TFT Set 10 Guide: How to Play Pentakill

How to Play Pentakill

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

Pentakill is a new trait coming to Set 10, and they were one of the original bands released by Riot Games. The trait shares similarities to Shurima from Set 9, where units will empower over the course of the fight, and eventually all units will become empowered.

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 Pentakill Works

The trait itself is quite simple to understand. It provides bonus damage and damage mitigation. As you take down enemies, Pentakill units will empower. Once you take down 5 units, all Pentakill units will become empowered.

Other than K/DA, Pentakill is the only other large vertical trait you can play around. With 2 Emblems and a Headliner, you can reach all the way up to the Pentakill (10) bonus, making your entire board extremely powerful.

Pentakill Trait Bonus

Pentakill champions deal more damage and reduce damage by 15%. When an enemy champion dies, empower a Pentakill champion, increasing their bonus damage.
The 5th kill empowers all Pentakill champions and your team gains Attack Speed.

• (3) 11% bonus damage
• (5) 25% bonus damage
• (7) 40% bonus damage
• (10) 100% bonus damage, +35% damage reduction

Pentakill Synergy

Here’s a list of all the traits you can access with the Pentakill units:

• Bruiser
• Superfan
• Mosher (2x)
• Edgelord (2x)
• Sentinel
• Executioner
• Edgelord
• Guardian

Considering there are 7 units, it’s expected the trait will have some overlap in the classes. Mosher is the first overlap from Gnar (2) and Yorick (5), and the second is Edgelord with Kayle (2), and Viego (4). Both of these traits lend itself to a melee carry focused team comp, with Viego and Yorick leading the way.

Using the other traits to add some utility, extra frontline, or damage will be the basis of a strong Pentakill comp.

Pentakill Champions

Let’s briefly go over each Champion in the Pentakill 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 As patches come out, the ability descriptions and stats may become outdated.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.

Olaf – Pentakill + Bruiser

[Link to Champion Page]

Olaf is the first Pentakill unit, and will start your Pentakill comp with the frontline. As you reach the late game, you can likely transition out of Bruiser, but for the early to mid game, you should make use of this trait to power up your board.

There is also some potential for a reroll Olaf comp as his ability can be very strong with an item like Guinsoo’s Rageblade.

Gnar – Pentakill + Superfan + Mosher

[Link to Champion Page]

Gnar is the second Pentakill unit you’ll look to build up your early game board. He will further strengthen your frontline. For a strong frontline, look to use a unit like Sett (Heartsteel/Mosher/Bruiser) as he will pair perfectly with Gnar and Olaf.

The Superfan trait is also something to take note of, but the other Superfan units don’t synergize amazingly with Pentakill.

Kayle – Pentakill + Edgelord

[Link to Champion Page]

Kayle is the first backline damage unit for the Pentakill trait and will likely be one of main damage sources for the early to mid game. As of right now, there hasn’t been much play with Kayle as the main carry, she’s mainly been used for her traits thus far.

However, this can very well change as more patches come and go.

Mordekaiser – Pentakill + Sentinel

[Link to Champion Page]

Mordekaiser is the only 3-cost Pentakill unit and his Sentinel trait adds to the frontline as well. His ability is a mix of damage and survivability, but he doesn’t provide any CC.

Mordekaiser 3 can be a strong carry if you are able to hit him, but the Pentakill comp also has a lot of strong 4-cost carries that you can build into. As such, the trait is very flexible in the mid game. You can level normally and play around 4-costs, or go for Mordekaiser 3 if you find a lot of copies.

Karthus – Pentakill + Executioner

[Link to Champion Page]

Karthus is one of the 4-cost Edgelords and is a magic damage backline unit. Most notably, his Executioner trait has shown a lot of synergy with Akali, another Executioner 4-cost carry.

This is because you can flex in 3 K/DA with Neeko (Guardian along with Yorick) and Lillia (Sentinel along with Mordekaiser). This makes it very easy to splash in 3 K/DA while also activating other traits for a Pentakill based comp.

Viego – Pentakill + Edgelord

[Link to Champion Page]

Viego is the other 4-cost unit for Pentakill and he’s another strong carry for the trait. Veigo can always hold extra items for a Pentakill comp, and he sees a lot of play in other comps that focus on the Edgelord trait.

In a standard Pentakill comp, Karthus, Viego, and Mordekaiser become a strong core of units. If you flex Akali into the comp, you may not have enough items for Veigo, but that’s fine. He can easily hold Thief’s Gloves or extra items.

Yorick – Pentakill + Mosher + Guardian

[Link to Champion Page]

Lastly, we have Yorick, who boasts 3 traits, Pentakill, Mosher, and Guardian. Mosher is already active along with Gnar, and Guardian can be activated with Lillia.

Yorick can also synergize well with the Emo trait. Guardian pairs with Amumu, Mosher pairs with Poppy, and Vex (Executioner) pairs with Karthus (Pentakill). We haven’t seen much play with a Pentakill Emo comp, but the overlap is there.

Furthermore, Yorick’s ability is extremely powerful as it proves a 20% Sunder. This will empower the rest of your team to deal more damage to enemies.

Pentakill 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.

Pentakill Augment – Metalheads

Your Pentakill champions are immune to crowd control for the first 12 seconds of combat. They heal 5% of their max Health on takedown. Gain a Kayle and a Gnar.

