Faint's Fizz & Teemo Elusive Burn Deck List & Guide - Runeterra Deck Spotlight

Hail, champions! It's Wednesday, meaning we have another special Runeterra Deck Spotlight for you. Today we'll be looking at the deck Faint used to hit NA Rank 1: a fun off-meta Fizz + Teemo Elusive Burn deck that combines P&Z direct damage with Bilgewater elusives. It was good before Patch 2.0; we expect it will be only stronger now with the nerf to Pack Your Bags.

Fizz Teemo Elusive Burn Strategy

The core of this deck is a combination of elusive attackers and burn spells. You'll want to play this deck aggressively, using your life as a resource and adopting a "kill them before they kill you" mentality. While Aftershock has some obvious applications for removing The Grand Plaza, it can also deal 3 Nexus damage at fast speed -- don't be afraid to ignore Plaza and just go full burn if you feel like you have enough momentum. Used Cask Salesman is actually often a better counter to Plaza: since your opponent has to develop to gain the challenger buff, you can drop Salesman in response and then use the 2 ephemerals to block.

Wiggly Burblefish is the star of this show; you will be regularly casting spells and should be able to get his cost down to 0 with ease. Clever use of Iterative Improvement will greatly improve your winrate -- ideally, you will use this either on a Burblefish to create a 0-cost 4|2 Elusive or a Ballistic Bot to create a 2|4 Augment that generates more Ignitions. The fleeting Ignitions can be either played to deal 1 damage while progressing Burblefish and Fizz or discarded to pay for Poro Cannon or Get Excited!

Fizz can be a little tricky to pilot if you're not used to him. Try to always hold spell mana if you can -- even if you don't actually have a spell in hand to activate his passive ability, often your opponent will respect a bluff just because fizzling a spell is so punishing. If you can buff Fizz with an early Suit Up!, he becomes a force of nature.

Mind Meld is a 1x that provides an alternative win condition -- your spell count should routinely reach double-digits, so as few as 2 elusive attackers can threaten lethal. Think of it as a Hail Mary play for when you're running out of gas and need one big final push. Alternatively, if you're in a matchup that calls for a more aggressive strategy, it too can be discarded for Poro Cannon or Get Excited!.

Here's Faint's deck guide in video format:

Fizz Teemo Elusive Burn Mulligan Guide

• In most matchups, Fizz, Ballistic Bot, and Poro Cannon are the ideal cards for your opening hand.
• Wiggly Burblefish and Iterative Improvement are good if you feel comfortable with the rest of your hand, but otherwise don't hesitate to toss them and try to draw into them later.
• The Grand Plaza can be answered by either Aftershock (control option) or Used Cask Salesman (aggro option).

Fizz Teemo Elusive Burn Deck List

Fizz Teemo Elusive Burn Card Substitutions

• Teemo is being used primarily for as a 1 mana 1|1 elusive -- there are no puffcap synergies in the deck, so you'll rarely flip Teemo. Prowling Cutthroat is a perfectly justifiable substitution.
• Fizz is more impactful than Teemo -- not only does he have built-in protection against targeted spells, but his 2 damage puts in a lot of work. Prowling Cutthroat is still the nearest substitution, but this change is more significant.
• Wiggly Burblefish is the backbone of this deck with no true substitutions; it is not recommended to build this deck with any less than 3x copies.
• Zap Sprayfin is a very versatile card and a worthy epic craft. In a pinch, though, you can substitute Abyssal Eye or a 2nd Mind Meld.
• As mentioned above, Faint recommends exactly 1x Mind Meld to provide that alternative OTK win condition. If we had to make a substitution, we'd pick 1x Progress Day!

That will be it for this week's installment -- a big thanks to Faint for the deck and to FreshLobster for helping us find it!