Minah Swiftfoot/Feel the Rush Deck Guide: Top 10 Masters in Patch 1.14

Hi, Random7HS here. I have been a Masters player since beta and I routinely compete in community tournaments, such as Duels of Runeterra (my achievements there include finishing 1st, and 2nd). This is my first deck guide, so any feedback is very welcome.

I call this deck ‘Feel the Minah’ and I am really excited to show it off because I love Minah Swiftfoot but never had a good build to play her in until now. Over the course of four days, I gained a little over 200 LP with this deck. It also continued to perform well after Patch 1.14 hit the live servers (rank #9 as of November 12, 518LP). I would highly recommend this deck if you are looking for a list that consistently beats Warmother’s and other Feel the Rush decks – or if you are like me and just really want to play Minah Swiftfoot, especially now that she has been buffed.

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Game Plan

Against non-aggro lists, this deck wants to use Wyrding Stones, Catalyst of Aeons, and Voices of the Old Ones to ramp into Trundle, Tryndamere and Minah Swiftfoot, eventually ending the game with a Feel the Rush. An ideal hand versus control would be Wyrding Stones, Voices of the Old Ones, Trundle and Feel the Rush, which lets us play Wyrding Stones on 3, Voices on 4, Trundle on 5, and Ice Pillar followed by Feel the Rush when we get to 12 mana the very next turn.

Against aggro, this deck wants to slow down the game as much as possible with Troll Scavenger, Avalanche, Icequake, Yone, Minah and Harsh Winds while sneaking in ramp cards and eventually ending the game with overwhelming Trundles and Tryndameres.

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Core Cards

3 Trundle – After the nerf, Trundle is no longer the best champion in the game. However, Trundle is still a 4/5 with Regeneration that can stall for quite some time and turns into an Overwhelming nightmare turn 8. Ice Pillar may be a bit weaker, but it still gives us a flexibility of a free pass, as well as being a pseudo-challenger and blocker that levels up Trundle. Always keep Trundle with Wyrding Stones in your mulligan.

3 Tryndamere – Target for Feel the Rush. Tryndamere can sometimes win games on his own by just hitting face. His champions spell is Tryndamere’s Battle Fury, which lets you play around Freeze Spells and can sometimes push for extra damage. Be careful that if you have multiple Tryndameres up and your opponent plays The Ruination, only the leftmost one will level up and survive.

3 Feel the Rush – Win condition in all matchups except for Ionia. Against Ionia, if you can try to force your opponent to Deny something else like Minah, but oftentimes you just have to play Feel the Rush and hope your opponent doesn’t have Deny.

3 Minah Swiftfoot – Minah is a win condition against control decks. This card can allow you to remove blockers to attack for lethal and can obliterate units if your opponent has too many cards in hand. This card can also give you enough tempo to defeat Scouts and Nightfall aggro if they have a slower start. Try not to bounce their Doombeast or Stygian Onlooker, however.

Ramp

3 Wyrding Stones – Self-explanatory. Wyrding Stones is extremely good in this deck because it can lead into either a turn 4 Trundle or a turn 4 Voices of the Old Ones. Against aggro decks, Wyrding Stones will usually block two attacks assuming Avalanche or Icequake is not played. Wyrding Stones is an “always-keep” in all matchups.

2 Catalyst of Aeons – Catalyst is similar to Wyrding Stones in that it also can lead to a turn 4 Trundle. However, Catalyst is a bit worse than Wyrding Stones because it can’t segue into Voices of the Old Ones. Also, even after the recent 1 HP nerf, Wyrding Stones can sometimes block more than 3 damage Catalyst can heal you for. As a result, the deck plays 2 Catalysts and 3 Wyrding Stones. That said, Catalyst of Aeons is better in matchups that can easily kill Wyrding Stones (Ashe Sejuani, Deep, and Spooky Ashe).

3 Voices of the Old Ones – A part of the dream-curve: Wyrding Stones on 3, Voices on 4, Trundle on 5, and Pillar into Feel the Rush on turn 6. If you do this unopposed, you basically an auto-win. Voices is also nice because it finds Icequake, Tryndamere, Minah Switftfoot, or Feel the Rush. Never keep more than one copy of this card in a mulligan, however. In an aggro-heavy meta, it might be worth lowering the quantity of this card or cutting it completely.

Board Wipes

3 Avalanche – This is your win condition against Nightfall decks and can keep you in the game against Scouts. You want to try and bait your opponent into committing to the board as much as possible. Against aggro, always keep at least one copy during the mulligan.

