Draven Sion Deck Guide

INTRODUCTION

Draven Sion is an archetype that came to be with the release of Sion and his support cards, allowing a sort of midrange discard deck archetype to rise. Ever since Sion’s release, this deck has been dominating the ladder and competitive play as it has a very high-power level.

So much so that it got nerfed in patch 2.18 with changes to two cards: Draven becoming a 3/2 from a 3/3 and Twinblade Revenant losing its challenger keyword and gaining the fearsome keyword instead.

The Draven nerf means Draven is now more susceptible to removal spells while the Twinblade Revenant nerfs makes it more of an aggressive card rather than a removal card. Making Draven Sion better against Bandle City decks but worse against decks that focus on backline champions.

This deck focuses on early game aggression while discarding cards such as Fallen Rider and Lost Soul to level up Sion and cycle our deck. Basically, what you want to do with this deck is deal as much damage as possible in the early game while discarding cards to finish the game on turn seven or eight with a leveled Sion. Most decks can’t deal with two ten power overwhelm attacks so it is a pretty consistent finisher.

If for some reason your opponent is not dead by then we run an arsenal of burn spells such as Mystic Shot, Get Excited! and Noxian Fervor. If that wasn’t enough we run one copy of Captain Farron to really make sure our opponent is dead.

CARD CHOICES

3x Draven: Draven is a support champion for this deck as he is a good three drop that exerts pressure on your opponent while generating discard fodder to cycle and get card advantage.

Even with the nerf to his health stat line Draven still generates an ax for free as discard fodder in hand when played so he gets some value as soon as he’s played in this deck. Draven is still the same against decks that don’t have two health removal spells as he still exerts a lot of pressure while generating axes.

3x Sion: He is the main finisher of the deck because of his enormous ten power stat line, overwhelm keyword, and the ability to come back to life and rally. This means striking twice with ten power and overwhelm on the same turn which pretty much means death to your opponent.

1x Reborn Grenadier: It is a good one of card as it can help a lot against aggro matches because he is basically a burst speed blocker when discarded with cards like Spinning Axe, Poro Cannon and Rummage.

3x Zaunite Urchin: Great one drop in this deck as it helps us get card advantage in our deck by discarding cards like Lost Soul and Fallen Rider. Discarding Fallen Rider while you have the attack token on even turns can be huge as you get to play a Risen Rider and swing with it for a lot of tempo.

2x Boom Baboon: A very good two drop as it generates a Flame Chompers! that can help us build card advantage and pull enemy blockers for more damage in our attack turns.

3x Fallen Rider: Amazing discard fodder card as you get a Risen Rider when discarded. The fearsome keyword on both of these cards is great against Bandle City decks as they don’t run many fearsome blockers. Prioritize looking for this card in those types of matchups.

2x Grave Physician: This is a good two drop for this deck as it allows us to cycle and draws specifically a unit. This can sometimes draw us Sion when we need it so keep that in mind when playing him.

3x Sump Dredger: Superb three drop as it has big stats and the added benefit of allowing us to discard to draw a card helping us cycle our deck.

2x Fallen Reckoner: This is a card I personally like a lot as it has the overwhelm keyword and removes a blocker. It is amazing against decks that have few units to block and can sometimes win you the game by itself as your opponent can’t ignore it and if they kill it you get a Risen Reckoner which can be a finisher for three mana.

1x Captain Farron: This is basically a fourth Sion and that can be important as decklists with only three Sions sometimes struggle to find their finisher. The decimates are nice for finishing the game through burn and finally turn seven Sion into turn eight Captain Farron can be pretty nasty for your opponent to deal with.

3x Lost Soul: Infinite value card as well as discard fodder that creates a fearsome unit. This card is still one of the best cards in the deck, you just play the deck more aggressively as you have a harder time dealing with backrow threats since Twinblade Revenant no longer has the challenger keyword.

2x Poro Cannon: Helps you unbrick hands as well as create elusive blockers. It can also be used to deal chip damage to your opponent if he can’t deal with elusive units each round you attack. Don’t be afraid of playing a turn one poro if you have no better plays as it is still one damage that can stack up in multiple attack turns. 

3x Mystic Shot: Burn spell to finish off the game but can also be used as removal for important threats.

2x Rummage: The best cycle card in the deck as it allows us to throw away two cards we don’t want in our hand for better options. If you really have a bad hand don’t be afraid to Rummage away cards even if you don’t get full value for it as a good Rummage can save you an otherwise lost game.

