TheCupIsMine's Shyvana & Aurelion Sol Dragon Deck List & Guide - Runeterra Deck Spotlight

Hail, Champions! We've got a very special spotlight this week -- today, we're going to respond to a player "looking for deck" request! Reddit user u/eusebioadamastor wrote the following post on the r/LegendsOfRuneterra subreddit:

Quote From r/LegendsOfRuneterra

Can someone please share a viable dragon deck?

I'm coming back to the game after a looong hiatus. Last time I played seriously was during the release, and did some games during Bilgewater release as well.

I'm a sucker for flavor. I don't want to play the best deck. I want to play the deck with most big scary big boys, and the dragon archetype is just my jam. But since I'm very unfamiliar with all the new cards, I need some help.

What's the best possible way to make a dragon deck work?

Call us crazy, but this post just pulled at our heartstrings. A dormant player looking to return to the fold?  Someone who values flavor over competitiveness? And did we mention: dragons! How could we not want to help this player out? Of course, active players will know this isn't a simple request -- dragon-centric decks are not known for performing well. Luckily we got a solid assist from content creator Faint, who directed us to TheCupIsMine's work. That name should sounds familiar; Cup was one of the 32 competitors in the NA Monuments of Power Season Tournament, actually using a Demacia + Targon dragons deck to go 5-0 in the open rounds and surviving to the 2nd round of playoffs.

One programming note before we begin: this deck list, guide, and video were originally created before Patch 2.1 -- i.e., when Hush cost 2 mana, The Grand Plaza granted +1|+1, and Molten Breath didn't exist yet. We think this iteration of dragons is still strong enough to play competitively -- neither nerf hurts this deck too much and we're not sure if Molten Breath would be an improvement or just a sidegrade -- so we're publishing this content as-was. That said, we're going to keep our eyes out to see if any further post-patch refinements emerge over the next few weeks. So with no further adieu, let's jump right into Cup's most recent dragon deck list!

UPDATE: thecupismine provided some feedback in the comments below; we've annotated them in the original article in italics.

Shyvana Sol Plaza Strategy

Your early turns are especially critical -- the dragons archetype doesn't come "online" until Rounds 4-5, and you'll need to do some delicate water-treading to ensure you can stabilize in time. Aggro matchups are especially difficult to navigate, so if you're facing a lot of Scouts and/or Draven + Jinx Discard you might want to put this deck on hold for a bit. The best course of action will vary greatly based on what exactly you're facing and what you've drawn. If you're against Draven and they attack on odd rounds, you'll want to keep Solari Shieldbearer to play in response to them playing Draven on curve. Conversely, if they have either Draven or Ezreal and attack on even rounds, Dragonguard Lieutenant is your best answer. You can even bait them into passing on Round 3 (they won't want to play either Draven or Ezreal so long as you have the attack token) and then just prematurely end the round, denying them the opportunity to play any units.

thecupismine actually corrects us that this deck is very strong against scouts so long as you focus on value and stalling out the game. "The key thing to think about is scouts wins by going 2 for 1 with a lot of trades, which is next to impossible with the beef in this deck. If you have plaza down and play a dragon, you lock them out of doing anything meaningful with their mana that turn as you'll challenge the important unit, win the trade, and then continue widdling down their board. This often leads them to not play anything, to which you end the turn without attacking and destroy their tempo."

Our favorite thing about this particular decklist is its adaptability. With 2x Solari Sunforger, 2x Radiant Guardian, and 2x Starshaping, it packs a ton of healing which can help outlast burn decks. Conversely, cards like Dragon's Clutch, Egghead Researcher, and of course Aurelion Sol provide refill against more grindy decks. And Eclipse Dragon is especially brilliant -- you can either play it for its Daybreak effect to later play two mid-sized units (= tempo), play it for its Nightfall effect to generate two additional units in-hand (= value), or play it for its Daybreak effect to cheat out an 8-cost Sol (= threaten to immediately end the game).

