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Custom Fan-design | September 2020

K/DA: TFT Synergy

K/DA is back, and these popstars deserve their own place within the Teamfight Tactics Galaxy! Attacking with their stunning visuals and vocals; these girls will not only win the hearts of their opponents, but every team fight they star in!

Overview

My goal for this fan-design was to create a new Teamfight Tactics Synergy based around the theme of K/DA (Pop/Stars, Fan Club), featuring the K/DA popstars; Ahri, Akali, Kai’Sa, and Evelynn. With the recent announcement of K/DA’s return, and as a fan and avid player of TFT, I wanted to contribute to the hype by imagining them within TFT’s Set 3: Galaxies.

Shout-out to my TFT battle buddy Dallas, for participating in collaborative design discussions regarding the K/DA TFT synergy.

As well as thanks to my LoL bot lane partner Fortune K for the awesome K/DA visual documents! 

Teamfight Tactics

TFT is a round-based auto battler game developed and published by Riot Games. Players compete against 7 other opponents in a free-for-all by building a powerful team that fights for the player. 

Custom Synergy

K/DA
K/DA is back, and these popstars deserve their own place within the Galaxy! Attacking with their stunning visuals and vocals; these girls will not only win the hearts of their opponents, but every team fight they star in! 

Starstruck! 
K/DA Popstars’ basic attacks stack, and on their X attack, the performing star will deal a striking blow, stunning their target for 1 second.

          2: 8th basic attack stuns  
          3: 6th basic attack stuns 
          4: 4th basic attack stuns 

Visual Note: The winning dance for these champions at the end of a round is the LoL K/DA skin recall animation. With all four K/DA members still alive on the board, this will create a fun replication of the Pop/Stars music videos group dance.

Champions

Ahri
As the lead and founder of K/DA, Ahri steals the spotlight, capturing the attention of her opponents with her signature charm. 

Origin: K/DA         
Class: Sorcerer 
Cost: 2


Charm:
Ahri blows a kiss that damages and charms the furthest enemy from her, causing them to walk harmlessly towards her for 2 seconds.

Mana: 75/100
Damage: 200 / 350 / 850


 

Akali
Dashing across the board with each dangerous verse, the rapper Akali inflicts deadly attacks upon her starstruck opponents. 

Origin: K/DA        
Class: Blademaster
Cost: 4


Perfect Execution:
Akali leaps 3 spaces in a direction, damaging enemies as she strikes. She then dashes in a new direction, critically striking enemies for a percentage of her attack damage. 

Mana: 0/125
Damage: 100/ 150 / 225
ADP: 100% / 120% / 175% 

 

Evelynn
With her striking vocals, Evelynn literally pulls in her opponents attention as she sets up for a finishing blow. 

Origin: K/DA        
Class: Infiltrator
Cost: 3


Whiplash:
Evelynn whips a target up to 2 spaces away with her Lasher, dealing damage and pulling them into her hex. She then gains attack speed for 4 seconds.

Mana: 0 / 75
Damage: 200 / 300 / 400
Attack Speed: 75% / 125% / 200%

Kai’Sa
Kai’sa jumps into action, dashing towards her opponents in a radiant dance to the death. Much expected from the team’s choreographer. 

Origin: K/DA        
Class: Infiltrator
Cost: 2


Killer Instinct:
Kai’Sa dashes to an enemy champion up to 4 spaces away, gaining attack speed and damage for 8 seconds. 

Mana: 0/50
Attack Damage: 125% / 175% / 250%
Attack Speed: 100% / 150% / 200% 

Note: Conceptual design. No true balance or testing was applied to values. 

Design

The initial plan here was to create a synergy that brought in the K/DA theme, while also adjusting the existing TFT champions to feature abilities that best represented their K/DA personas. When coming up with the initial concepts, I also wanted to ensure that this new synergy could easily pair with an existing comp, so I also adjusted the champions to feature abilities and Classes that would create a strong comp. 

Design points: 

1. Create a strong synergy that ties into the K/DA theme.

  • K/DA is a virtual K-Pop group consisting of four themed versions of League of Legends champions Ahri, Akali, Evelynn, and Kai’Sa. This virtual group was initially introduced with their 2018 song and music video “POP/STARS,” and have recently announced a new EP coming within 2020. 

