Poppy Teemo Deck Guide - By CameronHanzo

Our general game plan is to summon cheap units and stay wider than our opponents. With the help of Poppy and Yordle Captain our units get bigger and bigger and soon they will no longer be manageable for our opponents! Look to finish them off with Yordles in Arms and rally.  We may only be tiny yordles but we sure can fight the demacian soldiers over the sea!

Key Cards

Ranger's Resolve - For one mana it can give you some insane value by punishing bad blocks and protecting your units from board wipes (like Avalanche). As a board-centric deck, this card is one of the most important, a good Ranger's Resolve can surely win you the game on the spot,  giving all your units tough for just one mana is absolutely insane!

Bandle City Mayor -  With all your multi-region units being costing one Mayor can help you go wide extremely fast. This makes it an instant threat and if they cannot deal with it fast enough soon they will be overwhelmed with units.  Not to mention the mayor also gives you resources so you don’t lose out on card advantage.

Yordle Captain - As a board-centric deck we need a strong board presence and yordle captain can definitely help us with that. Giving, almost, all your units +1/+1 can generate an insane amount of pressure, it can make your cheap small units ridiculously threatening.

Poppy - The star of the show, even though she just got nerfed to a 2/3 she is still really really powerful in this deck. All your units are really small anyway, so for this deck, the nerf isn’t that big of a deal. Poppy is still a really big threat if she comes down while you control the board. If Poppy is not dealt with quickly, one rally on the following round can threaten to end the game.

Pokey Stick - You may wonder why, as a board-centric deck, why do we need cards like pokey sticks and not just more buff spells? Pokey sticks allow us to have more interaction with the opponent. It can kill something out of combat, or be used to stop recalls, sometimes it’s just an extra point of burn; as an added bonus it helps us draw, which is really really nice. 

Teemo - Everyone loves Teemo, but many not quite much playing against him as he shuffles unblockable damage into their deck if left unchecked. In a lot of games, those small bits of mushroom damage can matter a lot, adding up and giving you that extra bit of reach you wouldn’t normally have. In aggro matchups, Teemo can also just be a solid turn 1  blocker.

Golden Aegis - After attacking with a wide board, a Golden Aegis can end your opponent's hopes and dreams. In most games, Aegis is our win-con… I mean what deck can handle a six-wide board of big units attacking twice? Not to mention it is one of the most efficient ways to level Poppy, allowing her to get three attacks through, all but winning the game right on the spot.  The best use for Aegis is on your opponent's attack token after so you can force blocks then open swing the next round.

Yordles in Arms - Giving all your cheap units +4/+4 is game-ending because a lot of the time the opponent has to fully block and still cannot kill your units. Potentially allowing you to rally and win. Some may think Yordles in Arms is really hard to activate but it’s not as mayor and telescope help a lot. 

In-Depth Guide

Gain a resource advantage

Don’t be scared to trade things off because we always have more units and against most matchups, your opponent would not be happy to trade down most or all of their board. 

Almost all of our cards give us another card when played so don’t be afraid as we hardly ran out of resources and our opponent most likely does.

Even if we’re forced to trade our whole board down we can go wide again and our opponent can’t.

This card can single-handedly win you the game if used at the correct time, like I mentioned above this card can give you an insane amount of value by punishing your opponent’s bad blocks and spell targeting decisions.

With a full wide board if the health and attack line up perfectly, one single resolve and lets you trade down mostly favored. Follow that up with a rally and just end the game on the spot!  

Before you use Ranger’s Resolve for just a Vile Feast or Pokey Stick,  think about it again because it can give you more value than just saving a single unit!  However there are always exceptions to the rule and you may need to burn it to save a critical unit (like a nearly levelled Poppy),  before you commit, think about it twice or even three times!

Mulligan

The mulligan for this deck is fairly simple, you just want a good curve into Poppy no matter which attack token you are on (ideally attacking on evens is best). 

However, depending on the match up you may want some specific cards. For example, if you are against Kennen you want interaction or ways to find interaction. Pokey stick and Conchologist can come in handy because they can interrupt Kennen’s game plan.

Against decks with board wipes like Thralls 🙂 you would really want Ranger's Resolve because it can shut down things like Avalanche and Ice Shard but you still want to look for a good curve so you can have something to protect!

Other Card Options

Fizz/Kennen - Drisoth uses Fizz instead and I’ve seen others on Kennen. Both champs shine in their own way, when Fizz connects to the enemy nexus, it‘s basically the same as Teemo hitting and them drawing one shroom,  they also have better champion spells. 

Kennen has quick attack, and we all know a buffed quick attack unit can be really scary. In general, they are almost the same as they provide us with an equal amount of damage most of the time, it really comes down to personal preference.  Changing this around wouldn’t change the deck much, or hardly at all.

Single Combat - since Yordle Explorer got hit Single Combat may not seem that good anymore, however, your units still get massive later and this can come in handy. 

Matchups 

Kennen Decks -  60/40 Favored

Kennen decks are all recall-focused and their board presence is always lacking. We can always pressure the board really aggressively to interrupt their game plan.

Not to mention we have Pokey Sticks,  Group Shot and even Conchologist to find more of these little interaction tools to make their life really hard.  

Ping City - 55/45 Favored

We generally have more units so we are happy just trading them down. With the help of Poppy after our units can start to trade favorably and the snowball can begin from there.

Be careful of taking too much damage early, they can just finish us off we burn and we run no healing. 

In this match up we ideally want to look for early drops to match their board presence until Poppy or Yordle Captain comes down to turn the tables.

Pantheon Piles - 40/60  Unfavored

Fated as a keyword is just a headache for us because their units get bigger faster and it generates pressure before we can go wide to generate our own pressure. 

Therefore we need to block and survive, making it really hard for us to go wide, by the time we can go wide easily (around turn 6-7) we are one rally away from losing and their units are too big to deal with already.  

Thralls - 60/40

Thralls is a deck that looks to stall with board wipes and try to survive until turn 6-7 when they turn the tables and kill us with giant 8/8’s.  

The good news for us is that we can easily kill them before then and we have Ranger’s Resolve to punish Avalanche.

One rally usually seals the game, if you don’t have any rallies be careful of Blighted Ravine. A good Blighted Ravine from them can be enough for us to lose, so if we don’t have Poppy or Ranger’s Resolve we have to play carefully. 

About the Author

CameronHanzo is a Seasonal Top 4 finisher as well as a World’s Qualifier known in the AM shard for playing Thralls almost exclusively to climb the ladder even in unfavourable meta-games, a true master of the deck. This season Cameron's found a new favourite deck in yordle rally, playing it exclusively to become one of the first AM players to Master! Cameron's not only an excellent ladder grinder, he's constantly preparing for tournaments with his team the Wobbly Wombats and currently plays for the Frozen Monks in the RA tournament.