Underground hype: Riot buffs TFT Set 8 trait, shaking up PBE meta

A big Teamfight Tactics Set Eight buff to the Underground trait will ship in today’s PBE patch heading into the holiday break, increasing rewards and locks cracked.

Riot Games is taking a break over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, with the TFT Set Eight balance team dropping one final change to the Underground trait before vacation time kicks in. Potentially one of the best traits in Monsters Attack!, the Underground trait has units earn progress towards unlocking heist rewards with each combat loss or win. Today’s PBE patch for Set Eight has the Underground hype, according to game design director Stephen “Mortdog” Mortimer, buffing locks cracked and improving Heist rewards. 

• Underground: Locks cracked per win from 1/2 to 2/3 
• Underground: Hyper Roll locks cracked per win from 2/4 to 4/6
• Underground: New drop possibilities added to Heist rewards
• Underground: Improved and more “exciting” rewards for completed heists of three or more. 

With each win or loss during combat, players who have the Underground trait activated will earn locks cracked toward completing a heist. Upon cracking nine locks, a heist is completed. Players then have the option to take the rewards or deny them and complete another heist, increasing the quality of rewards with each completed heist. There are a total of seven heists. 

Today’s buff to the Underground trait in TFT Set Eight will have major implications on the meta. Loss streaks are a common strategy and players who can get Underground units onto the board early have a good chance of completing three to five heists, and maybe even hitting seven. Before today’s buffs, Rayditz hit five Underground units at Stage 2-1 during PBE testing, reaping massive rewards.

Players are calling Underground the new economy trait of TFT Set Eight as most of the early completed heists contain a significant amount of gold. Later Heist rewards can include Radiant items and Ornn Artifacts in addition to massive amounts of gold. 

Other TFT Set Eight PBE changes in today’s patch included minor changes to Bosses during PvE rounds, along with new drop options for the Golden Egg Augment. Numerous bug fixes were also applied. 

• Gadgeteen: Items will pop off units that are put on the bench.
• Yasuo and Miss Fortune spells will count as one trigger for the ADMIN “On Cast” ability instead of two. 
• Ezreal and Jinx AOE spells that were missing should now hit units behind the original target.
• Bonus damage for Alistar’s Hero Augment has been resolved to pump out 30 percent of his maximum health as damage instead of 12 percent. 
• Urgot will no longer attack multiple targets upon getting Taunted. 
• Camille will no longer cast her spell if a target is not in range.

Players can test out all the new TFT set Eight PBE changes from yesterday and today throughout the weekend as the next update won’t take place until Nov. 29, according to Mortdog. The official release of Monsters Attack! is scheduled to take place on Dec. 7.