TFT Set 10 Guide: How to Play K/DA

How to Play K/DA

Welcome to another in the series of our How to Play TFT trait guides.

K/DA has been a fan favorite in the League of Legends universe since their release back in 2018. With Remix Rumble, the music based TFT set will be releasing them in game with a unique positioning effect.

Let’s get right into the guide.

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

How K/DA Works

K/DA is similar to the Elemental Hexes from Ixtal in Set 9. Every game, the K/DA trait will light up hexes on the board. Placing units on these hexes will give them bonuses, and more so for K/DA units.

There are about 10 unique different board lights for the K/DA trait, so even if you play them every game, you’ll have a little more variety in your positioning.

K/DA Trait Bonus

All units that start combat in the lighted hexes gain max Health, Ability Power, and Attack Damage. K/DA champions go All Out, which doubles these bonuses.

• (3) +9%, 9 AD, 9 AP
• (5) +15%, 15 AD, 15 AP
• (7) +24%, 24 AD, 24 AP
• (10) +40%, 40 DP, 40 AP

Your lighted hex pattern changes each game.

K/DA Synergy

Here’s a quick list of all of the traits that branch from the K/DA units.

• Crowd Diver
• Superfan (2x)
• Sentinel
• Big Shot
• Spellweaver (2x)
• Guardian
• Executioner

As you can see, there are two traits that overlap between units, Superfan, and Spellweaver. Because of this, it’s very likely that K/DA is a trait that is incentivized to go vertical. However, that doesn’t mean you won’t be able to just run 3 K/DA and buff up your main carry.

Even still, I expect most K/DA team comps to be vertical unless a strong combination is figured out with only 3 K/DA.

K/DA Champions

Let’s briefly go over each Champion in the K/DA trait and what you can do with them. As patches come out, the ability descriptions and stats may become outdated. Be sure to check the individual champion pages for an updated look at their kit.

Evelynn – K/DA + Crowd Diver

[Link to Champion Page]

Evelynn is the first entry of the K/DA trait and is a Crowd Diver. Crowd Divers can be a tad awkward to use early as they can struggle with survivability, but an early 2 star can definitely put in work.

Evelynn has built in healing through her ability, but she needs to survive long enough to get enough value from her healing.

Lillia – K/DA + Superfan + Sentinel

[Link to Champion Page]

Lillia is another 1-cost K/DA unit who will provide the early game frontline for K/DA. Sentinel is a simple but effective frontline trait. Her Superfan trait can also come in handy, and you can get the Superfan (3) trait bonus up quite early with other units like Kennen and Neeko.

Looking at Lillia and some of the other units, it appears that the K/DA team almost builds itself.

Kai’Sa – K/DA + Big Shot

[Link to Champion Page]

Kai’Sa is the 2-cost K/DA unit that will scale off Attack Damage. This will be great for slamming early AD items to get off to a strong start if you don’t have AP items.

Her ability is quite simple, but is still a solid damage skill.

Seraphine – K/DA + Spellweaver

[Link to Champion Page]

Seraphine is the other 2-cost unit for K/DA, and she will be able to hold your AP items. Unfortunately, these first four K/DA units don’t synergize super well together. You’ll likely want to play Lillia + one other Sentinel, along with Seraphine and Kai’Sa for damage if you find both of them.

Neeko – K/DA + Superfan + Guardian

[Link to Champion Page]

Neeko is the only 3-cost K/DA unit and is the unit that will really put the team together. At level 6, you can play all 5 K/DA units up to this point, with one extra unit. This extra unit will likely be Kennen. Kennen is both a Guardian and a Superfan, meaning you will be able to activate the Guardian trait along with the Superfan trait.

This Superfan trait will buff your Headliner, and ideally you can find either Kai’Sa, Seraphine, or Neeko as your Headliner. Neeko will likely become the main tank of the team, so feel free to slam defensive items on her.

