Hey guys! It's time for another review of a deck that I've been really enjoying lately. It is a control deck utilizing a lot of Recalls and Stun effects that are shared across both regions, Ionia and Noxus, giving us a mix of control and explosive damage that can catch your opponent on the wrong foot. Ionia's style of play that is focused around interfering with your opponent's plans in combination with some key Noxus cards quickly turns into laying down the traps and waiting for the unsuspecting enemy to fall right into them and get obliterated. Okay, let's take a look at the decklist.
DECK CODE: CEBQCAIDFYBQCAQIB44QKAQCAMCQMCIKAQAQEAQIAEAQGJABAIBQSAQBAIBDCAQBAEBDQAQBAMJTMChampions:
Yasuo is a really important supporting champion in our strategy as this list is running a lot of Stuns and Recalls, Yasuo becomes quite powerful. Just having Yasuo present on the board as early as possible gives us even more control over the board and if our opponent is playing smaller units, they will struggle a lot to make any board presence if any at all. Having Quick Attack often just gives you some extra free trades after you stunned or recalled all other units that could survive Yasuo's attack so his strength on the board rarely depends on the enemy units but rather how much control spell you have ready to make the board more favorable for you. After he is leveled up, cards like Concussive Palm become insane tempo cards and this is a moment where you should start finding big damage opportunities.
Lee Sin, the blind monk, is a sort of a finisher card that can also be used as a control card. The flexibility of Lee Sin is something that makes him tricky to deal with and if your opponent doesn't have hard removals but depends on the damage to remove Lee Sin, they will have a hard time dealing with him. Lee Sin requires you to play a lot of spells to level him up, so naturally, this decklist has a lot of spells and some of them can be counted as two-in-one, like Retreat and Sonic Wave so leveling him up shouldn't be too difficult and on average it happens around turns 7-8. Once leveled up, it is just insane how easy you can control the board while also dealing guaranteed nexus damage.
You Just Activated My Trap Card!
Dealing direct damage to the opponent's Nexus is quite rare with this deck but you shouldn't care about it too much because the point is to make your opponent feel safer than they actually are so that you can trap them more easily. For this trap, you gonna need a bit of preparation. For starters, you need at least one Fae Bladetwirler on the board, if you get him early it's even better since this little guy can grow really fast and soon enough your opponent won't have a choice but to block him each time with a unit and lose it in this free trade. Now that you have the Fae reasonably bigger and possibly coupled with other units, you need to get rid of your opponents bigger units and ignore the little ones because those units, at least in their mind, can keep them safe when it's their turn to defend but as you might've guessed it if your opponent's feel a bit "too safe" they will spend a lot of their mana and once you think they aren't going to summon anything, Intimidating Roar usually just wins you the game. Not only does it stun their whole board of weak units but this also can give 8, 10, or even 12 damage to each Fae Bladetwirler you have on the board.
This was all about dealing with wide boards and I don't think there is something too important to say about slower matchups where opponent's play only a couple of bigger units since the deck features so many Stuns, getting around them will be easy and you will be able to deal damage directly to their Nexus almost every time you want. Cards like Yone, Windchaser can give you such a big tempo advantage that if played with the correct timing, you opponent just won't have time to set up a new defense.
A Swift Kick Into The Nexus
In the later stages of the game, if you still didn't have an opportunity to execute any of the plans I talked about above, there is one extra ace upon our sleeves. It is almost a one-hit KO that is enabled with the interaction of the leveled up Lee Sin kick and the Overwhelm mechanic. So for example, if give you Lee Overwhelm with the spell Might, he will be at 7 power and his ability will kick the opponent's creature you decided to challenge, dealing that damage. Also, since you removed the blocker with this ability, usually Lee Sin doesn't attack but because now he has Overwhelm, getting rid of the block still ends up in a direct hit to the opponent's Nexus. So, this means that Lee essentially attacks their Nexus twice dealing his damage, in this example, 7x2, or 14! Quite a lot, for an attack that can't be blocked by any unit, no matter how big the unit is or what its effects are. Sonic Wave can give you even more damage with the Fleeting spell Resonating Strike.
Theoretically, Twin Disciplines can give you a clean 20 damage in total in this combo, but the reason I use Sonic Wave instead is that overall there are too many good opportunities to play it, while for Twin Disciplines there aren't that much. Also, Sonic Wave gives us the two-in-one spell count for leveling Lee, and giving Challenger to our Quick Attack units gives so much value too. You could try playing maybe a one-of Twin Disciplines but I'm convinced you will end up having too much trouble using it in the preferred moment and the 20 damage lethal combo won't be as necessary since you will almost always deal at least some damage during the course of the game.
Mulligan
As a control deck, we need a slower-paced game so depending on the matchup, there will be "a must" card to help us survive and accomplish our plan, setting up traps and sneaky lethals.
Keep in hand against Aggro: Eye of the Dragon, Fae Bladetwirler, Sonic Wave, Concussive Palm, Arachnoid Sentry.
Versus aggressive decks, we really need to start out with some units, stunning enemy units only prolong our suffering in these matchups and don't give us a more permanent solution (exception is Yasuo already being on the board of course). Eye of the Dragon is the best pick, now even if you get hit a couple of times, you will have so many opportunities to play two spells on the same turn and sustaining some of the damage. Fae will be able to create some counter attacks and hopefully for opponent's to block it so that you can get some free trades, this is why keeping Sonic Wave will always be a good choice, so that you don't even give them options. Concussive Palm and Sentry are good tempo and defense cards that will give you more turns to defend, reaching your setups more easily.
Keep in hand against Control: Yasuo, Deny, Fae Bladewitler, Shadow Assassin, Deep Meditation. Eye of the Dragon.
Keeping Yasuo in our starting hand is almost a must. Not because you aren't able to defend, well you won't need to defend from much in the early game anyway versus slower decks. But having his so early gives you a lot more value advantage while using your Stun cards to clear your opponent's threats. Fae is a no-brainer keep as it will make it harder for your opponent from the start. Shadow Assassin, for some poke and draw, nothing special but sometimes significant. And at last Deep Meditation is also a strong keep. Even though you should look for the opportunities to get a discount before playing it, in these matchups that's just not the case and most of the time you can afford to play it for the full cost and draw some more options for the later turns and quicken the leveling process for Lee Sin. I keep Eye of the Dragon, only if my hand is already so bad that I am swapping a lot of cards in the mulligan, not the worst keep but not something you'll need so try to avoid keeping it if you can.
This is it for today's review. I hope you find it useful. My first experience with this deck wasn't as impressive as it is now. Just because it is hard to see the best opportunities for activating your trap cards. This is something I had trouble relaying to you and all I can say about it is. Try it out and you'll get the feel for it in a day of playing the deck. I promise, once you get the hang of it, you will be able to create these amazing plays that suddenly end the game and it feels really gratifying when you are able to pull them off.
Force is meaningless without skill. - Lee Sin
Thank you for reading!
,z3ll