Shyvana is the trickiest component of this deck. Her L2 form provides incredible value, but she's also arguably the most difficult champion to level in the game. She needs to see and survive allied dragons deal 12 points of damage, but with only 4 HP she can be extremely difficult to keep alive. We think the secret to optimizing her performance is adopting a "threaten to flip but don't commit" attitude similar to the Zoe Allegiance decks we spotlighted last week. In other words: if it costs your opponent more resources/tempo to remove your Shyvana than what you invested in her, you should count it as a net advantage. That said, if you can flip her without committing too hard it's usually worth it -- even if that copy of Shyvana dies immediately afterwards, you have 2x more in your deck and the ability to draw her from Dragon's Clutch. Finally, don't be afraid to sacrifice Shyvana if you're getting too far behind -- often players will get so caught up in the dream of flipping her that they'll ignore the less exciting 2-for-1 trades that they need to stabilize.

Judgment is a critical card -- not just playing it, but also bluffing it. Almost all your units will have huge attacks, so your opponent has to respect the fact a single 8-mana spell has the potential to wipe their entire attacking squad. This means they will often make more conservative attacks so long as you have 8+ mana up. Ironically, you'll often take less total nexus damage if you wait until after an attack to develop rather than before regardless of whether or not you actually do have a Judgment in hand. Conversely, if your opponent does start suddenly disrespecting Judgment mid-game, it means they either drew a counter-response for it or they've realized they are in a do-or-die situation -- try to figure out which and react appropriately. There's also something magical about when you do play a Judgment on a dragon and seeing multiple Fury activations while the opposing board disappears.

cup also stresses the potential value in banking mana to cast an early Judgment in aggro matchups -- if you can clear their board on Round 5, you should have no problems stabilizing.

TheCupIsMine does not stream, but Faint was kind enough to provide a video spotlight of his decklist.

Shyvana Sol Plaza Mulligan Guide

Mulligans in this deck can be quite difficult due to the high mana curve, inherently slow start, and the high number of ally-dependent spells. Try to adopt a pragmatic, "good enough" approach rather than dig for the optimal response.

• Shyvana is always a keep
• You'll want at least 1 copy of a 2-drop (Solari Shieldbearer, Dragonguard Lieutenant, or Egghead Researcher) 
• The Grand Plaza is also a keep against any non-aggro deck. For aggro matchups, it's a judgment call based on how the rest of your hand looks.
• Speaking of aggro: you'll want to dig fairly hard for those healing cards (Solari Sunforger, Radiant Guardian, Starshaping)
• Hush and Single Combat can be great answers to Elusive and Quick Attack units so long as you have a unit on-board to block

Against Draven + Jinx and Fearsome matchups, thecupismine recommends fishing hard for Judgment -- banking 3 spell mana to cast it on Round 5 will often stop these decks cold, even if you need to cast it on Dragonguard Lieutenant or Solari Shieldbearer rather than an ideal target like a dragon or lifesteal unit. Against scouts, look for Plaza and try to stall out the game -- your units are inherently bigger, so you should be able to force 2-for-1s better than they can plus you always win the late game.

Shyvana Sol Plaza Decklist

Shyvana Sol Plaza Card Substitutions

Due to the unusual mana curve and its dependency on specific cards to generate value at specific points in the game, it's very difficult to recommend any substitutions for this deck that won't significantly undermine its consistency. 

• Shyvana is simultaneously a crucial card for this archetype and a dubious craft recommendation due to her limited utility and generally low winrate. Unfortunately, this deck so often depends on an early Shyvana to start to stabilize and threaten to flip in a way that no other card can, so we can't see running less than the requested 3x.
• Aurelion Sol is also a vital card, but he is thankfully much more flexible, and a heartily recommended crafting investment. This decklist also only requests 2x copies.
• Pre-2.1, we would have called The Grand Plaza a fantastic crafting investment; right now, its future value is much less certain. While the loss of 1 HP certainly reduces its value in this particular deck, it still does perfectly fill that 3-mana hole that earlier dragon decks had. If hard-pressed, we could see running only 2x copies and substituting a 3rd Egghead Researcher in the open slot.
• Judgment is the only card we would comfortably substitute -- as we mentioned above, acting like you have it is more important than actually having it. You should have at least 1x copy from your starting collection; we could see substituting a 3rd Concerted Strike or a 1x Molten Breath for the other spot.

Thus concludes yet another weekly deck spotlight. Did you enjoy this new "looking for deck" request format? Is there a particular archetype that you'd like us to spotlight in a future episode? Let us know below!