Feel The Minah Showing up at Rank 1

Feel the Minah, recently made a come back in the meta. It shows strong results and took rank 1 in the hands of MTucks. Dragonguy is here to introduce you to this new version of the archetype!

Hello everyone, Dragonguy here today with a new take on an old archetype, it’s Feel The Minah. It’s been a while, but right now is a great time for Minah Swiftfoot to shine! Without further ado, let’s get into it.

  • Origin:

Feel The Minah harkens back to a time when the meta was dominated by Feel The Rush (FTR). While the deck also used Trundle and Tryndamere and FTR to win, it borrowed some important tools from Ionia. This deck served as a hard counter, with Minah Swiftfoot kicking back the units from FTR and Deny to stop any other impactful spells. Since FTR fell out of favor, the deck had waned in popularity.

It did see a resurgence recently thanks to Scathus innovating the list, but the deck fell off near the end of the Magical Misadventures season. With the release of the A Curious Journey Expansion, the deck has begun to come back with a new tool: Gnar. The deck is slowly gaining popularity and has shown enough promise that it was even utilized by the current Rank 1 Americas player, MTucks

  • Gameplan:

Feel The Minah is a Freljord Ionia Control deck that closes out games through controlling the game long enough to get a win condition online. The primary win condition is Feel The Rush, which will grab our champions Gnar and Trundle. Both of these champions gain overwhelm in their level 2 forms, which lets them smash through blockers. They can also come down early to give us some board presence, which is important for stabilizing and giving you time to set up your big plays. If you are able to level them up, you also make Feel The Rush stronger. The deck plays a lot of acceleration and stall tools, and spikes hard once you reach 9 mana gems. 

Faces of the Old Ones and Catalyst of Aeons act as our mana accelerators and are crucial for how this deck plays. Faces of the Old Ones can come down early, and enable strong turn 3 plays in Blighted Ravine or Gnar. However, it can’t always come down on 2 with the Behold proc, as we only run 7 cards over 8. It is vulnerable to removal, so it can be better to save it for turns 6-7 to try and guarantee the ramp for a crucial mana breakpoint. As for Catalyst of Aeons, don’t prioritize the heal too much early on, especially on turn 3. It is better to play it and take damage than let your opponent burn your mana, as it can be awkward to play in later turns. 

We then have our suite of stall spells, with AOE removal from Freljord and stuns/recalls from Ionia. While we have Blighted Ravine and Ice Shard as ways to whittle down wide boards, you may notice we aren’t running Avalanche – this is because of Scattered Pod. Without Avalanche, our only slow spell is Feel The Rush, which allows Scattered Pod to tutor it into our hand. Will of Ionia gives us a fast recall to stall expensive threats a turn. Concussive Palm gives us a fast stun to survive attacks, and Gnar’s Wallop can give us additional ways to stun units. To round out these spells, we have Three Sisters, which we use for its powerful flexibility, and Deny to stop opponents’ spells and skills.

Once we get to the late game, you have a few options. You could try to stick a Feel The Rush, which if your opponent can’t immediately answer will win the game. You could also try to level a champion on board and use that to win the game, holding up Deny to stop removal. Or, you can drop Minah Swiftfoot, which devastates decks that need board presence, especially Pantheon. If you do play against decks with Spellshield, then saving an Ice Shard to pop it in response to Minah Swiftfoot’s skill makes it so it can’t be stopped. All of these options are powerful and can win the game, you just need to assess which one is right for the situation you are in.

  • Verdict:

This deck has definitely been slept on and has a lot of potential. I personally used this deck in my climb from Plat to Masters and rocked an 80+% win rate.

Both Deny and Blighted Ravine are strong in the current meta, and being able to play both gives us an edge. Gnar’s addition is huge for the deck, providing early presence and fixing hand states where you have no playable cards.

If you’re looking for a control deck that can compete in the current metagame, then I highly recommend that you give this deck a try!

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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