Ahri – K/DA + Spellweaver

[Link to Champion Page]

Ahri is one of two 4-cost units from the K/DA trait. She will be your late game AP damage dealer, so items you put on Seraphine early you can transfer over to Ahri. Her spell is single target, so she may lack hyper carry potential, but the K/DA trait looks to buff up your entire team, so she’s simply there to provide some damage and CC.

Akali – K/DA + Breakout + Executioner

[Link to Champion Page]

Akali is the other K/DA 4-cost unit that you will look to add to your team. She scales well with AD items and can take items you originally put on Kai’Sa. Unfortunately, the other Executioner units don’t synergize extremely well with K/DA, but there is some potential. If you’re lucky, you can try to get a Headliner Akali with double Executioner trait to activate it, but you can’t always be so lucky.

K/DA 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.

Difficult Augments

Before I get into strong Augment combinations, I want to note some Augments that may prove more difficult than worthwhile. These Augments are the ones that are positioning based.

Since the K/DA trait already forces you to position in a certain way, having these Augments can be difficult to work around.

• Long Distance Pals: At the start of combat, your two furthest champions share x% of their Armor, Magic Resist, Attack Speed, and Ability Power with each other.
• Social Distancing: Units that begin combat with no adjacent allies gain 15% Attack Damage and Ability Power.
• Best Friends: Your units that start combat only adjacent to each other gain 20% Attack Speed and 25 Armor.

These are some examples of Augments I would be hesitant to take while playing K/DA. It may be difficult to get the most value out of these Augments if you’re already placing your units in a specific pattern.

While it may work out and you can maximize the value from the K/DA bonus and these Augments, you might be forced into positioning a certain way. This can be detrimental if you’re not able to be flexible with moving units around.

These Augments can still be good choices, just know what you’re signing up for.

K/DA Augment – Mesmerizing Performance

X seconds into combat, all enemies and non-KDA units are stunned and forced to dance for X seconds. Your KDA champions gain bonus Ability Power. Gain a Lillia and a Kai’Sa.

In general, the trait specific Gold Augment is a decent choice if you’re already committed to said trait. Taking this at 3-2 when you’re already planning to go K/DA can be very helpful. You get a couple useful units, and a strong effect as well.

With Mesmerizing Performance, you’re getting a very powerful CC ability. The only downside is that the non-KD/A units on your board will also be stunned. This can be less of a downside if you’re running as many K/DA units as possible.

Combat Augments

For the last section of Augments, I want to briefly cover the magic damage Augments. The K/DA trait buffs up Health, Attack Damage, and Ability Power. This should mean that scaling through things like Bonus Damage and Crit will be very strong.

While this can be true, the K/DA AP bonus is not extremely large. Because of this, Augments that grant additional AP will still be a good choice. Here’s a quick list of some Augments that work well.

• Infusion: Your team restores 15 Mana every 5 seconds.
• Jeweled Lotus: Magic and true damage from your units’ Abilities can critically strike. Your units additionally gain 40% Critical Strike Chance.
• Magic Wand: Gain a Needlessly Large Rod. Your units gain 20% Ability Power.
• Learning to Spell (New): Your team gains 10 bonus Ability Power, and permanently gains 1 Ability Power every 2 takedowns.

K/DA 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.

Basic K/DA Team Comp

[Link to Team Comp Guide]

This is what I would consider a simple framework for the K/DA comp. You have a lot of strong traits active, and reaching 7 K/DA is a much needed power spike for the comp.

The main weakness of this comp is the lack of frontline as you’re using three 1-cost units in the frontline. Even still, Ekko and Neeko can still carry the frontline as long as they have strong tank items.

For this comp you can make do with Akali, Ahri, or Neeko as your Headliner, you just want to make sure you have a K/DA Headliner. Without it, you’ll need to settle for 5 K/DA and flex Evelynn for another unit. This can still work, it just won’t be ideal.

Conclusion

Overall, K/DA is looking to be one of the easier comps to play this set. A lot of the units synergize with each other, making the path simple to follow.

There will likely be more innovation with the trait, but the basics are quite easy to follow. The units are also fan favorites, so expect to see it in your games a lot.

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.