3 Fun Deck Recommendations for Week 2 of Empires of the Acended
The first weekend of Shuriman Ascension has come to a close.
My name is Jordan “WhatAmI” Abronson, and with the new week, I’ve got some new and slightly more refined decks from some of us here at Mobalytics.
Let’s go sand surfing with favorites from me, Silverfuse, and Precipic.
1.WhatAmI’s Taliyah/Aphelios
Deck Code :CMBACBAHBUDQGCKJKRQNQAOZAHNQDXIBAIBQGCINENLAGBAHAQ5USAQBAQDS2AYDBEEVKZA
[See Taliyah/Aphelios deck details]
If y’all know me at all you know I’m a Targon buff.
Branching decision paths at every point of the game and multiple ways to find victorious lines along the twisted road?
Sounds like my cup of tea. Shurima’s Sandy power seems like a great compliment.
You get the denial of Rite of Negation, the card draw of Preservarium, the sad but rather necessary removal of Weight of Judgment, and the absolutely nasty combo potential of Taliyah.
There are only two copies of our lady of rocks in this deck because you only ever really want her when you already have Veiled Temple.
Occasionally she can copy a Preservarium for value, but it’s usually too much of a tempo negative play to get away with.
Doubling your Temples though is just the opposite.
If you have a Temple in play and copy it with Taliyah, then because she makes exact copies, your next spell will proc both Temples, giving you all the mana and buffs you need to turn the game around.
She rarely levels, but think of her as a five mana powerful value tool and you’ll be alright.
Other than that you’ve got the standard Invoke package running right up the curve into Eclipse Dragon and Starshaping to close games out for you, and a bevy of powerful interaction to keep combo decks off your back.
Mulligan
In mulligans look for your one drops to keep you safe and your Aphelios to do busted Aphelios things. Consider keeping Veiled Temple against more controlling matchups and Solari Priestess for safety if you’re throwing the rest of it back.
Finally against the TF/Fizz menace mulligan for Weight of Judgment just to get that pesky combo card player off the board.
The deck is full of interesting and powerful lines and extremely fun to play, so I recommend it heavily to anyone who enjoys the Targon playstyle and wants to test out what Shurima has to offer.
2. Silverfuse’s Lissandra/Vladimir/Trundle Scargrounds
Lissandra has been an interesting new champ with the expansion who I wanted to try in other decks besides Shadow Isles.
I thought her Tough keyword made her an interesting idea in a Scargrounds hybrid style deck.
Deck Code: CECQCBADCIBQIAIBAYEQCAIDDYBAEAIBAYAQGAICAQBQCAYGF4ZQCBABAUBAGAIGCQAQIAYCAIAQCAJDAEBQGDI
[See Lissandra Trundle Vladimir Scargrounds deck details]
Ice Shard is also a huge addition to the archetype as it gives it much-needed backline interaction that it didn’t have before.
The expansion also gave support to Noxus with Crimson Bloodletter and especially Whispered Words.
The ability for Noxus to draw cards is huge and not one that it had a solid option for before.
Scargrounds has been one of my favorite archetypes and is one of the few places where Vladimir has a home.
I also added Trundle to produce Ice Pillars which means that Lissandra has a better chance of leveling up between Ice Pillars and Frozen Thralls going off through Draklorn.
This makes it so your Nexus now has Tough which allows for you to take the game a bit slower.
It also allows Ember Maiden and Ice Shard to damage your opponent while you don’t have to worry.
There are also plenty of Overwhelm creatures that continue to tick up in damage as your area of effect spells do damage to the creatures and give them Tough.
Most games are finished through either Vladimir hitting multiple units and draining from the opponent’s Nexus or Captain Farron being a strong finisher.
Occasionally Lissandra will be able to summon The Watcher and obliterate the opponent’s deck, but you often win before that is necessary.
It is nice to have the option for it if needed though.
Mulligan
Generally, at the start of the game, you are looking for Bloodletter paired with Unscarred Reaver, Crimson Disciple, or Ruthless Raider.
If you are against an aggressive opponent, you will want to keep Ice Shard.
If you can get Frozen Thrall with Draklorn against slower opponents, that is ideal as well.
3. Precipic’s Lissandra Control
Deck Code: CECAKBABAUDASCQOAMAQCAYUDUBACBI5FAAQGAIGAIBACBIPDEAQGAIDAEAQCAIM
[See Lissandra Control deck details]
I’ve really enjoyed this deck as a counter to the various aggro decks that have been running around on ladder.
The ability to utilize Lissandra as a tool to both lock out the game and provide a win condition in the form of her Frozen Thrall and Watcher has been super neat in a full control deck.
This deck gets to run a truly silly amount of sweepers with Blighted Ravine, Ice Shard, Avalanche, Withering Wail, It That Stares, Ruination, and eventually flipped Lissandra.
It runs so many sweepers that I’ve even managed to keep Fizz TF from being able to swarm me down with Elusives despite them drawing 4 cards every turn.
Lissandra is an incredibly powerful champion for a deck like this. Firstly, a 2|3 Tough blocker on turn 3 blocks pretty much every unit in the game, and going Lissandra plus Ice Shards on 3 should stop pretty much any aggressive start.
From there getting a Frozen Thrall plus a champion gives you a nice amount of inevitability, once you play a Lissandra you can pretty much pass every single turn because every turn that passes is a turn closer to your 8|8 Overwhelm.
Beyond this, leveling Lissandra is truly nuts and very easy to do in this deck.
Lissandra is able to level off of Trundle Ice Pillar and summoning Frozen Thralls so to level her you don’t even really need to commit mana.
Getting tough on your nexus and getting a 0 mana Ice shards every turn doesn’t sound like much but some decks genuinely can’t beat that, Fizz TF for example (the best deck in the game) basically needs to remove leveled Lissandra or it can’t win.
The second copy of Lissandra isn’t even bad, Entomb is a pretty great disruption tool, getting the ability to essentially remove a threat from the game for 2 turns can be the pretty game-winning, it even has a cute combo with it that stares to let you obliterate the landmark the enemy unit is frozen in.
Finally getting The Watcher doesn’t happen every game, but when it does it’s basically all that matters in the game, in any control mirror it’s pretty much your main win condition.
Lissandra is so good in this deck I run three Entreat to have a 50% chance of finding her.
Mulligan
For mulligans, I recommend always keeping Lissandra.
After that, you should keep all of your removal vs aggressive decks and all of your ways of winning the game vs slower decks.
Against aggro:
Against control:
Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, feel free to ask WhatAmI during his streams (around 10AM PST basically every day).
WhatAmI streams at twitch.tv/xxwhatamixx around 10AM PST every day
