Braum Aurelion Sol Targon’s Peak – A Casual 0-Mana Feel The Rush!

Targon's Peak is one of Dragonguy's all-time favorite cards - check out his latest iteration on the deck built around it!
  • Origins

Hello everyone, Dragon here, and I welcome you to a new deck of the day, featuring one of my favorite cards, Targon’s Peak.

This time around, the champions for the deck are Aurelion Sol and Braum, who is fresh off his buff to a 0|6. I will say the list has yet to be fully refined – but without further ado, let’s get into the deck.

Targon’s Peak is a card that was released in the Monuments of Power Expansion in December 2020. It saw some initial play but was deemed too inconsistent to be competitive. Because of this, it was seen more as a meme archetype.

The only time the deck has seen serious competitive play in the past was during the meta where Nasus Thresh and Trundle Lissandra Control (TLC) were top decks in the format, as it had good matchups into them. Since then, the deck has fallen out of favor.

Recently at EU Masters, team Russia brought a Peak deck that featured Braum, instead of the traditional Tryndamere. With buffs to Braum and Aurelion Sol coming in the latest balance patch, I decided to play the archetype again and see how it feels.

  • Gameplan

This deck is about playing it’s namesake card, Targon’s Peak, and using it to cheat mana costs to play large and impactful cards earlier than you should be able to.

In order to accomplish this plan, we either have to sustain through the opponent’s early game, or ramp into it before our opponent can properly answer. Once this deck gets going, it is very difficult for the opponent to come back into the game.

While we want to cheat our late-game bombs into play, we need some earlier plays in order to survive, or ramp to reach our late-game sooner.

Avalanche and Blighted Ravine provide early removal for wide boards to slow down opponents, and Braum works as a solid defensive option for the deck. Thanks to the newly buffed Faces of the Old Ones, you also get to play Braum on 3 to stabilize the board and curve nicely into Targon’s Peak.

Once you drop Targon’s Peak, you get the chance to cheat out your big plays. Feel the Rush is easily the best card to cheat into play, giving you two 10|10 champions that are difficult to answer.

Aurelion Sol, thanks to his recent buff, will also level off of Feel The Rush, and he should be able to get you enough value to quickly close out the game once he levels.

The Infinite Mindsplitter serves to answer the large top-end threats in other decks, such as Sion, effectively removing 2 blockers and attackers every turn.

Finally, It That Stares can come down to provide either a board wipe or a way to obliterate landmarks. This can be relevant against decks such as The Bandle Tree, or even removing your own Targon’s Peak to stop the opponent from getting value from it.

The most important thing about Targon’s Peak is deciding if you are safe to drop it. While incredibly powerful, Peak is a negative tempo play as it doesn’t impact the board.

This leaves you vulnerable to your opponents developing a threatening board and pushing for lethal before you can start playing free cards. Because of this, it can be sometimes better to delay dropping your Targon’s Peak to instead play something like Blighted Ravine to impact the board.

There is also the danger that you can generate more value for the opponent than yourself. The effect is symmetrical, so in some matchups, your opponent can have their strong late-game cards accelerated.

There can also be cases where you have Targon’s Peak, but you don’t have any of your late-game threats in hand. In these situations, it can be better to focus on ramping into your cards naturally with Catalyst of Aeons and Faces of the Old Ones rather than playing Targon’s Peak.

Another facet of the deck is sculpting your hand to give you better odds for hitting the cards you want. The smaller your hand is, the better your odds are for getting the cards you want for free. This will put you in situations where you play cards from your hand in suboptimal situations.

Another way to reduce hand space is Spacy Sketcher, using her to discard some of your lower-end cards. While it can feel awkward, getting a high-cost card reduced to 0 is far more impactful than getting value from each and every one of your low-end cards. 

  • Verdict

The deck has been very fun to play in the time I’ve tried it, as dropping Targon’s Peak into Feel The Rush always feels great for you… not so much your opponent.

While the deck has some great highs, it also has some lows as well. Sometimes you draw too much of your late game early, or you don’t draw enough of your late game after sustaining the early game and get overwhelmed.

Targon’s Peak also doesn’t have great matchups into Dragons and Lurk, which are popular decks in the format currently.

Despite this, the deck is still powerful, and few decks can match the powerful plays you are able to make. So, if you want to try your luck, why not take a trip all the way to the peak.

Dragonguy
Dragonguy

Dragonguy is a just a guy who enjoys playing some fun LOR decks. After taking targon's peak and Deep to top 32 of Guardians of the Ancient, he's been constantly looking to improve his game. Also, he's been playing a lot of Path of Champions lately, and is really enjoying Jinx.

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