TFT Set 11 Guide: How to Play Arcanist

How to Play Arcanist — TFT Set 11: Inkborn Fables

Welcome to our TFT trait guide series, where I’ll be covering the Arcanist trait and how to play it. I’ll be covering how Arcanist works, analyzing each champion, and go through some potential team comps.

In general, classes often come back in TFT with similar effects. While there may be some slight changes or a name change, classes usually have a similar feel across sets.

The Arcanist class is the classic AP buffing class. By putting more in your team, you’ll buff up the AP of your entire team.

Let’s get right into the guide.

If you haven’t checked out all of the Set 11 information yet, check out out Set 11 Reveal Page!

How Arcanist Works

Arcanist Trait Bonus

Arcanists gain Ability Power and grant Ability Power to allies.

• (2): 20 to all allies.
• (4): 50 for Arcanists; 20 for others
• (6): 85 for  Arcanists; 40 for others
• (8): 125 for Arcanists; 125 for others

Champions: Ahri (1), Lux (2), Neeko (2), Illaoi (3), Zoe (3), Syndra (4), Lissandra (5)

Arcanist is a powerful trait for two reasons. If you build into Arcanist vertically, you’ll grant a ton of AP for your Arcanist units. However, you can also splash in (2) Arcanist for a nice AP buff for the entire team.

In the mid game, you can easily fit in some Arcanists to buff up your team. If you find more Arcanists, you can go deeper into the trait. If not, you can pivot out into a different comp.

Arcanist Synergy

Here’s a list of the traits you can branch into from the Arcanist units:

• Fated (Ahri/Syndra)
• Porcelain (Lux/Lissandra)
• Mythic (Neeko)
• Heavenly (Neeko)
• Ghostly (Illaoi)
• Warden (Illaoi)
• Fortune (Zoe)
• Storyweaver (Zoe)

There is quite a bit of overlap between Origins for the Arcanist trait. You have Fated with Ahri/Syndra and Porcelain with Lux/Lissandra. All of these units can be strong carrys for your team, and you can adjust based on what you find in game. Ahri/Lux can be reroll carrys while Syndra/Lissandra can be late game carrys.

Furthermore, the other Arcanist units, Neeko/Illaoi/Zoe, all have 3 traits. This makes the trait very flexible, as you can splash Arcanist into a variety of other comps.

Arcanist Champions

Let’s briefly go over each Champion in the Arcanist trait and what you can do with them. To check the updated stats and ability values, be sure to check each Champion Page.

Ahri (1)  – Arcanist + Fated

[Link to Champion Page]

Ahri is our first and only 1-Cost Arcanist. There is reroll potential for Ahri, as you can pair her with Yasuo early to reroll for a Fated combo early.

Outside of that, Ahri is a simple early game unit to put your AP items on. As you level up, you can then decide whether you want to build deeper into Arcanist or pivot to something else.

Lux (2) – Arcanist + Porcelain

[Link to Champion Page]

Lux is our next Arcanist, and she is another potential reroll carry. If you find multiple copies of her, you can use her as your main carry while you build toward higher tiers of Arcanist.

Note that Lux targets the furthest enemy, so you want to position her strategically to take advantage of this. The ability will pierce enemies, but will deal less damage the more units it passes through.

Try to find an angle that maximizes the targets her ability hits, or position her in a way where she has a direct line to the enemy carry.

Neeko (2) – Arcanist + Mythic + Heavenly

[Link to Champion Page]

Neeko is the other 2-cost Arcanist, and she’s the first frontline unit for the trait. In general, Arcanist-like traits (Sorcerer, etc) lack frontline compared to other traits.

Because of this, you’ll often try to 3-star an Arcanist frontline like Neeko or Illaoi.

Neeko’s ability deals AoE damage around her, so positioning her toward the center can help hit more enemies. You can even put her as the solo frontline. This way, enemy units will wrap around her, maximizing how many units she hits.

Illaoi (3) – Arcanist + Ghostly + Warden

[Link to Champion Page]

Up next, we have Illaoi, another tank for the Arcanist trait. Illaoi is often utilized as one of the main tanks due to her defensive Warden trait.

Mostly notably, she pairs with Amumu, another Warden. Amumu is also Porcelain, meaning he fits into the Arcanist framework very well. These two make up a strong frontline while providing strong traits.

You can look to use Illaoi to flex into Ghostly, but Arcanist comps generally don’t need to splash Ghostly. It’s just something to keep in mind for the mid game to play strongest board.

Zoe (3) – Arcanist + Fortune + Storyweaver

[Link to Champion Page]

Moving on, we have Zoe, a 3-cost damage focused unit. Of all the Arcanist units, Zoe arguably sticks out the most. The overlap between Storyweaver, Fortune, and Arcanist isn’t super prevalent.

It’s more likely that Zoe will be used to flex Arcanist 2 into other comps, rather than vice versa. Even still, she is a strong unit and item holder for other comps. She simply doesn’t synergize as much as the other units in more vertical Arcanist comps.

