TFT Set 16 Guide: How to Play Shadow Isles

How to Play Shadow Isles — TFT Set 16: Lore & Legends

Shadow Isles this set is where you collect souls from the death of any unit in combat. This makes it so your aim is for as many units on your team to die while killing your opponents units. Ideally, you want to have wins but one or two units wins rather than full wipe outs.

The Shadow Isle champions have unique ability power ups based on the number of souls you have picked up. The more Shadow Isle units you have, the more souls and better upgraded abilities you get!

At the increments of 2,3,4, and 5 you have a lot of flexibility of how many of these units you want to play, and this trait will likely offer a lot of flexibility in Set 16.

This guide was written by Silverfuse.

Explore all of the new Set 16 traits here!

Shadow Isles Trait Bonus

Whenever ANY champion dies, gain Souls. Shadow Isles champions' abilities are uniquely empowered based on the number of Souls you have.

Shadow Isles champions gain Attack Damage and Ability Power.

• (2) 1x Souls, 18% AD & AP
• (3) 1.30x Souls, 20% AD & AP
• (4) 1.60x Souls, 22% AD & AP
• (5) 1.90x Souls, 25% AD & AP

Shadow Isles Champions and Synergy

Shadow Isles has Warden as a natural synergy with a few other options after that:

• Viego (1G) - Quickstriker
• Yorick (2G) - Warden
• Gwen (3G) - Disruptor
• Kalista (4G) - Vanquisher
• Thresh (5G) - Warden

The Shadow Isles Trait

Shadow Isles is very thematic as it is all about collecting Souls, and once you collect enough Souls you can unlock the ultimate Soul Collector - Thresh. To do this, you will want to make sure you win or lose combats with close fights - ideally in a win streak or loss streak. A trick to do this is to make boards that are good at killing units, so make sure you have enough damage in the early and mid game to ensure that you are killing units and saving health.

Viego (1G) - Quickstriker

[Link to Champion Page]

Viego is 1 gold and a Quickstriker. His ability is Blade of the RUined King which has a passive and an active. His passive is that he gains attack speed based off his souls. His active ability is he deals (AD) physical damage to a target. Then, for the rest of combat Viego’s attacks deal (AP) bonus stacking magic damage.

Yorick (2G) - Warden

[Link to Champion Page]

Yorick’s ability Mourning Mist lets him restore (AP & Souls) Health. He throws a globule of black mist at the enemy who has dealt the most damage in this combat, preferring unique enemies. It 20% chills them for 4 seconds and raises the mana cost of their next cast by 20. It then deals (health) magic damage in 1 hex radius.

First, I must say that making casts raise by 20 is insane amount and especially in the late game this ability of delaying the opponent’s casts is super strong! I expect Yorick to make Warden boards as well as Shadow Isles boards due to his great utility of chilling and delaying casts!

Gwen (3G) - Disruptor

[Link to Champion Page]

Gwen is a Disruptor with the ability of Snip Snip! For only 30 mana she dashes around a target and snips based off her souls dealing (AP) magic damage to them and (AP) magic damage to all other enemies in a cone.

She does raw damage and could potentially be a rerollable carry in Disruptors and benefit from Shadow Isles feeding her Souls to give her more snips and essentially make her a hyper carry!

Kalista (4G) - Vanquisher

[Link to Champion Page]

Kalista is a Vanquisher with Endless Rend as her ability. This ability she summons spears based on the number of souls she has dealing (AP) magic damage to them and (AP) to all other enemies in a cone. Kalista will be played if she is a strong unit and Vanquishers are good.

Thresh (5G) - Warden

[Link to Champion Page]

Thresh can only be unlocked once you have collected 150 souls and then he will appear in shops. Thresh pairs nicely with Yorick due to their Warden trait. His ability The Box has a passive and active ability.

For the passive, each second he deals (AP & Souls) magic damage to all enemies within 2 hexes. He heals for a percent of damage dealt by this effect. Thea active is where he creates a prison of walls in a 2 hex radius that lasts for 5 seconds.

While active, the passive’s damage is doubled. When an enemy touches a wall, they take (AP) magic damage. If there are less than 2 enemies inside The Box at any time, drag an enemy into it.

Shadow Isles is one of the more straight forward traits in set 16, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a fun one. It is fun to watch all Souls be collected and watch your units gain stronger stats through their souls. I hope you enjoy this trait as much as I do!

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.