2 Icequake – This card is your secondary win condition against Nightfall and your primary win condition against Scouts. On turn 8, if you have Pillar and the attack token, it’s often better to play Pillar first and then Icequake even though Ice Pillar will take 3 damage. Against aggro, always keep one copy during the mulligan.

Freeze Spells

1 Flash Freeze – Can fizzle Atrocity, stop a Lee Sin attack, or essentially serve as a ‘pseudo-chump blocker’ if needed. I originally ran 2 copies in my initial list but switched it out for a third Concussive Palm. If there are a lot of Lee Sin decks on the ladder, it would probably be a good idea to add more copies of Flash Freezes into the deck.

3 Harsh Winds – Harsh Winds can be used in most situations that Flash Freeze can, but Harsh Winds is much more useful when your life is on the line. You generally want to save this card for when either your opponent commits to lethal, your opponent is getting close to lethal, or when you have no other options. In most cases, instead of wasting mana on Harsh Winds, you would rather take damage and remove units shortly by Icequake or Avalanche, or making them Vulnerable to Trundle/Tryndamere.

Utility

3 Troll Scavenger – Good for trading into 2 attack or less units, such as Elise, Laurent Protege, etc., and can also trade up into 3 and 4 health units. Originally, this card was an Avarosan Sentry, but Troll Scavenger is a bit better after the patch as drawing an extra card matters a bit less now that there are fewer control decks on the ladder.

3 Concussive Palm – This card can save the game versus aggro by stunning one unit and blocking another. Against late-game decks, this card can sometimes pull off surprise wins by stunning a blocker while you have a leveled Trundle or a Tryndamere.

3 Deny – Really good in certain matchups. Our deck is reliant on tempo and will lose to Shadow Isles if the game goes late. A timely Deny on The Ruination or a Vengeance against Shadow Isles can win you the game outright. A Deny on Warmother’s Call or an opposing Feel the Rush will also place you in an extremely favorable spot because you’re trading 4 mana for 12. If you are seeing fewer aggro decks on the ladder, you can swap extra copies of this out for more early game cards like Icevale Archer, Troll Scavenger, Kindly Tavernkeeper, Tasty Faefolk or Ember Maiden.

2 Will of Ionia – This card is really good versus late-game decks because you can bounce anything that costs more than 5 mana and you’re suddenly ahead on tempo. Will also gives you an out to combat The Infinite Mindsplitter and you can usually win the game the next turn if your opponent plays one. Like Concussive Palm, Will of Ionia can also win games by removing units blocking a leveled Trundle or Tryndamere. Similarly to Deny, this card is pretty bad versus aggro. Generally against them, you will want to bounce almost anything that costs 4 or more. If it’s an aggro-heavy meta, you can swap extra copies of this out for more early game cards like Icevale Archer, Troll Scavenger, Kindly Tavernkeeper, Tasty Faefolk, or Ember Maiden.

Alternate Cards

Avarosan Sentry – As mentioned earlier, I originally ran this card over Troll Scavenger. This card is much better versus Lee Sin decks, as it can block Mountain Goat and Zed while drawing a card. It is also much better in control matchups because it essentially lets us play a 37 card deck.

Yone, Windchaser – I originally started off with 2 Harsh Winds, 2 Yone and 2 Minah, but quickly switched to 1 Yone and 3 Minah. I then switched to 3 Harsh Winds and 3 Minahs. Yone can sometimes punish development as early as turn 5 (if you prior resolved two ramp cards), but most players do play around Icequake and Avalanche at that point and open-attack on turns I’d want to play Yone. Either way, the deck has access to 2 Icequakes, 3 Avalanches, 3 Minahs, (and 2 Trundle’s Icequake if Trundle is on board), so it feels like it has enough development punishes even without Yone.

Icevale Archer, Tasty Faefolk, Kindly Tavernkeeper – These cards could be good on early turns to slow down aggro decks.

Ember Maiden – I haven’t tested this card but it seems good in theory if you are playing against opponents that always open attack. They open attack and then you can set-up what essentially is a 2-turn Avalanche.

Troll Chant – In metas with decks that can easily kill Wyrding Stones, it may be worth adding Troll Chant to protect your Stones.

