Best Evelynn Decks – LoR Forces from Beyond Expansion

Hi everyone, den here, with the task to feature the best Evelynn decks in the expansion so far. Evelynn is the latest Runeterran champion from the Forces from Beyond expansion, who allows you to put cards that summon Husks into your deck plus one other region of your choice:

• Sultur
• Vora
• Steem
• Solitude
• Domination

At the end of the first week for Forces from Beyond, Evelynn hasn’t pushed a single deck past the 50% win rate mark. The champion has mostly been associated with Demacia and Shurima so far, and even 2 of the current best regions in the game have not succeeded at making Evelynn look remotely good. While this could indicate that the champion still hasn’t found its footing in the current metagame, we cannot exclude the possibility that Evelynn just isn’t a good champion to build around either.

In this article, I’d like to explore the reasons as to why Evelynn is doing so poorly early on in the Forces from Beyond metagame. We’ll look at some of her best performing decks, and see if we can identify some key elements that would help us understand the direction an Evelynn deck should take in order to be successful. As time goes, we’ll update this guide with Evelynn’s best decks as the meta settles!

Demacia is Evelynn’s best ally for now

Share

code Image URL

edit

Evelynn Lucian created by den • last updated 1 year ago

Regions

28

3

3

6

Types

6

26

8

0

0

Rarities

6

9

9

16

Mana Cost

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7+

Champions (6)

1

Lucian

3

4

Evelynn

3

followers (26)

1

Fleetfeather Tracker

3

2

Durand Sculptor

3

2

Petricite Broadwing

3

2

Sultur

3

3

Dawnspeakers

3

3

Domination

3

3

Vanguard Redeemer

2

3

Vora

3

6

Genevieve Elmheart

3

Spells (8)

1

Ranger’s Resolve

1

2

Allure

2

2

Sharpsight

3

5

Golden Aegis

2

While I’m featuring Lucian as the second champion (47.7% win rate), Poppy is also played in a very similar build with a similar win rate (46.6%) since Evelynn was released. Over the last 2 days though, Lucian is looking to be the better option as Poppy fell closer to a 45% win rate.

Looking more into the details of the deck’s win rate, I could identify 2 problems:

• Even the best performing players with Lucian Evelynn “only” has a 75% win rate. While it might seem excellent, the best decks in the metagame feature players with an 85 or 90% win rate over 30 games, which shows a much better ceiling.
• The deck is mostly putting up results against newer archetypes like Gwen decks, implying it is benefiting from the opponent not being a finished product either. If we look at well established archetypes (FTR, Nami TF, Ashe Leblanc, Heimerdinger Jayce…) from the previous patch, Lucian Evelynn is immediately doing quite poorly.

The first problem indicates a deck with few high roll opportunities. Most of the time, if we look at hundreds of players playing the same deck, there should always be a few players that are very lucky when playing, representing the high roll potential for the deck.

If we look at the current best performers like Azirelia or Annie Twisted Fate, both decks have a player at 88% while the overall win rate is at 56.6%.

In the case of Lucian Evelynn, although the 30% difference between global win rate and highest win rate stays the same, as 47% jumps to 75% for the deck while 56% jumps to 88% for the best decks. We can at least deduce that the deck’s highest potential isn’t on par with the one of the other decks. Considering the global win rate is much lower too, it’s easy to assess the average outs aren’t able to compete either.

This is already worrisome for Evelynn, as Demacian champions looked like perfect allies for her. The Husks are working perfectly to help Lucian level super quickly, and can provide extra keywords like Spellshield or Tough for improved survivability. We can also see that Dawnspeakers makes a ton of sense in the deck, with the Husks naturally dying each and every turn to activate its effect.

So while I think Lucian is quite a smart choice to go alongside Evelynn, and could rightfully be considered one of her best pairings in terms of concept. The limit to this deck is the power level of the cards at the core of the strategy.

Lucian hasn’t seen competitive play in years, the last time probably was when Shurima was released alongside Azir. He typically is used in very explosive strategies, looking to use his level up and outpace the opponent doing so. Yet, Lucian also has a history of super volatile decks alongside Hecarim, which crumble as soon as the opponent is able to remove Lucian effectively.

In the current set of things, with Demacia and Noxus being 2 very popular regions, one could expect the opponent to be playing either Challenger units, or cheap removal, both leading to removing Lucian efficiently. As such, Evelynn Lucian looks like a step in the right direction, but doesn’t provide strong enough cards to help Evelynn be a contender in the current metagame.

