Travel the World: New Decks for Day One of Worldwalker!

Hello again! Shadawx here, bringing you some new decks to try out for Day One of the Worldwalker expansion! I went over some of the new stuff in my previous article you can find here, but I’ll give a quick rundown of what we’re getting with Worldwalker.

This Worldwalker expansion introduces Runeterran champions: Adding a Runeterran champion to your deck acts as one of your regions, and each Runeterran champion has a unique deckbuilding rule, or Origin, that defines which cards can be played alongside them.

The two we meet here are Jhin, who allows you to include any follower with a Skill in your deck (from any region, as long as they have a Skill), and Bard who allows you to include any card that plants Chimes into your deck.

These champs take up a region slot, so you can only pair them with one other region of your liking.

Also with them come a slew of new cards for each region, most of them giving some support to older archetypes like Dragons, Deep, Thralls, Reputation, and more. We’ll take a look at some of these and see what decks I think will be the most interesting and possibly good decks to try out with the new stuff.

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Jhin Annie Noxus

So we have what I’m sure many people have talked about already: Jhin/Annie aggro.

With Jhin’s Origin The Virtuoso allowing you to play units with Skills from any region, you’ll notice many of those units deal burn damage, so why not go in that direction? With the reveal of Annie as well, who also deals burn damage on attack, she seems like the perfect fit. Both champions level up as well off of Skills, Slow spells, and Fast spells, but the only spells we play are Blade's Edge and Decimate.

Blade's Edge was a choice between two other great picks: Noxian Fervor and Ravenous Flock.

My thinking was that Jhin makes good use of a cheap spell like this to trigger his Lotus Trap, and Blade's Edge gives us a bit of burn on top. Flock is also cheap, but it’s more of a control card; and while Fervor adds two more points of burn damage, it is a bit expensive (three mana) and possibly requires us to kill the units we'd want to use over and over for their skills. But regardless, I think you can go either way, and Fervor may be the better card.

As for the other card choices, it’s all kinda self-explanatory –  cards to discuss could be the inclusion of Augmented Experimenter and exclusion of Manasoul Student.

I think having a pair of Experimenters in here is great to get that refill you might want on turn 6 if you really fill out the board and are left with only a card or two in hand.

Student, while pretty good, I think just doesn’t fit the cut as a 3 mana 3/2. Sure, she deals some burn damage each turn, and acts as a 2nd skill for triggering level-ups or Lotus Trap, but I’m not sure if it’s worth it to have her sit on the backline for 3 mana… will require some testing to see.

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Fizz Bard Bandle City

Ok so now we take a look at Bard. With his Origin The Wandering Caretaker, you can include any cards that make Chimes into your deck. While alone these cards aren’t too strong, when paired with something that can make good use of the buffs, say… Elusives or Attach units, they can quickly get out of hand.

Pairing these with the Fae package seems like a good idea. You run the Chime generators, hope to hit your Elusives or Attach units in hand with the Chimes, and then just swing with a giant unit that’s hard to deal with.

Generally a key weakness of Elusive units has been their low health, but if you have one that’s not sitting at one HP anymore, they become wildly different to deal with. To top it off, if that card happens to be Fizz... then that’s just something that’s almost impossible to remove.

Bard itself is a problematic card to deal with as well. Having a nice 5 health will keep him safe from most units, allowing you to get an attack or two through. If you can get Bard to level up, then not only do Chimes buff units in hand, but also on board as well.

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Rumble Viego Noxus Shadow Isles

Here we have an interesting pairing of two champions: Rumble and Viego.

With the reveal of Legion Deserter, many have thought to make good use of him by pairing him with these two champs.

Legion Deserter will get the Impact, Quick Attack, and Spellshield that Rumble gets when discarding 3 to buff Rumbles EVERYWHERE.

It will also receive +2/+2 from Encroaching Mist (+1 from buffing Viegos and +1 from buffing Mists), which can really make Deserted get out of hand quite quickly. With him having Overwhelm innately, he can really become a problem if you have, for example, Rumble on 4 into Deserter on 5, with some Mists sprinkled in there to buff him more and more.

