Bandle City Deck Report

CECQCAICFEAQGBIQAECQKCIDAIBAGBIJAQAQKHJIFMYQGAIBAIYQCBIFBYBACBIBB4BACAYCCQAQIBJY

Difficulty: Moderate

Karma was already used with Go Hard before Bandle’s release, but Senna has proven to be a very powerful ally - even compared with Thresh. Although she’s less bulky and dies more easily, she offers an extra removal on summon and each time she attacks. Obviously, her ability to speed up slow spells comes in handy when used with The Ruination or Go Hard.

This benefits Go Hard, as you can pile them up and play multiple copies at a time. This can result in the favorable interaction of the second copy of Go Hard transforming into Pack Your Bags on the stack, meaning you only paid 1 mana for what’s meant to be a 5 mana spell. 2 mana, 5 damage AoE and a 1-health drain? Smells like pre-nerf Go Hard all over again!

Catalogue of Regrets is another great addition to the deck, allowing you to create more Go Hards and duplicate spells, so that you never run out of value, even when Karma is hiding at the bottom of your deck. (Write-up by Ultraman)

CQCACAYGCEBAKBQFBUBQEBRGFUXAOBIKAQCRUKBKSEA2MAIAAEAQIBQO

Difficulty: Moderate

Reminiscent of the Twisted Fate days, Fizz looks like he has found a new partner in order to revive the Bilgewater Elusive deck. The concept is simple: rely on your Elusive units to harass the opponent’s Nexus and use Nami and the spells to help them do their job as best as possible.

For now, the deck looks like a great counter to slower decks that usually can’t keep up with the flow of damage we’re creating. Fizz is close to impossible to remove and even if Nami gets targeted by spells, the flurry of Burst spells we’re packing allows us to abuse her passive before she dies.

Faster decks are a bit trickier for this archetype, as our units aren’t such good blockers, which means we have to rely on racing the opponent and delaying the game with pranks and chump blocking with our non-Elusive units.

Make it Rain is a great defensive card, but it usually only is good at buying a precious turn to win the game; don’t rely on it to drag things out against an Overwhelm or a damage-based deck.

What makes this deck feel like a good contender already is its reliability in executing its game plan. In the Fizz-TF deck, it was PnZ that took care of the draw aspect and helped with cycling towards our win condition. Bandle now takes over in this spot, packing the Deep Meditation-style Hidden Pathways and the surprisingly useful Pokey Stick.

It’s a successful replacement job, allowing the deck to have some refill, letting you have enough gas to keep playing for 7 or 8 turns easily. Although it can feel a bit clunky on the defensive side of things with the absence of a champion like Twisted Fate, this deck is nonetheless one to look out for, especially as lists will be refined over time. (Write-up by den)

CQBQCAIACUAQGAAOBECQUBBJMB2IKAMRAGTQDLYBYYAQEAIEAABAEAQAA4FACAIFBLIQC

Difficulty: Easy

This deck is a true cultural melting pot, with Yordles coming from all over Runeterra to offer their allegiance to Tristana. It also has quite the curve to exploit with Poppy’s ability to essentially be a Bannerman on repeat each time she successfully attacks! Combining Poppy with lots of low attack followers means she’ll be buffing the entire board, which is a terrifying prospect.

Bandle City Mayor is an amazing card, offering you cheaper multi-region followers and creating crazy opportunities, such as a free Hungry Owlcat, which is a 2/1 multi-region unit with SpellShield. In this way, he helps create board states that are hard to deal with, making the snowball potential very real.

Use Rally liberally in order to get the most out of Poppy’s ability - once she levels-up, it’s true OTK time, as she’ll give +2/2 and Impact to each ally. The biggest risk is the same for all the Scouts decks, namely the threat of having your followers removed before you’re able to buff them and pressure your opponent with a strong Rally. (Write-up by Ultraman)

Freljord splash

CECQCAYBAIAQKCUYAEBAKBAGBUCACAIDAQFR4BABAQEBSNB2AEAQKBAOAIAQCBA3AECACEA

Difficulty: Hard

The Puffcaps archetype hasn’t really found its stride in recent months, either being relegated to a counter archetype or simply disappearing from the meta entirely. With Caitlyn now in the mix, the deck feels much better in the mid game. She’s a strong attacker and decent blocker, due to the protection afforded to her by Freljordian spells.

