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Detailed Deck Guide: Azir Irelia

Leer lays out the vast power of Azir Irelia, why it's especially good right now, and how to pilot it with grace and precision.

Azir Irelia is an aggressive combo deck that found fresh wind with the recent balance patch.

Regions
Ionia
24 cards
Shurima
16 cards
Rarities
23 800
champion
6
epic
0
rare
12
common
22
eternal
Mana cost
0
0
13
1
15
2
6
3
0
4
6
5
0
6
0
7+
Champions
6
3
Azir
3
Azir
3
Irelia
3
Irelia
Landmarks
3
2
Emperor's Dais
3
Emperor's Dais
Followers
18
1
Dunekeeper
3
Dunekeeper
1
Sparring Student
3
Sparring Student
1
Treasure Seeker
3
Treasure Seeker
2
Greenglade Duo
3
Greenglade Duo
2
Ribbon Dancer
3
Ribbon Dancer
5
Blossoming Blade
3
Blossoming Blade
Spells
13
1
Rite of Calling
1
Rite of Calling
1
Shaped Stone
3
Shaped Stone
2
Lead and Follow
1
Lead and Follow
2
Nopeify!
2
Nopeify!
2
Retreat
1
Retreat
2
Twin Disciplines
2
Twin Disciplines
5
Defiant Dance
3
Defiant Dance

Deck Breakdown

Azir Irelia

AzirAzir and IreliaIrelia are the perfect examples to explain this deck: Our goal is to play a Sand SoldierSand Soldier generator like Azir, who summons a Sand SoldierSand Soldier  every time we attack. We want to combo this with a BladeBlade Dancer like IreliaIrelia, who can start a free attack by summoning BladeBlades.

Since it’s troublesome to always write “Sand Soldiers and Blades”, let’s refer to them as Sand Blades =)

Rite of Calling

Many argue that Azir Irelia is not playing with six champions, but nine, because of Emperor's Dais. It essentially does the same as Azir – summoning an attacking Sand SoldierSand Soldier whenever we attack.

Rite of CallingRite of Calling is a late-game spell that allows us to find another champion, bringing our effective champion count to ten! =) 

Since our champions have powerful level-up effects, and we don't mind losing one mana crystal after turn 5 (since we don't run any units costing more than that), Rite of CallingRite of Calling is a great addition. We only run it as a one-of though, as we don't want to draw it at the beginning of the game. We can't afford to lose a mana crystal early, and don't have many units that we want to sacrifice (as well as protect those to make sure the spell can resolve).

Ribbon Dancer Blossoming Blade

Ribbon DancerRibbon Dancer and Blossoming BladeBlossoming Blade are our straightforward Blade Dancers. They also give us a body that can attack and activate our Sand SoldierSand Soldier generators through the classic “OK, I’m out of moves, I’ll actually use the attack token for real this time”.

Defiant Dance Lead and Follow

Defiant DanceDefiant Dance and Lead and FollowLead and Follow are our reactive Blade Dancers. To use them, we want to wait for our opponent to act first, so we don’t want to keep those in our starting hand!

Defiant DanceDefiant Dance is a great tempo play that can recall key targets like XerathXerath or ViktorViktor. Be mindful of when your foe wants to commit an expensive unit and keep four mana open to play this card.

Lead and FollowLead and Follow is a defensive tool that can protect your valuable units. Since it doesn’t Blade Dance directly, but rather creates a costly Flawless DuetFlawless Duet, we only play this as a one-of. 

Sparring Student Greenglade Duo

Sparring StudentSparring Student is the MVP follower of this deck. With the countless Sand Blades we summon every turn, it's not unusual to see him grow to a 6|6 body and above. He can quickly finish the game if our foe isn't able to fabricate a blocker for him.

Greenglade DuoGreenglade Duo is the cheesy variant of Sparring StudentSparring Student. Her health won't grow, but for that, she comes with the Elusive keyword. 

There are not many decks being played with Elusive units, though SharpsightSharpsight is a thing. Her overall fragility means that we usually prefer Sparring StudentSparring Student over her (e.g. in the Mulligan phase).

The immense power potential of those two followers means that we want to protect them at all costs. If the enemy runs ping spells like Pokey StickPokey Stick or Vile FeastVile Feast, make sure you have enough mana to save them.

To be able to attack after playing Emperor's Dais on turn two and/or AzirAzir on three, we want to have a one drop on board.

Treasure Seeker Dunekeeper

Treasure SeekerTreasure Seeker is a clutch unit that fills the one-drop slot with value. Its 2|1 statline means it trades into most one and two drops, while also creating a Waking SandsWaking Sands in hand.

DunekeeperDunekeeper's 1|2 body doesn't trade well unfortunately, but the summoned Sand SoldierSand Soldier advances our champion's level-up condition. It's also a great defensive tool to chump block an enemy attack to survive one more round to finish the game. Personally, I tend to use DunekeeperDunekeeper defensively, but it can be a potent aggressive threat as well.