Kai’Sa isn’t enough to elevate Evelynn

Share

code Image URL

edit

Evelynn Kai\'sa created by den • last updated 1 year ago

Regions

3

29

6

2

Types

6

26

8

0

0

Rarities

6

6

5

23

Mana Cost

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7+

Champions (6)

4

Evelynn

3

5

Kai’Sa

3

followers (26)

1

Treasure Seeker

2

2

Belvethi Elder

3

2

Sultur

3

3

Domination

2

3

Merciless Hunter

3

3

Vora

3

4

Steem

2

4

Void Blaster

3

5

Ruin Runner

3

9

Void Abomination

2

Spells (8)

3

Ancient Hourglass

2

3

Quicksand

2

4

Rite of Negation

2

4

Supercharge

2

During the theorycraft period, I saw a lot of players build decks around this pair. It felt quite natural as both champions are looking to build around a keyword focused synergy. However, if Kai’sa found some decks in order to become a competitive champion in the metagame, Evelynn is sinking, and their pairing currently hold a 43.2% win rate.

In this deck, the big problem seems to be the complete lack of flexibility. Indeed, the whole list is a pile of units with random keywords in order to level up our champions. We aren’t even playing any card draw (Rite of Calling wouldn’t hurt) to make sure we will draw into our key cards. To be fair, this looks like an expedition deck at best. The worst part is: This is the best performing list for the archetype, with a 68.6% win rate over 35 games.

When paired with Demacia, Evelynn at least finds help with the challenger keyword in order to interact with what the opponent is doing. Shurima is mostly a proactive region, looking to advance its game plan and force the opponent into a reactive stance. Every time this list falls behind on the board, the game is almost already said and done.

I feel this deck embodies really well Evelynn’s biggest problem – her synergy isn’t good enough to win you the game. The Husks we are summoning aren’t impactful enough, and compared to Bard or Jhin, Evelynn doesn’t have any impact on the game unless she is in play.

As such, a positive we could take from the Evelynn Kai’Sa’s pairing is that Evelynn should not be built around like we did with Jhin or Bard. Instead, she should be considered a support mechanic, like she is in Lucian Evelynn where we use the whole synergy as a giant enabler to Lucian’s level up.

While alongside Lucian, the issue for the deck was the power level of the core cards, and the deck with Kai’Sa simply feels off as to what to do with Evelynn overall synergy. The cards might be better on their own, but the complete lack of cohesiveness provided by Lucian or Dawnspeakers in the other deck is hurting the deck’s chances even more.

Then how do we build a deck around Evelynn?

Share

code Image URL

edit

Evelynn Illaoi created by den • last updated 1 year ago

Regions

28

3

3

6

Types

6

21

13

0

0

Rarities

6

5

9

20

Mana Cost

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7+

Champions (6)

4

Evelynn

3

4

Illaoi

3

followers (21)

1

Watchful Idol

3

2

Fortune Croaker

3

2

Hired Gun

3

2

Sultur

3

3

Domination

3

3

The Sea’s Voice

3

3

Vora

3

Spells (13)

1

Ye Been Warned

2

2

Answered Prayer

2

3

Tentacle Smash

3

5

Blood in the Water

1

5

Eye of Nagakabouros

3

6

Riptide Sermon

2

Let’s make something clear before I explain the deck. I am not pretending this deck will do any better than the current builds around Evelynn. I think the champion is inherently weak and cannot compete in its current form. Especially since the Husk synergy is “when you play a unit” rather than a “when you summon a unit”, which baffles me quite a bit. Despite that, in an effort to show what I believe would the best use for Evelynn, I tried to throw a deck together, Evelynn Illaoi.

The reason I picked Illaoi is that I believe keywords are much better to attach onto fighting units rather than passive ones. Amongst the 10 keywords one might get on a Husk, at least half of them would be lost if attached to a unit we expect to keep in the back row. Also, I was looking for a synergy which was able to win the game, not one that would support Evelynn.

In this deck, the concept is to improve Illaoi and The Sea’s Voice survivability through the keyword we can grant them. Also, Domination and Solitude should buff our Tentacles when summoned, which helps the worst case scenario of not being able to grow a big Tentacle and being forced to summon a new one repeatedly.

The concept is quite similar to what we are doing with Lucian or Poppy in the end, as they represent a win condition we are helping with the Husk Synergy. Yet, in the Tentacle synergy, we might have a bit more card which contribute to being able to win the game rather than simply hoping to find our champion. Also, Illaoi has proved to be a good win condition in recent memories, compared to Lucian who unfortunately hasn’t been much of a relevant champion for over a year.

Closing Words

I won’t have the nerve to feature some archetypes to keep an eye on like I did for Gwen, simply because I believe they aren’t any so far. You are probably better off starting from a blank sheet rather than get inspired by a bunch of 47% and below win rate decks.

Although it is still too early to call Evelynn unplayable, she looks well on her way to join the likes of Udyr, Katarina or Garen, who had to wait for a buff or a rework in order to gain some relevancy.

The biggest problem to me is the way Husks are being triggered, and a switch to a unit being summoned rather than being played could already help the synergy be a bit more explosive overall. Another positive addition would be to count the Husk being killed as a Slay as a way to open different synergies.

I believe there are avenues to improve for Evelynn, and the current disaster that are the decks built around the champion might be fixed in an upcoming patch notes. Until then, I welcome any idea to build a solid deck around Evelynn. Feel free to drop it in our community Discord or to tag me on Twitter!

Good Game Everyone.