Illaoi (1G) - Bruiser
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Illaoi’s ability Tentacle Smash allows her to restore Health and slam a tentacle dealing (AD) physical damage to enemies in a line. With the bruiser trait and a healing ability, Illaoi will be a strong unit in the early game.
TFT has a history of front lines that heal in the early game being strong due to the damage in early game being applied slowly compared to mid and late game.
Twisted Fate (2G) - Quickstriker
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Twisted Fate is a Quickstriker with a passive ability where his attacks deal (AP) bonus magic damage. Every third attack, he throws 3 cards in a cone that deal (AP) magic damage but have reduced damage for each unit they go through.
He also has the ability Partners in Crime: When you field a Graves and Twisted Fate, both gain bonuses. Twisted Fate’s ability marks targets for Graves. When Graves kills a marked target, you gain Ability Power until the end of combat!
This makes it so you really want to field Twisted Fate and Graves together along with another front line Bilgewater unit in the early game such as Illaoi so you can start getting stacks of serpents.
Graves (2G) - Gunslinger
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Graves at 2 gold pairs with Twisted Fate due to their ability Partners in Crime. With this ability when Graves and Twisted Fate are fielded, Partners in Crime activates.
The strongest Twisted Fate marks targets for your strongest Graves while Graves gains stacking attack speed when attacking marked targets.
Graves also has a passive ability where attacks fire in a cone on a target dealing additional damage to other enemies hit. His active is where he fires an explosive shell at the target, dealing (AD) physical damage split among enemies in a 1 hex circle.
Nautilus (3G) - Juggernaut & Warden
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Nautilus is a tank unit with the passive of every 4 seconds and on cast the next attack deals damage in a 1 hex circle and deals (MR) bonus magic damage. The active is he gains (Health & AP) shield for 4 seconds.
Gangplank (3G) - Slayer & Vanquisher
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Gangplank is a Slayer and Vanquisher with the ability of Powder Kegs where he tosses barrels at the 3 nearest enemies and detonates them. They deal a mix of AD and AP damage. Barrels reduce their target’s armor by 10 increases to 30 if the damage critically strikes.
This will make it so Gangplank will want to have critical strike damage - ideally an Infinity Edge on him.
Miss Fortune (4G) - Gunslinger
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Miss Fortune is a Gunslinger with the ability Heartbreaker. Her passive attacks ricochet to the highest current health enemies dealing damage. Her active ability allows her to fire waves of bullets that land on the 2 nearest enemies.
The first wave deals (AD & AP) physical damage and the rest deal (AD & AP) physical damage. Every third cast, the number of waves is increased by one.
Miss Fortune’s Mana cost is low at 30 mana, so she will be a spam caster who will want at least one mana item to get a 3rd cast repeatedly so she can do additional damage with extra waves of bullet damage!
The Gunslinger trait is also activated with Graves on the board which will make Miss Fortune a primary carry in Bilgewater.
Fizz (4G) - Yordle
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Fizz also has the Yordle trait, so he does not have a strong secondary trait for Bilgewater. His ability, Playful Trickster costs 20 mana where he becomes briefly untargetable, then jumps to the farthest enemy within 4 hexes and deals (AP) magic damage to adjacent enemies.
For the next 4 attacks, he gains attack speed and deals (AP) bonus magic damage on hit. We have seen champions like Fizz multiple times including Akali from the last set.
Positioning for Fizz on each side of the fight will be critical. At only 20 mana, Fizz will likely be spam casting his ability, and repeatedly becoming untargetable. Fizz will be similar to as he is in League of Legends - extremely annoying - the flavor is right on target.
Tahm Kench (5G) - Glutton & Bruiser
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Tahm Kench is the 5 Gold unit of Bilgewater and it is great to see him return after being a Set 6 favorite 5 cost unit! His ability Devour allows him to devour a target for 2.5 seconds dealing (AP) magic damage and making them immune to other sources of damage.
During this time he gains durability. If the unit he is trying to devour is immune to crowd control, he deals (AP) magic damage instead. This is great because his ability won’t fizzle on units with immunity to crowd control!
If he is able to devour a unit, if they die while devoured, he spits out a random component they were holding or the unit’s cost in gold. Otherwise, he spits them towards the farthest enemy, briefly stunning targets on impact.
Tahm Kench’s passive Gluton allows you to feed him once per a planning phase where he permanently gains health, attack speed, or ability power based on the champion you feed him’s role and star level.
Tahm Kench has everything you could want out of a unit especially if you hit him early as his ability of farming gold and items makes you super strong as the game progresses! These abilities have historically made these type of units really strong.
On top of this, if you don’t get the value, Tahm Kench is able to stun backline units by spitting his devoured unit to the furthest enemies which are typically back line units.
Tahm Kench will be a premier unit throughout the set unless he is nerfed into the ground as he also has the Bruiser tag which synergizes with Illaoi and will make him strong throughout the game. I loved Tahm Kench in Set 6, so I am very excited to see him back again!
Set 16 is on its way and there are plenty more traits to read and learn about. I hope to see you for them!
Silverfuse
Thanks for reading! If you want to try and come up with your own team comps for Set 16, check out our Team Builder. For a full overview on the new set, check out our TFT Set 16 Reveal Page.
