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How Heartsteel Works

The Heartsteel trait is going to be the new economy based trait for Set 10. In the past, we’ve had traits like Fortune, Underground, and Piltover be fan favorites, and Heartsteel will hopefully carry on the legacy.

However, Heartsteel is looking to be a less polarizing trait. Instead of going all in on the lose streak mechanic, Heartsteel looks to be a bit more consistent, while also lowering the high roll ceiling of the trait.

Heartsteel Trait Bonus

Earn Hearts by killing enemies. Gain even more by losing player combat. Every few player combats, convert Hearts into powerful rewards! The number of Hearts you gain increases for each HEARTSTEEL member in play.

• (3) 1x Hearts
• (5) 2.5x Hearts
• (7) 5.5x Hearts
• (9) 10x Hearts

Heartsteel Synergy

Here’s a list of all the traits that you can branch into from the Heartsteel units.

• Sentinel
• Rapidfire
• Bruiser
• Mosher
• Edgelord (x2)
• Crowd Diver
• Big Shot

The list of traits varies quite a bit. There are no easy overlaps for Heartsteel except for the Edgelord trait. Even then, the Edgelord trait is shared between Yone (3) and Kayn (5). Kayn is a 5-cost unit, meaning you likely won’t find him until the late game if at all.

Overall, the traits vary quite a bit, so you’re going to be sacrificing some early power in order to gain the extra loot from Heartsteel. This is usually the case with economy traits, as getting a strong board and extra loot should never be the case. You also want to lose streak early if possible to leverage the Heartsteel trait more anyways.

Heartsteel Champions

Let’s briefly go over each Champion in the Heartsteel trait and what you can do with them.

K’Sante – Heartsteel + Sentinel

K’Sante is the only 1-cost Heartsteel unit, and he is a fairly straightforward frontline unit. The Sentinel trait is the new “Bastion” trait which simply provides Armor and MR, so you can pair him up with another early game Sentinel for a quick frontline.

The main difficulty will come at trying to find 2 additional Heartsteel units as early as possible, as there’s only one 1-cost unit for the trait.

Aphelios – Heartsteel + Rapidfire

Aphelios is the only 2-cost Heartsteel member, and his ability is more utility than damage based. Furthermore, because the Heartsteel trait is economy based, he won’t perform as well as other 2-cost backline units.

You still will want to pair another Rapidfire unit with Aphelios early to get some backline damage, or else you’ll bleed too much from losing fights.

Because Aphelios is Rapidfire, it’s more likely that you will want to build AD items with Heartsteel, rather than AP. This trend continues with the rest of the units as well as we go higher in cost.

Sett – Heartsteel + Bruiser + Mosher

Sett is the first of two 3-cost Heartsteel units. If you are able to get an early Sett from loot orbs, you should definitely consider playing Heartsteel in your early board. Sett also boasts 3 traits, making him quite flexible even if you don’t commit to Heartsteel.

His ability is a mix of damage and survivability, and his traits also follow that pattern. Mosher will grant him some Attack Speed and Omnivamp while Bruiser will grant him additional Health. Having 3 traits is quite impactful in the mid game as you’re able to power up your board through a variety of units.

Yone – Heartsteel + Edgelord + Crowd Diver

Yone is the other 3-cost Heartsteel unit, and he also has 3 traits. Edgelord will grant Attack Speed while Crowd Diver will grant bonus damage and give a little bit of CC as well.

Yone is almost like a squishier up version of Warwick, as he’s a melee damage dealer that gains a stacking bonus through his ability. Yone will likely be a strong item holder in the mid game with AD items until you transition into your late game units.

Once again, having 3 traits is also big for the comp as the potential supporting units you can run outside of Heartsteel are numerous.

Ezreal – Heartsteel + Big Shot

Ezreal is the 4-cost Heartsteel unit and he’s a typical ranged AD carry. The Big Shot trait grants bonus Attack Damage, so you can look to scale Ezreal up with other things like Attack Speed, mana generation, bonus damage, etc.

Ezreal’s blink ability can potentially be very good if he can avoid danger. However, there’s always a chance with abilities like this that Ezreal will just blink right into danger.

Kayn – Heartsteel + Wildcard + Edgelord

Kayn is the final unit of the Heartsteel trait and will likely be one of the carries you look for in the comp. Edgelord pairs with Yone very easily, making Heartsteel easy to fit into your late game board if you want.

His Wildcard trait is his unique 5-cost trait. If you win your fight, Kayn will turn into Shadow Assassin, and when you lose a fight, he will turn into Rhaast. The Assassin will grant gold every 2 champion kills, while Rhaast will heal your tactician instead.

Once again, Kayn will look to utilize more AD damage items. Since he’s a melee unit, he will benefit a lot from hybrid damage tank items such as Titan’s Resolve or Sterak’s Gage. Lastly, a sustain item such as Bloodthirster will go a long way as well.

Heartsteel Team Comps

Since the PBE has just released, we won’t be diving into too much detail on team comps just yet. However, be sure to check back as we will update this guide as team comps are found and optimized.

Conclusion

Overall, Heartsteel looks to be a more mild take on the economy trait. You don’t need to commit to full lose streaking, and the trait will always pay out even if you don’t win a round. Because of this, we don’t expect Heartsteel to be a high roll comp like Piltover or Underground was.

Even still, getting extra loot early can boost your economy very high. This can make it much easier to build a strong endgame board with either Heartsteel units, or even a board filled with high cost units.

We hope you enjoyed this guide, and hopefully it helps you climb some ranks. Good luck and have fun!

Thanks for reading! Be sure to check out our meta team comps page, or head to our Team Builder to try and come up with your own comps.