  • Starstruck! The idea behind the stunning synergy came from the concept of fans being starstruck by their famous idols. K/DA is widely famous within their world, and among real LoL players, so it could only be assumed that meeting these idols would throw anyone into a shock. Therefore, when these popstars are seen together on the TFT battlefields, their opponents are likely to be stunned, literally now. K/DA member's attacks will collectively stack together, with their X attack stunning the current opponent for 1 second. The amount of attacks required to stack for the stun decreases with the more K/DA members the player has on their board. ​​

2. Utilize champion abilities that could best tie into the K/DA persona, while also providing fun gameplay possibilities. 

  • Ahri’s K/DA persona is described as the lead and founder of K/DA who “graces the stage with confident charm,” which is also seen within the K/DA POP/STARS music video as she demonstrates her League of Legends Charm ability. I felt that it was only fitting that this also be showcased within her appearance in TFT. Ahri’s Charm ability will damage and charm the furthest enemy from her, and cause them to walk towards her for 2 seconds. Pairing this ability with Kai’Sa and Evelynn as Infiltrators, it’ll set up a perfect opportunity for them to land some hits on Ahri’s target, as they will already be positioned near Ahri’s furthest opponents.

  • K/DA Akali is noted for her mixed martial arts mixed street punk performances and untamed rap. To demonstrate this persona within TFT, while also providing an easy setup for strong team attacks, Akali will be utilizing her Perfect Execution. With this ability, Akali will leap up to 3 spaces in a direction, damaging enemies as she strikes. She will then dash in a new direction, critically striking enemies for a percentage of her attack damage. Executing this ability after Ahri has Charmed a few opponents towards the center of the board, Akali will be able to hit as many targets as possible as she dashes through the opposing team.

  • Evelynn is described as K/DA’s lead vocalist, “wielding a hypnotic stage presence.” I thought it would be fitting to utilize her Whiplash with a slight alteration. Evelynn will now whip a target up to 2 spaces away with her Lasher, dealing damage and pulling them into her hex. She then gains attack speed for 4 seconds to quickly finish her opponents. As the rest of her team focus their damage on their grouped up opponents (thanks to Ahri), Evelynn will isolate her targets to quickly inflict critical damage.

  • K/DA Kai’Sa is their team’s choreographer and main dancer, therefore I wanted to have her featured in TFT with an ability that has her constantly moving across the board. With her Killer Instinct, Kai’Sa will dash to an enemy up to 4 hex spaces away and gain an increased attack speed and damage for 8 seconds afterwards. Pairing this with the Infiltrator trait, Kai’Sa will be able to quickly pop up at the start of the round dealing quick critical damage to the opposing team.  


3. Update the champions so their new synergy can be easily paired with an existing synergy and create a strong comp.  

  • With Kai’Sa and Evelynn as Infiltrators, their increased attack speed at the start of the rounds will help provide for early stuns and quick damage against the opposing team. 

  • Akali as a Blademaster, with 2 K/DA Infilitrators, allows for an easy Blademaster/Infiltrator team comp which has already been a very common and successful comp within Set 3. 

Example Team: 

Ahri, Akali, Evelynn, and Kai’Sa for the full K/DA synergy, and a 2 Infiltrator synergy. 
Yasuo and Master Yi (combined with Akali) for the 3 Blademaster synergy. 
Add Zed and for the 3 Rebel synergy, then another Infiltrator (suggested Ekko) for the 4 Infiltrator synergy. 

4. Consider possible disadvantages with a stun synergy. 

  • As seen with the previous Glacial synergy, stunning traits can feel extremely unfair to the enemy team since most of their champions will just be stunned and useless. Another issue faced with the Glacial synergy was that the stunning attack also dealt an increasing amount of damage to the target, making the opponent feel defenseless against the Glacial team's damage. 

  • This was taken in consideration, so I kept the stun time to 1 second and ensured that every basic attack would not have the chance to be a stunning attack. Also kept in mind that the stunning attack should not deal any additional damage (besides what the champion's basic attack already inflicts), to ensure the attack was not too powerful or overwhelming to the enemy.

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