TFT update 13.6 patch notes: Gameplay changes, hero augment reworks & more

The TFT update 13.6 patch notes are now here, detailing all the latest changes that are being made to the game, such as the Glitched Out event, new ranked rewards, and many gameplay changes. 

Teamfight Tactics is a popular autobattler based on League of Legends, giving fans of the behemoth franchise another way to experience the universe and their favourite champions in a new strategic context. So, if you need to know all the latest changes coming to the game, check out our TFT update 13.6 patch notes. 

• Make sure to also check out the League of Legends update 13.6 patch notes. 

TFT update 13.6 patch notes: Glitched Out!! event

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As part of the new TFT update, players can take part in the Glitched Out!! battle pass, which contains a free and premium track full of different rewards. These rewards include: Little Legends, Star Shards, new arenas, and more. 

The event has also introduced some new capsules and skins that are available to purchase in the shop. These are the Ultra Nefarious Capsule, Zed's Data Cache, Chibi Zed, Shork (and a tonne of variants), along with some bundles. 

TFT update 13.6 patch notes

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Gameplay changes

Hero Augments

Threat Hero Augments were showing up too often with our updated Hero Augment distribution system. Unlike Spatulopolis, we’re protecting you from seeing too many Threats by implementing a few rules.

• The maximum number of times a Threat Hero Augment can show up as a tailored Augment per slot is equal to your active Threat trait level plus 1, unless there are no more non-Threat tailored Augments available
• 2-1 is still full random, so this does not apply there
• Threats rolled while as an option that is considered random (not tailored) do not count against this limit.

Glitched Out Carousels

Interdimensional-rift-sized changes are coming with our mid-set mechanic, Glitched Out Carousels, that you can read more about here. It’s worth mentioning that you can read up on some of our newest Hero Augments using the above link, too!

Glitched Out Carousels make each game feel distinct as early as Stage 2 by imbuing comps with items and tools from beyond that add variance to your comp despite your limited early game access to units, economy, and traits.

• Glitched Out Carousels always appear on Stage 2, but also have a chance to appear again between Stage 3 and 6. Most games will have two or less Glitched Out Carousels, but some games will have three.
• The later in the game a Glitched Out Carousel appears, the more impactful its glitches will be. Contents can include but are not limited to: Loaded Dice, Eggs, Anvils, Components, Duplicators, Tome of Traits.
• Regardless of whether or not they are Glitched Out, all Carousels will have items bounce off of the champion you select upon returning to your board. This is a feature that we planned to release with our Carousel updates this mid-set, but will be sticking around past this mid-set.
• Expect Glitched Out Carousels to pop up in Hyper Roll as well—they’ll be replacing Armories when they occur.

Hero Augment Reworks

With the mid-set goal of doubling-down on the best aspects of a set while doing away with the not-so-great parts of the set, we’ve retired a few Hero Augments that were either not working well in Monsters Attack! or that we just had more fun ideas for.

