Caitlyn Review and Theorycraft

Piltover Peacemaker – 2.0

If you aren’t making good use of your Flashbomb Traps, Piltover Peacemaker is a more expensive Mystic Shock that can’t go face.

To justify this spell, you will need to run payoffs for Traps, limiting this card to Trap decks exclusively.

I expect this card to see some play, but only in very specific archetypes.

Insider Knowledge – 1.5

By itself, Insider Knowledge offers you a bad deal and puts you at a disadvantage. You and your opponent both draw two cards – but it was you who invested a card and 3 mana to make that happen.

With some synergies, like Traps, you can leverage this spell by making draws punishing for your opponent.

However, this would be a very specific situation, and even in the right shell, I don’t expect Insider Knowledge to see play because of tough competition with Hexcore Foundry, Aloof Travelers, and Veteran Investigator.

Coup de Grace – 1.5

Coup de Grace removes a follower without damaging it, which is quite unique for the Piltover and Zaun region.

However, this does come at a cost, putting you at a card disadvantage, and it also can’t target champions. Those are both huge downsides, and I don’t expect the card to see a lot of play.

Coup de Grace becomes more interesting when you can gain advantages out of the opponent’s draw, like in Trap archetypes. However, I’m afraid the card might struggle even in the right shell for it because of the follower-only condition (remember Whimsy in Ionia).

Corina, Mastermind – 2.0

Corina, Mastermind offers you 2 options, but in reality, you will use the second one most of the time, and the first one will be more of a backup plan.

Flashbomb Traps, this late into the game, will have a hard time being impactful, and you should ask for a bigger and more immediate effect out of your 6-cost unit.

The second effect, however, makes Corina, Mastermind an interesting payoff and a solid finisher for Trap archetypes.

Sting Officer – 2.5

Sting Officer is one of the better Flashbomb Traps enablers, doing a good impression of Caitlyn.

However, this unit suffers from the “2 mana, 1 health” syndrome, making it quite vulnerable to pings such as Make it Rain, Twisted Fate, Statikk Shock, or Vile Feast.

Still, when you need cards that plant Flashbomb Traps, this is one of the better ones. If the opponent does not have a way to remove Sting Officer efficiently, this card can do a lot of work.

Justice Rider – 1.5

Justice Rider has a very low immediate impact. While she is a decent value-over-time engine, her floor and ceiling aren’t that impressive.

Maybe decks looking to reach a critical mass of Flashbomb Traps could make use of her, but even in the right archetype, I’m not sure she is worth playing.

Advanced Intel – 1.0

Advanced Intel doesn’t serve much of a purpose outside of a deck that has payoffs for your Flashbomb Traps, and, unfortunately, it probably doesn’t make much sense there either.

The value on this spell is just too low, and there are better ways to plant Flashbomb Traps.

Ambush – 2.0

I’ve seen a lot more hype over that card than I thought there would be.

Giving Elusive to a unit is nice, but you need a very specific setup for this to be an impactful play. Ghost works in Sivir Ionia because it is used with Sivir, a Spellshield unit that has the potential to OTK the opponent and can share Elusive with the rest of her allies.

Moreover, Sumpworks Map was already a card in Piltover and Zaun, and it barely ever saw play. While Ambush should be slightly better in the right deck thanks to the attack boost, I don’t expect it to be enough to make it much more successful than Sumpworks Map has been.

Officer Squad – 1.5

Cheap units that create a particular spell are usually more optimal to include in your deck than the said spell itself because the creature’s body offers a nice bit of value.

However, this rule doesn’t work as well with expensive units, because they cost you a lot of tempo, making you pay for the unit before you get access to the spell. Therefore, you need the unit to be valuable by itself.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the case for Officer Squad, who is simply an underwhelming body for 5 mana, which is the point in the curve where your units have to provide some immediate impact on the game.

I would expect that archetypes that could be interested in Most Wanted will play the spell directly in their main deck instead of opting to pay for this unit first.

Most Wanted – 2.0

Draw 3 is a lot of value, and the downside of this spell can be managed thanks to fodder-like created cards (e.g. Draven’s Spinning Axe, Gems, Mushroom Cloud).

However, this effect comes at a significant tempo loss and will be weaker when you don’t have any proper discard fodder. Moreover, Slow speed is detrimental when you need to find an answer to a play that is about to resolve on the stack.

Note that Most Wanted can be used on the opponent, for example, to force them to draw Traps. However, there are a lot of better ways to force the opponent to draw, so I don’t expect this use of the spell to be too relevant.

Station Archivist – 3.5

Station Archivist comes with a good statline while offering some nice value. As long as your deck has enough spells, you will see multiple spells in your top 5 cards that you can choose from, which will allow you to adapt to the situation and find the right answer.

The fact that the Fleeting card is a copy of your spell can also be used to an advantage – for example, a card like Go Hard benefits greatly from being duplicated.

Finally, Archivist shows all your spells that are among the top 5 cards of your deck, making it easier for you to make informed decisions.

However, Station Archivist needs you to play a deck with enough cheap, proactive spells to work properly. Because of the Fleeting keyword, spells that are too reactive or too expensive will be hard to make use of.