Spin, Spin, Spin, You Win! A Guide to Runeterra's Casino Twisted Fate - Deck Spotlight

With the next Legends of Runeterra expansion on the horizon, I wanted to share some of my favorite archetypes currently in the game--especially those that are budget-friendly for players who either are just starting out or have lapsed from playing and are now considering coming back into the fold.  So with that in mind, I'd like to start by showcasing Casino Twisted Fate!

Casino TF is a very challenging but deeply rewarding archetype ideal for anyone who likes puzzles. The primary win condition is to level up Twisted Fate and then abuse the destiny cards from his L2 form to out-value your opponent; there are alternative win conditions through your other champion (more on that in the bit) and the brute force of the draw-loving followers, Slotbot and Astute Academic. It is also an extremely budget-friendly archetype--there are zero epics, I would argue that TF is the safest champion craft in the entire set right now, and your starting collection included 2 Jinx and many of the other P&Z cards.

Who you gonna call?

As eluded to earlier: you have some flexibility regarding your other champion(s). I personally prefer Jinx because of the draw/discard synergies, but Fizz is the other popular choice due to the spell synergies. You could mix and match, or even homebrew if you're so inclined (Heimerdinger?). However you go, though, this champion is definitely Plan B--if you could get away with running 6 TFs, you'd do that instead.

Strategy

The most challenging part about playing this deck is understanding how desperate you are on any given round. Remember that you really want to A.) level up TF and B.) let Slotbot see card draws, so spells like Rummage and Pick a Card have premium value when those units are on the board. In an ideal world, you'd just hold on to all your card draw potential until at least one of those units is on the board.  Your opponent isn't going to sit idly by, however, and all the value in the world doesn't matter if you can't keep your nexus health above 0. The good news is that if things do start to go downhill, you will almost always be sitting on some card draw potential which you can use to fish for an answer!  It will be up to you to judiciously decide when to use your nexus health as a resource and when its time to go digging.

Be careful about when you play TF--expect that your opponent will try to kill him before he levels if they can. Suit Up! can protect against some threats, but there will be games that you need to use Rummage to level him at burst speed just before he dies so at least your 2nd TF can hit the board running. Once you finally do level TF, it's important to remember how his abilities work.  Each turn, he will add the following skills to the spell stack at fast speed upon seeing you play a card:

1. Blue Card: draw a card and gain 1 spell mana
2. Red Card: deal 1 to all enemies (including nexus)
3. Gold Card: deal 2 damage and stun the strongest enemy unit (this will switch targets to whatever is strongest at the time Yellow Card resolves)

Anything beyond the 3rd card has no additional skill. If you played all 3 of your cards at slow speed then TF's cards will resolve in the order listed; but you can play some interesting games using the stack--e.g., it's your turn and your opponent's strongest units are a 5/3 and a 6/4. If you were to respond by playing exactly Rummage(Blue Card) into Get Excited! onto the 6/4 (Red Card), that would deal a total of 4 damage to it, killing it. Then after that resolves, you can play any other card to proc a Gold Card, finishing off the 5/3. If you had instead played your 3rd card before all that resolved, then TF's Gold Card would have instead automatically targeted the 6/4 which was already fated to die, effectively "wasting" the skill. As I said: this is the deck for those who love puzzles.

Mulligan Guide

• As you've probably guessed, you want to mulligan hard for Twisted Fate, Slotbot, and your other champion--in that order of priority.
• If you're facing aggro, Astute Academic, Zaunite Urchin, and Jury-Rig are your preferred early defenders. Do not play Pool Shark unless you're desperate and/or on Round 3, because drawing a fleeting TF that you can't afford to play will make you cry.
• Card draw--Rummage and Pick a Card especially--are good for when you've satisfied the aforementioned conditions.  Playing a Round 4 TF followed by casting Pick a Card from spell mana always feels great--you'll start the next round with TF at 4/8 (5/8 if you chose Blue Card) and tons of options.

Jinx Variant

Fizz Variant

Decklist Substitutions

• Twisted Fate: while I am in general a big fan of budget decks running less than 3 champions, for this particular archetype I'm afraid it's either run 3x TF or play another deck. As mentioned earlier he is an extremely safe craft.
• Jinx: if you don't have the 3rd Jinx, don't craft her--frankly she's almost a side-grade to most of the cards in this deck list.  Running even a single Fizz and/or a 3rd Zaunite Urchin instead is fine.
• Epics: there weren't any, remember? :-) If you can afford the 3 TF and assorted commons and rares, that's all you need to start playing this deck.

What are your feelings about Casino TF decks?  Are there any other LoR archetypes you'd like us to spotlight?  Let us know below!