Darkness Deck Guide

Darkness is a control deck that plays around the generated spell Darkness hence the deck name.

 The deck consists in removing your opponent’s early game units with spells such as Vile Feast, Pokey Stick, Darkness as well as chump blockers.

 Later in the game you want to pump up your Darkness with cards such as Veigar, Twisted Catalyzer, and Stilted Robemaker while still removing your opponent’s units. Finally, you finish the game in one of two ways either leveling up Veigar which lets you target the enemy nexus with Darkness or simply outvaluing your opponent with Darkness until they run out of blockers.

CARD CHOICES

3x Otterpus: Your only one drop in the deck. Helps you against aggro by preventing damage from their turn one attack. It is also a good card against spell heavy decks because it generates a Prank which bricks the opponent’s hand while giving you information. 

2x Conchologist: Great two drop, helps you chump block units in the early game and replaces itself with a three cost or less spell. Some useful spells to look out for are: 

• Pokey Stick, Unspeakable Horror, Poison Dart, Group Shot, Go Hard Vile Feast for pings and cycle
•  Stalking Shadows for refilling your hand if you had too low of a curve as well as getting multiple Ixtali Sentinel to finish your opponent, The Renkindler is a good pick up in mirror matches or when your looking to outvalue your opponent.
• Black Spear helps you if your opponent has a high health unit you need to remove.
•  Fading Memories and Splinter Soul can help you generate blockers or Darkness since most of your cards have summon effects.
• Stress Testing if you need protection for your champions or if your opponent has a huge overwhelm unit.

3x Darkbulb Acolyte: Darkness generator, also a good two drop for chump blocking. 

3x Pokey Stick: Cheap ping spell that cycles your deck, helps remove small units or finish off damaged units.

3x Twisted Catalyzer: One of the most important cards in the deck. It makes your Darkness deal more damage and your opponent has to deal with it immediately or it can snowball out of control. Don’t worry about making a value trade with this card, as long as it hits once it gets its value try to get it to strike as soon as possible before your opponent finds a way to remove it.

3x Vile Feast: Premium control card, deals one to a unit, heals you for one, and generates a chump blocker.

2x Stress Defense: This is a flexible card that can either save your champions from removal or lower a high attack unit attack to one. A good combo to practice is saving mana on turn three to play Veigar on turn four. This makes it almost impossible for your opponent to remove Veigar and is an almost guaranteed Darkness damage buff. Alternatively if you really need it you can use it to buff Twisted Catalyzer so he strikes twice. 

3x Aloof Travelers: Great card in the current meta. It has a solid 3/4 stat line while cycling your deck and it can discard your opponent’s win condition if you time it correctly. Usually you want to play this card the turn before your opponent is able to play their big wincon as your chances of discarding it are highest this turn.

3x Stilted Robemaker: Reduces your Darkness by one mana which is huge. Normally you want to play at least one of these per game as it helps you cast two or three Darkness per turn to level up Veigar faster.

 Try to play Stilted Robemaker before Senna otherwise you might not be able to cast the Darkness that Senna generates on summon and you won’t generate a Darkness when you attack.

3x Veigar: The backbone of the deck and your main win condition. Veigar is a difficult champion to play because it is a huge tempo loss when you drop him. Normally you don’t want to drop him before he’s leveled if you don’t have a Stress Testing to protect him. He can be played on turn four in some matchups where your opponent has no way to remove a four-health unit and in that case, he can basically win you the game by snowballing Darkness out of control.

3x Senna: She is the second champion in this deck and it helps as support to generate Darkness as well as turning your slow speed spells into fast speed spells. If you manage to level her up she reduces your damage and kill spells by one, which can help you get more Darkness out per turn.

The main combo you do with Senna is casting your Darkness on the same action as you attack with Senna this guarantees that Senna creates a second Darkness for full value. 

Senna can also combo with herself if you have one in play and one in hand. You can cast Senna's Dawning Shadow at fast speed which basically negates your opponent’s attack by killing a unit and reducing all other units' attack by two. 

Finally, the biggest combo with Senna in this deck is Senna + Ruination, and fast speed kill all units is as broken as it sounds, so use it wisely.

1x Withering Wail]]: Used to be an auto included in all SI control decks but with all the two health one drops and two drops in the meta you can’t justify running more than one. It is good when your opponent swarms the board with one health units or if there are a lot of damaged units at one health. 