Aloof Travelers is another great addition, serving as a draw engine for both players, but it also discards the opponent’s highest cost card, an effect that can be key in slowing the game down - something the deck heavily relies on.

For now, the deck is pretty tough to evaluate, as the meta is still shaping up. However, it’s already much better at curving out thanks to Caitlyn’s presence, preventing you from falling behind early on. The Freljord cards are also doing great work thus far, as it’s helpful in countering the popular Demacia decks like Akshan-Sivir and Poppy.

Hexcore Foundry is a big question mark, as the game has gotten faster and the landmark can feel slow to develop. As such, I’ve decided to cut it, now that Corina, Mastermind gives us another option to mass-activate the traps in our opponent’s deck. For a more control-based strategy, the Foundry should still be a big part of the game plan, so feel free to add it if you would want to counter a deck like Veigar-Senna for example.

The deck can sometimes feel very hard to play, such as when the opponent is pressuring us too much and our health is going down too fast. Yet, in other cases, like when the opponent can’t deal with Teemo and we can level-up our champions quickly, we can win the game quite easily.

I wouldn’t recommend this archetype as a safe climbing deck for now, as it’s both demanding and at times punishing to play. Don’t dismiss it either, though, as the tools exist for the Puffcaps/Traps deck to adapt to the meta, so it might be a matter of days before the best 40-card list is found. (Write-up by den)

Bandle City splash

CQBQEAIEBAMQEBIEAYGQSBIKAQNCUMKFMSMADJAB2EAQAAIBAUCA4

Difficulty: Hard

As bonus, I decided to include a second list. It’s clearly a work in progress, but it feels better against the more agressive decks we might see on ladder. It adapts a completely different game plan, relying more on tempo and board presence. The Freljord cards have been replaced by Bandle City, creating a board-centric Puffcaps deck, mainly enabled by Caitlyn.

It might feel weird at first, but I’ve had decent results with it thus far, so stay tuned for our next meta snapshot, where I’ll try to provide more insight on this version of the archetype. (Write-up by den)

CEBQCAIFAMCACAYIBMKCGBYFAMAQEAYEAYGQ6AICAUBQKCIA

Difficulty: Moderate

Remember Draven-Darius? That old deck dominated the ladder a year ago, with a strong curve leading up to The Harrowing. This allowed you to pressure the opponent once with your regular aggression, then another time with a full-on board made mainly of Overwhelm and high attack minions, making it very difficult to block everything without taking too much damage.

Well, this is a much stronger version of the deck. Sion makes for a better champion than Darius, as his leveled-up incarnation has a Last Breath effect that unleashes his final form as a 10/4 Overwhelm Ephemeral that gives you Rally. This means you can play The Harrowing on a defensive turn to gain Rally (if a flipped Sion died previously).

The thing is, it’s so easy to level-up your Sion! “Summon or discard a total of 35+ power” is such an easy task to complete, with Reborn Grenadier, Grave Physician and Draven in the mix. Lost Soul is a potent engine for the deck, giving you some cycle to ensure you never have an empty hand and always have sufficient discard fodder. (Write-up by Ultraman)

CQDACAQAA4AQGAAOAIBQEAQKAICQUERJAMAQACIVDUBQCAQMDI4QCAIEAABAEAIBAASQCAICCY

Difficulty: Easy

Lulu-Zed was a decent deck from the previous meta. However, it lacked some flexibility in the sense that it was a board-centric deck which would only punish opponents if they couldn’t keep up on the board. Poppy is looking to bring a slower approach to the list, but also one that should be much more solid when it comes to protecting your other units. Simply put, Poppy is more of a team player than Zed.

