Now that Legends of Runeterra’s latest expansion, Guardians of the Ancient dropped, it’s time to look at decks! We have three new champions added in this expansion, and I want to explore concepts that utilize the three of them. Malphite, Irelia, and Zilean all appear in Legends of Runeterra now. I can’t wait to try all three champs. Malphite because of my old Yasuo decks, and the possibility he presents, and Irelia because she can absolutely break the game as far as damage goes. The ability to attack multiple times a round without Scout is brilliant.

This comes from the new Blade Dance ability. When you play a creature with Blade Dance, the number it comes with tells you how many 1/1 Blades into the Battle Zone. Ergo, we get free attacks before having to declare real attackers. Malphite can in theory set up constant states of stun on all enemies, meaning with Yasuo in play, we can just wipe the enemy every single turn. It’s possible, at any rate. Potentially very expensive, Mana-wise.

This isn’t to say Zilean is bad, far from it. I just don’t prefer him. He will go excellently with Vi. A flood of sudden creatures with Vi in play or in hand means we can buff her wildly. With a little patience and time, we can drop her and immediately level up. I’m a really big fan of this expansion, though it is on the smaller side. There’s a lot of fun possibilities in Legends of Runeterra decks, thanks to Guardians of the Ancient. How about Miss Fortune/Irelia? All those Blade Dances make MF level up really fast.

I’m always excited to look at Legends of Runeterra. It’s a card game that’s worth more time and attention. It’s a fantastic card game, and it hasn’t had a single set of cards rotate out yet. It offers a very deep pool of potential decks, and while there are always top decks, we have so much potential for dark horse decks in LoR. I’m not going to promise these are decks that are going to bowl the world over. But they should be fun. I did a fair amount of research to figure out which combos are most appealing to me. I hope you enjoy them too. If you want to learn more about the new cards, you can find the full discussion here.

Now, I can see why people think Malphite’s Level Up is really hard. You need to summon 12+ Mana worth of Landmarks. That sounds really daunting until you look at one of the other new cards. Me and one of my long-time friends from college talked about this specifically. It sounds really hard to do, until you consider Eye of The Ra-Horak. This card serves two important purposes.

The first is that it costs 5 mana, and has Daybreak. If you cast this as your first spell, you summon a copy of this card with Countdown: 2 instead of the Countdown: 1 that the original has. That’s 10 mana worth of Landmarks on their own. When this ticks off, you Stun the 2 weakest enemies. This will total 4 total triggers for Yasuo’s Level Up. On turn 5, we’re suddenly very close to both levels up. If we early-game drop a Startipped Peak, that helps too. It creates some cards for us, and costs 2 mana, fulfilling our requirements.

From here, we simply play Malphite when we have 7 Mana. From there, we’re going to stun the whole enemy board and slice them up as often as possible. It’s going to be really easy to win from there. We will control the game at that point more than likely. As long as we hit the right cards on curve, it’s going to be very easy. Even without, we can summon a few Celestial allies to slow the game down for us/give us more creature options.

The purpose of this deck is to stun out our opponent every single time we have the Attack Token. So it isn’t every turn, but we can leave the opponent with almost no options on their own turn. Malphite is a 7-cost, so he’s very expensive. We can have everything set up before he ever hits the board. Through Malphite we create a card called Unstoppable Force. It’s a 2-cost, slow spell and it Stuns all enemies. Can you imagine the fury a Level 2 Yasuo would do? Even better if you buff him!

Level 2 Yasuo is by default a 5/5 with Quick Attack. So if we stun everyone, he hits everyone on the other side is hit with 5. Slap Pale Cascade on him to make him a 6/6 for a turn. Since minions in LoR don’t regenerate, we’re going to just run roughshod over people. There are several cards that also stun/recall on top of this, so we can easily keep someone on the defensive. Better still, a defensive with no options to actually defend with!

We also have Minah Swiftfoot in this deck, to make 3 enemies Recall. Yasuo also deals damage on Recall, so we could kill three targets through that. The big card that makes this work for me is the turn-5 Eye Of The Ra-Horak. Ideally, we have Yasuo in play before this, so we can start dealing with damage to things. Either way, he gets triggers for his level-up process (Stun/Recall 5 units). Eye Of The Ra-Horak has a Countdown 1, as I said, and Stuns the 2 weakest enemies. Doing it on Daybreak (the first spell of the turn) gives us a second one. It’s incredibly easy to level up Malphite based on that. We need value though to hold us off until things are perfect (or even after).

