TFT Assassin Build Beginner's Guide

TFT Assassin Build Guide Beginner Team Composition For Teamfight Tactics

Assassins are a very popular TFT build because they're really easy to play (you just mindlessly buy everything that says "Assassin") whilst being very strong. The main "downside" of Assassin builds is that you need to get six of them to become late game viable— provided you weren't lucky enough to get Assassin Trait items or Hextech Augments. Unlike previous sets, for Assassin hyper-carries you only have three choices: Akali, Shaco and Katarina so placing proper items on them will prove crucial if you intend to win. In this Teamfight Tactics Assassin Build Guide we'll showcase the most popular beginner-friendly TFT Assassin build and how to play it throughout the early, mid and late game, which are the best Hextech Augments for this build, as well as how to gear and position your units.

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Assassin Synergy Bonus

Assassin— innate: When combat starts, Assassins leap to the enemy backline. Assassins' Abilities can critically strike and they gain bonus Critical Strike Chance and Critical Strike Damage.

2 → +10% Crit Chance and +20% Crit Damage
4 → +30% Crit Chance and +40% Crit Damage
6 → +50% Crit Chance and +60% Crit Damage

Best Assassin Build

  • Twitch
    • Twitch fires a powerful bolt towards his target that pierces through enemies, dealing % of his Attack Damage plus bonus physical damage and reduces healing by 50% for 5 seconds.
  • Talon
    • Passive: Talon's first attack on an enemy causes them to bleed for magic damage over 7 seconds. Every 3rd attack on a target applies an additional bleed.
  • Shaco
    • Shaco goes invisible, briefly becoming untargetable. His next attack instead deals % of his Attack Damage plus bonus damage as physical damage, and is guaranteed to critically strike targets below 50% Health.
  • Katarina
    • Katarina jumps behind the enemy with the lowest Health within 3 hexes and slashes all adjacent enemies, dealing magic damage. Katarina gains Mana for each enemy killed by Shunpo.
  • Ekko
    • Ekko invokes an afterimage that bats a device towards the largest group of units. Upon landing, it deals magic damage to enemies within and applies reduced Attack Speed for 4 seconds. Allies inside gain Attack Speed for 4 seconds.
  • Akali
    • Akali dashes in a line through the most enemies, dealing magic damage and marking them for 7 seconds. When a marked target drops below Health threshold, Akali dashes again and executes them, dealing magic damage to enemies she passes through.
  • Blitzcrank
    • Blitzcrank pulls the farthest enemy, dealing magic damage and stunning them for 1.5 seconds. His next attack after pulling knocks up for 1 second. Allies within range will prefer attacking Blitzcrank's target.
  • Braum
    • Braum slams his vault door into the ground, creating a fissure towards his target. Enemies within 2 hexes of Braum and those struck by the fissure are stunned for a few seconds and take magic damage.

Assassin Team Comp Guide

Early Game

Assassins have a rather weak early game as their low synergy isn't quite worth it damage-wise, especially if the units don't have any items. A simple early core build would consist of: Talon, Twitch, Blitzcrank and Leona/Darius/Poppy. You'll find yourself on a lose streak, which is fine as it will boost your Gold amount and allow you to get higher interest values very quickly. The main strategy early on is to just keep a healthy economy and be prepared for the late-game Akali push.

Mid Game

In the middle game, around round 3-2 try to achieve level six so that you can get most of the units this build requires at this stage of the game. The core Assassin six-unit build includes: Talon, Ekko, Katarina, Shaco, Blitzcrank and Leona. This team composition grants your team Assassin-four, Academy-two, Scrap-two and Bodyguard-two synergy bonuses. At this point in the game Katarina is incredibly strong and you can gear her with the same items Akali would have & transfer them onto Akali later on when you get her (if you want to, of course). Both Katarina and Akali are excellent carries and ideally you'll want both of them to have items.

Late Game

In the late game you'll want to reach level 7/8 as fast as possible in order to re-roll for Akali if you haven't found her yet. Pick up Braum along the way as he'll do a lot of tanking and crowd-control at the front line while your Assassins deal with everything else. The main team composition is going to look like this: Akali, Shaco, Braum, Ekko, Blitzcrank, Katarina, Talon and Twitch. Some of the unit swaps that you can do: Darius instead of Braum and Leona instead of Blitzcrank.

Recommended Items & Hextech Augments

Akali → Blue Buff, Hextech Gunblade, Infinity Edge.
Katarina → Blue Buff, Hextech Gunblade, Infinity Edge.
Shaco → The Bloodthirster, Infinity Edge, Rapid Firecannon.

Obviously, the best Hextech Augment that you can get is additional Assassin units (so that you can get additional Syndicates). Another options include: Syndicate Augments, Academy Augments, omnivamp, bonus ad/ap for units in the first two rows, additional shields...

Unit Positioning

Assassins don't require any specific positioning because they always jump to the enemy back-line but you'll want to group them in a way that minimizes the loss of your hyper-carries. Place Braum and Blitzcrank in the front-line as they will tank the damage due to the Bodyguard trait. In one side of the back-line you'll want to place Twitch, Talon and Ekko. On the opposite side: Katarina, Shaco and Akali.

TFT Assassin Build Unit Positioning
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