Aphelios Expansion Launch Decks To Try Out
WhatAmI here to wish a very good evening to everyone across the world of Runeterra.
Why evening you might ask?
Well because we’ve got a new patch to brew with and this one is looking to be all about that Nightfall.
The first deck we’re going to jump into is one that is already near and dear to my heart.
Anyone who has ever dropped by a stream of mine knows how big an advocate I am of Targon allegiance as an archetype.
Aphelios slots right in here, but he brings with him some crazy spice. I’m calling this one Werewolf.
1. Werewolf
Deck Code: CEAQUAYJBEIUSTCUKVLGBWIB3UAQEAQBAUARSAYDBEBA2FYA
[See Werewolf deck details]
The Game Plan
Yeah, you saw that right, that’s the full three copies of Messenger Sigil. The time has finally come to let out the dogs.
First of all, we’re running a full twelve 1 drops, nine of which give us other low mana cards to go with them, so proccing Aphelios on turn four or even three is extremely realistic.
Beyond that keeping his procs coming so you get that sweet value is something this deck is very well set up to do.
The dream is to bank spell mana on turns one and two, then play Messenger Sigil into Aphelious on three and grab a Crescendum that you still have the mana to play.
Drop that and, oh look, we accidentally didn’t include any other two drops, so Aphelios searches out a dog that draws us a card, and we phase to either Lifesteal we need to stabilize or a sweet two-mana removal spell waiting in the wings.
If we get a Mountain Scryer down then all those puppers are going to cost one and cycle through your deck like no one’s business, and let’s not even get started on how fast we can descend some skies in this list.
The Fangs also come in to get us more value, stabilization, and above all, dogs.
Add in a dangerously powerful suite of Removal, Silences, and Atrocities to finish the game and you’re looking at what could be a serious contender on the ladder or maybe even in tournament lineups.
2. Nightfall Aggro Aphelios
Tonight’s second list leans even harder into the nightfall theme, this time taking it in a significantly more aggressive direction. Dogs are cool and all but sometimes you’ve just got to straight up kill a fool. It’s time for an old fan-favorite looking for a revival. Let’s do nightfall aggro, Aphelios style.
Deck Code: CEBAKAYFAIBQIBIGA4BQSI2JLFOF5VQB3EAQCAQBAUBTCAA
[See Nightfall Aggro Aphelios deck details]
The Game Plan
Anyone who has ever played with or against Nightfall Aggro knows that you’ve got one simple plan.
You get in your beats, and then you drop Nocturne to finish off the job.
Diana was always okay in this list, but she was never stellar, so let’s see if we can do better, shall we?
Aphelios will still proc in this deck quite nicely, though he’ll more often do it on turn four than turn three, and he gives you a really nice sub-game that you get to force your opponent to play.
While before they could just try to stay alive and save a removal spell for Nocturne, now if they don’t answer Aphelios he will simply bury them in an avalanche of value.
Beyond that, we’ve still got our extremely aggressive openers, but we’ve teched in a little bit of extra card draw in Glimpse Beyond to keep us going.
All this combined makes this once extremely fragile aggro deck just that half step further towards midrange it really needed to be viable again.
There’s also just a little bit more spice hiding at the very top of the curve.
We’re stealing a page from Fearsome-aggro’s handbook here. What’s the best thing to do when your opponent has stabilized, answered your Nocturn and Aphelios, and is looking to turn the game around?
Slam the I-win button on turn seven or eight and bring back an entire board of units for a dead Nocturn to turn Fearsome to finish off the job.
With ridiculous pressure, the value of Aphelios, and the game stealing the power of Harrowing, the new Nightfall Aggro is definitely worth a look.
3. Tri-Beam Aphelios
For our third contestant on the “what do we do with this awesome new champion,” game show, I would like to introduce something completely different.
So far we’ve mostly stayed in the traditional Nightfall regions of Targon and Shadow Isles. What happens when we start looking a bit further afield?
Deck Code: CEBQCAYECECQCBA3EYTTIOAGAMEVIVKWLRQNSAIBAIBQSSKQAA
[See Tri-Beam Aphelios deck details]
The Game Plan
Here we are leaning hard into the value side of Aphelios.
We’ve teamed him up with some of the old school anchors of that particular team Mr. Heimerdinger and Mr. Tri-Beam.
Together they’re looking to power through anything opponents can put together to throw at them.
Here we are a little bit less focused on how early Aphelios is going to get down than we are on how often we can get him doing his thing once he does.
With some help from a Spacey Sketcher or Lunari Duskbringer he can still occasionally make it down on a curve, but after he hits, this moon boy means business.
This deck is looking to just pile on the card advantage.
Between Aphelios himself, some nice creation/discard synergies, and Tri-Beam, you’re going to be swimming in value, and that’s before we even get to the top end of this monstrosity.
If you ever get Heimerdinger and Aphelios in play at once that’s when it gets really nasty.
Aphelios’s Moon Weapon creates a Heimer turret, which is your second card each turn, creating a Moon Weapon, which you can then cast to create a Heimer turret.
That’s some pretty sick synergy if you ask me.
Just in case that wasn’t enough to close out a game we’ve still got old reliable in the form of Star Shaping to keep us alive and find the giant Celestials we need to keep our opponents dead.
If rocky grind-out games are your style, this is the place to look.
4. Give a Dog a Bone
To wrap up tonight we’re going to take a trip a little bit further to the silly side of things.
Sometimes the competitive tourneys have all wrapped up, there’s nothing to prepare for, and you just want to relax and laugh for a bit.
Sometimes, you’ve just got to Give a Dog a Bone.
Deck Code: CEBACAICFEDQGCIRJFKFMYGZAHOQCBABAEBDCAICAICQCAYCBECQGCICCM4VLWQBAA
[See Give a Dog a Bone deck details]
The Game Plan
We’re borrowing a bit from the first list we looked at without early one drops, but here we’ve decided to lean into it even more.
What if you could double your doggos? What if you could make them gigantic?
What if it was nothing but doggos as far as the eye could see?
Our early game is looking to be held down by a suite of one drops backed up by a truly unreasonable amount of lifesteal.
Between Tasty Faefolk, the Fangs, and Solari Sunforger, it’s going to be a long slog for an aggressive deck to do any staying damage to your nexus.
Past that, we look to get Aphelios online and use the traditional suite of Deny and Bastion to keep him there.
We’ll generate some value and stall out the game until turn ten or so and that’s when the real fun starts.
With leveled Karma, Aphelios gets double the power.
That means he makes huge Lifesteal swings, gigantic Overwhelming threats, or double summons dogs from your deck.
It also means that any spell, including his own Moon Weapons, will re-proc him, creating similar loops to what we looked at earlier with Heimer.
As if that wasn’t enough we’ve put in Starbone.
A board full of value-creating 2|2’s that bring down the sky on your opponent just isn’t quite doing it for you?
Great, let’s get Karma’s help and make them all 4|4’s just to sweeten the deal.
This list definitely feels like it lives a little bit in magical Christmas land rather than reality.
But it’ll be a fun meme to pull off and show your friends if you can get its engines running.
And who knows, sometimes the best new deck ideas start as memes someone just had to try.
Just ask Go Hard!
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