Startipped Peak is our other Landmark to make that happen, as a 2-cost one. It has Countdown: 2, and when it ends, we create 2 random Celestial cards in hand that cost 3 or less. There’s no telling what we’ll get, and either way, it’s low-cost cards that we didn’t have to slot into our deck. We also have Solari Priestess to help create more value, as she Invokes on Daybreak, creating a Celestial card that costs 4, 5, or 6. The Fangs does something similar, as it Invokes a Celestial card that costs 3 or less. Finally, Starsaping as a 5-cost Burst spell, it invokes a Celestial that costs 7 or more, then heals an ally or Nexus 5.

We use those weak/low-cost Celestials to get one of the big ones. Hopefully, one that grows with how many Celestials we played this game. This is just to help us get damage, it doesn’t really fit the combo so much. We have other new cards too. Chip, the adorable 1/1 for 1, and once we’ve summoned a Landmark, it gets +2/+2. Now we have a 3/3 for 1. Love to see it. We’re also running Blue Sentinel as a ⅔ for 2. When it dies, it creates a 2-cost Landmark, Crest of Insight. When its Countdown 1 ends, we get an extra Mana Gem for the turn.

Free mana, a free 2-cost Landmark (also helps Malphite), it’s brilliant. So a few of these new cards are very useful to help us get set up. We’re running some classic Targon/Ionia spells too. Hush and Deny are basically required, then Concussive Palm which stuns an enemy and gives us Tail of the Dragon. The Celestials are great and helpful, but they’re just helping us set up a defensive space until Malphite/Yasuo are in play.

From here, we basically just attack every time it’s our turn. We stun their whole line, slash them up, and swing for free damage. There aren’t a lot of ways around what we’re doing here, and from there, one or two attacks should be all we need to win. We’ve got creatures we can attack with before this, after all. Don’t feel like you have to play passive and do nothing. If you have openings, swing away! Don’t let your opponent think you can do nothing, after all.

Decklist

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Champions

Yasuo (4) x3

Malphite (7) x3

Landmarks

Startipped Peak (2) x3

Eye Of The Ra-Horak (5) x3

Followers

Chip (1) x3

Blue Sentinel (2) x3

Solari Sunhawk (2) x3

Solari Priestess (3) x3

The Fangs (4) x2

Minah Swiftfoot (9) x1

Spells

Pale Cascade (2) x3

Hush (3) x3

Concussive Palm (4) x2

Deny (4) x2

Starshaping (5) x3

Deck Code

CEBQMBAJAQCQQCQNBYCAGCJDKRKWAAIBAIHQGAICAICQCAICGEAQGCO5AEAQCAICEE

While I’m not sure this will be a Tier ½ deck, this is probably my favorite concept to come out of this expansion. It’s what I was figuring we would see in the game sooner or later. Everyone who plays League of Legends, sooner or later, gets hit with/uses the Yasuo/Malphite combo. It’s a rite of passage. If the cards fall where you want them to – Turn 4 Yasuo, Turn 5 Eye, Turn 7 Malphite, we can seal the game up. Between then, you want to drop other Landmarks and Stuns (Startipped, Solari Sunhawk), the other player won’t stand a chance at all. This is one of the decks for Legends of Runeterra that has a chance to shine thanks to Guardians of the Ancient.

Oh. God. Zilean and Viktor are going to do some terrifying, mean things together. Specifically, their Level 2 forms. Zilean creates Fleeting copies of non-Fleeting cards he saw you play last round. So we create spells we play the previous turn. Then, Viktor at Level 2 makes created cards cost 1 mana less. Since this counts all cards you play that aren’t fleeting, we can really take advantage of some nonsense. There are plenty of cards that duplicate/add cards to your deck, after all.

Khahiri the Returned, for example. Casting him creates a copy of them in your deck, and when seen in a Prediction, all allied copies of him everywhere gain +2/+2. Then we make another copy of him to play, which does this yet again. We have Counterfeit Copies, which makes 4 exact copies of a card in your hand into your deck. We can do this with Mystic Shot for extra damage spells, or Ballistic Bot to have even more reliable damage?