• Annie - Reflector Shield ⇒ Pyromania: Gain an Annie. Her spell is larger, and every cast, she stuns all targets hit for 1.5 seconds.
• Fiora - Frontline Fencing ⇒ Grand Challenge: Gain a Fiora. Every 4 attacks on the same champion, she deals 20% of her maximum health as magic damage, and heals for 9% of her maximum health.
• Fiora - Vitality of the Ox ⇒ Vitality of the Ox (no name change): Gain a Fiora. When you field her, your team heals 25% of their maximum Health every 10 attacks.
• Yasuo - Siphoning Winds ⇒ Winds of the Wanderer: Gain a Yasuo. His spell is larger and deals 20% damage.
• Alistar - Smash! ⇒ Stubborn: Gain an Alistar. Combat start: He 50% Shreds (MR reduction) all enemy units for 1.5 seconds.
• Alistar - Behemoth ⇒ Behemoth (no name change): Gain an Alistar. He gains 350 maximum health. His ability hits all adjacent enemies, and deals bonus damage to his primary target equal to 25% of his maximum health.
• Jax - Evasion ⇒ Grandmaster’s Training: Gain a Jax. When you field him, your team gains 20 Armor and 15% Attack Speed. These bonuses are doubled when your strongest Jax dies.
• Kai’Sa - Star-Crossed ⇒ Reconnaissance Team: Gain a Kai’Sa. At the start of combat, Kai’Sa and her two closest allied champions gain 40% Critical Strike Chance and their spells can crit.
• Fiddlesticks - Traumatic Memories ⇒ Scarier-crow: Gain a Fiddlesticks. Fiddlesticks continues absorbing Corrupted Souls even while no longer dormant. If he is still dormant after 8 seconds, he immediately casts.
• Ekko - Resonance ⇒ Destructive Resonance: Gain an Ekko. Ekko’s spell hits all enemies within 2 hexes, and deals 220% bonus damage, but no longer slows enemies’ Attack Speed.
• Syndra - Power Overwhelming ⇒ Not In Vain: Gain a Syndra. Your strongest Syndra gains 30 starting Mana, and 30% Attack Speed every time an ally dies.

Traits

Recon had power and functionality issues throughout Monsters Attack! Even when the trait was strong, there would be the occasional Vaynespotting, a phenomenon from League of Legends where carries would attempt to make a highlight play only to lose the affection of their teammates due to over-aggressive positioning. While this may be fun for those who play against Recon, even after several AI corrections, the frustrating experience of having your Recon carry roll into the opposing Duelist frontline was not worth keeping around.

With Galio leaving and Sivir revealing her secret identity as an InfiniTeam agent, only Janna was left with the Civilian trait, which we opted to remove entirely and give Janna some compensation carry power. Expect more Janna context on the forecast, later in these patch notes.

A.D.M.I.N. has been adjusted to accommodate Soraka’s departure and Warwick’s return. For example, on cast was largely carried by Soraka’s spam casts, so without her we’ve had to ship some considerable buffs for the option.

With Twisted Fate subbing in for Zed, vertical Duelist is now in need of frontline for their late game carry to ramp. By adding damage reduction to the vertical version, we give the mostly-melee comp some much needed survivability. That’ll help their new carry (TF) pump out the damage in explosive end game fights. With this new Damage Reduction we’ve had to pull some power out of the ramping Attack Speed from the trait.

Hacker is being updated to a 5-piece trait, as you are now able to reach 4 Hackers without an emblem, thanks to the Riftwalker trait’s best friend, Zac. We wanted to keep Hacker Emblem in the game (the set IS called Glitched Out!! after all) so we added additional tiers to Hacker while keeping it splashable with easy-to-hit breakpoints.

Ox Force has always been in a weird spot for us. Is it a frontline trait, a self-peel trait for Aphelios, or an Attack Speed steroid trait? Since it was all of these, it never really shined as any one of these. We’re changing it to a purely defensive trait that gives both Armor and MR, so you can splash it for a strong frontline, or hit 4 Ox Force to run a more durable Viego (recommended with Bloodthirster or Gunblade) as your carry. The trait still has the brief invulnerability, since this feature is the most visible and interesting aspect of the trait—I’m a big fan of it, but someone on the team *cough* Mort *cough* thinks less of it. Good thing they don’t have power over what I write here, right DortMog? That’s right—this is the Prism show and Ox Force is the best Force.

Being able to hit 6 Renegade without Augments meant we should probably put a chase breakpoint in there. But since going 3/6/7 wouldn't really work, we restructured the trait to 3/5/7 to ensure there was still a vertical Emblem chase for the trait.

When players shot for the stars by building vertical Star Guardian they often landed on the moon, lost along with their LP due to how difficult playing early game versions of the comp was. Despite having Guardian in their name, the comp often needed their own frontline guardians. With the trait being a fan favorite (even Urgot loves them), we’re restructuring it to be easier to splash and for a less punishing vertical persuit. The 2/4 Sureshot breakpoint felt a little clunky. Players should be sure about giving the trait a shot without the necessity of hitting an elusive 5-cost, Emblem, or Augment.