While that seems nice and all, I guess the issue is making the rest of the deck work together. For that I’ve added the Blade Fragment cards to help create some discard fodder, and they’re not too bad on their own (Especially giving Overwhelm to Viego or Rumble).

You also have Whirling Death, which pairs nicely with Rumble, and Atrocity which pairs nicely with your big stat-stick units.

Stall cards like Vengeance and Arachnoid Sentry will help get you to the later turns so you can actually play your big units, or to stun Fearsome blockers.

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Illaoi Soraka Targon Bilgewater

Okay, so this is something that I thought would be interesting. WithIllaoi and her Tentacle being able to reach some pretty high stats, what if we just kept them alive by healing over and over?

What if we combined it with Soraka and Star Spring to further add another win condition?

What if we went even further beyond and threw in Consult the Heavens to get some cheese wins off of Lounging Lizard or Illaoi? 

Okay, so this is something that I thought would be interesting. WithIllaoi and her Tentacle being able to reach some pretty high stats, what if we just kept them alive by healing over and over?

What if we combined it with Soraka and Star Spring to further add another win condition?

What if we went even further beyond and threw in Consult the Heavens to get some cheese wins off of Lounging Lizard or Illaoi? 

Anyways, that’s what the thought behind this deck was: to get a big Tentacle and keep it healthy so we can level Illaoi or have a big unit to heal up for Star Spring.

Consult the Heavens seems like a neat tech to burst out some healing or damage, I can feel it might be a one-of but we’ll see how it actually feels. Watchful Idol helps getting a consistent damaged unit on board as well as growing the Tentacle to bigger stats. It’s certainly a concept I’d really like to try out and see how well it does, I can feel some potential here.

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Lissandra Taliyah Shurima Freljord

Finally we have good ol’ Thralls bringing Lissandra and Taliyah back together again (Sorry Ziggs!).

With 2 great new cards to add to the deck, Harbinger of Thralls and Sands of Time, this archetype got quite the huge boost to power. 

Harbinger brings a solid two-drop that can help defend against early attacks, so you no longer have to rely on slamming a Clockwork Curator against aggro or just taking the hit and then playing removal. It also generates a Frozen Thrall, so now you have even more generators for your gameplan, and the best part is even in the later game if you draw it, the effect will countdown all your Frozen Thralls on board by one if you choose to. So there is almost always a use for Harbinger at any stage of the game.

Sands of Time is sort of like Spirit Fire, except it doesn’t have the 2 damage to enemies attached. Instead it gives you an Instant Century to your hand. So you can play Sands of Time, stall the attack, and then wipe their board with a follow-up Avalanche or Blighted Ravine.

The Instant Century isn’t fleeting, so you can use it to pop your landmark this turn or in a later turn. I’ve also cut The Clock Hand because while it’s a well-statted unit, and another 8 drop to level Lissandra, I think most of the time the second Instant Century just isn’t needed right away, so I figured to try out Sands of Time in its place.

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In closing

That’s it, those are some of the brews I’m looking to try out that I think will be good!

There are so many new cards and support to existing archetypes, I’m expecting to see new things for a few weeks. Especially with the Worldwalker champs, I think they’re gonna be played quite a bit. 

In other news, the patch nerfed Crackshot Corsair to 1/1 and Imperial Demolitionist to 2/2. I don’t think it will impact tooooo much, but it’s nice to see them easier to remove.

Seasonals is also all on one weekend now, with Open Rounds being on Saturday and Playoffs being on Sunday. This also means there’s no more “dead week” of waiting for the next patch, seeing as it starts the Wednesday after top cut… which also means sooner expansions!

Also The Path of Champions 2.0 looking kinda hot.

Enjoy the expansion! Walk the world! And embrace the climb because chaos is a ladder.

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About the Author

Playing LoR since beta, consistent masters player. LoR Dreamhack Champion and other high-level tournament win/top cuts. Crazy deck builder. I like garlic bread.

If you’d ever like to chat, know more about the game, or would like some coaching sessions, feel free to hit me up on my socials!

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