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Tips & Tricks

Against control, always keep one copy of either Wyrding Stones or Catalyst of Aeons, and additionally one copy of Voices of the Old Ones. Never keep more than one Voices. Keeping multiples of Wyrding Stones/Catalyst is fine if you don’t have Voices. Against Shadow Isles and other Feel the Rush decks, keeping Deny is fine too. Against Warmother’s/Feel the Rush decks, keeping Minah is really good. Against decks with Atrocity, keeping one Flash Freeze is also fine. If your hand is good enough, keeping Will of Ionia is also not bad against late-game decks.

In the early games, you can usually ignore their units and focus on ramping. Most control decks can’t do enough damage to matter, so try not to block their units with Wyrding Stones or attack with Trundle if they have the potential to kill it with follow-up removal spells.

Once you get to the late game, keeping track of what your opponent may have in their hand to answer your threats is very important. Against Ionia, you generally do not want to play Feel the Rush until you’re either winning on board or are desperate enough to hope that they do not have Deny. Against Shadow Isles, if you have the attack token with Trundle or Tryndamere – and also have 12 mana against their 9 mana – it is often better to just attack and sandbag Feel the Rush until they tap under The Ruination mana. This is especially useful if you have Deny in hand. It also can be used on Vengeance if you have enough threats on the board and can play around The Ruination with either an open attack or a Feel the Rush.

Against aggro, the general game plan is to just survive. The mulligan is usually the same in most aggro matchups. Look for Avalanche, Wyrding Stones, and Troll Scavenger; keep Trundle with Catalyst/Wyrding Stones if going first or if the hand already has Avalanche; keep Icequake only if you’re tossing everything else.

When to play out Avalanche and Icequake is usually a judgment call. Generally, when choosing between playing removal spells or blockers, it is better to play out blockers to try and get more value out of your removal spells later, but how greedy you can afford to be – that depends on the opposing player. If you have Harsh Winds or multiple Concussive Palms, you can afford to be greedier with Avalanche and Icequake than usual.

In many games, if the opponent tries to play around Avalanche and Icequake too much, you can Harsh Winds on a key turn and win the next turn with a Feel the Rush or Trundle/Tryndamere. Another tip is to always keep the deck’s win condition in mind. Sometimes, it is better to take a little extra damage if it means having enough mana to play a Feel the Rush or Tryndamere’s Battle Fury on the next turn. Additionally, any damage you can get in during the midgame could mean the difference between winning and losing because of how many Overwhelming champions the deck plays.

In an aggro meta, as mentioned earlier, I would cut some of the anti-control cards, and add in more anti-aggro cards, like Icevale Archer, Tasty Faefolk, Kindly Tavernkeeper, Troll Scavenger, and maybe even Ember Maiden. Greenglade Lookout and Troll Ravager are also interesting cards that may be worth trying out. Also, I really want Shadow Flare to be good, but I can’t think of any meta in which I would play it.

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Matchups

Extremely favored. Feel the Minah pretty much always wins against Warmother’s. I have actually never lost this matchup. The deck has Flash Freeze and Harsh Winds for Atrocity, Deny for Atrocity, The Ruination, and Warmother’s, and Minah to reset their board if it gets too big. Feel the Minah has even more ramp than them with Voices of the Old Ones.

Mulligan for Wyrding Stones, Voices, catalyst, Trundle, Feel the Rush, Flash Freeze, and Deny. If the hand is good enough, Minah is also fine to keep.

(Shadow Isles/Freljord Feel the Rush aka Boring Feel the Rush).

Extremely favored. I have never lost this matchup either. This matchup plays out mostly the same as Warmother’s. Instead of Deny’ing Feel the Rush, it is sometimes better to play Minah instead, as Minah also builds board presence while saving Deny for The Ruination’s. If their hand has enough cards when playing Minah, you will also obliterate their Trundle and Tryndamere.

Mulligan is mostly the same as Warmother’s except you should keep one Minah.

Extremely favored. If you draw ramp cards early, you usually win the game before Star Spring wins. The only scary thing about this deck is that they can capture Wyrding Stone or Trundle turn 5. However, both Will of Ionia and Minah can reset your board after Kench captures a unit. When attacking, be careful that a Hush + Pale Cascade can kill an attacking unleveled Tryndamere and that Hush can sometimes stop lethal. Try not to play Avalanche or Icequake unless you’re certain you can wipe their board. If not, damaging their units simply speeds up their win condition.

Mulligan for Wyrding Stones, Voices, catalyst, Trundle, Feel the Rush, and Will of Ionia. Minah is fine to keep in hands with enough ramp.

