Sentinels of Light Launch Week: Viego Decks
The Ruination has finally arrived and with it, front and center ride the Ruined King himself, Mr. Viego.
I’m Jordan “WhatAmI” Abronson and today we’re going to look into a passel of new and fun brews, trying to figure out the right niche for this exciting midrange powerhouse.
We’ll be covering 4 different options for you to try out during this exciting Sentinels of Light launch week.
1. Viego, Bringer of Ruin
Deck Code: CECAQAIFBQHBAJZMGE2TQAQDAUCA2AQEAU3DOAIEAMDQAAIBAECRS
[See Viego, Bringer of Ruin deck details]
Just because I enjoy subverting expectations I’m not going to lead with the deck that everyone is expecting. I hope you’re willing to Endure the first couple before we get that one set up a little later down the line. Instead, we’re going to be looking at variations on Viego with Spectral Matron as his main backup.
In this version, we’re setting up on the back of the old-school Fearsome archetype. Start putting the pressure on from turn two and just never let off the gas pedal. We’ll be trying to have our opponent’s on the back foot the entire game, forcing blocks and generally gumming up the board, or even pushing through lethal if they didn’t bring large enough creatures to the fight.
When the mid-game comes around, Viego and the crew take over. He’s another powerful Fearsome threat that does everything this deck needs. Even better, unlike the rest of our units, he is genuinely difficult to remove. He simply laughs off Mystic Shots and depending on the point in the game sometimes even the Flocks that follow them.
Then once our opponent has managed to survive all of that onslaught the real test begins. We used to use Harrowing in this slot, but nothing feels worse than having that get Denied. Trying to stop a Spectral Matron bringing in Atakhan is hard enough without Viego, with him, even if they can survive the turn-leveled Viego will be taking all of their things for the foreseeable future. Good luck friend.
2. Viego, Dragonlord
Deck Code: CEDAEBAAAUHAEAIFFMWAGBAFCU3DOAYDAADAQCYBAEABUAIDAUCACAQBAAFRGAA
[See Viego, Dragonlord deck details]
This deck should come as no surprise to anyone who watched the amazing finals of the last seasonal tournament. A slightly less dragon-ey version of it piloted masterfully by none other than the Duckling himself took the whole thing down with amazing style.
With the new ruined Dragons, I think we might be able to take a crack at utilizing the powerful Dragon synergies alongside the Spectral Matron plus Cithria, Lady of Clouds combo that destroys endgames. This deck thrives when it can establish board presence and hold onto it until everything starts doubling.
Because if you’ve got one double, you’ve usually got two. And if you’ve multiplied all of the numbers on your board by four and given them challenger then the game is usually going to end pretty decisively in your favor.
Again, Viego does everything you want him to do. He clogs the board, establishes a powerful and difficult-to-remove presence to be doubled, and then levels almost automatically after a Spectral Matron turns to provide an alternate win condition. Sign me up.
3. Enduring Ruination
Deck Code: CECAIAIFBMYDCNIEAQCQGBBWG4AQGBIEAEAQCIQEAIAQKGJLAEAQCAYBAQAQ4AIEAUIAA
[See Enduring Ruination deck details]
Alright, enough stalling. You all knew this one was coming. This deck has been near and dear to my heart since its first iterations all the way at the beginning of Runeterra. It’s certainly morphed quite a bit since then but many of the same plans and tools are still here.
We’ve got the powerful Shadow Isles early sacrifice game backed by a total of ten different card draw spells to get us where we need to go. We can apply a bit of early pressure depending on the draws, but frankly, that’s all usually going to be secondary to our mid and late-game plan.
Viego can show up on five and start leveling up extremely quickly in a deck that likes to kill all its own units. Then when Endure decides to come and help our opponent will be trapped between a rock and a hard place. Either Endure kills them, or they Kill Endure and Viego levels.
Top all of that off with the cheesiest possible endgame in the form of Atrocity and just a little bit of interaction with Blighted Ravine and life is looking good.
Pro tip: Blighted Ravine wiping your own board, as well as your opponent’s, can often be quite powerful as it will turbo-charge your Endure and potentially level your Viego at the same time.
4. The Harrow-Nation
Deck Code: CEBQEAICAMSAEBAFGY3QEAIFAQVAMBABAUBRIFZRAECAKDICAEBCKOIBAMBASAICAICQCBACCQAQEAICAIYQ
[See The Harrow-Nation deck details]
And now it’s time to get weird. Not just normal, pay fifteen mana and try to kill all of our opponent’s stuff weird, weird-weird.
Here we’re taking an entirely different direction on things and looking for an Ephemeral game plan to compliment our boy. Deathmark works great with Scourge for sure, but getting a three-mana Vengeance whenever you have a Mists in play is also quite nice.
Green Glade Lookout also does work in this list potentially dropping either of your champions down a turn early. We’ve also got some solid control tools lined up to try to keep us alive against any kind of crazy early aggression of Palm and Refuge.
The other all-star in this deck is Harrowing, which will generally end game and we happen to get to run four copies of it. What’s that you say? Four? Well, my new best friend Scattered Pod only sees one Slow spell in our deck, so if we ask nicely he’ll always grab that for us.
Even better if we’re on the back foot and need some life there’s only one Burst spell as well.
Someone order a huge transfusion of Lifesteal Viego? We can do that. All in all this deck is strange and eclectic and I have no idea how it will perform, but I am extremely excited to run it through its paces.
Conclusion
While I am most definitely currently conducting the hype train on this particular new champion I am still going to describe myself as cautiously optimistic. While he could do some absolutely ridiculous things and seems like a solid body for the cost he also gives off definite Kindred vibes.
You know, the whole, “This costs five mana and might not do anything for a few turns and be generally slow and clunky,” sort of thing. This is definitely another one for the “needs serious testing before we can confirm one way or the other,” pile.
That testing, however, might be my favorite thing in Runeterra, so to all you other brewers out there *salud* and I’ll see you out on the ladder.
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