Syndra (4) – Arcanist + Fated

[Link to Champion Page]

Syndra is the only 4-cost Arcanist, and she’s a damage focused AP carry. Her ability scales the longer the fight goes on as she casts more and more.

Like many other AP carrys, having mana generation will be crucial to spam her ability. This will also ramp her damage, so an item like Blue Buff is extremely important.

Lastly, while Syndra’s ability is single-target, she won’t waste damage if she takes down a unit halfway through her ability. Her butterflies will auto target to the next unit, so no need to worry about that.

Lissandra (5) – Arcanist + Porcelain

[Link to Champion Page]

Lastly, we have Lissandra, the 5-cost Arcanist. Her ability is a mixture of damage, utility, and loot generation. While she won’t be a hard carry like Syndra or Lux 3-star, she provides a lot of value to your team, especially if you find her early.

If you find Lissandra early, you’ll have more chances to potentially gain loot from her ability. This can help you snowball your team comp to the endgame.

Lissandra is also great for delaying frontline threats. Her ability will toss her target toward the enemy team, taking them out of the picture for a few seconds.

Arcanist 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.

You can check out the full list of Augments here.

Arcanist Crest

Gain an Arcanist Emblem and a Lux.

By default, there are 7 Arcanist units, but the trait bonus maxes out at 8. To reach 8, you will need an Arcanist Emblem from something like an Augment or an Encounter.

Arcanist 8 can be very potent, granting the entire team a ton of damage. However, you want to be careful when going for 8 Arcanist. If your frontline is too weak, your team will be mowed down before they can cast their abilities enough.

Even if you don’t go for Arcanist 8, having an Emblem can be very beneficial. You can turn a tank like Amumu into an Arcanist, which will buff up his ability greatly. You can also drop a weaker Arcanist you don’t want to use or have good items for.

Jeweled Lotus

Magic and true damage from your units’ Abilities can critically strike. Your units additionally gain 40% Critical Strike Chance.

The Arcanist trait provides a lot of Ability Power to your team. Because of this, you want to scale your units with things like Mana generation, Crit, Bonus Damage, etc.

Jeweled Lotus is the classic example of scaling ability damage with Crit. Since your units already gain so much Ability Power, giving them more won’t be as impactful as other sources that scale multiplicatively.

If you have Jeweled Lotus, be sure not to build Jeweled Gauntlet. You can also look to build other Crit items like Hand of Justice as well. While Hand of Justice isn’t usually best in slot, the bonus Crit synergizes nicely with Jeweled Lotus/Gauntlet.

Mind over Matter

Get a Training Dummy and an Ahri. Your Training Dummies have bonus Health equal to 100% of your Arcanists’ combined Ability Power.

As previously mentioned, Arcanist comps can struggle building a strong frontline. Most of the Arcanists are squishy outside of Neeko/Illaoi, and there are no 4-cost tanks.

If you plan to go for a 6 or 8 Arcanist comp, having this Augment can greatly improve your frontline. The training dummies will gain more Health based on your Arcanists’ AP, so it’s the perfect compliment.

Arcanist Team Comps

The Set has finally released, and our team has been working hard experimenting on the PBE. Here are some early team comps you can try out.

As the playerbase plays more and more games, stronger meta comps will definitely rise up the meta. Be sure to stay up to date on the current meta at our Team Comp Tier List.

8 Arcanist

[Link to Full Guide]

This first comp is a simple vertical Arcanist comp. You use the Arcanist Emblem on Amumu to pair Warden with Illaoi. His Porcelain trait also provides him some damage reduction, which is ideal for his role as a tank.

For the carrys of the comp, you want to either play around Lux or Syndra. You can have Lux hold items early, and if you find more copies, look to 3-star her.

If you can’t find more than 3/4 copies, you can decide to push levels to play around Syndra as your main carry instead.

For the frontline, you ideally want to 3-star one of your units. Illaoi or Amumu are ideal as they are going to be tanking the most for the team.

6 Arcanist 4 Porcelain

[Link to Full Guide]

This second comp uses the Porcelain Emblem instead of Arcanist to reach 4 Porcelain 6 Arcanist. The comp is largely the same, it’s simply an alternative if you can’t get Arcanist Emblem.

Since you can’t build Arcanist Emblem from components, this variation will be slightly more consistent. The comp is almost the exact same, except you replace Ahri for Thresh for some additional frontline. You can even swap Thresh out for Sett in the late game.

Other Arcanist Comps

These above two comps are simply the comps that focus on Arcanist. In the wider meta, there are a ton of team comps that can easily splash in 2-4 Arcanist. Here’s a quick look at some examples:

By familiarizing yourself with other comps that splash in Arcanist, you’ll be able to have a wider variety of team comps to try. Depending what units come in your shop, you can adjust on the fly and pivot toward the team comp that makes the most sense.

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.