If you cast Counterfeit Copies for example with both of them in play, you get another copy of it, but now it costs 0 mana instead of 1! We’re also using another one of my favorite cards just for weird silliness, Insightful Investigator. It’s a 4-cost 3/3 minion, and when you play a 2-cost card, draw 1 and give it Fleeting. Sure, you have to play it that turn, but most of this deck is very low-cost. It also grants more power when we have our level 2 champions.

Viktor’s easy to level up – play created cards (7+). That’s especially easy in this deck. Zilean needs you to destroy two Time Bombs. When you play him, he creates 4 of them in your deck, so you have that. Hopefully, you get some early Predictions/early draws into them. Once that triggers, it’s over for these jerks.

This game sort of plays the long-game. We’re going to be creating/duplicating cards as fast as possible. An early Ballistic Bot and Ancient Preparations will help us put Viktor on the right path. Any spell that creates cards helps. Ancient Preparations’ Clocking, and Ballistic Bot’s constant every round Ignition spell? Oh yeah, it pays off. We want to play Zilean early too, but probably won’t be attacking with him very often. Once we turn-2 Zilean, we can start looking to Predict. Ancient Preparations, Aspiring Chronomancer, Scrying Sands, these all Predict. We want to get those Clocks as fast as possible. So what are these Time Bombs?

They are 2-cost Landmarks, and when it’s summoned, draw 1 card, and advance other Time Bombs by 1 round. It has Countdown: 1, and it deals 1 to all enemies and the enemy Nexus. With that in mind, we want to consider casting Counterfeit Copies of one of these, so we can have even more of them. Even after he levels up, the Time Bombs are still useful. Level 2 Zilean makes it much faster to level up Viktor though.

The constant flood of created cards makes it so as soon as we drop Viktor, now he’s Level 2. The Hex Core Upgrades will make Viktor better as well, giving him more keywords. How do we win though? Those Ballistic Bots will weaken people for sure, with constant Ignition, as will the Time Bombs. Making copies of Chirean Sumpworkers will allow us to flood the board with frustrating cards. Same with Khahiri the Returned. For example, when we cast a Chirean Sumpworker, we have a ½ Elusive. Then when we cast the Fleeting copy next turn, it transforms them (and every other Sumpworker) in your deck into Sumpworks Posses. Now we have 4/2 Elusives.

This is why Counterfeit Copies and Zilean are so important. We use Counterfeit to make copies of Sumpworker and cast the Fleeting one the next turn. Now we have 4/2s, about 5 of them in our deck. There are odds that we can win just with those. They’re all Elusive and hit hard. We keep pinging away with our damage spells and turn that free damage into free victories (Viktories). With Level 2 Viktor making our created spells 1 less, and Zilean making copies of everything we cast the previous turn, it’s just a chain of damage. You make an Ignition from Ballistic Bot, we get another one the next turn, in addition to the one we got the turn before.

It’s all about using your spells wisely. Iterative Improvement makes a copy of a follower in hand with +1/+1, that we should use on our Sumpworker. Conversely, Ancient Hourglass obliterates an ally to summon a Stasis Statue, which brings the other back (so use this on Khahiri likely, or Zilean to make even more Time Bombs).

This will spiral out of control very fast. You’ll love popping off all these spells, that’s for sure.

Decklist

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Champions

Zilean (2) x3

Viktor (4) x3

Landmarks

Ancient Preparations (1) x3

Followers

Aspiring Chronomancer (2) x3

Ballistic Bot (2) x3

Chirean Sumpworker (2) x3

Insightful Investigator (4) x3

Khahiri the Returned (6) x3

Spells

Counterfeit Copies (1) x3

Scrying Sands (1) x3

Ancient Hourglass (2) x2

Iterative Improvement (2) x3

Mystic Shot (2) x3

Rite of Negation (4) x2

Deck Code

CECQKBAHAEKRYJ2PAIAQILRUAMBQIAYFBUAQIBAFAEBAIBYBAICAOO2MAA

When I thought Zilean, I didn’t think Viktor, but I’m glad I saw it! It’s an obnoxious combo, and the longer it goes on, the harder it’s going to be to stop. Zilean/Viktor creates a constant flood of armaments, and the other make copies of cards that in turn, make more copies of cards. This is such a disrespectful deck, and I have a pretty good feeling about the power of this, given the already solid card value that Viktor had on his own.