3x Ixtali Sentinel: Alternative finisher and it is also a healing card. This card casts a second copy of Darkness to the enemy nexus when you cast a Darkness to an enemy unit but only on the turn she is summoned.  Her five-health stat line and Lifesteal keyword makes her an excellent blocker and can help your comeback in games where your health is depleted.

2x Minimorph: Good wincon removal, you usually want to target a big Champion unit with this spell such as leveled Gangplank, Sejuani or Sion. Don’t get baited into transforming cheap champions to a Mini-Minitee as it is a huge tempo loss and they still get a 3 3 body.

2x The Rekindler: Helps you outvalue your opponent in control matchups where your Senna or Veigar get removed.

1x Ruination: Hard removal against midrange or Nami decks can also save your champions or The Rekindler from getting discarded by Aloof Travelers. 

GENERAL MULLIGANS

Keeps against aggro and midrange: Otterpus, Conchologist, Darkbulb Acolyte, Pokey Stick, Twisted Catalyzer, Vile Feast and Withering wail (if you already have a ping and a two drop)

Keeps against control and combo: Otterpus, Conchologist, Twisted Catalyzer, Stilted Robemaker, Veigar (if you already have Stress Testing)), Pokey Stick, Vile Feast.

MATCHUPS

Senna Veigar Darkness (50-50): 

Mulligan: You want to keep your Darkness buffers such as Twisted Catalyzer, Stilted Robemaker and Veigar. 

This matchup is basically a race to see who gets the biggest and cheapest Darkness before the other one does. If you manage to make your Darkness to be at least a deal 4 in this matchup you can remove all his threats with one Darkness and your opponent is gonna have a hard time contesting you. 

The Rekindler is super important in this matchup because the one who has more Veigars or Sennas is probably going to be the winner.

Draven Sion Discard (Favored): 

Mulligan: Otterpus, Conchologist, Darkbulb Acolyte, Pokey Stick, Twisted Catalyzer, Vile Feast, one Aloof Travelers, and one Minimorph.

 Your objective is to take the least amount of damage as possible and pump up your Darkness to at least deal 3. As all of their units are 3 health with the exception of Sion. You win this matchup by discarding or minimorphing Sion.

 Try to play your Aloof Travelers after they discard Lost Soul as it can tank the discard for Sion and you help them cycle their deck.

 ONLY MINIMORPH SION in this deck. Don’t waste your Minimorph on other units because if they play Sion and you don’t have Minimorph you will most likely lose the game.

Ziggs Poppy Aggro (Unfavored): 

Mulligan: Otterpus, Conchologist, Darkbulb Acolyte, Pokey Stick, Twisted Catalyzer, Vile Feast and Withering wail (if you already have a ping and a two drop)

This deck goes really wide with 2 and 3 health units and can get buffed by Poppy, this is very hard for this deck to deal with as it only has pings and Ruination is too expensive. Try to have a 3 damage Darkness by turn four to kill Poppy before she buffs her allies. 

Watch out for Noxian Fervor when removing units as they can kill their unit and deal 3 direct damage to your nexus. 

GP TF Bandle (50/50): 

Mulligan: Otterpus, Conchologist, Darkbulb Acolyte, Pokey Stick, Twisted Catalyzer, Vile Feast  one Aloof Travelers or one Minimorph if you already have a good hand. 

This deck doesn’t go as wide or as fast as Ziggs Poppy Aggro which gives you a chance.

 In this matchup you want to take the least amount of damage as possible and negate nexus damage so your opponent’s Gangplank doesn’t level up.

 Try to keep mana for pings as there are Powder Keg combos in this deck such as Powder Keg + Twisted Fate’s Red Card, Powder Keg + Make it Rain and Dreadway Deckhand + Double Up. 

Keep in mind Monster Harpoon when playing champions because they can remove either Veigar or Senna] for three mana if they have damaged your nexus this round.

Bandletree (Unfavored): 

Mulligan: Otterpus, Conchologist, Darkbulb Acolyte, Pokey Stick, Twisted Catalyzer, Vile Feast  and Aloof Travelers.

 This deck can’t deal with The Bandle Tree as there is no good landmark removal for this region combination. Your best bet is to discard The Bandle Tree with Aloof Travelers and try to kill your opponent as fast as possible. 

Watch out for Poppy and Bandle City Mayor as they can swarm you with either units or stats,  and try to save Darkness mana to remove them.

Nami Zoe (Favored):  

Mulligan: one ping, Otterpus, two drops, Veigar, Twisted Catalyzer and The Ruination if you have a good hand.

