TFT Set 17 Guide: How to Play Anima

How to Play Anima — TFT Set 17: Space Gods

It would not be a real TFT set without having an economy cash-out trait, and that trait this set is: Anima. Anima offers bonuses to players who play 3 or 5 Anima and lose fights. Each fight the player loses, they earn “Tech” while earning more Tech with a higher number of losses. On top of this, players can also earn Tech by killing enemy units so players are incentivized to play a strong enough board where they kill some units while still losing. 

Tech can be traded in at 100 Tech for new Anima Weapons. You can take these weapons, or you can risk it by skipping them and going for more Tech in order to cash out even stronger Anima Weapons! 

In Set 13, we had the Chem-Baron trait where players would cash out Shimmer for unique items. There were some incredibly strong cash out items that were often game winning. I would expect there to be some insane combos for these new Anima weapons as well!

This guide was written by Silverfuse.

Explore all of the new Set 17 traits here!

Anima Trait Bonus

Champions: Briar 1g / Jinx 2g / Aurora 3g / Illaoi 3g / Fiora 5g

After losing a player combat, gain 15 Tech, plus additional Tech equal to 5 times the length of your loss streak. Additionally, gain 2 Tech per Anima takedown.

Each time Animas get 100 Tech, they prototype new Anima Weapons. You can take them, or save your Tech to get more powerful weapons next time.

• (3) Start Researching! 
• (6) Gain a loot Orb upon win.

Anima Champions and Synergy

Anima only has a few units, so there are not many synergy options, but this is by design to keep the economy trait from being too overpowered:

• Briar (1G) - Primordian + Rogue
• Jinx (2G) - Challenger
• Aurora (3G) - Voyager
• Illaoi (3G) - Vanguard + Shepherd
• Fiora (5G) - Divine Duelist + Marauder

The Anima Trait

Anima naturally has 5 units that fit the trait. Briar, Jinx, Aurora, Illaoi, and Fiora. This means that at 2-1 a player will need to have hit a 3 gold unit - Aurora or Illaoi in order to have this trait ready to go from the get-go unless the player has an Anima spatula. 

This is a common design so that players have to have a 3 cost unit to have an economy trait in order for players to not be able to hard force the economy trait. 

However, this means that if you get an Aurora or Illaoi drop during your stage 1 PVE rounds, then you should be looking to pick up Jinx and Briar to have the Anima opener!

There are no overlapping traits between the units naturally, so you will have to mix and match other units in order to activate Anima’s additional traits. For example, using Jinx with Challengers may be an option to be able to get some unit kills to get some additional Tech in order to get 100 Tech to cash out.

Briar (1G) - Primordian + Rogue

[Link to Champion Page]

Briar is a 1 gold unit with two additional traits: Primordian and Rogue. She has a passive where for every percent of missing health, she gains attack speed (AP). For her active, she deals (AD) physical damage to a target and additional damage to tanks.

This makes it so she can be on the front lines and can act as a tank shredder in order for your team to get some additional kills for tech. Place her in front of tanks to be able to take advantage of her ability!

Jinx (2G) - Challenger

[Link to Champion Page]

Jinx is a Challenger unit who is meant to be a carry. Her ability is Fishbones! Lets her fire a barrage of bullets based on her attack speed in a cone, each dealing (AD) physical damage to the first target hit. She will likely be one of the main units for killing units in the Anima trait.

Aurora (3G) - Voyager

[Link to Champion Page]

Aurora is a 3 gold unit with the Voyager trait. Her ability Hopped-Up Hacks opens a hex rift containing the target, hacking enemies within the hex and dealing (AP) magic damage to each, plus split damage (AP) magic damage split between all enemies hit within the hex rift.

A note for Aurora is that because her damage is split between multiple enemies, she may be good at dealing damage to enemies, but not necessarily cleaning them up. This means her role as a carry will likely need an additional carry to actually clean up and kill enemy units. This also might make her not the best idea as an early game carry due to the split damage.

Illaoi (3G) - Vanguard + Shepherd

[Link to Champion Page]

Illaoi is a 3 gold unit with Vanguard and Shepherd making her a tank unit. She has the ability Test of Spirit which allows her to gain an (AP) shield for a couple seconds. Over the duration of the shield, she drains health (AP) from the nearest enemies. Then she slams down, dealing (AP) magic damage to all enemies within 2 hexes.

This makes her the primary tank of the comp who can scale into late game if needed as well due to her 2 hex range.

Fiora (5G) - Divine Duelist + Marauder

[Link to Champion Page]

Fiora is the top cost of the trait and is what allows you to get your 5th part of the trait to start healing up 3 health per a fight. Her ability - Perfect Bladework has a passive where every number of attacks she reveals a Vital on the target. If a Vital exists, she dashes to attack it, dealing (AD) bonus true damage and to heal for a percent of the damage dealt. 

She also has an active where she reveals VItals on the target and quickly attacks them all. If the target dies, remaining Vitals transfer to the nearest enemy. Upon striking the final Vital, she creates a two hex aura that heals allies with for (AP) over time.

In stage 1, you will want to look for an Aurora or Illaoi unit drop from a PVE orb in order to get the “reach” unit in order to activate the trait. You will want to have the trait active with damage items on one unit. This will likely be Briar or Jinx. You will want to clump all your units together so they are targeting the same unit at the start of each fight. This is in hopes that the units all target the same units to gun it down so you get an extra unit kill to get additional Tech as well as saving your own health. 

By stacking items on a single unit, you give yourself the damage to be able to kill an extra unit. Without items, you will likely not have the damage to kill enemy units unless someone is intentionally playing a weak board.

For these econ-focused traits, it is very important that you are scouting or checking out your opponent’s boards. Are they strong? Are they weak? Which side of the board are they on? You will want to move your units into the best position to kill an opponent’s unit each round. This will often be clumping your units on the left or right side of the board. If a player is playing an extremely weak board, then you will not want to slam items and instead play two ranged units in the bottom right corner while cornering a melee unit that cannot leave out of the pocket of the board. This makes your opponent’s units walk up to your ranged units and kill them first and the melee, more tanky unit last. This is one of the most common ways for economy traits to sacrifice the round loss while still having the economy trait on the board.

It is important that you do not push the level up button for these boards and save as much gold as possible. If the opponent’s boards are weak, then even when you naturally level to level 4 - you might not add a fourth unit unless you are sure you will lose the next round. However, if your opponents are strong, then you will want to add the fourth unit and clump your units so they target a single unit in order to kill it to maintain extra health and get extra tech!

Augment and God choices should be more on the simple side. As in the early game, you are weak, so you should play weak. This means that you will want to make augment selections that are either economy focused or late game focused. This is because you are not wanting to win early rounds, but you want to be super strong in the late game. So, you will want to make augment choices that reflect this.

Thanks for reading! If you want to try and come up with your own team comps for Set 17, check out our Team Builder. For a full overview on the new set, check out our TFT Set 17 Reveal Page.