• Civilian and Recon have been removed
• A.D.M.I.N. Now gives 4 choices each activation
• A.D.M.I.N. 4 Piece Multiplier: 30% ⇒ 25%
• A.D.M.I.N. On Cast AP: 10 ⇒ 25
• A.D.M.I.N. On Cast AD: Enabled and set to 25%
• A.D.M.I.N. On Cast Chance to Drop Gold: 20% ⇒ 33%
• A.D.M.I.N. On Cast Flat Heal: 200 ⇒ 250
• A.D.M.I.N. On Cast Permanent HP: 10 ⇒ 18
• A.D.M.I.N. On Kill, Unit who killed gains
• A.D.M.I.N. On Kill, Unit who killed gains Mana: Disabled
• A.D.M.I.N. On Kill, Unit who killed Heals: 350 ⇒ 400
• A.D.M.I.N. On Kill, Unit who killed gains Permanent HP: 20 ⇒ 18
• A.D.M.I.N. on dropping below 66% HP, A.D.M.I.N. gains AP: 75 ⇒ 60
• A.D.M.I.N. on dropping below 66% HP, A.D.M.I.N. gains AD: 75 ⇒ 60
• A.D.M.I.N. on dropping below 66% HP, A.D.M.I.N. gains AS: 75 ⇒ 60
• A.D.M.I.N. on dropping below 66% HP, A.D.M.I.N. gains Shield,d: 10 ⇒ 15 sec
• A.D.M.I.N. on dropping below 66% HP, A.D.M.I.N. gains Permanent HP: 60 ⇒ 50
• A.D.M.I.N. on Ally Death AP: 20 ⇒ 18
• A.D.M.I.N. on Ally Death AD: 20 ⇒ 18
• A.D.M.I.N. on Ally Death AS: 20 ⇒ 18
• A.D.M.I.N. on Ally Death Gain Mana: Disabled
• A.D.M.I.N. on Ally Death flat Heal: 350 ⇒ 250
• A.D.M.I.N. on Ally Death Gold Chance: 25% ⇒ 20%
• A.D.M.I.N. on Ally Death Permanent HP: 15 ⇒ 12
• A.D.M.I.N. Combat Start, A.D.M.I.N. gains Mana: Disabled
• A.D.M.I.N. Combat Start chance to drop Gold: 40% ⇒ 50%
• A.D.M.I.N. Combat Start permanent HP: 50 ⇒ 40
• A.D.M.I.N. Every 5 sec, A.D.M.I.N. gains AP: 18 ⇒ 20
• A.D.M.I.N. Every 5 sec, A.D.M.I.N. gains Mana: 30 ⇒ 40
• A.D.M.I.N. Every 5 sec, A.D.M.I.N. chance to drop Gold: 20% ⇒ 25%
• A.D.M.I.N. Every 5 sec, permanent HP: 15 ⇒ 12
• A.D.M.I.N. Combat Start, Team gains Mana: Disabled
• A.D.M.I.N. Combat Start, Team gains permanent HP: 15 ⇒ 20
• A.D.M.I.N. Combat Start, Team gains chance to drop Gold: 20% ⇒ 25%
• A.D.M.I.N. Combat Start, Team gains max HP Shield: 20% ⇒ 25%
• A.D.M.I.N. every 5 sec, Team gains Mana: 12 ⇒ 20
• A.D.M.I.N. every 5 sec, Team chance to drop Gold: 10% ⇒ 15%
• A.D.M.I.N. every 5 sec, Team gains permanent HP: 5 ⇒ 7
• A.D.M.I.N. every 5 sec, Team heals: 150 ⇒ 200
• Brawler HP: 20/45/75/110% ⇒ 20/45/70/100%
• Defender no longer has a built in Taunt
• Defender Armor: 30/80/200 ⇒ 25/75/200
• Duelist Attack Speed per stack: 5/9/15/24 ⇒ 5/8/10/16%
• Duelist now gives 0/0/10/20% Damage Reduction.
• Gadgeteen Damage & Damage Reduction: 3/10% ⇒ 3/9%
• Hacker added a 5 piece
• Hacker Omnivamp: 15/40/70% ⇒ 20/30/40/50%%
• Hacker now gives the rider of H4ck3r!m bonus Omnivamp (0/10/20/30%)
• LaserCorps is now a 3/4/5/6 trait
• LaserCorps 5 and 6 now grant drones to your whole team
• LaserCorps Drone Damage is now 30/50/65/99
• Mascot has had Mascot 8 removed
• Mascot bonus per cheering Mascot: 1% ⇒ 1.5%
• Mecha PRIME HP Share: 100% ⇒ 90%
• Mecha PRIME fixed a bug where 5 Mech was lower HP share than 3 Mech
• Ox Force now gives (10/40/90) Armor & MR instead of Attack Speed
• Prankster added a 4 piece that spawns a 250 Health dummy and 2 second stun
• Renegade is now a 3/5/7 trait
• Renegade gives (25/40/65%) extra damage, and an additional (20/25/35%) to the last Renegade standing.
• Star Guardian is now a 2/4/6/8 Trait
• Star Guardian additional Mana Gain: 40/70/120/200% ⇒ 35/70/120/175%
• Spellslinger Ability Power: 25/60/95/140 & 150% ⇒ 25/50/80/120 & 100%
• Sureshot is now a 2/3/4/5 trait
• Sureshot grants 6/11/16/24% bonus AD at start of combat and each 4 sec
• Underground: added a Reforger to the Heist 1 cash out of 1x Item Component
• Underground: added a Reforger to the Heist 2 cash out of 1x Ornn Item
• Underground: increased Heist 2 value by 1g on the 18g options

