Teamfight Tactics is Riot Games’ premier auto chess battler, pulling from famous champions featured in League of Legends. Each champion in Teamfight Tactics has a number of unique traits that give your champions in play a unique effect. Traits make up one of the core foundations of Teamfight Tactics, and they dictate how you build your comp and what units you play on your board. Riot Games like to mix things up and introduce new traits in every update, with some traits introducing new mechanics or remixing old ones. One of these new traits in Teamfight Tactics is the Astral trait.
Traits are a complicated mechanic that force players to adhere to certain comps. Each unit belongs to two or three different traits, separated into at least one “Origin” and at least one “Class.” Each trait has a special ability that is added to your units when you have multiple of the same trait on your board. For example, the “Astral” effect gives your team extra ability power if you have three Astral units on the board. Balancing traits is an important part of the game when building your team comp. It’s important to know the new traits, their effects, and the champions belonging to each one.
How the Astral trait works
The Astral trait in Teamfight Tactics has the following effect: every fifth shop grants an Astral orb and has increased odds to show Astral champions. Your team also will gain bonus ability power. The Astral orbs can contain gold to help your income, champions, or even item components if you have enough Astral units on the board. The Astral units are Nidalee, Skarner, Vladimir, Nami, Illaoi, Varus, and Aurelion Sol.
Here are the effects of each unit on your team:
- Playing three Astral units increases your team’s ability power by 10.
- Playing six Astral units increases your team’s ability power by 20 and increases the value of your orbs.
- Playing nine Astral units increases your team’s ability power by 50. Orbs may contain components.
There are numerous strategies you can consider when playing this trait. Playing a vertical Astral composition of three, six, or nine units allows you to manipulate your shops and easily 3-star all of your units, as every fifth shop increases the chances of showing an Astral unit. 3-starred units carry a huge power spike, and playing a vertical Astral composition also grants your team bonus Ability Power. (Aurelion Sol is the easiest Dragon to 3-star due to this, as you can manipulate your shop chances easily with this strategy.)
The orbs you have can contain income for bonus re-rollin as well as items to increase the strength of your units and accelerate the rate at which you 3-star units. You can also use Astral units as an economy trait. Playing 3 Astral units gives your overall board a small spike in power, and every fifth shop you roll will give you a slight boost in income.
Note: You don’t have to roll five times on the same round. If you are slowly building up your income, you will essentially receive an orb every five rounds.
