The Teamfight Tactics in-depth guides strike again. Today we are covering The Scholar composition.
Introduction
The Scholar Composition in Teamfight Tactics is a composition whose trait is the Scholar trait. The Scholar trait is a very strong trait since it gives its units the buff of mana regeneration.
The Scholar composition’s buff is a strong weapon for its units, since a lot of those units are scaling Ap champions that benefit greatly from the mana buff, since it helps them cast their ultimates a couple of times per battle.
This composition is very strong, even on it’s own since it has some of the most powerful units in the game like Syndra and Silco. They have an immense power, but they lack sustain. So even though they are pretty strong on their own, they need some help in the form of sustain. In my opinion the best choice for that help are The Debonair and The Bodyguard traits and its units.
When we are talking about The Debonair trait, make sure that Syndra is your VIP unit since she is the most powerful champion in this composition, even though she is very cheap and may seem like a weak option. You should always have at least 3 Debonairs in the field, simply for the reason so Syndra can activate her VIP bonus.
This composition is somewhat Augment dependant since to activate the 6 Scholar maximum bonus you need another unit equipped with The Scholar Emblem, apart from the original 5 ones that the game offers. This shouldn’t be a problem since not a huge amount of players are playing this composition.
The Scholar Trait
Your team gains Mana every 2 seconds.
- 2
- 5 Mana
- 4
- 10 Mana
- 6
- 20 Mana
Champions
- Kassadin
- Syndra
- Zyra
- Renata
- Silco
Kassadin
Kassadin was in the game since the beginning of Set 6 but we were capable of seeing him in earlier patches. He was just as proficient in TFT like he was in Summoner’s Rift. He costs one gold coin, which is quite an affordable price for what you receive. Since he was Mutant and Protector in the previous patch he was more powerful. If you have put Garen with him on the field, you could activate The Protector trait as early as level 2. They were amazing in form both the damage they caused to the game as well as the damage they sustained from their shields were insane. After the patch 6.5 was released the Protector trait has been removed.
Kassa now is equipped with The Scholar trait, instead of the Protector trait. This is perfect, I think. It is now possible to pair Kassa with Silco , who has the similar trait. If you see the Mutant Emblem in any of your games, you are able to combine both of them using The Scholar trait or the Mutants trait.
He is a nice pick for an early game, and if you consider it, he does rock a fine two traits. The Mutant and The Scholar one. Both of those traits have an insane late game so he is a pretty cheap but strong pick for your composition.
His positioning should be in the front of the field since he is a melee champion. He had a lot more sustain before since his ability worked very well with the Protector trait, making him a very powerful champion and the one you could rely on even in the later phases of the game. Now he is a lot more squishy and likely to die very soon. This isn’t such a bad thing when you think about it, since that leaves a space open for your other Mutants to have his items or the ones that should be his, to be more precise. He should take the front middle of the board and take aggro.
I wouldn’t use any items for Kassa, but if you feel like a rebel, or you just have a magnetic remover to use later in the game, then I guess he could benefit from The Blue Buff, The Titan’s Resolve, and The Guinsoo’s Rageblade.
As he is a very cheap unit that has a large pool for the game, 29 to be accurate, he can be leveled easily, so you should abuse it and have him level three as soon as you can since it can save some of your HP and win you some fights until you have your later, stronger Mutant or Scholar units on the board, and ready for a fight!
Ability: Null Sphere
Kassadin fires an orb of void energy at his target, dealing magic damage, applying Mana Reave, and granting Kassadin a shield that reduces incoming damage by 30% for 4 seconds.
Syndra
I love her. So she is amaizing and fun to play. Also one of those champion that has great value for money, that’s The Debonair Scholar, Syndra.
Syndra came to Teamfight Tactics with the arrival of The Neon Nights. Since she arrived she has been one of the most important champions for both The Debonair and The Scholar traits. I do not know why, but she flies below radar a lot. I don’t think that many players understand how strong she actually is. She wipes the most powerful units from the board with her ultimate. And when she is a VIP unit, then she can wipe out as much as 4 units at once. I have had battles where she just wipes half of the board with one spell. That’s of course when she is a VIP. But she is great Scholar too, since the Scholar bonus allows her to cast her spell many times per battle.
