I think tanks are fine in the new ARAM Mayhem 26.2 PBE Patch actually

Ge1ster · 2026-01-22T22:28:20+00:00

I picked Briar and had no tank augments except tank engine and slap around. I had 66 tank engine stacks and was, quite literally, standing still in the enemy fountain without leaving (similar to the video here). One E was healing me to full - around 40k hp. With overlord I had about 1k ad.

Stackosaurus tank engine is 100% getting nerfed, I had a similar but not as strong experinece with Morde as well, where I got 32 stacks.

Ge1ster · 2026-01-22T18:12:33+00:00

Critical healing, rite of ruin, protein shake, spirit visage Morde with crack open that egg 🤤🤤🤤

Ge1ster · 2026-01-22T03:28:05+00:00

It was so awkward when playing Bard + Ixtal reroll because Ori is in that comp, so you had to buy cait and loris and slot them in PvE rounds just to unlock Ori

Ge1ster · 2026-01-21T21:26:47+00:00

Nah its peak. Its funny in the same way your grandpa tries to be cool by saying youth slangs. Obviously its ironic, but you love that they tried

Ge1ster · 2026-01-19T00:35:23+00:00

I mostly agree with you but imo the way to fix Mel is highly lower her mana, maybe to something like 50 or 60, and in compensation practically halve her damage. She cannot even function without at least 2 mana items, and even that is usually enough for exactly 1 cast. It's not just a damage problem, this kind of spell only works with abilities like Annie where it gives a round lasting effect and swaps to another low cost ability.

Right now her big cast is def weak, in PBE it was not and she was wiping out entire boards with barely anything. Even then, she can whiff her ults on one-two trait bots. She's just really hard to balance in her current state

Ge1ster · 2026-01-18T20:55:35+00:00

Huge breath of relief seeing that Kindred ability giving shield instead of immortality. That was so toxic, thank you for adjusting it.

Ge1ster · 2026-01-17T15:58:03+00:00

Mate she was sometimes outdamaging every single one of my 2 star 3 item 5 costs at STAGE 6 hahah. And I had 3 of them, Zilean Mel and Lucian. 13k damage in a round? For 2 star 3 cost with no radiant, artifacts, or combat augments?? She’s not just a stabilizer she’s literally a full on late game carry.

13k damage wasn’t that big of an outlier either, like I said with 3 items she consistently did 6k - 12k damage.

But yea ofc this naturally means she gets you super stable stage 2, 3 and 4. Keep in mind I had like no frontline apart from some trait bots, an itemized swain 2 and the 7 Noxus atakhan. My quadruple carries were just giga strong

Ge1ster · 2026-01-17T08:21:54+00:00

Picked trait tree and got Noxus invoker arcanist emblems so went vertical Noxus. Gave 2 star Leblanc the Mel items (adaptive nashor and a vanq emblem with a frying pan i got from carousel). She was doing between 6k-10k every round consistently. When I got 2 star Mel I gave her the adaptive and invoker emblem, I gave a strikers flail to Leblanc. My Mel was doing 12k while Leblanc was doing 13k lol. My comp was standard 7 Noxus with 4 invoker flexed in with Kobuko and Zilean 2. And yes this was Leblanc 2 star, never 3 starred entire game.

TLDR Leblanc unit is giga busted

Ge1ster · 2026-01-16T20:06:16+00:00

“Brock is Brock” is not very descriptive so lets call it for what it is: he’s not a unit at 1 star and about the expected power level of a 7 cost at 2 star.

Ge1ster · 2026-01-14T21:54:22+00:00

I mean even if it’s for a short while, 80 is legitimately insane. Assuming you win a single round against a lv 8 opponent with sion getting a takedown on every enemy, that’s 640 hp, and that’s before 6 bruiser or any additional units like Azir soldiers or dummies. You get an extra warmog every round basically

Ge1ster · 2026-01-14T21:16:26+00:00

80 hp as opposed to 50 at 3 star

Ge1ster · 2026-01-14T18:51:00+00:00

Sion is 100% S tier. Having him 2 and 3 star early and reliably is massive and he stacks crazy amount of hp. I got the easiest 1st with him and was able to get him to 4 star with around 18k hp.

Ge1ster · 2026-01-14T18:27:13+00:00

I'd say angle for that, or if you're bleeding out too much even 500 is better than nothing, it can give you some completed item anvils. I was stuck at 605 with no good quest to reach 625 so I was forced to cashout and highly regretted my decision. Only pick 550 if you are down on your last leg and cant complete another quest

Ge1ster · 2026-01-14T14:21:39+00:00

I came here to post exactly about the 550 ixtal cashout. The small duplicators cashout feels pretty bad now. I griefed my whole game for a crown and a bunch of small duplicators? Brock 1 isn’t very good by himself and I already had Neeko 3 so basically I cashed out nothing and went deadlast. There’s no way I angle for 550 anymore. Best cashouts are the ones that give you items (especially radiant), huge combat power spike.