This is another concept that I thought would be a no-brainer. The top two ideas I had for Irelia feature Irelia and Azir and with Miss Fortune. I will probably add the MF deck too after this. These two champions however are glad to benefit from summoned allies. Azir’s Sand Soldiers and Irelia creating Flawless Duets and Bladesurges, it’s going to be absolutely horrifying. It’s an aggro-style deck where we summon a constant flow of jerks. When you combine Emperor’s Dais with Blade Dance, you’re going to get more damage in play than your opponent can possibly keep up with.

When allies attack, you summon a Sand Soldier. The word “summon” is key. You combine that with the Blade Dance keyword, which summons Blades that then attack. You summon an ally with Blade Dance, attack with them and the Sand Soldier. Summon another Blade Dance minion, which makes another set of attacks. Another Sand Soldier arrives! Since Azir needs to summon 10 units, and Irelia needs to have 12+ allies attack, and neither has to be on the board, it’s going to be easy-peasy.

We’ve also got units that get temporarily buffed when allies get summoned, so they’re going to be able to dole out the harshness too. This deck is going to be powerful and quick, and that’s what I love about it. I also really like the possibilities of Irelia/Zed, but Azir/MF will be more efficient, in my estimation.

We want our champions again, to level up as fast as possible. That’s hopefully going to kick off with an Emperor’s Dais on turn 2. This has a Sand Soldier summoned to join in whenever our allies attack. Sand Soldier is a 1/1 Ephemeral that has Nexus Strike: Deal 1 to the enemy Nexus. We pair that with Blade Dance and a host of really annoying creatures to make sure we level up fast.

Many of the cards in this deck summon more friends. For example, Dunekeeper is a 1-cost 2/1, that summons another Sand Soldier. Ribbon Dancer has Blade Dance: 1, and Blossoming Blade has Blade Dance: 2. Then you can cast Lead and Follow to recan an ally (a summon ally) to create a Flawless Duet in hand. In turn, Flawless Duet is a 1-cost to Blade Dance: 2. Just from these low-cost moves, You could get all of your triggers for both champions from these in a few turns.

So what’s the buzz behind our champs? Level Two Azir summons a Sand Soldier to attack with your allies when they do. When you summon an ally, both Azir and that summoned ally gain +1/+0 for the round. Now we do way more damage. You can make Azir huge with enough summons in one turn. This allows us to do tons of damage, and pretty safe too. If every ally you summon for a turn gets buffed, you’re going to smash someone. They’ll have a hard time (hopefully) deciding the blockers.

Irelia normally is a 3/3 Quick Attack, she rewards you for having the Attack Token. If you do when she’s summoned and on Round Start, she creates that Flawless Duet in your hand. When she levels up, after 12+ allies attack, now she’s a 4/3 that does the same thing. However, when allies attack, you create a Bladesurge in hand. This can happen every single time your Blades attack. Bladesurge costs 0 and lets you swap Irelia with an ally. You can put her into a blocking position, or put her into a spot where she’s dealing free damage! It’s fantastic.

Her spell (when you draw an extra Irelia) is Vanguard’s Edge. A slow 7-cost spell, but it has Blade Dance: 3, and one of your allies attacks with the Blades. In this case, we’d want to use Azir potentially, especially if he’s Level Two. We can redo some of our Blade Dances too. Navori Conspirator, for example, requires you to Recall an ally. Bounce one back to do it again. Lead And Follow does that too. Homecoming recalls an ally or landmark, but also does it to your opponent!

If we can combine Inspiring Marshal with Level Two Azir, we’re going to have some really mean units. This 4/6 for 5 grants an ally +2/+0 for the round when summoned. I’m sure you can see the practical applications here. We flood the board with temporary units that we lose nothing for, and then just blister people with them. We summon those Blades, and suddenly they gain +1 from Azir, and +2 from the Marshall. Then we can swing with the Greenglade Duo and Sparring Student that buff when summoning allies.

