Kindred Lux Matron – Freshlobster’s Quick Guide

The new Matron Cithria build uses the help of Kindred and Lux, who allow this classic combo archetype to be more consistent in the mid-game.

Heya, freshlobster here with another combination of a written guide & some gameplay examples!

Today’s deck is a new take on the Spectral Matron + Cithria, Lady of Clouds archetype. Traditionally, these decks used to be super focused on the combo of Matron copying a big Cithria onto the board, which, to be fair, is awesome but comes at a high deck-building cost because of the inclusion of cards like Stalking Shadows or Mobilize.

This version, however, is more centered around a midrange playstyle with the effective board control that Kindred and Lux can provide. Instead of investing resources into accelerating the combo, it tries to compete in the mid-game without ever falling too far behind, until either our value engine champions outgrind our opponents or we eventually get to our late-game power plays.



General Gameplan

In the early game, we just try to keep up with whatever threats our opponent presents while simultaneously setting up our mid-game swing turns. Hapless Aristocrat, Fading Icon, Minion, and Vanguard Sergeant are great for trading into our opponent’s units early on while generating tokens like Prey or Spiderlings as sacrificial fodder as well a spell like For Demacia! for the Lux synergies.

In the mid-game, we want to get our champions online and make use of their passive removal effects right away. If we find an early Kindred, we want to have some spell mana banked to activate their passive right away with cards like Glimpse Beyond, Vile Feast, or Single Combat. Next, Lux joins the battlefield with a Barrier right away, which we can use to block on a defensive turn or to enable a Single Combat. And if we’re playing against an aggressive or burn-heavy deck, Radiant Guardian can carry some games entirely on her own.

After we have developed one or two of these engines, we try to dismantle our opponent’s board piece by piece by making use of the synergy of our removal spells (Vengeance, Withering Wail, The Box) with the passives of Kindred and Lux. At the same time, we try to set up some small units besides our champions to line up our power plays.

Our game enders will usually either be a big For Demacia! turn or the infamous Cithria, Lady of Clouds, especially when summoned through Spectral Matron as early as turn 8. This will turn our puny tokens into lethal Challengers that can pull blockers aside and ensure that our huge units connect with the enemy’s Nexus.


Tips & Tricks

  • Don’t throw the small tokens away as chump blockers!
    Our little units are incredibly valuable in this deck because they can serve as Slay targets for Kindred, as For Demacia! targets or as game-ending Challengers later on. Treat them with the respect they deserve and only sacrifice them for blocking if necessary. Don’t forget – Nexus health is a resource!
  • Make good use of the champion passives!
    That will require you to plan 1-2 turns ahead and bank spell mana if needed. It’s often worth it to take an extra hit or a worse trade on the current turn if that allows us to get an extra Kindred mark or Lux‘s Final Spark next turn.
  • Don’t get too greedy!
    Our deck plays a lot of expensive stuff, and if we play everything on-curve, we might tap under important mana thresholds and not be able to remove a key threat our opponent can still develop (*cough* Ahri *cough*). This deck is great at slowly outgrinding opponents, so be wary of when we actually need to close out a game quickly, and when it’s better to just lean back and have answers to everything our opponent can have in store for us.

Mulligan


Tech Choices


Thanks for reading and good luck on your climb!

Let me know what you think of this guide + video format and what you’d like to see more (or less) of. Any constructive feedback helps a lot!

freshlobster
freshlobster

With a background in live Poker, freshlobster got into LoR at the start of the Corona pandemic. After starting out as solely a competitive player & tournament grinder, he has since expanded to content creation on Twitch and YouTube, shoutcasting, coaching, social media and writing - always trying to merge the educational & competitive side of LoR with fun & entertainment.

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