TFT Wisps Guide: How the Set 18 Mechanic Works and Which Wisps to Buy

What Wisps are and how you get them

A Wisp shows up in the rightmost slot of your shop, roughly in every second shop you see, and you buy it with gold like a champion. Normally you can buy one Wisp per round, and a Wisp you do not buy is gone when you reroll or when the planning phase ends. There are well over a hundred of them, and they fall into a few families: gold, XP, champions, shop manipulation, items and combat effects.

Every Wisp has a basic version and an upgraded one, and a few also have a prismatic version that is not sold in the regular shop. Sometimes the upgrade only makes the effect stronger: Grow Up gives 10 XP, the upgraded version 12. Sometimes it changes how the effect picks its target: Polymorph turns a random 2-cost you own into a 3-cost, while the upgraded Polymorph always picks your highest star level 2-cost. And sometimes the effect stays the same and only the price changes – in patch 18.6 Middle Path costs 5 gold and its upgraded version 4.

When no Wisp is found for a shop, you may see Beggar's Wisp instead, which simply gives you 2 gold. Take it; it costs nothing to think about.

Read the timing before you read the effect

The most useful habit with Wisps is to ask when the effect happens, because that decides whether to buy it now or never. There are four timings, and the wording on the Wisp tells you which one you are looking at.

• Instant: gold, XP, champions and items arrive the moment you buy. Grow Up, Die Roll, Smurfing, Early Fix (an Item Reforger) and Mitosis (a Tiny Champion Duplicator) are all value you keep.
• This round: shop effects such as Search Party (a 4-cost in each of your shops until you buy one), Starfall or Ride the Wave only pay off if you actually roll this round.
• Next combat: Aftershock, Tremors, Barrier and the other fight effects last for one battle. They are worth buying only before a fight you need to win.
• Permanent: Polymorph, Major Polymorph and the permanent-stat consumables from Knick-Knack Bag, Doodad Bag and Thingamajig Bag (and their Jar and Sack versions) change your board for the rest of the game.

A common mistake is buying a this-round shop Wisp on a round where you planned to save, or a combat Wisp on a round you would have won anyway. In both cases you paid gold for nothing.

Wisps cost interest, not just gold

Interest in TFT is 1 gold for every 10 you hold at the end of a round, up to 5 gold at 50. That is why the real price of a Wisp depends on how much gold you have. At 54 gold a 4-gold Wisp costs you exactly 4 gold. At 50 gold the same Wisp also drops you to the 40s and costs a point of interest, so it really costs 5.

Gold Wisps are the easiest to judge: if the expected return is higher than the price, buy it. Die Roll pays the result of a six-sided die, so on average a bit more than 3 gold. Payday gives 2 gold for each of your champions that survives combat, which is excellent when you expect to win with most of your board alive and close to useless when you expect to lose. Life Debt pays 1 gold for every 12 Health you are missing, so it gets better the lower you are: at 40 Health it is worth 5 gold.

Mercenary Force is a combat Wisp that scales with your bank, adding Damage Amp for every 10 gold you hold. It rewards a player sitting on 50 gold and does almost nothing for someone rolling down to zero.

Blossom: the trait built around Wisps

Blossom is the trait that turns Wisps into a strategy. Its champions are Karma, Yorick, Yunara, Sett, Ahri, Ashe and Master Yi, and its breakpoints change the mechanic itself: at 3 your Wisps are upgraded, at 5 a Wisp appears in every shop, at 7 you gain 4 gold after buying a Wisp, and at 9 you can buy two Wisps per round.

The 3 Blossom opener is why so many of our AP comps say to start with Karma, Yorick and Yunara. Upgraded Wisps make every purchase in stage 2 and 3 slightly better, and Karma can hold AP items until Ahri or Zyra arrives. Spellweaver Ahri & Zyra, Invoker Ahri & Morgana and Solar Karma & Yunara Reroll all lean on that start.

Some augments are only good if you plan to buy many Wisps. Wisp Rebate returns 2 gold for each Wisp you buy, Residual Magic gives your team more Health with every purchase, and Blossom's Call hands you a random Blossom champion based on each Wisp's cost. Take them when you already intend to buy a Wisp nearly every round, not as a way to start doing it.