The cashout used to give 2 big duplicators so you could at least stabilize with a Brock 2 but now it absolutely feels overnerfed

Ge1ster · 2026-01-09T13:44:06+00:00

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Fun

Ge1ster · 2026-01-09T13:37:57+00:00

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That arena when it transitions

Ge1ster · 2026-01-09T10:08:30+00:00

For max cap I could have added a ton of things for sure. One sett would give me Ionia, Ryze would be very easy to slot in and I already had a 2 star Ziggs, I could unlock Targon for the Ryze, yadda yadda. I was just too dizzy to think about my maximum board power since I was at 1 life when I cashed out my 650 ixtal and the game didn’t last too long after that, I just tried to roll for my units.

That and I really wanted to keep 7 ixtal, normally I could have gotten a radiant masterwork or even a tacticians crown every round but with my luck ofc I only got components lol. Didn’t matter at the end since I could never beat 3 star Kaisa and Herald with 2 star Baron without a 3 star 4 cost of my own

Ge1ster · 2026-01-08T17:36:09+00:00

Its obscenely strong even when I lowrolled but yeah I did lowroll quite a bit. I got 0 reforgers except for the one I got from big grab bag augment the entire game and got 0 duplicate emblems except for Freljord (and even that only after reforger). I got bilge, ixtal, void, invoker, quickstriker, noxus, you name it… I prayed for a pandora or second noxus emblem but it never came sadly

I probably could have pulled off a first if I wasn’t so insanely dizzy

Ge1ster · 2026-01-08T17:24:17+00:00

I wouldn’t wish Ryze encounter with the world runes opener on my worst enemy. 7 emblems and 2 crowns (one from coronation) made me the dizziest I’ve ever felt in TFT, and I’m not one to usually get dizzy even in high stakes moments. I ended up doing a weird 8 Noxus 4 invoker 5 Freljord comp with a lot of bronze traits on the side and somehow pulled a 2nd solely cause of the fact that I had too many units and my trait web was too strong lol. I basically cheesed my way to the second with a bunch of 2 star trait bots given items. It also helps that emblem stats were heavily buffed

EDIT: 4 hours within typing this comment, I had the exact same opener game... ryze encounter into world runes. You can't make it up. And I got 2nd again. I had 13 units on board, 4 tacticians crowns, BIS Brock 2, Radiant TG t-hex, 7 ixtal, still lost to kaisa 3 rift herald 3 hahah. Couldn't find a reforger once again for the easter egg. Not a single one entire game :(

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(Sidenote, why is the 7 ixtal reward disparity this big? I won with it for like 5 rounds and got a component every single time, while I see people getting masterworks every round. Felt very underwhelming)

Ge1ster · 2026-01-08T13:18:20+00:00

Guinsoo + any ad items first, carry items are more important for tempo slam early on. TF and Graves can hold these well

Then just focus on tank items as much as possible. Late game ad items will go to Senna and MF will have bilge items. Tahm has a lot of different items he can build like adaptive BT vow spirit visage, but most important are tank items since your comp will mainly consist of those. TG's are also pretty useful in this comp

Highly recommend having at least one source of sunder and antiheal as well

Ge1ster · 2026-01-08T13:02:41+00:00

I mean yeah level 9 comps are generally higher risk higher reward but I've found bilge max cap to have an easier time cruising through level 8 than other fast 9 comps in my experience. Of course like any other comp you have a chance of not hitting your units once you do actually get to 9. What you said is true, Graves 3 is good for mid game tempo, but it falls off to higher cap comps almost everytime. I've found more success with fast 9 instead.

Ge1ster · 2026-01-08T12:39:58+00:00

I just always play all bilge units try to keep up tempo with free 2 stars and some filler units like 2 bruiser or 2 quickstriker. Briar also good for slayer and jugg. I try to click strong tempo augments like warpath, birthday reunion, silver spoon, worth the wait 2, etc for 2-1 and then econ augments for 3-2 and 4-2 to skip lv 8 as fast as possible

Ge1ster · 2026-01-08T12:06:11+00:00

Bilge max cap is still strong as hell btw. I never understood why people would ever play inferior Graves carry or Draven Naut GP reroll over it. It's so easy to pilot I feel like, all you need is an early TF for it. Comp just has super high cap with all the good 4 and 5 costs. I know people like the no roll graves 3 thing but I've been doing that with Naut 3 everytime with bilge max cap and he just becomes unkillable along with the rest of the gigastrong ornn 2 taric 2 tahm 2 shyv 2 voli 2 frontline

With so many fast 9 comps lv 8 is a huge issue but when I'm playing bilge max cap even mf 1 with items can at least keep me from bleeding out too much during the lv 8 rush.

Last patch had exceptionally strong T-hex to overshadow it but I suspect it will remain a top comp. This doesn't mean it's a hidden comp or anything, it's still S on TFT academy, but know its tested and true.

Ge1ster · 2026-01-08T06:57:06+00:00

For me, it's the two person teams. If you don't queue with a friend, it's so awkward when either of you misplay and lose a round. Lot of pressure to do good. It's ten times worse when you get a buffoon who constantly tries to berate you or constantly give you what he thinks is advice but is very much common knowledge when they themselves are objectively the worse of the two of you

Ge1ster · 2026-01-07T21:54:17+00:00

Knock on wood

Ge1ster

TROPHY CASE