Bilgewater TF or Graves Flex
Primary
Tier
Required
Fast 8
1-Cost Reroll
2-Cost Reroll
3-Cost Reroll
Fast 8
Fast 9
1 & 2-Cost Reroll
1 & 3-Cost Reroll
2 & 3-Cost Reroll
9
126
Main
▾
Traits
1
Dragonborn
1
1
Eternal
1
1
Glutton
1
1
Soulbound
1
5
Bilgewater
3 > 5 > 7 > 10
2
Bruiser
2 > 4 > 6
2
Gunslinger
2 > 4
2
Juggernaut
2 > 4 > 6
2
Quickstriker
2 > 3 > 4 > 5
1
Freljord
3 > 5 > 7
1
Warden
2 > 3 > 4 > 5
1
Yordle
2 > 4 > 6 > 8 > 10
1
1
1
1
5
2
2
2
2
1
1
1
Tips & Tricks
- Play from Bilgewater opener. Make sure to put two items on Twisted Fate as early as possible so you can unlock Graves. This is NOT a reroll line. Play for either Twisted Fate 3 or Graves 3 from Bilgewater shop. In Patch 16.2, TF looks better than Graves. Pick ONLY one to 3 star.
- Use your Bilgewater shop to make you stronger each round. Don’t sit on too many serpents. Prioritize purchasing stat upgrades and units that make your board IMMEDIATELY stronger OR IMMEDIATELY move you from 3 to 5 Bilgewater. Buy TF / Graves / Duplicators if no shop slots make you stronger.
- First carousel priority is finishing an uncompleted item for tempo or Nautilus / GP if it provides 5 Bilgewater. TF wants Brew + Antiheal or Void + Attack Speed. Graves wants QSS + GS or QSS + Crit build. Keep in mind you can typically only play for one of the two of these units.
- If you are 3 Bilgewater and have a 3-cost in your Bilgewater shop, wait before buying it. In an ideal world, you don’t ever buy any unit from your Bilgewater shop unless it immediately makes an impact on your board such as moving from 3 to 5 Bilgewater, 2-starring a tank, or helping 3 star.
- On 5 Bilgewater, try to buy Captain’s Brew. On 7 Bilgewater, try to buy at least one item (costs 100 Serpents). Outside of these two item purchases, always reroll your Bilgewater shops on 3 Bilgewater which has the highest probability of 2-costs and duplicators.
- This means you want to play 7 Bilgewater during combat, but toggle down to 3 (put the units on bench) when buying from your Bilgewater shop. After you hit 3-star 2-cost, Captain’s Brew, and one 7 Bilgewater item, buy stat upgrades from each trait breakpoint (see the 2nd to last tip for more info).
- Once you get Tahm Kench, try to always feed every turn. Before Level 9 and your core upgrades, feed him “cheap food” like 1-cost tanks and AP units. Once you 2 star him or you are level 9 with a fairly upgraded board, you can feed him higher cost units.
- Play 7 Bilgewater as long as you can. Drop to 5 late game once you are low HP or if you have 2 star legendaries to play instead. Flex units to consider include Kindred, Braum, Ornn, Swain, Shyvana, Volibear, Taric, Fiddle, and Skarner.
- Buy stats at all breakpoints. There are 3 stats: AD/AP, AS, and HP. Each stat has its own tier at 3, 5, and 7 Bilgewater respectively. Whenever you buy a stat at a specific tier, it becomes more expensive the next time you see it. Your goal is to buy each unique stat at each unique trait breakpoint.
- Bilgewater is a TEMPO comp. The opener is typically up many upgrades on other boards in Stage 2 and 3. Your 2-1 augment should help you win rounds, because winning rounds farms more serpents which snowballs harder. Do not play Bard, as he makes your board weaker. You should not be weak Stage 3.