Syndra should be your main carry if you are going for the Debonair composition and you should make her The VIP, simply because she is in the place where she is quite cheap, costing just 2 golden coins, and you can make her level three early on. And if you add the VIP bonus with that, in combination with some good items, in late game you are going to be God. But for that to work, you will need Scholars for your Supporting trait, since everything relies on her ultimate.
Her items should be a perfect combination of Mana, Ability Power and some Omnivamp. I think the items that work best on her are The Archangel’s staff, The Rabbadon’s Deathcap and The Hextech Gunblade. But the Blue Buff can work wonders too.
Like I said she is pretty damn cheap so she should be abused in any composition you play her. And she should be levelled up as fast as you can.
Her position should be somewhere in the corners of the midfield so she can stay fully protected and she should be your last living unit in every battle. So work that in your strategy.
Ability: Force of Will
Syndra flings the nearest enemy towards the farthest enemy, dealing magic damage to all nearby enemies upon impact, and stunning the thrown target.
VIP bonus: Force of Will’s impact area is larger and knocks up affected enemies for 1.5 seconds.
Zyra
Zyra is among the champions that stayed in the game throughout both sets 6 and 6.5. The unit costs two coins and is a slam dunk. Although she isn’t expensive she can do a lot of damage for her low cost. She is a perfect example of The Syndicate traits and The Scholar traits. While they’re not exactly harmonious or compatible however, they could be beneficial when you own The Scholar emblem or The Syndicate emblem, based on the type of composition you choose to play a particular game. Zyra can benefit from both of her compositions, however in a different manner.
The Syndicate composition will give her more endurance, through armor, MR and Omnivamp. The other one The Scholar composition will grant massive quantities of mana. This will enable her to use her ults every couple of seconds. This is a great option that you can get at the beginning of game. If you own at the very least Syndicate and Scholar, this is the one to keep.
She benefits from AP and Mana items, like The Blue Buff, The Spear of Shojin, The Rabbadon’s Death Cap, and The Jeweled Gauntlet.
She should be positioned somewhere in the mid or the backline, preferably in the middle, since she doesn’t have enough power nor strength to carry all by herself and has some utility with her ability to provide some support to your frontline.
She will be relatively easy to max since not a lot of people are playing The Syndicates nor The Scholar comp.
Ability: Grasping Spines
Zyra summons vines in the row with the most enemies, dealing magic damage and stunning them.
Renata
Riot’s latest sensation is here! I couldn’t wait to get to the point of the article and discuss about her since I am just amazed with her appearance and spells both in the Rift and in TFT. Look at her! Bravo Riot’s design team! After a few swings and misses in my opinion with the looks of new champions, they have hit the jackpot!
Renata appears to be like Kassadin and Robocop had a daughter and it feels so cool! There’s a cloak of mystery surrounding her, like Severus Snape kind of thing. She’s not evil, but she is the kind of powerful and evil that we often think of and wish to be. I’m not trying to make people mad, but it would be great to be the badass you are and fight the bully in your school. Wow! I’ve got a vivid imagination. I think we should revisit the guidelines as I am afraid I’ll wander off.
Alright, let’s continue? Renata is just a replacement for Lissandra. I personally think Lissandra had a more utility-based kit and was just a better champion overall since you could win any game if you had The Hextech Gunblade and Liss on her third level.
Renata doesn’t fall back, damage-wise, since she does damage to her enemies reduces their attack speed, but the most important part of her kit is that her damage stacks!
As you probably get by now, she is an AP type of champion. A scaling AP which finds uses both for The Chemtech and The Scholar compositions.
For items, I would go for The Rabbadon’s Deathcap Hextech Gunblade, and depending you are playing The Chems or The Scholars, you can switch between The Blue Buff and The Morello.
She should be positioned somewhere behind the front line, so she wouldn’t take aggro, but still won’t have to wait long to start attacking and stack mana so she can ult.
She should be one of your main priorities to get at level three asap since she is a game-changer, no doubt.
Ability: Toxic Wave
Renata unleashes a toxic wave towards the largest group of nearby enemies, poisoning all enemies in its path for 15 seconds. Poisoned enemies suffer 15% reduced Attack Speed and take magic damage per second. Damage dealt by the poison can stack.
Silco
This champion caused an uproar with his appearance and patch 6.5. Why is that? Because Silco is the first and only champion who isn’t an available in League of Legends as a playable character on Summoner’s Rift and ARAM that has joined the world of TFT. The whole League of Legends and TFT community had no idea what’s coming and what he was going to be like. He is the first, but not the last Arcane original character to be released in a video game format.