You get the ability to swing often and swing really hard. It’s pretty safe with a constant flow of minions that you don’t have to worry about dying (because they’re supposed to). Push, push, push until you win. That’s the name of the game here.

Decklist

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Champions

Azir (3) x3

Irelia (3) x3

Landmarks

Ancient Preparations (1) x2

Emperor’s Dais (2) x3

Followers

Dancing Droplet (1) x3

Dunekeeper (1) x3

Sparring Student (1) x3

Greenglade Duo (2) x1

Navori Conspirator (2) x2

Ribbon Dancer (2) x3

Blossoming Blade (4) x3

Inspiring Marshal (5) x3

Spells

Shaped Stone (1) x2

Lead and Follow (2) x3

Nopeify! (2) x1

Homecoming (4) x2

Deck Code

CEBQKBACAQCQSCYPAQCAOAY2GM4QCAICFIBQEBAHDROQCAICFQAQGAQFAIAQCAQGAEBQEFA

No matter what style of Irelia deck you run, it has the potential to be devastating. I absolutely love the concept of it. We can make several sets of attacks in one turn, each one more frustrating than the last. Once we’ve got through all of their defenders, we can attack yet again. The opponent has to worry about if this is our only play for the turn, or if we can/will do more attacking. It’s aggressive and allows us to constantly prod the other player without too much stress. I imagine board wipe and frostbite would be very bad for this deck though.

Swain is saying farewell to Bilgewater, and instead, we’re going to take a peek at Shurima, thanks to Zilean. Honestly, all the stuff we’re losing from Bilgewater was either nerfed or in my opinion, not as useful as the Shurima options. We get free non-combat damage through Zilean’s Time Bombs. This will level Swain faster than ever! Since the Time Bomb Landmarks deal 1 damage to all enemies and the enemy Nexus when their Countdown ends, if the opponent has a full-board, that’s likely to be half of Swain’s level up.

This will also allow Ravenous Flock to suddenly be quite terrifying. If we can hit the whole enemy board for 1, suddenly that’s another 4 damage for 1 mana, thanks to our bird pals. Zilean is exactly what this deck needed the whole time. Far more valuable than Twisted Fate (if you ask me), we have better card draw, better ways to deal out damage, and the ability to re-cast cards we cast the previous turn. Can you imagine two Leviathans sitting on the board, dishing out damage every turn? Oh, that gives me some feelings.

We have survivability here too. If your foe is burning through your favorite units (The Leviathan, Swain, et cetera), you can Ancient Hourglass it, obliterate it and bring it back again at full strength (also triggering any enters-the-battlefield abilities). Plus we can get sneaky wins through cards like Merciless Hunter! We pull away the last remaining blocker from Swain, so he deals free damage, and triggers his Nexus Strike.

Swain decks overwhelm people with noncombat damage. When Swain deals combat damage to the enemy Nexus (Nexus Strike), he deals 3 damage to the enemy Nexus. That means it’s at least 6 damage for one attack. In order to level up, you need to deal 12 non-combat damage. This is where Zilean comes in. He grants you 4 Time Bombs into your deck when he’s put into play. All you need is to have two of them proc in order to level up, too.

Time Bombs, as we stated earlier, have a Countdown of 1, and when it ends, each enemy and the enemy Nexus take 1 damage. This is free non-combat damage for Swain. Then we can use Ravenous Flock for another 4 damage to a minion. We also have Death’s Hand and Noxian Ferver as familiar cards to help. Death’s Hand deals 2 to an enemy and 1 to the enemy Nexus, and Noxian Fervor deals 3 to an ally to deal 3 to anything.

This could hit our Aspiring Chronomancer since once they Predict for us, they are no longer useful, except as a body. Hopefully, when Swain hits the board, he’s already Level 2, but that’s not necessarily always going to happen. If we don’t get him on time, The Leviathan will help in the late game. An 8-cost ⅝ with Overwhelm, it has us draw a Swain when played. Each Round Start, it deals 1 to the enemy Nexus 3 times.

