How to Play Reaver’s Row Taliyah
One drop decks have long been tried in Legends of Runeterra, but typically they didn’t get very far on the ladder or in their time being around.
However, there is a new one drop combo deck that has strength and continues to fly under the radar. During a stream about a month ago I played a deck sent to me by Lumenorus2 with Taliyah and Reaver’s Row and was surprised by the deck’s strength and combo potential. I made a few adjustments to it, but the deck has more that can be optimized as every deck does.
This deck has several combos using Reaver’s Row, Rite of Passage, and various countdown cards to create a strong board with buffed 1 drops with Fearsome.
One top of that using cards such as Quicksand and Sands of Time to take attack away from your opponent before committing can make blocking for your opponent extremely difficult. In one game, I was able to win on turn 6 with a full, unblockable board.
What I love about this deck is that it has a different playstyle than a majority of Legends of Runeterra decks. The deck is incredibly rewarding to play as you plan your turns and the combos are fun and rewarding!
Deck Code: CECQIBAHDRBES6ACAYDQKMABAUDQWAIGAYPACBAGBUBQCAQGBUBAIBYNKIAQMBZSAQAQMBYEAEBAMGACAQDVY3IBAYDC2
[See Lumenorus2’s Reaver’s Row Taliyah deck details]
Deck Overview
This deck uses one drops to win games, but when looking at the deck you might notice this deck isn’t filled with one drop cards. This is because a lot of the one-drop power comes from Reaver’s Row and Endless Devout. The spells in this deck are often used to either create more 1 drops or activate the landmarks in the deck.
Due to this deck being so combo oriented, there aren’t spells that allow for reach in this deck outside of Ruinous Path. The deck has a good amount of draw and prediction in it already.
Adding more draw into the deck will typically slow down a deck and due to this deck being a unit-based combo that needs to attack with fearsome units it doesn’t have the luxury of slowing down like other combo decks often do.
However, Blood in the Water helps with this as Rallies are a great way to do additional damage and overwhelm the opponent in metas where you aren’t able to win with an early combo.
The deck is fairly tight and combo-focused. The combo has to be executed rather early in the game or else your opponent is likely to have too many fearsome blockers for you to be able to win.
The good news is Taliyah is a way that the deck does have a bit of reach as well as she essentially allows for a round 2 in some cases of hitting your opponent with a legion of 1 drops and then doing it once again. She is a main force of the deck where she allows the deck to generate value in reach that it otherwise couldn’t without her presence.
If you want to see the importance of Taliayah and what this deck is capable of, be sure to watch my video of it!
Game Plan
There are so many combos with this deck, I can’t even begin to go through all of them. Some of the main ones are with Reavers Row, Taliyah, Sarcophagus, and Countdown cards.
For example, on turn 5 you can play Reaver’s Row, Turn 6 is Taliyah plus Imagined Possibilities into attacking. In games where you don’t have Taliyah to double the Reaver’s Row using Rite of Passage to create more Rows can be quite effective as well. On top of this, Blood in the Water is a great way to get full value out of the 1 drop army that you create!
Generally, Reaver’s Row is the bread and butter of the deck and what enables the majority of your combos. I don’t think I won any games without this card. This is why the deck allows you to sift through the deck by predictions and drawing to find this card. This is the card that your combos revolve around.
There are some instances where your combos can revolve around Sarcophagus if you aren’t able to draw Reaver’s Row. This is generally copying the landmark with Taliyah and count it down and reanimate it with Rite of Passage and count it down once again.
Mulligan Strategy
This a combo-oriented deck that doesn’t care what your opponent is doing, so your mulligan is the same pretty much every game. You always want to keep Reaver’s Row as this is your main enabler of your combo.
I recommend fully mulliganing your hand if you don’t have Reaver’s Row. In some instances, I might keep a single Ancient Preparation or Forsaken Baccai as that is a pseudo mulligan that also gives me a card to play on turn 1.
If I already have Reaver’s Row in my starting hand then I might consider my opponent’s deck a bit more. Against a deck that’s a bit slower, I am more likely to keep Taliyah as well.
Against an aggressive deck, I am more likely to keep lower-cost cards such as Forsaken Baccai to have defense until I play my Turn 5 Reaver’s Row.
Against some decks, I would also want to keep Sands of Time to make my opponent’s attack less while counting down my Reaver’s Row.
Generally, I pitch cards such as Eye of Nagakabouros, Double Trouble, Preservarium, and Quicksand as you are looking to have your combo cards and not cards that allow you to draw or delay in order to find your combo cards.
Tech Choices
Fizz: He’s a one drop that gains elusive and can benefit from being buffed by Reaver’s Row. The deck has plenty of spells to give Fizz Elusive.
Scrying Sands: Allows for predicting your combo or potentially allows for more fearsome one drops to attack through.
Shaped Stone: A combat trick that allows for a bit more reach in the deck.
Sands of Time: An extra copy of this depending on the meta.
Cards to Remove for Tech Choices (Underperformers)
Double Trouble, The Time Has Come, and Quicksand are the first that come to mind.
Double Trouble often feels more like a stall tool.
The Time Has Come is a combo card for you to play at burst speed before activating Reaver’s Row as well as doubling as a defensive tool.
Quicksand is a flex card that is more reactive than the deck likes to be.
This deck is what I love about deckbuilding in card games. Decks where the cards work together in a high synergy way and surprise the opponent when they are looking at a huge board seemingly made out of nothing.
This deck rewards a unique playstyle and planning your future turns and it often does it in a semi-flashy way. It’s satisfying and I hope you give it a try!
Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, feel free to ask Silverfuse during her streams (usually daily from 2-6PM CST).
Catch Silverfuse live at www.twitch.tv/silverfuse
