How to Play Visionary — TFT Set 13: Into the Arcane
Welcome to our trait guide, where we’ll be covering the Visionary trait in the new TFT Set 13: Into the Arcane. In this guide, we’ll explain how Visionary works, cover the different champions, provide notable Augment choices, and cover some potential team comps.
Explore all of the new Set 13 traits here!
How TFT Visionary Works
Visionary is a new trait name, but it’s an effect we’ve seen before. Visionary is the new flavor of Invoker, where the trait focuses on generating more Mana. The Invoker trait is somewhat selfish, since the trait only buffs themselves, but that goes for many traits.
We’ve simply seen versions in the past where Invoker gave the whole team a slight mana buff. As such, Invoker team comps will likely focus on powering up themselves, similar to Sorcerer. With the extra mana generation, Visionary units will get to cast more frequently, but you’ll still need to scale their damage with items, other traits, or Augments.
Visionary Trait Bonus
Champions: Morgana 1g / Vex 1g / Rell 2g / Renata Glasc 2g / Nunu & Willump 3g / Heimerdinger 4g / Malzahar 5g
Whenever Visionaries gain Mana, they gain more.
- (2) 25% Mana
- (4) 50% Mana
- (6) 80% Mana
- (8) 100% Mana, Abilities heal an ally for 20% of damage dealt
Visionary Synergy
Here’s the list of traits you can activate from the Visionary units:
- Black Rose
- Rebel
- Conqueror
- Sentinel
- Chem-Baron
- Experiment
- Bruiser
- Academy
- Automata
Unfortunately, even though Visionary has 6 units, there is no other trait overlap. As such, going vertical on Visionary can be taxing to your board space. However, there is a good amount of frontline potential for the trait, so that may help alleviate issues from going vertical.
For now, we won’t know for sure whether the meta will trend toward building (2), (4), or (6) Invoker. It will really depend on the carry potential, utility, and supporting units.
TFT Visionary Champions
Morgana Black Rose Visionary 1g
[Link to Champion Page]
Morgana has a simple ability, cursing a non-cursed enemy, dealing damage over time. Her ability will also reduce shield effectiveness, which is a nice little bonus, but nothing major. Overall, Morgana’s most important utility is providing the Black Rose trait.
This is the summon trait of Set 13 and can help alleviate frontline issues if you get Black Rose online early. This can also help you go more vertical into the Visionary trait without losing out on too much frontline.
Vex Rebel Visionary 1g
[Link to Champion Page]
Looming Darkness 0/60 Deal 200/300/450 (AP) magic damage to target and create a one-hex radius zone of darkness around them. After a brief delay, deal 100/150/225 (AP) magic damage to enemies still in the zone.
Vex is another straight-forward 1-cost unit. Her ability deals AP damage to her target and a bit less damage to those around them. Vex and Morgana can pair for an early Visionary (2) to make up your early backline.
From there, you can look to build into things like Rebel or Black Rose to start building your frontline. If you can’t find those exact traits, other ones will work too, especially if you find Rell.
Rell Conqueror Sentinel Visionary 2g
[Link to Champion Page]
Rell is a 2-cost frontline unit that boasts three traits. The Sentinel trait is quite nice, because there are two other Rebel/Sentinel units. (Irelia 1g and Illaoi 4g). With Rell, Vex, and Irelia, you can have Visionary 2, Rebel 2/3, and Sentinel 2. This can make for a strong early board that you can continue to build upon later.
Her ability grants her a shield and she also deals damage in a line. Her damage will then steal Armor/MR stats from enemies, giving her a lot of good utility. Her Conqueror trait also lets you potentially pivot into a different comp without compromising on your board.
Renata Glasc Chem-Baron Visionary 2g
[Link to Champion Page]
Renata shoots missiles with her ability, which will shield allies it passes through, and deal damage in an AoE on impact. Because of this, make sure to position her in a way to hit as many allies and enemies as possible.
Placing her in the corner should work well, with your frontline more toward the center. The Chem-Baron trait is the high stakes/lose streaking/economy trait for Set 13. This trait is making a comeback after not being present in Set 12.
Since you want to lose streak with Chem-Baron, I don’t expect Renata to be a reroll carry, but you never know.
Nunu & Willump Experiment Bruiser Visionary 3g
[Link to Champion Page]
Nunu’s ability is quite multi-faceted. He gets durability, deals AoE AP DoT, and deals % max Health damage with his Experiment bonus. This Experiment bonus can also spread to other experiment units if you are able to find them.
Nunu is the only dedicated frontline unit outside of Rell, so having him in vertical Visionary comps will be important. Outside of that, you can still utilize him well in Bruiser team comps or Experiment teams. He makes is easy to splash Visionary (2), and naturally has three traits like Rell.
Heimerdinger Academy Visionary 4g
[Link to Champion Page]
Heimerdinger is the 4-cost Visionary, and the likely carry for the trait due to his cost. The Academy trait is also quite large, so there’s potential to play vertical Academy or vertical Visionary. His ability shoots missiles at random enemies, and shoots an additional missile every cast.
As such, you’ll want to give him Blue Buff as he’s a low mana pool champion. This will help him scale quickly as the fight progresses. Since Heimerdinger already has such a low mana pool, going deep into Visionary might not be super impactful unless the math works out to where he only needs to auto attack once to cast.
With some more testing, we’ll be able to see what the ideal supporting cast for Heimerdinger is.
Malzahar Automata Visionary 5g
[Link to Champion Page]
“Malzahar” is the 5-cost Visionary and his ability is a large AoE magic damage ability. This will also Shred enemy units, lowering their Magic Resist. This is very impactful as it means you won’t need to build Shred items and can focus on damage instead. (Assuming you find Malzahar)
While the damage of his ability on cast is quite low, it will infect enemies. This will deal damage over time for the rest of combat and can stack. Furthermore, when an infected target dies, the Infection will spread to nearby enemies.
This means Malzahar is very capable of dealing a ton of damage given enough time. You’ll want Visionary so he casts faster, but you’ll also need frontline to stall the fight for the damage over time to tick.
Positioning: Backline
First Impressions:
Malzahar is our next AP 5-cost unit and he summons a large gate, dealing damage and Shredding them. He’ll infect targets, dealing damage over time which can stack. The stacks of infection will also bounce to other enemies once they die, meaning he naturally scales as the fight progresses.
Best TFT Visionary Augments
In general, Augments like Crest and Crown will always be good, but there are definitely more notable ones to explore and discover. As we make our way to the PBE, we’ll be sure to test a variety of combinations and update this article with what we find.
TFT Visionary Team Comps
The set has yet to even come out on PBE yet, and unfortunately, our team was unable to playtest the Set this time around. While we can’t recommend team comps at the moment, we’ll be sure to come back and update this article once we have a good feel for things.
Thanks for Reading! If you want to try and come up with your own team comps for Set 13, check out our Team Builder. For a full overview on the new set, check out our TFT Set 13 Reveal Page.