3x Get Excited!: Your best burn spell to finish the game as it only requires you to discard a card (which you already want to be doing in this deck) can also be used as removal for important threats.

3x Noxian Fervor: This card takes the place of Aloof Travelers because of the nerf to their stat line they’re now a huge tempo loss to play and this deck is all about tempo. Noxian Fervor serves to deal damage to your enemy nexus, you usually want to cast it on your units when your opponent tries to remove them for maximum value. Noxian Fervor can also be used to kill your Sion to force another attack with Sion Returned if you really need to finish off the game.

1x Survival Skills: Finally, a one of Survival Skills can really swing games as you normally use it to discard it at burst or fast speed when your opponent attacks or commits a spell to remove a unit and this means you kill one of his units or make him waste a spell for basically no cost.

GENERAL MULLIGAN

Usually, with Draven Sion, you want to play units and attack aggressively in the early game to get damage and finish off your opponent in the late-game with spells and Sion so your mulligans should always look something like this:

Mulligan: Draven, Zaunite Urchin, Boom Baboon, Fallen Rider, Lost Soul, Sump Dredger, Poro Cannon and Mystic Shot (if there is a two-health unit that needs removing).

MATCHUPS

ASol Shyvana Dragons (68,7% WR): 

Mulligan: Draven, Zaunite Urchin, Boom Baboon, Fallen Rider, Lost Soul, Sump Dredger, Poro Cannon and Mystic Shot.

This is a very easy matchup for us as they don’t have many early game blockers and most lists run limited healing.

Dragons main weakness is their inability to go wide, you can exploit this by playing on curve and pulling away fearsome blockers with Flame Chompers!. Also, Fallen Reckoner is a cracked card in this matchup as it can make their big scary dragons unable to block.

Dropping Sion on seven is usually a good idea as they have a hard time blocking him without killing him because their dragons are so big. You do have to watch out for Hush so keep it in mind.

Mystic Shot is a great card in this matchup to have on turn two because you can kill either their Dragonguard Lieutenant or Herald of Dragons on turn two without fear of them playing Sharpsight.

Pyke Reksai Lurk (66,9% WR):

Mulligan: Draven, Zaunite Urchin, Boom Baboon, Fallen Rider, [Reborn Grenadier]] Lost Soul, Sump Dredger, Poro Cannon Mystic Shot and Get Excited! (if you have a good hand) .

Pyke Rek’Sai is another easy matchup as they have the same problem as dragons: They usually only develop one unit per turn. You exploit this the same way as with dragons by pulling away blockers with Flame Chompers! but you also want to block most of their lurkers so you get your nexus health total high.

Fallen Reckoner is also a good card in this matchup as Lurk is basically forced to attack and you can block with him to get a Risen Reckoner and get rid of more blockers.

Fearsome units are not as good in this matchup because most of their units have high attack so don’t prioritize playing them too much.

Mystic Shot is a great card in this matchup to shut down lurkers before they are able to attack. Most lurk decks don’t run interaction so just shoot them with spells.

Get Excited! and Noxian Fervor are also good as removal tools in this matchup for Pyke. A leveled Pyke is basically game over for us so get rid of him as soon as he hits the board.

Bandletree (64% WR):

Mulligan: Draven, Zaunite Urchin, Boom Baboon, Fallen Rider, Lost Soul, Sump Dredger, Poro Cannon, Mystic Shot, Get Excited! (if you have a good hand).

This matchup has gotten better with the “nerf” of Twinblade Revenant as it now has fearsome, this means we now have six fearsome units in our deck that get to hit their nexus for free. They only have Bomber Twins and Poppy as fearsome blockers in the deck as a result of the Aloof Travelers nerf.

As stated above, fearsome units are the most important in this matchup. You want as many of them as possible so your opponent takes direct nexus damage. You can use Flame Chompers! and Mystic Shot to get rid of Bomber Twins when attacking with fearsome units.

You should always have a Noxian Fervor or Get Excited! in hand to get rid of Poppy if they play it as it is their only threat besides The Bandle Tree.

Mystic Shot is a great keep in your opening hand to get rid of Bandle City Mayor or Bandle Commando as soon as they play them.

If you have a Sion in hand, try to not discard your Twinblade Revenant unless necessary for tempo as it can serve as a shield against Aloof Travelers.