There aren’t so many new cards in the deck, so you should be able to find a Bandle/Demacia list online. The reason why I think the older build is better is the synergy between Poppy and the Ionia cards. Inspiring Mentor, Young Witch and Fae Guide work perfectly with the new champ, helping her have more attacks to consistently trigger her +1/+1 bonus to allies.

Twin Disciplines has been one of the best cheap combat tricks since going down to 2 mana, and one that I consider better than Bandle’s new Stress Defense. Lastly, Shadow Assassin feels much better than Pokey Stick or Hidden Pathways as a draw engine, because it’s a unit that can benefit from Poppy’s buffs and because the deck doesn’t create many cards, thus Hidden Pathways won’t be discounted to 3 mana often enough.

Currently, board-centric decks can suffer the comparison with Sivir decks, which are still looking rock solid. This shouldn’t keep you away from experimenting with other forms of pressure that might be more problematic for different matchups, though. (Write-up by den)

CICACAQGEYAQGBQHAMCQMBIGBMDQGCIJEMZVIVWXAHOQCAICAMEVKYQA

Difficulty: Hard

Nami is a great champion, and multiple versions of Nami decks already roam the ladder with a great win rate. This is a different take from the whole Prank package - what if, instead of ruining your opponent’s hand, you made yours better? As we all know, if there’s one thing Targon excels at, it’s creating survival tools.

These can of course be used to help Nami stay alive, while also giving you access to the Invoke package and a lot of card draw, so you never run out of options. Fleet Admiral Shelly is clearly the deck’s strongest card. If you have a reasonable board state on Turn 5, it’s highly unlikely the opponent will be able to turn the tide. The buffs Shelly gives out, potentially multiple times a turn, will make your board impossible to deal with.

Meanwhile, Nami is creating big Elusive threats in the background, making sure your opponent is checkmated as soon as you unleash the beasts. With a lot of healing potential and control tools, you can once again feel like a mastermind, controlling the whole game from A to Z - Targon’s speciality! (Write-up by Ultraman)

CMBQCAYABYBACAAJDUDQIBYNCQ3DOXLHQIAQIAIBAANACAQAAEAQIAADAECAPAABAIAQIAACAECAPCQB

Difficulty: Moderate

If you’re someone who isn’t interested in fun, and a lot more interested in the ephemeral glory of stealing candies from babies and ruining everyone’s first week of the expansion, you have come to the right place. You know what I’m talking about, and you might already be playing it: Akshan-Sivir.

This Shurima/Demacia pairing has been the talk on every player’s lips this past season, and it’s already coming in strong! While you may not have as many buffs readily available as in the Ionia version, it’s compensated by the number of challenges you can issue via Fleetfeather Tracker, Merciless Hunter or even Cataclysm.

The game plan is simple: to crush your enemies and to hear the lamentation of their women. Everything in your deck is a threat that your opponent won’t be able to value trade with thanks to your Challengers and combat tricks, and each piece of damage you deal goes towards leveling-up Sivir.

Akshan is a value tool, providing you with a trigger for Shaped Stone while acting as a draw engine and a threat. Any unit you put on the board should stick, and when paired with Sivir... let’s say that many Surrender buttons will be mistreated on this day. (Write-up by Othal)

CECQCAQDBEAQGBARAECQIDACAEBRILQEAECB6JBGGQDACAIDGMAQCBA3AEBQGDIBAMCAKAIEAMFACBAEA4AQCAIEE4

Difficulty: Easy

A new meta rises, and so does Ezreal-Draven. This deck always had an even matchup table, so it should prove efficient enough to discover the new environment and climb steadily. With this deck, there’s only one thing that matters: value. You can delay the game and get more value from every card you’re playing until your win cons come online.

The fact that most of your answers come at Fast speed means you can sit back and relax while your opponent makes mistakes and overestimates what cards you’ve been keeping in hand and why you’ve been saving 3 spell mana.

For an archetype that relies on spells and loves to play 3-cost cards, Station Archivist is a great inclusion, adding more reliability to a deck that already counts among the most reliable. As long as you don’t face too many Sivir decks, this one should carry you smoothly through the ranks! (Write-up by Othal)