Hail, Champions! After Day 2 of the new Guardians of the Ancient expansion, and decks are starting to settle in. We're seeing refinement of the Azir + Irelia archetype along with many starting to return to the proven archetypes from the previous season. Here are 10 novel decks that we noticed streamers playing today!
NicMakesPlay's Azir + Irelia Marshal
Let's start with a deck that's becoming extremely popular on ladder. We pulled this particular decklist from NicMakesPlays, but honestly, it seems like every streamer has played this archetype at least a little and it's already become refined to the point where there's very little variation. Inspiring Marshal is the latest development -- if your opponent isn't dead by Round 5, just start spamming 3|1 blades repeatedly (4|1 if you have an L2 Azir) until your opponent is dead.
BboomTeemo's Shyvana J4 A Sol
Next, we have a deck poised to counter the Irelia decks. Radiant Guardian is the key card here, but using Blue GuardianBADCARDNAME to accelerate into your midrange units is pretty important too. Just be wary of investing too heavily in the expensive units -- most Irelia decks are now running Homecoming to answer Fiora decks.
TealRed's Solo Elise Matron Cithria Combo
Here's a fun deck from TealRed. Cheat out an early Cithria, Lady of the CloudsBADCARDNAME using tricks like Mobilize, Oblivious Islander, and Spectral Matron. Radiant Guardian makes another appearance here as a stalling tool.
4LW's Teemo + Ezreal Chirean Harrowing
We covered an SI Chirean Sumpworker deck yesterday. 4LW's built his variation around Teemo and Ezreal, all working up a big The Harrowing turn that can summon multiple Sumpwork PossesBADCARDNAME at once.
Scarzig's Zoe + Taliyah + Malphite Landmarks
Scarzig is continuing to tinker with Taliyah + Malphite landmark decks. Today, he took a note from last season and dropped Leona for Zoe, because honestly Zoe just makes every Targon deck better.
BruisedByGod's Zilean + Nasus Rekindler
There are a few people still experimenting with Zilean + Nasus decks, including BBG who is using The Rekindler. Whereas the Thresh Nasus is locked out of Rekindler due to Thresh having a higher base attack, Zilean will only be stronger if he's already leveled -- at which point you probably don't mind resurrecting him.
Erigby's Maokai Nautilus Deep
Empires of the Ascended champion Erigby was playing his Deep deck. Note that he decided against playing the new card Bone Skewer: despite theorycrafts that it wouldn't be bad to pick up and replay discounted Sea Monsters, it seems like the archetype just prefers to keep trucking.
FrozenWinterer's Azir Renekton Sun Disc
FrozenWinterer has been revisiting the mono-Shurima sun disc archetype. His strategy focuses mostly on stall features 3x Soothsayer and 3x Ascended's Rise; there is however 2x of the extremely popular Merciless Hunter to help with tempo.
Szychu's Zilean + Soraka Control
Don't write off this unconventional control deck from Szychu! Combining Zilean and Soraka is an inspired choice -- L2 Soraka and her heal package help Zilean draw his Time Bombs faster, and L2 Zilean provides value to help Star Spring win through healing.
SereneGrace's Solo Zilean Chirean Investigator
Finally, we have this fun turbo-draw viewer deck SereneGrace was playing. It includes 17 2-mana cards (not including Time Bombs), so Insightful Investigator should have no trouble helping you cycle quickly.
That will do it for now! What decks have you enjoyed playing? Share with us below!
Comments
Chirean Sumpworker is such a fun card to play, although you opponent probably disagree.
The soraka list is actually really good against the Irelia spam going on ladder.
added Chip cause how would they not include our boy Chip.
Chip seems like a good add. What did you take out?
2 Devoted councils, and 1 of the 2/7, the deck seemed to have a lot of healing already