Darkness (43,3% WR):

Mulligan: Draven, Zaunite Urchin, Boom Baboon, Fallen Rider, Lost Soul, Sump Dredger, Poro Cannon and Mystic Shot.

This is sort of a bad matchup for you as their deck runs a lot of drains and now it is very hard to remove Veigar or Senna because of Twinblade Revenant no longer having challenger.

The best way to beat Darkness is to play your fearsome units to deal damage directly while denying their Darkness procs with Mystic Shot on Twisted Catalyzer.

Although we can no longer deal with Veigar efficiently he is a huge tempo loss when played so use this to your advantage and develop fearsome units.

Fallen Reckoner can be good in this matchup to remove chump blockers so our non-fearsome units get in for some damage on the nexus.

Survival Skills can shut down a Darkness cast on a unit so discard it wisely.

Poppy Ziggs (64% WR): 

Mulligan: Draven, Zaunite Urchin, Boom Baboon, Fallen Rider, Lost Soul, Reborn Grenadier, Sump Dredger, Poro Cannon, Mystic Shot and Get Excited! (if you have a good hand).

Poppy Ziggs is an interesting matchup as it can still blow you out if they get a great hand but most of the time you should be able to keep their aggression in check by blocking with your units. 

It is extremely important to keep your nexus health as high as possible as your deck does not run any healing and their deck has a lot of reach with cards like: Decimate, Noxian Fervor, Lecturing Yordle and Imperial Demolitionist.

When your opponent tries to use Noxian Fervor or Imperial Demolitionist on a unit, remove it with a spell as it can save you valuable nexus health.

Poro Cannon is, in my opinion, the best card against this deck so I recommend always keeping it. Even two of them if necessary. Most of their one-drops trade with Elusive Poro and they also help with going wide. Which is the best thing to do against this deck.

Having a Get Excited! in hand can be huge as it removes Poppy very efficiently on turn four.

Reborn Grenadier is a great keep if you have a way to discard him as he can give you a burst blocker when needed.

Risen Rider, Sump Dredger, and axed Draven are efficient trades against Ziggs so try having one of those for turn three.

Draven Sion (64% WR): 

Mulligan: Draven, Zaunite Urchin, Boom Baboon, Fallen Rider, Lost Soul, Sump Dredger, Poro Cannon and Mystic Shot.

In the mirror, you are probably not getting much damage in the early game as our deck has a lot of fearsome blockers as well as chump blockers. So, in the mirror matchup, you want to try to outvalue your opponent earlier in the game.

Some good cards for outvaluing your opponent are Draven and Lost Soul so keep those in your opening hand.

Mystic Shot is not more important than ever in the mirror as it gets rid of Draven very efficiently so it is also a great keep.

Reborn Grenadier and Survival Skills are great cards in the mirror as it allows us to up trade resources. If your opponent attacks and you block with either burst speed Reborn Grenadier or a 

Survival Skills target your opponent loses board presence.

Sion vs Sion board states are very weird, as the player who attacks first with Sion deals the least damage. This is because Sion has six health but Sion Returned has four health. Keep this in mind before attacking as if you don’t have lethal damage in hand or don’t have the health to spare, attacking first might be a bad idea.

Attacking with Sion and then killing him with Noxian Fervor can be a pretty consistent finisher as their deck lacks high health blockers besides Sion.

Gangplank Sejuani (47.6% WR):

Mulligan: Draven, Zaunite Urchin, Boom Baboon, Fallen Rider, Lost Soul, Reborn Grenadier, Sump Dredger, Poro Cannon and Mystic Shot.

This is a slightly unfavored matchup because if your opponent manages to get a leveled Sejuani on board it is pretty much game over. As we mostly have big overwhelm units as our main finishers but it doesn’t matter if they get frostbitten.

The game plan against this deck is to negate as many Gangplank and Sejuani level up procs as possible while dealing damage to their nexus. Fearsome units are good against their deck because most of their followers only have two power or less.

If your opponent is getting too many levels up procs and you don’t think you can stop him, play to deal as much damage as possible with units before they drop Sejuani to try and finish them with burn spells.

One health units are pretty bad in this matchup because of Parrrley and Make it Rain so keep that in mind when doing the mulligan.

Reborn Grenadier is a good card to negate procs as he is a burst blocker and your opponent might open attack not expecting you to have him.