He’s quite a sensation in-game! I believe that was Riot’s strategy all along, since it’s the first that is of this kind and they wanted to be looking hot and stylish. Silco is certainly chic! Silco is an imposing and thin middle-aged man who has pale skin, black hair that is combed with gray streaks as well as a right blue-eyed eye, and large marks on the left part of his face. The most striking aspect of his left eye was the absence of an eyelid. His eye appears heavily discolored with an orange-colored iris, black sclera and lacks the sclera. He also wore a red and black three-piece suit made by the most prestige tailors of Piltover.
He has two traits, them being The Mastermind, which is unique to himself, and The Scholar trait that, works perfectly with this Mastermind trait. This was Riot’s plan all along, the champion that is compatible with himself.
The Mastermind trait: At the start of combat, the Mastermind grants the 2 allies directly in front of him 50 Mana.
At the cost of five gold coins, he is one of the premium TFT champions and one of the expensive ones, with a reason to since he is a gamechanger. If you manage to get him at least at level two, that’s a win for sure.
His placing is very important since that is his whole purpose in the game. To be correctly positioned. He buffs two champions that are placed in two hexes right in front of him. So position him wisely. He should be positioned behind two of your carries or two of your strongest tanks. Whatever the game needs.
The items: Silco mostly benefits from are The Spear of Shojin, The Chalice of Power, The Blue Buff, and The Rabbadon’s Death Cap.
Levelling: Silco should be a priority that I don’t even have to mention, so whenever you see one in the shop, you should go for it!
Ability: Unstable Concoction
Silco injects an unstable concoction into his lowest Health allies, granting them 100% maximum Health, bonus Attack Speed, and immunity to crowd control for 6/7/10 seconds. When the concoction wears off, unstable units die, dealing magic damage to nearby enemies.
Supporting champions
- Brand
- Blitzcrank
- Leona
Brand
Brand is the most recent champion that covers both Arcanist and Debonair traits. He is quite powerful champion considering that he’s just one gold coin. He is capable of doing damage and flexibility based on the strategy you select. However, one strategy is more powerful than the other, dependent on the type of comp.
If you choose to go with The Arcanist trait that is the most powerful, damage will be more concentrated on one specific target.
However, if the comp is for The Debonair trait or the comp with a VIP Debonair brand. The ability he fires has two instead of just one, which allows him to take down multiple targets using one mana stack. The blue buff will give you two extremely strong attacks, and possibly the ability to remove or hurt at least two enemy champions. It is important to keep this in mind. Brand thrives when he’s with his Arcanist group because they can give him a lot of AP without even giving him one item. Brand can even die quickly so that the stronger Arcanists can thrive and perform important work on the field. In the Debonair comp, you do not want him to die that quickly if you are going for the VIP Brand, but if you are not, then it’s okay.
If you compare him to Ziggs that has a same price, the difference is so big that we can simply say that there is no place for Ziggs in this set anymore.
If you are going to spend your items on him, then you should go for some basic AP items, like The Rabbadon’s Death Cap, The Blue Buff for mana, and The Archangel’s Staff, or The Hextech Gunblade for some omnivamp.
His position should always be somewhere in the back where he is protected if he is your prime DMG dealer, but if he is not, then position him around some other champions that are going to be your carries for that game, so he can take all the aggro and die before them. He shouldn’t have partially equipped items, so if you aren’t going full ap Brand, just don’t waste any items for him.
He is a one-cost unit, which means there are 29 Brands in the pool for that game, making him a very easy unit to upgrade to the maximum level.
Ability: Sear
Brand launches a fireball at the nearest enemy, lighting them ablaze for 4 seconds and dealing magic damage. If the enemy is already on fire, they take bonus magic damage which stuns them.
VIP Bonus: Fires a 2nd fireball at a different nearby target (prioritizes ablaze enemies) dealing 30% reduced damage.
Blitzcrank
What do you think TFT be like without his presence? The rocket grab is an iconic part of nearly 60 percent of TFT sets. While the robot’s rusty appearance does not cause a lot of damage, his rocket grab can sometimes do, when upgraded with the best ap items and being maxed out to the level three. It can also single-shot targets that are squishy, but it is only a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I’ll stick with the fact that he’s an extremely useful unit that can be utilized by any game, even if it doesn’t match your currently-used traits. Two traits are preferred by Blitz when it comes to traits. They are The Scrap and The Bodyguard traits that Blitz is very well with.