Units: Tier 1

Reconnecting with her marksman roots, Ashe has joined a more accurate and AD focused trait that’s sure to prevent her from rolling into the clutches of the nearest Warwick.

We’re changing Lux’s targeting to make her more reliable and less luck based. By making her cast on her current target, we also don’t increase her power substantially. Now you have some autonomy over who your Lux targets, and hopefully can line them up against an AD enemy. With her newfound consistency in 2 Star Guardians and targeting, we also preemptively nerfed her mana making her take 6 autos to cast instead of 5.

• The following Tier 1 units have been removed: Galio and Talon
• Ashe is now a LaserCorp/Sureshot
• Ashe Ranger’s Focus AD ratio for additional AD gain: 40% ⇒ 60%
• Ashe Ranger’s Focus base AD gain: 12/18/25% ⇒ 15/22/33%
• Kayle AD: 50 ⇒ 55
• Lux Lucent Singularity targeting: Random ⇒ Current Target
• Lux Mana nerf: 0/60 >>> 0/70

Units: Tier 2

Ezreal seems to be everyone’s friend nowadays, but most importantly, he’s a friend of himself. His newfound self-love and Quickdraw traits have added power to the Underground’s prettiest unit, resulting in our preemptive nerf of his base spell.

• The following Tier 2 units have been removed: Sivir* and Yuumi
• Draven AD: 65 ⇒ 70
• Ezreal is now Underground/Quickdraw/Parallel
• Ezreal Sabotage Damage: 230/345/535 ⇒ 200/300/460
• Ezreal Sabotage now has a new spell when Parallel is active that does 110/165/255 damage to all enemies in a line
• Sivir* has been revealed to be an Infiniteam/Sureshot instead of a Civilian/Sureshot
• Yasuo max Mana buff: 0/80 ⇒ 0/70

Units: Tier 3

With her small Mana pool, Kai’Sa did not work well with Star Guardian, so we’re charging up her spell to make it worthy of carrying a reroll Star Guardian comp.