Shaped Stone Twin Disciplines 

Shaped StoneShaped Stone is a solid pump spell that protects our units from ping spells, as well as pushing extra damage. Without summoning Emperor's Dais, our only landmark in the deck, it can feel underwhelming though. We run this as a three-of, since Twin DisciplinesTwin Disciplines got nerfed.

Twin DisciplinesTwin Disciplines is a clutch spell at keeping our units alive for a relatively cheap cost. The nerf to the attack buff means that it's not the greatest finishing tool anymore, and Shaped StoneShaped Stone can give the same attack buff for one mana less.

Our last card slots are left for various combat tricks. Through personal experience, this is a fairly "gut feeling" decision. We will refer to them as “flex cards” (see Mulligan section below).

Even when you look at optimization tables for each card, like from Mobalytics or Balco's website, there is no clear answer. So feel free to switch the number of copies you run of these as you prefer!

Lead and Follow Retreat

Recall effects are overall useful in our deck because a lot of our units have a Play effect, especially our Blade Dancers.

We talked about Lead and FollowLead and Follow above as a BladeBlade Dancer, but it's also a solid tool for keeping a unit alive. Its relatively expensive cost makes it a clunky card in the early game, though its potential value is quite powerful.

RetreatRetreat is a better tempo play than Lead and FollowLead and Follow, as it also creates a ReturnReturn in hand. It's great for dodging an enemy skill shot, and then summoning one of our three-cost champions.

Nopeify!

Nopeify!Nopeify! is the last spell to protect our board and Nexus. It can stop a Zenith BladeZenith Blade or Blade of the ExileBlade of the Exile from accelerating the game out of control, or stop removal spells like Single CombatSingle Combat or Mystic ShotMystic Shot.


Tech choices

As mentioned before, feel free to experiment with the ratio of the above combat tricks.

Homecoming Deny

Replace: Flex cards

HomecomingHomecoming is another Recall tool, that also Recalls an enemy unit, just like Defiant DanceDefiant Dance. It's great for hitting your foe with tempo and recalling their big unit. It needs a little bit of planning ahead though. You need an ally or allied landmark (read: Emperor's Dais) to recall, as well as means to protect that ally from being killed because the spell won't resolve otherwise.

DenyDeny is the big brother of Nopeify!Nopeify! that can protect our units from hard removal like VengeanceVengeance or AoE spells like AvalancheAvalanche.

Depending on the meta, Nopeify!Nopeify! might do the exact same as DenyDeny but for two mana less. Like currently, when playing against all these Demacia and Piltover & Zaun archetypes!

The reactive nature of these two spells, as well as not actively contributing to our game plan, means that we’ll only run them as a one-of.

The Absolver

Replace: one-two Shaped StoneShaped Stone

Our deck is really good at leveling our champs, thus The AbsolverThe Absolver will usually be activated when we need it. It gives our deck more reach (lethal damage range), especially against archetypes with many chump blockers, like Bandle City decks.

Azir Irelia usually wants to go wide to push damage with Sand Blades, but a 10-attack AzirAzir, or IreliaIrelia that BladesurgeBladesurge into combat multiple times a turn is worth giving Overwhelm.

Note that Overwhelm also activates Nexus Strike effects — namely the extra one damage from a Sand Soldier.

Field Musicians

Replace: one Blossoming BladeBlossoming Blade, one Treasure SeekerTreasure Seeker

Field MusiciansField Musicians is great for giving us longevity. We're usually summoning at least three units a turn, so activating his ability poses no problem.

He can be tricky to utilize though, as he only refills our spell mana, meaning we usually want to play a spell before activating him. Don’t let this get in your head though – better keep your reactive spells in hand, don’t gain the spell mana, and draw a card, than to play your Lead and FollowLead and Follow first, just for your opponent to Mystic ShotMystic Shot the target and the spell not resolving, losing you a card (and unit)!

Mulligan

We always keep Emperor's Dais and AzirAzir. In my opinion, keeping up to two of them is fine. More than that, and we won’t have cards to safely utilize our Sand SoldierSand Soldier generators!

After we find at least one of either Emperor's Dais or AzirAzir, it’s okay to keep BladeBlade Dancers. From this point onward, we will be able to summon many Sand Blades and level our champions quickly.

Here’s my philosophy for keeping Sparring StudentSparring Student:

If the opponent runs cheap removal, like Mystic ShotMystic Shot or Vile FeastVile Feast, we don’t keep it. Otherwise, we do.

The card works too well with our Sand Blades and can threaten lethal damage on turn four or five if our foe can’t produce chump blockers.

We will only keep Greenglade DuoGreenglade Duo in select matchups where we have to rely on Elusive damage to explode the Nexus, e.g. against Bandle Tree. The follower is quite fragile and demands protection spells that we almost never want to keep in the Mulligan.


Matchups

Sun Disc - favored

Mulligan: Sparring StudentSparring Student/Greenglade DuoGreenglade Duo, AzirAzir, Emperor's Dais

Buried Sun Disc Soothsayer Quicksand

They have cheap, low-attack, high-health units who are a pain in the butt to deal with, since they can block countless Sand SoldierSand Soldiers and BladeBlades.

