Wednesday, November 4, 2020

In League with the Legends - Lee Targon's Warmother

Eventually, after so long without streaming any card games, the itch eventually needs to be scratched, at least for someone like me. And there's no better time than now to return to the world of Runeterra, which the latest update providing new cards, champions, and strategies to experiment with.

On top of that, there appears to be a new event on offer with regards to a pop stars in the League of Legends lore that I have absolutely no familiarity with whatsoever. I've sure someone will explain it to me at some point.

As always, the deck lists I play with come courtesy of Mobalytics. The decklist import codes are:

  • Warmother:
    • CICACAYFAIBAGAICAYBQCBIBDUUAKAIBBQLSCJZJAEBQCBIPDE3ACAIBAE2A
  • Lee Targon:
    • CIBQEAICBEYQGAQCAMDASBQDBENSGKJTLRRAGAICAIEACAYCCQAQGCKVAEAQEAQF

Warmother's Call has been around since I first started playing the game. While it's a powerful effect, it's very seen much use because it's high cost means players would need to have at least 9 normal mana (and an additional 3 spell mana) to play it. Ramp never had the tools to succeed, which prevented it from seeing any major play. The card that finally solved that problem was, oddly enough, Trundle.

Since the two big ramp pieces, Wyrding Stones and Catalyst of Aeons, can both be played on turn three, it is common for this deck to have five mana available on turn four, allowing Trundle to sequence nicely after ramping. With both above average stats and regeneration, he can both a strong attacker and blocker to keep pressure on the opponent while we continue to expand our mana pool. And if that wasn't enough, his signature spell is a strong board clear that can debilitate boards that have over-committed to the board in the meantime. He has everything that the archetype was missing, slotting nicely into the build.

The Lee Targon deck, on the other hand, involves setting up a combo that can quickly obliterate an opponent once it's been established. First order of business is to draw into one of our copies of Lee Sin, and cast enough spells to level him up. This is why most of the spells in this deck draw a card once we've cast them, and most of the minions in our deck create cheap Gems that we can use to pad out our spell count and protect Lee Sin with the barriers he creates for himself.

Once we have achieved these conditions, we use Zenith Blade on him to grant him overwhelm. If leveled up, Lee Sin will use Dragon's Rage on any unit he challenges. This will slam them into the enemy nexus to inflict damage and kill them. Normally, this would mean we don't get to attack in because Lee Sin was blocked. However, because Zenith Blade gives him overwhelm, he can then swing in for full damage. To protect our combo, we have a couple of disruption spells in the form of Nopeify! and Deny to keep our enemy away from their removal.

It's fun to come back and see a whole new meta working it's magic. Thanks to Runeterra's economy, it didn't take long for me to catch up with everyone else since I already had enough shards and wildcards to construct the decks I wanted to try out.

If only more digital card games were so generous.

No comments: