gold)
  • 40%: 2x item component + 1 gold
  • 30%: support item
  • 30%: reforger + completed item + 2 gold
• 130 Hearts: (~21 gold)
  • 25%: artifact + reforger + 3 gold
  • 25%: support item + reforger + 3 gold
  • 25%: Tome of Traits
  • 25%: completed item + item component
• 160 Hearts: (~26 gold)
  • 30% completed item anvil + 10 gold
  • 30%: 3x item component + 2 gold
  • 20% target dummy w/ support item
  • 20%: Blacksmith’s Gloves
• 200 Hearts: (~32 gold)
  • 30%: radiant item + 2x reforger
  • 30%: artifact + completed item + reforger
  • 20%: champion duplicator + 12 gold
  • 20%: Tome of Traits + 12 gold
• 250 Hearts: (~38 gold)
  • 40%: completed item anvil + 22 gold
  • 20%: Tactician’s Crown + 8 gold
  • 20%: 2x 5-cost + 25 gold
  • 20%: support item anvil + 20 gold
• 300 Hearts: (~46 gold)
  • 25%: 2x Spatula + 2x item component
  • 25%: 2x radiant item + artifact item anvil + 2 magnetic remover
  • 25%: radiant item + completed item anvil + 2x reforger
  • 25%: Tactician’s Crown + 16 gold
• 400 Hearts: (~56 gold)
  • 30%: radiant item + reforger + 26 gold
  • 25%: Tactician’s Crown + artifact item anvil + 8 gold
  • 20%: champion duplicator + 44 gold
  • 15%: 3x support item anvil
  • 10%: 2x Zz’Rot Portal + 20 gold
• 500 Hearts: (~70 gold)
  • 20%: 2x Warmog’s Armor + 2x Virtue of the Martyr + 4 gold
  • 20%: radiant item + 2x support item anvil + 1 reforger + 1 magnetic remover + 20 gold
  • 20%: Tactician’s Crown + Rascal’s Gloves + 10 gold
  • 20%: 4x completed item anvil + magnetic remover + 6 gold
  • 20%: radiant item + artifact item anvil + reforger + 22 gold
• 750 Hearts: (~85 gold)
  • 20%: training dummy w/ 3x Locket of the Iron Solari + 20 gold
  • 20%: 3x K’Sante 2 star + 3x Aphelios 2 star + 3x Yone 2 star + 3x Sett 2 star
  • 20%: 5x 5-cost + Tactician’s Crown + Rascal’s Gloves
  • 20%: radiant item + completed item anvil + support item anvil + artifact anvil + reforger + remover + 13 gold
  • 20%: 2x radiant item + champion duplicator + 2x reforger  + 13 gold
• 1000 Hearts: (~100 gold)
  • 30%: 40 gold + 2x radiant item + 2x reforger + magnetic remover
  • 30%: 100 gold
  • 30%: radiant item + 2x Tactician’s Crown + reforger + 10 gold
  • 10%: training dummy w/ Radiant Warmog’s, Radiant Bramble Vest, Radiant Dragon’s Claw
• 1250 Hearts: (~125 gold)
  • 25%: 4x Spatula + 65 gold
  • 25%: 2x Zephyr + 2x Shroud of Stillness + 50 gold
  • 25%: Tactician’s Crown + Rascal’s Gloves + 5-cost 2-star + 45 gold
  • 25%: 2x radiant item + 2x artifact anvil + champion duplicator + remover + reforger + 12 gold
• 1500 Hearts: (~150 gold)
  • 25%: 3x Zeke’s Herald + 3x Locket of the Iron Solari + 40 gold
  • 25%: Radiant Conversion (convert all of your items into their radiant version or receive 150 gold if you’ve already received this cashout) + remover
  • 25%: 4x radiant item + remover + reforger + 30 gold
  • 25%: 2x radiant item + 2x Tactician’s Crown + 1 remover + 1 reforger + 30 gold
• 1750 Hearts: (~175 gold)
  • 25%: Radiant Conversion/175 gold + remover
  • 25%: 4x support item anvil + Tactician’s Crown + 75 gold
  • 25%: 2x radiant item + 2x Tactician’s Crown + 2x champion duplicator + reforger + 30 gold
  • 25%: 2x radiant item + 2x Tactician’s Crown + completed item + reforger + 40 gold
• 2000 Hearts: (~220 gold)
  • 35%: 4x Tactician’s Crown + 100 gold
  • 30%: 2x radiant item + 2x Tactician’s Crown + completed item + reforger  + 85 gold
  • 25%: 2x champion duplicator + 200 gold
  • 10%: 5-cost 3-star + remover

Conclusion

Overall, Heartsteel looks to be a more mild take on the economy trait. You don’t need to commit to full lose streaking, and the trait will always pay out even if you don’t win a round. Because of this, we don’t expect Heartsteel to be a high roll comp like Piltover or Underground was.

Even still, getting extra loot early can boost your economy very high. This can make it much easier to build a strong endgame board with either Heartsteel units, or even a board filled with high cost units.

We hope you enjoyed this guide, and hopefully it helps you climb some ranks. Good luck and have fun!

Thanks for reading! Be sure to check out our meta team comps page, or head to our Team Builder to try and come up with your own comps.