Vayne may have lost Recon, but we’ve been able to reconnect her with some buffs that will leave her rather strong in her remaining traits.

• The following Tier 3 units have been removed: Cho’Gath, Senna, Vel’Koz, and Zoe
• Kai’Sa is now Star Guardian and Quickdraw
• Kai’Sa Mana: 0/60 ⇒ 20/105
• Kai’Sa Starcharged Attack Speed: 45% ⇒ 75%
• Kai’Sa Starcharged Damage: 150/225/370 ⇒ 110/150/240
• Sona Crescendo Sequence 1st phase (Q / Blue) Damage: 175/265/430 ⇒ 190/285/470
• Vayne is now Anima and Duelist (lost Recon)
• Vayne AS: 0.75 ⇒ 0.8
• Vayne Silver Bolt AD ratio: 130/130/140% ⇒ 150/150/160%

Units: Tier 4

We’ve added quite a few new 4-costs that you can read about in gameplay overview. As for here, we will continue to discuss the units that are sticking around, but changing just a bit.

Bel’Veth’s ability to ramp is matched only by her ability to make new friends…with Void Remoras. With the additional damage Miss Fortune can receive from splashing Quickdraw, we’ve had to remove some of the bullet from Bullet Time—I guess you can say she bit the bullet this time? Nope, going to have my editor delete that one. Editor’s note: Not a chance. You sit there and think about what you’ve done.

Is this how Isolde became smitten with Viego? With Heart as a new trait, and Ox Force no longer granting AS, these balance adjustments should keep Viego breaking hearts and wiping boards clean like his washboard abs. With a reduced max Mana, be sure to pair him with Heart to quickly regain the lost damage and then some—each recastwill grant Heart stacks.

• The following Tier 4 units have been removed: Sejuani, Sett, Soraka, Taliyah, Zac*, and Zed
• Bel’Veth Mana: 0/30 ⇒ 0/40
• Miss Fortune is now Anima Squad/Ace/Quickdraw
• Miss Fortune Bullet Time Damage: 40/60/180 ⇒ 35/55/150
• Samira Flair AD ratio: 480/490/1250% ⇒ 460/460/1200%
• Samira Flair Base Damage: 80/100/666 ⇒ 66/99/366
• Viego is now OxForce/Renegade/Heart
• Viego max Mana buff: 0/50 ⇒ 0/45
• Viego Attack Speed: 0.75 ⇒ 0.8
• Viego Heartbreaker primary target Damage: 260/390/850 ⇒ 240/360/800
• Viego Heartbreaker secondary targets AOE Damage: 130/195/425 ⇒ 120/180/400

Units: Tier 5

As forecasted in our Traits section context, Janna is getting some significant changes to allow her to be slotted in as a late game carry for Spellslingers, or any team comp that has a few AP items lying around.

• The following Tier 5 unit has been removed: Aphelios
• Fiddlesticks HP: 1300 ⇒ 1200
• Fiddlesticks Armor & MR: 70 ⇒ 66
• Fiddlesticks Dark Harvest Damage: 100/150/900 ⇒ 85/130/800
• Janna AS: 0.75 ⇒ 0.8
• Janna Armor & MR: 35 ⇒ 45
• Janna Mana: 70/140 ⇒ 40/120
• Janna Twister! Damage: 195/300/3000 ⇒ 450/675/6000
• Nunu Biggest Roboball Ever! Damage: 125/190/2000 ⇒ 120/180/2000
• Syndra Allies thrown in by Syndra now trigger “On Ally Death” events.

User Interface Changes

In addition to our item bounce off Carousel changes described earlier, we’re shipping a few more subtle, quality-of-life UI changes.