It is crucial to know the mechanism behind Blitz’s rocket grab. The Blitz will grab any champion located in the back-end of the map, and he will pull the champ from the very corner of the map. He will select the closest Hex Champion if there’s not any champions in the area. Blitz was greatly nerfed after patch 6.5. He could pull an opponent across the field , not only in corners, but the one that was standing across him on any place of the map. This was a huge benefit for any player playing Blitz at the time. He could simply observe his adversaries until the very final second prior to a fight and then switch his Blitz and put him in the hexagon he wants. Then he would grab the opponent’s champion and basically wipe it out from the game.
Blitz is nor front liner nor backliner, but somewhere in the middle of the field, both literally and figuratively speaking. He is a utility-only champion, and his only job is to pull one champion and knock him in the air. After that, his mission is complete, and if he doesn’t die instantly, anything beyond that is a bonus!
I usually don’t equip Blitz with items, but if you would like him to have a chance to pull the opponent twice, then you should go for The Blue Buff, The Spear of Shojin, The Titan’s Resolve.
His position should be in the first or the second row directly across the corner you want to pull the enemy champion from.
As for leveling, he is an easy champion to level to the max, and bear in mind that the more you level him, the longer he will live and the more chances you get more than one pull per fight.
Ability: Rocket Grab
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 prefer attacking Blitzcrank’s target.
Leona
Leona is so strong right now. Like every other Debonair unit she came along with The Debonair trait in patch The Neon Nights.
She is blessed with The Debonair and The Bodyguard traits. She works well with both of them. If you are going for The Debonair comp, her VIP bonus can be a nice addition if your secondary units are Bodyguards and you will have the strongest frontline in the game there is.
The same goes for The Bodyguards, since her sustain is ridiculous. With some nice sustain items she can be almost impossible to kill. Her price is 3 golden coins, and even if it may seem like a lot, you do get a nice unit for your money. Since she is an aggressive frontline tank with a nice ultimate. The only problem is, since she is somewhere in the Mid-range when it comes to the price, is that there won’t be as many Leonas in the champion pool, as a person would like.
This shouldn’t come as a problem considering that not many players are playing The Bodyguards, but a lot of them play The Debonairs, so it is a little bit of a challenge to get her to level three.
Her items should be standard tank items like The Titan’s Resolve, The Warmog’s Armor and The Sunfire Cape. The Bramle’s Vest and The Dragon’s Claw are great choices too.
If you get a chance to level her up, you should definitely do that since she is not a waste of money, but rather a great long lasting unit.
She should be placed in the front line so she can take as much aggro as she can, and while taking a lot of damage, her mana pool will fill up a lot faster, so hopefully she will be able to cast her ultimate a couple of times per battle.
Ability: Solar Eclipse
Leona calls down a beacon of light, granting herself shield for 4 seconds. Leona and allies within 2 hexes gain Armor and Magic Resistance for the same duration.
VIP Bonus: Heals for 0.8% of max HP for each enemy targeting her.
The Scholar Composition
The In-game guide
Early game
This is one of those games and compositions that you need to plan ahead, since if you don’t you are likely to lose many HP trough the early stages of the game. You need to decide what your supporting champions and traits will be and try to build that from the beginning and add your Scholar units as you go. You should always start with Kassadin or Brand. After that you go on Syndra and Zyra.
Mid game
This is a time in the game where the things should be forming slowly, and you should have at least 3 Scholars in your team. Try to get Leona and Blitz for the Bodyguards trait and to complete the Debonair bonus on your champions, especially Syndra.
Late game
At this time you should give it all you got in the terms of gold and just sheer stubbornness and go for Renata and Silco. Place Silco behind your first two units since his buff makes them die after 10 seconds, and they are unlikely to survive past that even without his buff/nerf, since their job is to take as much aggro as possible.
Conclusion
The Scholar guide is complete! There are a couple of guides left to cover in Set 6.5, but don’t despair since we will always be here and update some fun new content every day about our favourite game, Teamfight Tactics.
Stay tuned, and wait for the newest posts about the world of Teamfight Tactics, only on The Games Cabin!