Since they are mono-Shurima, they don’t have access to ping spells, meaning our Sparring Duo is good to go. Be aware of the fact they run QuicksandQuicksand though!

Early on, it can be worth to open-attack and play around DunekeeperDunekeeper.

Besides that, there’s not so much to say here. If you draw your engines and then your Blader Dancers, you usually win. Sun Disc’s popularity is the reason we don’t run Field MusiciansField Musicians, as it is too slow and allows them to Ascend.


Ezreal Caitlyn - unfavored

Mulligan: AzirAzir, Emperor's Dais

Caitlyn Scorched Earth Tri-beam Improbulator

They have lots of removal for our frail units like Sparring StudentSparring Student and Greenglade DuoGreenglade Duo. They can also remove Emperor's Dais with Scorched EarthScorched Earth, and AzirAzir with Thermogenic BeamThermogenic Beam or later with Tri-beam ImprobulatorTri-beam Improbulator.

Caitlyn is also a troublesome threat – she can plant many Flashbomb TrapFlashbomb Trap in your deck through her blocks of our Sand Blades. Don’t hesitate to use your pump spells to kill her – worst case they remove the Sand Blade and lack the removal for your important units.

Our best shot of winning this matchup is drawing multiple Dais and AzirAzirs, hoping they can’t remove all of them.

One important tip is to never play your key units without having extra mana open to protect them. You can dodge enemy spells with RetreatRetreat and Lead and FollowLead and Follow, while Twin DisciplinesTwin Disciplines and even Shaped StoneShaped Stone can buff your unit’s health.


Aphelios Viktor - even

Mulligan: Sparring StudentSparring Student, Emperor's Dais, AzirAzir

Mountain Goat Mystic Shot Aftershock

The biggest difficulty against Aphelios Viktor comes with not knowing their deck list. There are countless versions out there, making it worthless to play around every single card.

For that reason, we don’t play around Thermogenic BeamThermogenic Beam. If you play Sparring StudentSparring Student on one, and they happen to have a Thermogenic BeamThermogenic Beam, which maybe only a third of the lists run, as a two-of, then it was still the correct play in my opinion.

Mountain GoatMountain Goat is a real killer, as it allows them to block numerous Sand Blades basically for free while leveling ViktorViktor. Don’t hesitate to try killing it with a Shaped StoneShaped Stone or Discipline of ForceDiscipline of Force!

ApheliosAphelios is a fairly slow play for them, but if they can play him on turn three when we play Azir, he might become a problem, especially since he can create SeverumSeverum. Don’t hesitate to Defiant DanceDefiant Dance (or HomecomingHomecoming) him before he can create another Moon Weapon!

Unfortunately, due to the popularity of Sun Disc, almost every deck is running AftershockAftershock, which can also target our Emperor's Dais. Dais is still worth it though since they usually run AftershockAftershock only as a two of. And even if they find it, they lose tempo for it (two mana vs four mana play).


Riven Viktor - slightly unfavored

Mulligan: one drops, Emperor's Dais, AzirAzir

Ambush Poro Cannon Mystic Shot

We follow a similar game plan of aggressively combo-ing the opponent down. The problem with this – they are faster than us.

We want to follow our own game plan of killing them as fast as possible, but delay them at key points, e.g. play Defiant DanceDefiant Dance on Viktor.

They’ll do the same – their burn, Mystic ShotMystic Shot and Get Excited!Get Excited!, is also able to target our units, so we’ll want to keep some mana open to protect them.

Overall, this is a big skill matchup that is slightly skewed in their favor. With experience, we should be able to increase our winrate against this archetype!


Tristana DE - slightly unfavored

Mulligan: Sparring StudentSparring Student, Emperor's Dais, AzirAzir

Grandfather Fae Buster Shot Gleaming Lantern 

Tristana DE is running enough removal and Elusive units to stop our Greenglade DuoGreenglade Duo, despite their swarm ability to block all our Sand Blades.

They are also great at filling the board with a plethora of units, meaning we will have a hard time pushing meaningful Nexus damage. 

If we can find our Sand Blade combo pieces and our champions, this matchup is definitely winnable though. 

Make sure to protect your champions against Buster ShotBuster Shot!


Conclusion

Azir Irelia is an intriguing combo deck that has found its way back into the meta, mostly thanks to the popularity of control decks like Sun Disc, and the low playrate of hardcore aggro decks like Spider aggro. 

While the deck works well on the ladder, it will shine even more in a Bo3 format like the Gauntlet, where you can ban Ezreal Caitlyn or aggro decks.

You could pair Azir Irelia for example with Riven Viktor and Pantheon Yuumi to be great against control and midrange decks.

If you have any questions about any explanation or a word you don't understand — please reach out to me! You can either write/ping me on Discord (Leer#2026) or DM me on Twitter (@Leer97).