• Champion Duplicator is now orange to prevent confusion with the blue Lesser Duplicator (Tier 3 and below)
• Item Remover’s color is more red so it doesn’t look like the new orange Champion Duplicator
• As a reminder, items held by units on the Carousel will pop off the unit upon returning to your home board.

Items

• Zz’Rot Portal: Added a line to the tooltip to say that summoned units will not have as much effectiveness when using Zz’Rot
• Spatula + Sword: LaserCorps Emblem ⇒ InfiniTeam Emblem

Hero Augments

We’ve significantly nerfed the Janna carry Hero Augment now that she’s a more exciting Spellslinger capstone carry on her own.

• Gangplank Flaming Ricochet bonus Damage: 90% ⇒ 80%
• Kayle - Divine Ascent bonus AS: 50% ⇒ 40%
• Lulu - Growth Spurt bonus AP per cast: 20 ⇒ 18
• Lux - Illuminating Singularity Bonus Damage: 135% ⇒ 120%
• Ezreal - Rising Spell Force AP & AS per cast: 20 ⇒ 16
• Jinx - Get Excited! Bonus AS: 40% ⇒ 35%
• Malphite - Rock Solid Armor Percent: 180% ⇒ 130%
• Vayne - Spread Shot bonus Damage: 65% ⇒ 50%
• Janna - Category Five bonus AP: 80 ⇒ 10

Augments

We’ve done some considerable balance explorations with one of our most exciting Augments, Cruel Pact, but we finally think we’ve found the goldilocks balance for it: putting the Augment in line with some of our other econ Augments that only proc during player combat rounds.

Currently, High Roller can only be played competitively to unlock very specific play patterns—the big one being its interaction with THREAT, which became a 100% force Threats situation if given the option for High Roller.

• Cruel Pact grants 2 HP per round ⇒ Grants 3 HP per player combat
• Duelist Crown Item given: Edge of Night ⇒ Hand of Justice
• High Roller has been removed from the game
• LaserCorps Crown has been replaced with LaserCorps Soul, which gives 1 additional LaserCorps. Gain a Yasuo and Hand of Justice.
• March of Progress now grants 4 XP immediately.
• March of Progress XP per player combat: 5 ⇒ Equal to your current player level
• Salvage Bin now only offered on 2-1. Also grants an additional item component after 7 player combats
• Added Salvage Bin+ which is offered on 3-2 and 4-2, and grants an additional item component after 4 player combats.

Modes

Double Up

Double Up is the perfect mode to play with friends and have fun crafting stronger comps than you can in standard. Unfortunately, by the end of Monsters Attack!, Double Up was feeling solved. The most optimal duo was having one player play a tankier stall comp, and giving all their items over to their partner who played a high DPS comp.

With the changes below, we put more emphasis on cooperating with your partner to strengthen each other’s boards with more consistent Lesser Rune use, while also preventing one player from hoarding all the items (a behavior that stifled comp diversity). Happy trading, Tacticians!

• Rune of Allegiances Items now pop off of units before the unit is sent to your partner.
• Rune of Allegiances is no longer granted at stages 4-3 and 6-1.
• The Lesser Rune of Allegiance now regenerates itself 5 rounds after you use it.
• After 4-1, your Lesser Rune of Allegiance upgrades to a Rune of Allegiance, and now regenerates itself 7 rounds after you use it.
• Gift Armories now offer an additional gift of the highest tier that the gift armory offers.
• Gift Armories chance at seeing the highest tier of gifts in the second gift armory reduced from 20% to 14%.

Hyper Roll

To support the Glitched Out Carousel mid-set mechanic, Hyper Roll games will have occasional carousels added (in addition to the starting carousel).

• Hyper Roll carousels take half as long, and release the bottom half of the lobby followed by the top half.

Bugs

• Sharing is caring: Mecha PRIME fixed a bug where 5 Mech was lower HP share than 3 Mech
• Special thanks (as always) to my editor

That's all for our explainer of the TFT update 13.6 patch notes, and now you know all the changes coming during the Glitched Out!! event.