Let’s start off covering the Pentakill specific Gold Augment. For the most part, CC immunity is not a premium effect in TFT, it’s more of a bonus. CC immunity can be very powerful, especially if your main carry is melee like Viego, but there are other Augments that may provide a stronger bonus.

The second part of the Augment provides a 5% heal on takedown, which can be quite good. Viego’s ability is AoE, so he can easily tag a lot of enemies, resulting in a lot of takedowns. If your Viego is lacking in Lifesteal or Omnivamp, this Augment can provide a very strong heal.

Lastly, if it’s early to mid game, getting a copy of Kayle and Gnar can strengthen up your board. This can make it a solid pick for combat strength late game and mid game tempo through the extra units.

Long Distance Pals

At the start of combat, your two furthest champions share 25% of their Armor, Magic Resist, Attack Damage, and Ability Power with each other.

If you played in Set 9, you’ll know that Long Distance Pals was one of the best Augments in the set. The same is likely true for Set 10. Long Distance Pals is good in a lot of situations, but is mostly true when you have dual carries. Viego paired with Yorick or Akali paired with Viego can be very strong combinations.

In general, you want your two LDP carries to scale from the same damage (AD or AP). This is because as you put items on these carries, you’ll get more value from the LDP stacking onto the other carry.

This means that if you’re playing a comp with Viego and Karthus carry, you might not want to LDP them unless you don’t have a better pair. You could always pair them in the meantime until you can pair something like Viego/Akali or Karthus/Vex, etc.

Cybernetic Leech

Your units holding an item gain 120 Health and 20% Omnivamp.

Lastly, I want to make note of healing Augments like Cybernetic Leech. If your main carry is Viego, having some form of healing on him will be crucial to keeping him alive as a melee carry. You can do this through items like Bloodthirster or Hextech Gunblade, but you may not always be able to build those items.

Cybernetic Leech will give all of your units holding items some Health and Omnivamp. This can be very strong if you make good use of your items and spread them out efficiently. Just make sure to save items for your main carry as you don’t want to just slam items on every single unit.

Pentakill 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.

Pentakill Basic Team Comp

[Link to Builder]

This is a simple look at a basic Pentakill comp. Your Headliner can be just about any Headliner as you’ll have easy options.

• With a Pentakill Headliner (Viego, Karthus, Mordekaiser, Yorick), you can activate Edgelord 3 by adding in Kayn or Yone.
• With Sentinel Mordekaiser, you can drop Blitzcrank for the same Kayn or Yone.
• However, with Executioner Karthus, you’ll have to drop Blitzcrank to add in another Edgelord. In this situation, you’ll be giving up Sentinel for Executioner 2.

While Vertical Pentakill can be strong, the comp is stronger when flexed with Akali. We’ll cover this comp below.

Pentakill Akali Flex Team Comp

[Link to Team Comp Guide]

This comp is the Pentakill comp that is able to flex Akali into it. The ceiling of this comp uses the Pentakill Emblem on Akali to hit Pentakill 7. However, even without the Emblem, Pentakill 5 can still be strong.

It also is very flexible as with Pentakill 5, you can have just about any Headliner trait. Without Emblem, you go down to 6, and with a non-Pentakill Headliner, you go down to 5. This makes the comp easier to play as you have a strong variety of carries with the option to choose multiple Headliner traits.

The main difference is that Akali, Lillia, and Neeko make the comp while other units like Kayle, Olaf, and Blitzcrank do not. This is perfectly fine as Kayle and Olaf are only there to provide Pentakill. By adding in Akali as another carry, the ceiling of the comp becomes higher.

These Pentakill comps used to be the main way to play Pentakill, but with 14.1, we’re starting to see potential with reroll carries.

Pentakill Olaf Reroll Comp

[Link to Team Comp Guide]

This reroll comp looks to reroll for Olaf 3 as a way to power spike early in Stage 3. You can go for this  line if you find a lot of copies of Olaf early and play toward this comp.

Once you hit Olaf 3, you can then look to catch up in levels to add strong units like Akali and Karthus as backup carries.

The comp plays more around the Bruiser trait that Pentakill, but it’s still something to keep in mind when your early shops have a lot of Olaf copies.

Pentakill Kayle Reroll Comp

[Link to Team Comp Guide]

This reroll comp is another line you can take if you find lots of Kayles. Since Kayle is a 2-cost unit, you’ll likely slow roll for her at level 6 if you have a good amount of copies or find her as a Headliner.

This comp also plays toward the 7 Pentakill comp, but without Akali since you already have Kayle as a carry. If you have a Pentakill Headliner Kayle, you can simply drop a Pentakill unit like Olaf or Mordekaiser for an Edgelord like Yone or Kayn.

If you drop Olaf, you will lose Bruiser, but he won’t do much as a 1-cost unit late game. Dropping Mordekaiser can also work, but he will provide more value as a 3-cost unit compared to Olaf. If you drop Olaf, you can also play around other 4-cost tanks before you find Illaoi like Blitzcrank or Thresh.

Pentakill Gnar Reroll Comp

[Link to Team Comp Guide]

Lastly, we have this Gnar comp which will follow a similar game plan to Kayle. However, instead of going for Pentakill 7, this comp looks to ues Superfan 5. This comp can also be an option if you’re initially planning to play Pentakill Akali but end up finding lots of Gnar copies.

Conclusion

That covers all the basics you need to know about the Pentakill trait. The trait has a lot of synergy and overlap with other traits such as Emo or Heartsteel. Even so, it appears that Akali has taken the spotlight as the easiest unit to flex into the Pentakill trait.

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.