Best Wisps for reroll comps

Reroll comps want copies of one cost tier, and several Wisps do exactly that. Starting Town fills your shop with 2-star 1-costs, Border Village with 2-star 2-costs and Middle Path with 2-star 3-costs; All Ones, All Twos and All Threes reroll your shop into a single cost tier. Starfall turns the cheapest champion in each of your first 6 rerolls this round into a 2-star. Ride the Wave makes your next rerolls show at least two champions you fielded last combat, which is perfect while you hunt the last copies.

Theme Wisps can be even better. Refreshing Light gives a free reroll per star level of each unique Solar champion, which makes it a strong buy in Solar Karma & Yunara Reroll once your Solar units are 2-star. Jungling overruns your shop with Riftbeasts, so it is a gift for Riftbeast Pebbles Reroll. Our research for Veigar & Ornn Reroll and the Solar rerolls points the same way: in stage 2 buy the gold and XP Wisps you see, then the shop Wisps when you start slow rolling.

Be careful with the Polymorph family. Minor Polymorph, Polymorph and Major Polymorph permanently turn a 1-cost, 2-cost or 4-cost you own into a unit one cost higher. In a reroll comp that can eat a 2-star copy of your carry, so only buy the basic version when no unit of that cost on your bench matters.

Best Wisps for fast 8 and fast 9

Leveling comps want XP and gold early, then quality late. Experienced, Bronze Spoon and Grow Up give 2, 4 and 10 XP, and Slow Study pays 2 XP for each of your champions still alive after 15 seconds, which is great on a strong win-streak board. When you hit level 8, Search Party guarantees a 4-cost in every shop until you buy one, and All Fours turns one shop into 4-costs.

For fast 9 comps such as Elderwood Draven, Draven & Elder Dragon or Fast 9 Alune & Morgana, the late Wisps are some of the strongest in the game. Grandmaster gives a random 2-star 5-cost, Smurfing a random 5-cost, Circle of Elders one copy of every 5-cost. Hero Of Prophecy gives you a 5-cost and then the same champion again every round, forever, which over a long game is a path to a 3-star 5-cost. Major Polymorph upgrades a 4-cost to a 5-cost, and the upgraded version picks your highest star level 4-cost, which can turn a 2-star tank into a 2-star 5-cost overnight.

Do not let these Wisps make you greedy. A champion Wisp that costs the gold you needed to reach level 9 can delay the whole plan by a round, and that round is often the one in which you drop out.

Combat Wisps: buy them for the fights that matter

Combat Wisps are the easiest to waste and the most decisive when used well. Aftershock stuns all enemies for 1.5 seconds after 8 seconds of combat, and the upgraded version does it again at 18 seconds. Tremors stuns enemies every 8 seconds. Barrier gives your whole team a large decaying shield. Each of them can flip a close fight, but only one fight. From stage 5 onward combat Wisps make up a much larger share of the offers, so late in the game you will see them far more often than in stage 3.

Buy them on rounds where losing hurts: during your stage 4 rolldown when the board is still incomplete, in the end game when one more loss means elimination, or against the one opponent you are fighting for a top 4 spot. On a round where you are clearly ahead or clearly behind, keep the gold.

Some combat Wisps fit specific boards. Moonrise doubles Lunar's effects after 8 seconds, so it is a big buy for Lunar Aphelios & Nidalee. Stand Alone gives champions alone in their row bonus Health and Damage Amp, which suits our solo-tank boards. Phantom Emblem gives a temporary emblem of your most active trait, which can push a trait to its next breakpoint for one fight. Read the risky ones twice: Heroic Sacrifice sacrifices every ally except your three strongest champions, and Nature's Wrath kills everyone without an item after 10 seconds.

Wisp checklist and common mistakes

• Check the timing first: instant, this round, next combat or permanent.
• Check whether the purchase drops you under an interest breakpoint.
• Gold and XP Wisps in stage 2 and 3; shop Wisps on the rounds you roll; combat Wisps for the fights you must win.
• With 3 Blossom, every Wisp you buy is upgraded – favour Wisps whose upgrade actually improves the effect.
• In reroll comps, never let a basic Polymorph touch your carry's cost tier.
• Late game, look for Hero Of Prophecy, Grandmaster and Major Polymorph if your board can afford the delay.

The single biggest mistake is buying a Wisp every round out of habit. A Wisp should always answer a question you already have: do I need XP, copies, a 4-cost, gold or one more win? If you cannot name the question, skip it and keep the interest. And never sit on gold waiting for one specific Wisp: they are random, and interest is not.