However, if we already have Swain in play, instead that will draw us Swain’s Ravenous Flock, so we can deal more non-combat damage! Swain himself helps that process thanks to his Nexus Strike. Things really get unfair with our level 2 champions though. Level 2 Zilean gives us an unbearable amount of value. His ability to let us re-cast any non-Fleeting card we play means we can have two Leviathans, cast Ravenous Flock twice, kill two units/destroy two Landmarks through Scorched Earth, you name it. Then we have the horrifying Level Two Swain. Whenever you deal non-combat damage to the enemy Nexus, he stuns the Strongest backrow enemy. So through our spells, we can easily make that happen. Even doing this on our opponent’s turn, we can prevent powerful enemies from ever attacking.

When Swain deals damage to the enemy Nexus, he hits all enemies and the enemy Nexus for an additional 3. At this point, he’s a 4/7 with Fearsome, so weak creatures can’t block him. I have a really good feeling about this deck. Zilean at Level Two makes anything that was good now great. Preservarium gives us two cards to draw (1 on cast, 1 on Countdown end), and being able to play another one the next turn? We’re in a constant state of draw. Unlike Bilgewater, we even have a counter spell! Rite of Negation kills an ally or destroys a mana gem to stop all enemy Fast Spells, Slow Spells, and all Skills. You lose an ally or a mana gem, but so what?

We have a measure of control that we didn’t have before in this deck. This is a deck that picks up tempo pretty quick. It’s got a lot of threat elimination, ways to stun/remove foes, and simply dumpster out non-combat damage for Swain and to just win faster. Love to see it.

Decklist

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Champions

Zilean (2) x3

Swain (5) x3

Landmarks

Ancient Preparations (1) x3

Preservarium (2) x3

Followers

Aspiring Chronomancer (2) x3

House Spider (2) x2

Arachnoid Sentry (3) x3

Merciless Hunter (3) x3

The Leviathan (8) x3

Spells

Ravenous Flock (1) x3

Scrying Sands (1) x3

Ancient Hourglass (2) x2

Death’s Hand (3) x1

Noxian Fervor (3) x2

Scorched Earth (3) x1

Rite of Negation (4) x2

Deck Code

CEBQMBAHAEGRYJ2PM4BQEAYBA4EQCAIDFYBQEBAHHNGACAIDG4AQEAYDAIAQEAYIAEBQGDI

The only reason I didn’t run this deck is that I don’t care for Twisted Fate, to be absolutely honest. But this Zilean version? Oh, I’m a big fan of this. I’m hoping it rises to the top of the meta because it has the potential to really be devastating. It starts a little slow, using our Spiders and hopefully Chronomancer to set up a defense and Predict useful cards, and then, things start getting wild. It’s not a super fast deck in my estimation, but if everything goes right? It’s going to be dirty and unpleasant for your opponent. If we can keep their board empty, it won’t take more than a few attacks. Heck, you can just have the Leviathan out and let the constant damage from it win the game without actually attacking. It’s up to you!

Here’s another combo I immediately thought about when I saw Level Two Zilean. Since Level Two allows him to duplicate and re-cast spells we cast the previous round, it’s going to make Go Hard unreasonably powerful. We’re going to pair our Time Mage with lots of card draw and control. We slow the game down to a pace that suits us, throw in a few really powerful allies, and boom! It’s going to be pretty easy to set up wins. We’re going to win slowly but surely. It’s going to be a bombardment of Time Bombs and Go Hard / Pack Your Bags.

Since we can duplicate Go Hard with Level Two Zilean, we’re going to have so many copies going around. Casting Go Hard creates two copies of it in your deck. Then we duplicate it through Zilean and get two more even though the second Go Hard is Fleeting. It doesn’t matter, it will still create more copies in our deck. It’s going to be really frustrating for people to see all those Pack Your Bags come crashing down, dealing 5 damage to all enemies and the enemy Nexus each time.

I’m a big fan of this concept, and I don’t really see a lot of solo-Champion decks. Zilean can go hard, and he doesn’t need friends. If I had to pick someone in the Shadow Isles to help him though? Someone low-cost and early-game friendly, like Elise. Someone to distract the other player while I set up a dominating force of card-casting nature.