Akshan Sivir (64.6% WR): 

Mulligan: Draven, Zaunite Urchin, Boom Baboon, Fallen Rider, Lost Soul, Reborn Grenadier, Sump Dredger, Poro Cannon and Mystic Shot.

Akshan Sivir is an interesting matchup as they usually want to just attack but the fact that we have a lot of high attack units forces them to block. Their best way to deal with our units is by buffing theirs with spells and making value trades.

Basically, you want to stick to your game plan of going wide in the early game and removing blockers to deal direct nexus damage with units and finish the game with Sion and burn.

Mystic Shot is a good card in this matchup as it gets rid of a lot of units in their deck. Use it to get rid of units like Akshan, Merciless Hunter and Fleetfeather Tracker when they tap out of mana or to force them to use a spell.

If you have a good open attack you should probably take it instead of developing as they run three copies of Brightsteel Protector and can really shut down your attack if they play it.

Noxian Fervor is a very important card in this matchup as some lists (and mine personally) run 

Radiant Guardian. You can use Noxian Fervor on the unit blocking Radiant Guardian to deny the lifesteal, just watch out for strike spells. Noxian Fervor can also be used when your opponent commits a spell to either trade or remove one of your units for maximum value.

Fallen Reckoner is an amazing card in this matchup as Akshan Sivir usually plays a few units and removing blockers does wonders against these types of decks.

Survival Skills is an amazing card to force a trade with a quick attack unit like Akshan or Sivir as they don’t expect it most of the time.

Asol Ramp (50.5% WR):

Mulligan: Draven, Zaunite Urchin, Boom Baboon, Fallen Rider, Lost Soul, Sump Dredger, Fallen Reckoner (if you have a good hand), Captain Farron (If you have a good hand).

Asol Ramp is a new archetype that utilizes a lot of buffed cards in patch 2.18. They run cards like Faces of the Old Ones, Dragon's Clutch, Braum and Aurelion Sol. 

Because we are a midrange deck we are not too favored into this deck as we tend to finish games by turn seven and this deck plays Targon's Peak to cheat out high-cost units as well as ramp. They also run a lot of healing in the form of Kindly Tavernkeeper, Starshaping and Catalyst of Aeons.

This is a very tricky matchup as we want to pressure them enough so they have a hard time playing their ramp cards but not so much that our whole board gets wiped by Avalanche and Blighted Ravine.

Keeping Fallen Reckoner and Captain Farron might seem weird but we want to be able to punish our opponent for playing an RNG card like Targon's Peak.

Our best units in this matchup are Twinblade Revenant and Sump Dredger this is because they have three health and can survive an Avalanche or Blighted Ravine making it hard for our opponent to deal with them.

Survival Skills can also help by making our strongest unit survive a board swipe.

Lux Poppy (59.8% WR):

Mulligan: Draven, Zaunite Urchin, Boom Baboon, Fallen Rider, Lost Soul, Sump Dredger, Poro Cannon and Get Excited! (if you have a good hand).

Lux Poppy has a lot of chump blockers so our fearsome units like Twinblade Revenant and Risen Rider are key in this matchup as they can only block them with a handful of followers in their deck. 

Get Excited! is a good card in this matchup as they normally want to play on curve and set up a wide board to attack with Poppy on turn four. This doesn’t allow them to bank mana for spells like Riposte or Sharpsight so use their greed to your advantage.

Besides this, try to level up Sion as fast as possible because they have very limited ways to deal with him as most of their units don’t have much health and they only run two Minimorph.

Fallen Reckoner can be a good card in this match-up to get rid of chump blockers and force them to block with more important units.

Keep in mind they run Golden Aegis so try to keep their board short on minions, because a For Demacia! into Golden Aegis can blow you out.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

Draven Sion is an amazing deck to play right now, it beats the top decks of the meta currently and the nerfs to it are not as bad as people think. I believe more people should be playing this deck as it is still a powerhouse.

It is also a very good competitive deck for tournaments for the reasons listed above as well as good matchups across the table with a few exceptions, most notably Lee Sin Zoe.

I wouldn’t recommend this deck to brand new players as the discard mechanics can be quite tricky but an average player can learn to pilot the deck well enough to climb consistently.

This is it for today! I hope you all enjoyed the read and good luck out there in ranked!

Wamuu

Top 200 Master LoR player. I have a lot of passion for this game and love sharing my thoughts and game knowledge through deck guides and articles for competitive play. 

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

If you would like coaching from me you can dm me in Discord at: Wamuu#7531