Strong Conditions
+3 Tier Conditions S → OP
Quickstriker Emblem
Going Long+2 Tier Conditions S → OP
Lich Bane
Jeweled Lotus I
Jeweled Lotus II
Stars Are Born
Win Streak+1 Tier Conditions S → S+
Death’s Defiance
Mittens
Rapid Firecannon
Statikk Shiv
Wit’s End
Cooking Pot
Deadlier Caps
Epoch
Hustler
Indiscriminate Killer
Item Grab Bag
Pyromaniac
Solo Plate
Speedy Double Kill
Spirit of Redemption
Sweet Treats
Thorn-Plated ArmorOpeners
Bilgewater
Illaoi
Jhin
Shen
Graves Twisted Fate3
2
2
Bilgewater
IllaoiGraves Twisted Fate
Gangplank
Nautilus5
Twisted Fate
Bilgewater
Quickstriker
Twisted Fate
2
2
Current
Best-in-Slot
Alt Build 1
Alt Build 2
Alt Build 3
Alt Build 4
Stacked Deck
)
Playful Trickster
Devour
Health
The Relentless Storm
Economy Strategy
- Level to 4 if you have upgrades and a good item to place on one of those upgrades.
- Level to 5, unless on 3 loss streak.
- Level to 6 if on 4+ win streak (scout to see if necessary in high elo) or can stay above 40g.
- Level to 6, unless you would go below 30g. If you have to stay level 5 due to low gold (rare), then level to 6 on 3-5.
- Level to 7 if you can stay above 30g, otherwise stay level 6.
- Level to 7.
- Level to 8. Roll for desired comp until stable. “Stable” changes depending on rank, items, augments, composition, and patch. Melee carries and tanks get the biggest spike for 2-stars. Usually stable involves 2-star tank or carry and some other supporting 2-stars. Try not to roll below 10g.
- If you are weak (e.g., have no 2-star 4-costs), consider rolling again to 10g here. If you are stable, save gold to go 9.
- If you are low HP and haven’t 2-starred your carry and tank, roll to 0g. If you have medium to high HP with an upgraded + itemized 4-cost unit and some other upgrades, save gold to go 9.
- If high HP, consider waiting until 5-5 to go level 9. If medium HP, consider going level 9 if you can roll 20g or wait until 5-5. If low HP and can afford to go 9, do so even if you have almost no gold to roll on 9. If you can’t afford to go 9 this game, roll every turn for upgrades.
- Level to 9 if possible. From this point onward, look to level to 9. Acknowledge games where level 9 is not possible and roll every turn on 8 to preserve placements.
- For max cap games, you can either roll on 9 or level to 10. If you are itemizing a 5-cost carry and it is 1-starred, roll on 9. If you have all your main itemized units upgraded, level to 10.
Can confirm this comp gets stomped by most meta comps, have a good night.
This comp is dogshit, the units are so fucking bad you can never get any tempo going from the start and after that you just go 8th
One less Bilgewater player! The community thanks you for your service.
found the bronze player KEKW
should I itemize Tahm 1 over Naut 2?
Imo the Graves version can only be played from absolute super tempo in silver/gold augement games. If you run that version in pristamtic games/high econ games you will get insanely outcapped late game.
Idk, maybe I was just unlucky early cause I was stuck on 7 graves all of stage 4 (I hit at 4-6) but I had jewled 2, death defiance and mittens on graves 3 and I was losing to triple contested zaun and sona 3 (rr)
who is the best holder for the quickstriker embelm?
senna
if you get quickstriker emblem early just go for graves version and put it on him
the tips and tricks are HUGE help this comp is insanity lmao
Why morello + brew
Brew doesn’t Wound/Antiheal, only Burrns
How the comp goes from A to S after the nerfs?
this sht is ass
Are you sure those items are BiS on Graves? The stats suggest to me that IE isn’t actually that good and you’d rather have a gunblade or gs but I’m not the best at accounting for all the intricacies of reading the data correctly.
On a different note: From my understanding it’s also viable in certain spots to play around TF 3 instead of Graves 3 depending on items and what copies you naturally find. It’s rarer and slightly worse but the correct play in a noteworthy amount of games – what is your opinion on that?