Zilean will add four Time Bombs into our deck, which just synergizes perfectly with the recent Predict keyword. It is one of the reasons I’d consider Ancient Hourglass, obliterating Zilean. We remove him from the game, and then bring him back, once again adding more Time Bombs to the deck. You may not want to do that though. I just like it because it increases our odds of finding them. We want Level Two Zilean before we start dropping Go Hards, if possible. I wouldn’t ignore casting them if we draw into them/Predict into them though.

But being able to cast them guaranteed back-to-back is nothing to sneeze at. We haven’t talked about Go Hard / Pack Your Bags in a while, so if you aren’t familiar, here’s what it does. Go Hard is a 1-cost spell, and it drains 1 from a unit and creates 2 copies of this spell in your deck. Once you’ve cast Go Hard 3 times, transform all copies everywhere into Pack Your Bags.

Pack Your Bags is a Slow Spell much like Go Hard, but it costs 5 mana. It deals 5 damage to all enemies and their Nexus. Then, all copies everywhere become Go Hard again. The real question for me is “Will Level Two Zilean keep it as Go Hard or Pack Your Bags?” Since the card technically doesn’t exist, it might come in as a Pack Your Bags. Most likely, it will be another Go Hard, which is fine.

Our early game aside from casting Zilean is built around survival. Hapless Aristocrat to get a second annoying minion, for example. Vile Feast does the same for 2 mana. We want to hold off on Khairi The Student until we’ve Predicted at least once though. That way it comes in with +1/+1. For my money, Aspiring Chronomancer, Ancient Preparations, and Time in a Bottle are important to this deck. Some of the most important. We need Predict to start finding Go Hard / Time Bombs (once they’re in the deck).

Time in a Bottle is also going to advance an allied landmark for two rounds. Hopefully, you partner this with Preservarium so we can get even more card draw. Ancient Preparations is another Landmark we could hit with Time in a Bottle. It Predicts on play, and at the end of the Countdown, you summon a Clockling. There we have yet another annoying creature to slow people down. Hopefully, we see Khairi the Returned in our Predictions. We don’t have to take him. But seeing him grants all copies everywhere +2/+2.

ZIlean needs to be dropped as fast as possible so we can start drawing into and playing Time Bombs. We just need to have two to level up Zilean. I know we’ve talked about what he does before in this blog, so let’s be brief. At the start of the Round, we get Fleeting (temporary) copies of any card we played the previous turn.

That means we can cast Commander Ledros, to deal damage to the enemy Nexus equal to half its Health, rounded up. We don’t have to wait for him to die and come back to our hand (Last Breath). Next turn, we can simply do it again. It won’t kill the other player, but it will reduce their Nexus to nearly nothing.

The name of this game is casting Go Hard as often as possible. Level Two Zilean makes that much faster. It also helps us against aggro decks (Zilean). The Box, for example, deals 3 to each enemy that was summoned this round. If our opponent tries to repopulate the field, we can do it again. We can do the same with Vengeance. Almost every card in this deck benefits from being cast a second time. Between the inevitable Pack Your Bags, Time Bombs, and Ledros, we will whittle away at our foe until nothing is left.

Decklist

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Champions

Zilean (2) x3

Landmarks

Ancient Preparations (1) x3

Preservarium (2) x3

Followers

Aspiring Chronomancer (2) x3

Merciless Hunter (3) x3

Khairi the Student (3) x3

Khairi the Returned (6) x3

Commander Ledros (9) x1

Spells

Go Hard (1) x3

Scrying Sands (1) x3

Vile Feast (2) x3

Ancient Hourglass (2) x1

Time in a Bottle (3) x2

Rite of Negation (4) x1

The Box (4) x1

Spirit Fire (7) x2

Vengeance (7) x2

Deck Code

CMBQCAYFCABQCBI5FAVQOBAHAEGRKHBHIJNQEAIBAUAQCBAHHMBACBAHJQBACBITEE

Zilean’s so good. He has the potential to be added to a wide variety of decks and bring them success. If it’s a deck that relies on playing cards at all it’s going to be a deck you can consider Zilean for. But he works just fine on his own. I want to see him in decks built for buffing units too. For example, he might be fun in a Soraka deck. The low-cost heals that we have on offer could be amazing to use again and again. Makes them safer. But this deck? You just take your time, harass the other player, and take away their Nexus’ life points, slowly but surely.