TFT Augments Guide: Econ, Items or Combat – How to Choose

The three families of augments

Almost every augment belongs to one of three families. Econ augments give you gold, XP, rerolls or free units: Capital Gains I, Late Game Specialist, Rolling For Days or Champ Delivery. Item augments give components, completed items, anvils or artifacts: Small Grab Bag, Big Grab Bag, Band of Thieves or Latent Forge. Combat augments make your units stronger in every fight: Partial Ascension, Boxing Lessons, Twin Guardians or Verticality I.

Trait augments are a special kind. They upgrade one trait and often hand you the units for it – Omega Riftbeast gives a Scuttlecrab, a Cinderling and a Pebbles and lets you choose a second Alpha Riftbeast, while Chosen of the Sun gives Leona, Kayle and Sejuani. They are among the strongest picks when you are already in the trait and among the worst when you are not.

Every augment you see costs the same – one pick – but each family pays out at a different time. Econ pays over the next several rounds, items pay as soon as they are built, and combat pays every fight until the end of the game. Choosing well means matching that timing to your game.

Reading the stage

At 2-1, econ and item augments are at their strongest. Gold taken at 2-1 earns interest for the whole game, and components taken at 2-1 become slammed items that win stage 2 and 3. A combat augment at 2-1 must be very strong to compete, because it starts helping with a board of 1- and 2-cost units.

At 3-2 the choice depends on your board. If you are on a win streak, an econ augment lets you keep the board and still get rich. If you are bleeding HP, items or combat stabilise you now. This is also the last good moment for a trait augment that changes your direction, because you still have time to collect the units.

At 4-2, combat augments usually win. You have about one stage of fights left before the game is decided, so permanent power is worth more than gold. The exceptions are augments built for the very late game, such as Late Game Specialist for a fast 9 plan, or a big item augment when your carry still lacks items.

Reading your board

A strong board can afford greed. If your stage 2 opener is winning, take the econ augment: the board will keep the streak and the extra gold buys you an earlier level 8 or 9. A weak board needs help today. Take items if you lack components, or a combat augment that works with whatever units you already field.

Count your items. A player with two components at 2-1 should value Small Grab Bag or Item Grab Bag I much higher than a player who already has four, because the first completed items have the biggest impact. A player with plenty of items but no gold is the opposite case.

Check whether the augment fits your likely comp. Flowing Tears gives a Tear Of The Goddess and more Tears later – excellent if you play ability power carries like Alune or Ahri, close to useless for an attack damage board. Carve a Path gives a B.F. Sword and more Swords later, and the logic is reversed.

Silver, gold and prismatic tiers

Augments come in three tiers – silver, gold and prismatic – shown by the colour of the frame. Higher tiers are stronger versions of the same ideas: Capital Gains I and Capital Gains II both store your interest and pay it out at 3-3, but the gold version pays more. Prismatic augments such as Sword Overflow, Luxury Subscription or Radiant Relics can carry a game on their own.

Tier is not the same as fit. A silver augment that does exactly what your board needs beats a prismatic one that does not. Some augments even let you trade between tiers: Augmented Power makes your next augment one tier higher, while Advanced Loan gives gold now and makes your next augment one tier lower. Take these only when you know what the next pick should do for you.

Rerolling augment choices

The augment screen lets you reroll the offers a limited number of times. Use rerolls on options that clearly do not fit your game, and keep the one that does. A good rule: if one of the three options is already a strong fit, reroll the other two only when you have rerolls to spare; if none of the options fit, reroll everything that is not at least playable.

Do not chase a single perfect augment. Rerolling a solid econ augment hoping for a trait augment for your exact comp usually ends with a worse option. Decide what kind of augment you need – econ, items or combat – before you look at the cards, then reroll toward that family rather than toward one specific name.

How the augment order in our comps works

Every comp page on HexComps shows a Pick first line, such as Economy › Items › Combat. It tells you which family to prefer when none of the comp's listed best augments are offered. The specific augments listed on the comp always come first; the order is the tie-breaker for everything else.

Fast 9 comps put econ first. Our Alune and Morgana plan reads Economy › Items › Combat, and its best augments – Birthday Reunion, Level Up!, Upward Mobility, Late Game Specialist and Luxury Subscription – all speed up levelling or deliver late units. Item-hungry comps reverse it. Lunar Aphelios and Nidalee reads Items › Combat › Economy and lists Epic Rolldown and Sword Overflow as best picks, while Riftbeast Brambleback also puts items first and names Omega Riftbeast as the best augment.

Reroll comps often sit in between. Veigar and Ornn put econ first because slow rolling eats gold, yet their best augments are item and trait ones – Consuming Flora, Portable Forge, Latent Forge and Living Forge – because Veigar needs items early and Ornn turns anvils into value. When a listed best augment appears, take it; otherwise follow the order.

When the augment picks the comp

Sometimes the right move is to let a strong augment decide your direction. Trait augments that hand you units are the clearest case. Small Furry Friend gives Teemo, Veigar and Kobuko and strengthens Sprykin, which is exactly why it is the best augment for our Invoker Teemo reroll. Beast Within gives Vi and later Sivir and adds a Primal Blessing, which turns a loose AD opener into the Hunter Sivir and Nidalee line.

This works best at 2-1 and 3-2, when your board is not yet locked. Before you commit, check two things: that the units the augment gives are not heavily contested in your lobby, and that your items fit the new carry. A trait augment that pulls you into a comp three other players are already rolling for is a trap, however good it looks on paper.

Common augment mistakes

• Taking a trait augment at 2-1 for a comp you have no units for.
• Picking econ at 4-2 when you have 30 HP and an unstable board.
• Taking a combat augment at 2-1 that only works with a full late-game board.
• Choosing the highest tier option instead of the option that fits.
• Rerolling a good fit in search of a perfect fit.
• Picking an item augment for the wrong damage type, like Carve a Path on an ability power board.
• Ignoring how many items and how much gold you already have.

Before every augment pick, ask three short questions: what stage is it, what is my board missing, and which family solves that? The answer narrows the choice to one family, and inside that family the best fit for your comp is usually obvious.