IE is only good with Striker’s. GS builds are good too. Gunblade is good. Just slam whatever as long as it’s QSS + Damage + Gunblade or Damage. The actual items are not important, you are NEVER meant to greed items with Bilgewater. Can even slam LW early game if that’s what you have. Just don’t sit on components and lose rounds because of it. I don’t know the actual legitimate BiS Graves — all the builds look very, very similar in the stats. The GS + Gunblade build both looks good in the stats and feels good, but I don’t know if it’s true BiS. All I know is that QSS is important and the rest you slam whatever you got.
As for TF over Graves, yeah — it will happen in rare games. It is worse, a lot worse. But anything works if you are ahead of tempo. That’s the main idea of the line. Just win early.
Awesome, thanks for the reply and everything you do with this website!
I do not understand the thing with buying the stat upgrades. Do I just buy all that I see ?
Just went 3rd with Baron 2 and the first and second place were graves 3 lol …
I sincerely hope you see this Mr. GM BOSS BLUE – for the first time I feel like a lot of your expalnations/analyses have higher value than all cookie cutter advice from other TFT websites (tfacademy for example). You are injecting your own logic such as swapping from 7 bilge to 3 for graves etc. in addition to other strategies. I am sure I am not the only one who feels like this website has actually become BETTER than all the other ones because of their lack of effort on doing additional analyses + strategies. Keep up the great work, also hope to see you make a comeback someday if possible 😀
If Going Long is good, surely Hustler is just as good?
yes
Wasn’t an oversight that I excluded it — was waiting to see a game with it. In theory, yes — it should be good. But Hustler isn’t as good as Going Long for guaranteeing win streak. With Going Long, you are way ahead of lobby tempo for stage 2 and 3. You are level 7 on 3-1, unlocking Fizz and guaranteeing 5 Bilgewater in most cases, sometimes even 7 Bilgewater before 3-5. It’s extra tempo is a big difference, so for now I will add Hustler at +1 and keep Going Long at +3.
OK, i came back after 10 games playing this, and, its.. PRETTY GOOD you can play the comp 3 way contested and still getting top 4, IMO there are a few tips that improves this comp
– TF on D5 (back row 3rd hex starting from the right) hits right side carry
– First only use 3 bilge shop to get Graves 3 ASAP
– If you didnt get Graves or dupe on Bilge shop, buy stats or Illaoi in the worst case, till you can rerroll
– After hitting Graves 3, go for brew on 5 Bilge shop
– Same as before, buy stats till you can purchase Brew or MF
– Then Move to 7 Bilge shop
– QSS is mandatory on Graves but dont greed it if you can slam an early IE
– Activating 3 bilge shop right from 2-1 give a BIG momentum
it says roll bilge shop on 3 bilge for higher chances of graves but for stage 3/4 its not better to roll on 5 bilge to get brew and mf ?
Doesn’t the same tip that says to roll on 3 Bilge also mention you should roll on 5 for Brew and 7 for at least one tier 2 item? So yes, roll on 5 Bilge. I don’t know mathematically if it’s worth fishing for MF after you get Brew though since then you are wasting potential shop slots on Doubloon and Fizz after you unlock him. Before Fizz unlock (so usually only for a few rounds), 5 Bilge is probably worth rolling on over 3 Bilge even if you bought Brew before you have MF. But after, I don’t know the optimal answer.
EDIT: Also, what stat shards you have bought play a factor too. If you bought the three different 5 Bilgewater stat shards multiple times, you won’t want to roll on 5 Bilgewater ever again basically after buying Brew.
Very strong comp, got 1st and there was someone contesting me
with gs i think db would be better than ie
One of the hardest comps, if not the hardest comp, in the game to play. Before you just default to it being terrible, just wait a few days for your favorite content creator to play it and you’ll see how to play it and the difference piloting can make.
Just played 2 games of it and went 1st and 2nd (lost to 10 noxus). Im shocked how easy it is to hit the Graves. Feels like a free top 4 if uncontested.