 Nami Zoe is a very uninteractive deck so you can drop Veigar without fear of it being removed. This helps you get your Darkness as big as possible to remove Nami or Fleet Admiral Shelly when they get played.

 If you play Senna and have The Ruination you can wait until they buff their whole board and ruinate them at fast speed, this usually means game over for them as they probably won’t be able to refill their board and they are gonna need to find another Nami or Fleet Admiral Shelly.

When removing units in this matchup keep in mind cards such as Pale Cascade, Sunblessed Vigor, and Guiding Touch which can get their unit out of your reach while buffing other units if they have Nami or Fleet Admiral Shelly on board.

When they summon units with Double Trouble don’t remove them because the Nami buffs goes to the weakest minion this minions can take away buffs from other priority units such as Sparkle Fly , Zoe and Wiggly Burblefish.

Try to not play Aloof Travelers because you can help them cycle their deck to find Nami. Also, don’t play any spell you wouldn’t like them to have because they can steal it with Spell Thief.

Shellfolk Ez Vi (Favored): 

Mulligan: Otterpus, Conchologist, Twisted Catalyzer,  Veigar (if you already have Stress Testing)), you can also keep Aloof Travelers or Minimorph to remove their Curious Shellfolk and Vi. 

Your main focus in this matchup is to remove Curious Shellfolk by Aloof Travelers or Minimorph they run out of value if you remove them before they can cast any spells. 

Be careful when playing champions as they have a lot of removal such as Thermogenic Beam,Sump Fumes, Mystic Shot, etc… 

In the early stages of the game try to pump up your Darkness with Twisted Catalyzer, Veigar and Stilted Robemaker. You want to get your Darkness to deal 3 or 4 so you can remove Ezreal easily before he can combo you.

Otterpus is a great card in this matchup since their deck is spell heavy and you can brick out their hand.

 Lurk (50/50): 

Mulligan: Otterpus, Conchologist, Darkbulb Acolyte, Pokey Stick, Twisted Catalyzer, Vile Feast, and one Minimorph if you have a good hand.

 In this matchup you want your opponent to lurk the least amount of times as possible. Their lurkers usually are low health and they only play one per turn so your Darkness should be a good way to remove them. Try to make your Darkness deal at least 3 damage so you can remove Pyke when he plays his spell. 

 Try saving your Minimorph for Rek’sai. She can’t level without attacking first so you can transform her before she has the chance to level. 

Be careful when playing champions because they can remove them with spells such as Ruthless Predator, Bone Skewer and Death from Below.

Draven Caitlyn (Favored):

Mulligan: Otterpus, Conchologist, Twisted Catalyzer, Stilted Robemaker, Veigar (if you already have Stress Testing)), Pokey Stick, Vile Feast.

In this matchup you want your Darkness to deal at least 3 damage. All their units have 3 health and you can easily remove them this way. 

Try to bait out removal so they run out of them for your champions later on. Stress testing can also help you against damage spells.

Wait for them to discard their Lost Soul before playing Aloof Travelers so you can discard their Tri-beam Improbulator

If you discard their tri beams and survive the early game you will eventually outvalue them by removing their units and win the game.

Poppy Lulu Rally (Unfavored): 

Mulligan: Otterpus, Conchologist, Darkbulb Acolyte, Pokey Stick, Twisted Catalyzer, Vile Feast.

This is a very tough matchup because they have a lot of protection against pings, they can swarm you very fast, and finish you off with Poppy Lulu plus rally spells.

Your best bet is to chump block high attack units and increasing your Darkness damage to 3 with Twisted Catalyzer to remove Poppy and [[Lulu

Try pranking your opponent’s combat tricks and rallies with [[Otterpus when you want to remove a unit or when your opponent wants to rally.

CLOSING WORDS

Darkness is a very difficult deck to pilot but in the right hands it can wreak havoc. It is a decent ladder deck but where it excels is in a tournament setting where you get to ban a deck covering its bad matchups.

 If you’re new to the deck don’t feel discouraged if you start out losing a lot of games. Try to concentrate on identifying misplays and correcting them in future games. 

I hope you liked the article and stay tuned for more guides!

Wamuu

Master LoR player almost every season since game launch. I have a lot of passion for this game and love sharing my thoughts and game knowledge through deck guides and articles. 

If you would like to watch me play you can follow me on twitch at: https://www.twitch.tv/elwamuu