Time Capsule - Demacia Targon

We owe the first glimpses of brilliance for this archetype to my fellow Romanian player, The CatAsUs, as he was the pioneer of it. It was Duels of Runeterra #17 when he first presented it to the world in a line-up focused on countering Scouts as the prevalent threat of the meta; the other two decks were Tahm-Raka and Fiora-Shen with three copies of Radiant Guardian.

The initial version was heavily focused on survivability and levelling Lux consistently, Aurelion Sol being your prized finisher heading into the late turns. What stood out in his brew were the three copies of Radiant Guardian, three copies of Blinding Assault and two copies of Judgment.

Why? As we mentioned, Scouts were the boogie man at that time. And what were they doing best? Chopping your health total very consistently while maintaining their board advantage, as their units are healthier than the usual Aggro ones we are used to.

In this case, it made perfect sense to have Radiant Guardian to stand your ground in the mid-game, on the turns your opponent could get really dangerous. Blinding Assault makes perfect sense, as well, since you wanted consistent ways to activate your Radiant Guardian and early blockers. To top it off, Judgment was your ultimate “Concede and go next” card; you were allowed to get considerably low against Scouts, as MF was the only over the top damage dealer, just to have a huge Radiant+Judgement turn, get back to full health, clear the whole board and make your opponent cry even more than Viego does for his Isolde.

A few final mentions for this chapter of the deck are:

• Remembrance was mostly a “Give me more Radiant Guardians” card;

• Starshaping used to heal 5 until very recently;

• The deck has seen a few variations during that period, including: 1 Leona instead of Aurelion Sol and her package, so you could wider swings after her level up or swapping Lux for Garen, so you could get more attacks with better stated units than your opponent – this version ran a more Dragon-centered package, with cards like Dragonguard Lieutenant and Screeching Dragon.

• Sharpsight became a staple of the archetype later on, usually replacing Pale Cascade, which got nerfed from +2/+1 to +1/+1, as we know it nowadays.

The Dark Ages before Patch 2.5

“Waaait a second. It took that long for the archetype to be popular again?”
Yes, it did, because many overpowered decks came into existence after: 

Patch 1.11 saw Lee Sin rising, as Bastion received a buff which I cannot explain until today (later getting a cost increase of  +1). Hush couldn’t keep up with this buff anymore, as you needed to pair it with Single Combat or Concerted Strike and hope your opponent doesn’t hold Nopeify! or Deny.
The addition of Zoe did not help at all, either, as you would gain another reason to worry. Some Demacia Targon variants used to run her themselves, but the archetype quickly ran out of favor.

• The K/DA ALL OUT event brought into existence Twisted Fate Go Hard, against which all control decks used to fall because of Pack Your Bags costing one mana and having Commander Ledros as the top end against any Control deck that would hope to win against you; in addition, Feel The Rush decks would just run over you;

• The Aphelios Champion Expansion and the Aphelios piles made it even harder for the archetype to strive, as this champion would be the ultimate value engine you want.

“But, sir. Couldn’t you just build a Demacia deck with Aphelios?”

Of course there have been attempts to, but it had the lowest power level among all the Aphelios piles and has never seen proper play.

The Bright Ages of Patch 2.5 and Guardians of the Ancient

After a failed attempt during the Dark Ages to somewhat make Shyvana more relevant in Patch 1.14 by buffing her stats to 4/4 from 3/4, it was Patch 2.5 that really made her shine, as she received her well-deserved Fury tag, as all Dragon should. This solely made people interested in brewing with her again. They realized that combining her on-attack effect, the Fury tag and the protective spells from Demacia and Targon, in addition to the combat tricks Demacia became well-known for, made her a menace. 

The cherry on top was the introduction of the The Guardians of the Ancient expansion and namely the impact that Azir, Irelia and the Blade Dance mechanic had on the game. Against this powerful and easy to pick up deck, your best was the saving grace of the Dragon Package, so you could block Blades efficiently and not lose HP on your units. In addition the Challengers Package would make sure you can actively pick their champions apart and disrupt their game plan.

The version became more Midrange in nature and gave up more and more on the Invoke Package, you simply needed raw stats to overpower them, not units like Solari Priestess, which were extraordinary in terms of value but awful as blockers. Judgment was a bait people ran away from quite fast, as an eight mana card that could be countered by Homecoming was not necessarily ideal. The lists looked similar to the one below.