Mechanics: Cyber City

Existing systems, from Augments to Shops, have been hacked with the release of Cyber City!
Game Updates
Riot Prism

In Cyber City, Hacks will alter each game in a variety of ways, affecting how core systems such as Augments, the Shop, or Items function. These Hacks will always be beneficial and will impact all players at the same power level, just in slightly different ways. You’ll typically see about three Hacks each game, starting with the release of Cyber City on April 2nd with Patch 14.1—but also throughout the rest of this article!

AUGMENTING AUGMENT HACKS

When we say that Hacks bend the rules of all our core systems, we mean ALL. Augment Hacks impact which Augments you’re offered and, sometimes, how many.

  • Themed Augment Slots: Your leftmost Augment slot will have additional rerolls and show Augments from one category such as Items, Econ (gold, XP, rerolls), Chaos (Have random outputs such as Call to Chaos), Traits, Black Market (bring back old Augments that have been vaulted), Buildaround (Augments that shape your team comp such as Bronze for Life, Built Different, or Little Buddies), Formation (Augments that impact positioning on your board), and Combat (Augments that buff combat power e.g. HP, AP/AD, etc).

  • One Gold Augment, or two Silver Augments: Choose one stronger Gold Augment, or two potentially synergistic but weaker Silver Augments

  • Fourth Augment: An additional round for choosing an Augment, bringing you to a total of no more than four total Augments

  • Augment Timing: Augments can move to different rounds. Unlike the Lillia Encounter from Inkborn Fables, which randomly moved Augment rounds (often to the dismay of players) this Hack will only ever move Augments to earlier rounds.

SHOP HACKS

We’re hacking the Shop next. 

  • Lucky Shops: Some players are just lucky, but these shops are always lucky. Like all hacks, Lucky Shop will affect all players at an equal rate, which will be once per stage, in a random round. During this round, everyone's first shop will be lucky, containing units tailored to their team. Hacked Lucky Shops will always let you know where the luck is coming from, with a graphic that plays when that shop appears.

  • Two-Star Shops: Occasionally, a hacked unit will appear at two stars in your shop. 

CAROUSEL HACKS

These hacks won’t make it free to go on the local carnival carousel, but the carousel on the Convergence will always be free. 

  • Tailored Items: Each unit on the carousel will have two completed items attached, both of which will be from the unit’s recommended items list. 

  • Anvil Carousel: A carousel with anvils in place of champs and items

HACKS FROM YESTERHACKER’S PAST

I see Dragons in the Anomaly.

  • Treasure Dragon: At Stage 4-7 choose from a rollable package of loot. Augments can appear during the Treasure Armory. 

  • Hacked Eggs: Players will receive eggs with loot in them. The loot power is based on how long the egg takes to hatch. Hacked Eggs appear in Hacked Loot Orbs—you’ll know them when you see them. There’s also a Hack that will open up an Armory of three different lengths (rounds) of eggs to choose from, with short, medium, and long variations that have prize power that scales with duration to hatch.

YOU CAN’T HACK THAT?! YES, YES, WE CAN

Some Hacks hack what was thought to be unhackable, but is indeed hackable. 

  • Tactician Health: A small amount of Tactician Health has a chance to appear in some Hacked Loot Orbs. 

  • Unstable Item Components: Also available in Hacked Loot Orbs, Unstable Item Components transform into a different item component each round. Think Pandora’s Items, but for one or two specific components. 

  • Take it or Split it?: Opens up an Armory that presents two choices for all players: take 10 gold or split 30 gold from whoever chooses the latter. 

  • Sentinel Armory: Pick one of three Sentinels with three items each. These Sentinels will all have items of the same class and be: Tank Sentinel, Frontline Attacker Sentinel, or Backline Sentinel. 

ENCOUNTERING HACKS 

A bit more about Hacks before we leave. From set to set, we’re always taking learnings (see any set’s Learnings article) and seeing how we can improve our game. In a way, Hacks are an evolution of our Inkborn Fables mechanic, Encounters, with a few key differences, a new thematic, and learnings from Encounters applied. Let’s get into that. 

First, Hacks won’t drastically change the way the entire lobby plays TFT, such as the Kayn Encounter, nor will they drastically decrease comp diversity and viability, such as the odd/even levels-only Encounters like Zoe, the lowered reroll cost from Yorick, or the lowered cost of XP from Kha’Zix. Instead, Hacks operate on existing systems, with the primary goal of adding variability with agency. Variability, coming from which Hacks appear, their outcomes, and their frequency, and agency coming from their outputs (e.g. choosing one Gold Augment over two Silver, or choosing one of a few options that you roll through with the Treasure Dragon). 

Hacks that are directly inspired by Encounters, such as Lillia’s Augment Shuffle, which moved Augments to random rounds during Inkborn Fables, are returning in a more predictable (and fun) way by just having Augments move to earlier rounds, allowing for greater direction when playing. Finally, as fun as it was to meme about (and to my personal dismay), there will be no Hacks that simply do nothing, such as the working out with Sett Encounter. We’ve found that Encounters (including Opening Encounters) that did nothing, or negatively impacted your game plan weren’t a satisfying experience, so Hacks will always be positive and/or provide for some autonomous direction.

As you Hack your way through Cyber City, let us know what you think, which Hacks are your favorite, and which aren’t so much, as we’ll be continually updating the set with each patch! 

Whether you’re slotting in a fourth Augment or bravely picking the split 30 gold option in the hopes that others do not, Cyber City is full of Hacks—well, about three of them a game at least. We covered quite a few here, and it’s worth noting that I’m writing this before PBE, so many of these will likely change in precise output as we approach a more balanced live release! Be sure to check out all the Hacks, new champions, traits, and more with Cyber City’s full release on patch 14.1, April 2nd! Till then, this hacker-man is hacker-outta-here.