Tiaan here, a Challenger player in every set and currently hovering around Rank #100 in EUW.
Shredder is a comp that has popped up after the latest patch and it has gained immense popularity in high ELO in a very short time. It is incredibly effective at dealing with Vanguards due to Last Whisper being Xayah’s #1 core item, and with Poppy being so prevalent in this meta, it is a solid anti-meta comp.
Table Of Contents
Strengths
Simple playstyle – it’s hard to get lost when you only need to pick up three units early-game and then try to 3* all of them
Very early power spike – if you hit your units you’ll win streak for a long time after 3-2
Strong anti-meta comp– Xayah with Last Whisper shreds through Vanguards which are extremely prevalent in this meta
Weaknesses
Single target carry – Xayah, your main carry, can only hit one unit at a time which means she takes a while to cut through teams
Inconsistent roll down– Your roll down can end in one of two things, you hit a few 3*s and you win streak for a long time, or you do not and you’re left with a crippled economy and a weak board
Items
Carousel Priority
First Carousel
Glove
Bow
Sword
Vest
Tear, Cloak, Belt, Rod
For future carousels, focus on Xayah until she has two offensive and a defensive item.
This comp is a little different in the fact that you only have one real carry to itemize but I’ll go over some other good items to put on the other units that you 3*.
Basically any good general use tank items can be put on your frontline.
Rakan
Items: Shojin > Morello > Tank Items
Strategy
Early Game (Stage 1 & 2)
This is a hyper roll comp so don’t buy any XP before 3-2.
You want to keep the four core units in the comp around at all times, especially when you’re getting contested. Xayah, Fiora, Jarvan IV, and Caitlyn are to be kept at all times. The early game is quite simple, all you want to do is play your strongest board, without sacrificing econ, and pick up all the core units you can.
This is the ideal Level 5 board so try to play something like this at Level 4 minus the Jarvan ideally. If you don’t have these units early then just try to play 2 Vanguard frontline with Xayah in the back, or consider Space Pirates by adding Darius and Graves as your frontline.
Mid Game (Stage 3 & 4)
This is your final mid game comp. You can replace Ashe with Xin Zhao or Rakan if you can’t find her. I’ll start this section off with the roll down after Krugs, first explaining hyper rolling.
Hyper rolling is one of the rolling strategies in TFT. It has been in around for a long time, but this is the first time it has been meta in this set, due to the changes in champion odds and the buffs to various 3* 1 cost units. It consists of saving up all of your gold until 3-1, where you roll down at Level 4 to try and 3* a select few 1 cost units.
It’s effective because it costs so little to 3* a 1 cost unit that you can often hit multiple of them in a roll down, or at least get very close. It’s particularly effective because you roll down right after a PvE round, where you get an additional round to econ up and potentially get gold drops.
There are some nuances to hyper rolling, and you need to gauge if you need to go down to 0 gold or not. If you’re extremely close to 3*ing Xayah then it might be worth it to go all in to find the last one you’re looking for, if you only have 5 Xayahs and you only have 15 gold left, then you should probably stop and gather more gold before rolling down a second time at Level 5.
When you’re hyper rolling there are times where you have too many units on your bench. Here is the priority of units you want to keep in case you need to sell any to make space.
Xayah > Jarvan IV> Fiora > Caitlyn > Shen
You need Kassadin, Rakan, and Ashe for this comp but I don’t think it’s worth picking them up during the first roll down unless you hit everything else already. Also, note that you’re not typically looking for 3* Shen but picking up a 2* Shen is fairly important.
After you’re done rolling down you’ll typically find yourself in one of three situations.
You hit multiple 3*s.
You’re very close to a lot of 3*s, maybe hitting one.
You’re quite far off some 3*s.
If you find yourself in Case 1 then congratulations, you’re probably going to be cruising to an easy Top 4. Econ back up to above 50g and use your leftover gold to level up, slowly adding in relevant synergies.
Cases 2 and 3 are where inexperienced players typically make their biggest mistake. When you don’t hit everything you do not continue rolling every round, you need to build up money again or you’re killing your chances at getting stronger late game. Save up gold again until 4-1, where you’ll make your second roll down attempt to finish off your 3*s.
Late Game (Stage 5+)
Late game starts after your second roll down (if you needed to roll down again) where you have all your 3*s and are now preparing to add more units to your comp. You need to have a good econ at this stage until Level 8 where you can complete your comp.
If you are win streaking and you have enough gold, you can slow roll for Kassadin, Shen and Rakan 3* at Level 7 before going Level 8. However, getting to Level 8 is fairly important for this comp as 4 Celestial is a big power spike.
Rakan is the next best after your six main units, because of his CC and Protector trait. Kassadin is the best 8th unit because of his insane utility and the fact that you don’t need Xin Zhao for Protector anymore. If you can get your hands on a Lulu 2* then swap her in for Kassadin.
Tiaan has been playing TFT since its inception. He finished Challenger in S1, got Challenger in S2 (then decayed after), and has even achieved Rank 1 in Set 3. He enjoys sharing his passion for the game with our readers and helping them climb!