Extremely favored. If you draw ramp cards, you should be able to win before Maokai levels or they drop Nautilus with a handful of Sea Monsters. On turn 3, if they have the attack token and pass with 3 mana, it’s usually not worth summoning Wyrding in case they sandbag their Jaull Hunter. If they summon Nautilus on their turn, it is often better to play a Will of Ionia or Minah to bounce their Nautilus instead of playing your own Feel the Rush. Try to play around The Ruination if you can.

Mulligan for Wyrding Stones, Voices, catalyst, Trundle, Feel the Rush, and Will of Ionia. Minah and Deny are fine to keep if the hand is good enough.

Slightly favored to even. Most Nightfall units have 3 HP at most, except for Pale Cascaded units and leveled Nocturnes. Our goal is to bait your opponent into summoning as many units as possible and then dropping Icequake. Avalanche is also useful against boards of lower health units. Against Nightfall aggro, resolving Feel the Rush is usually game over.

Standard anti-aggro mulligan: keep Avalanche, Wyrding Stones, Trundle with Catalyst/Wyrding Stones if going first or if the hand already has Avalanche; Icequake if you’re tossing everything else; and Troll Scavenger. You can also keep Concussive Palm if you want.

Out of the Way Midrange Nightfall – Same as Nightfall aggro, except Feel the Minah is much more favored in this matchup.

Ionia Mistwraith Nightfall – Same as Nightfall aggro, except the repeated Mistwraiths might make them more favored into us.

Extremely unfavored, probably about 30/70 at best when you’re facing a good player. In this matchup, the goal is either bait them into a development that leaves them open to Icequake + Avalanche over two turns or bait them into an open attack that you can punish with Harsh Winds + Feel the Rush/Tryndamere next turn. Unlike Nightfall, Scouts have Sharpsight and Ranger’s Resolve to stop Avalanche and Icequake, so it can often take two turns to clear their boards. The early game damage potential of Scouts is also much higher than Nightfall’s if either Zed or Miss Fortune are drawn. Be careful about attacking into Riposte and Sharpsight with early Trundles.

Standard anti-aggro mulligan: Keep Avalanche, Wyrding Stones, Trundle with Catalyst/Wyrding Stones if going first or if the hand already has Avalanche; Icequake if you’re tossing everything else; and Troll Scavenger. You can also keep Concussive Palm if you want.

This deck auto-loses to Spooky Karma. I think I am 1-8 against Spooky Karma on the ladder and the one win was because my opponent summoned a Rivershaper for me to Concussive Palm for lethal when he could have just passed and waited for his attack turn. Against Spooky Karma, you have to try and win before they get Karma up. Once they get Karma up they can out-heal your damage and kill your units with copied spells.

Mulligan for Wyrding Stones, Voices, Catalyst, Trundle, Feel the Rush, and Deny. In all honesty though, while climbing, it might be better to instantly scoop against Spooky Karma players that you know are good.

Probably slightly favored. I haven’t played against this deck enough to tell. This is the only matchup you would rather have Catalyst of Aeons over Wyrding Stones. On turn 3, if they have the attack token and pass, do not summon Wyrding Stones because they might have Trifarian Gloryseeker. If they don’t have the attack token, it might be worth not summoning Stones until you have Deny mana up or they tap below 3 because they might have Culling Strike. It also might not be worth summoning Stones unless you can get value out of the extra mana crystal on the next turn.

Mulligan for Troll Scavenger, Wyrding Stones, Voices, Catalyst, Trundle, and Feel the Rush. Icequake and Concussive Palm are also fine to keep.

I haven’t lost to this deck yet, but I have not played against enough Lee Sin decks to know if this matchup is favored or not. On one hand, they have Deny for Feel the Rush. On the other hand, you have triple Minahs and double Will of Ionias to reset their Zenith Blade and you have double Harsh Winds and a Flash Freeze to deal with Lee Sin. I have won games versus Lee Sin without ever playing Feel the Rush.

In the mulligan, you probably want to keep ramp cards, Will of Ionia, and freeze spells. Trundle and Tryndamere are much better to keep in this matchup compared to others because they have Deny for Feel the Rush. Avalanche and Troll Scavenger are okay to keep if you think they are going to play out Mountain Goat on 2 and Zed on 3.

I have not been seeing much of this deck recently, but I would guess the matchup is somewhere between slightly favored and even. Usually, this deck does not win until turns 7 – 9 and by then, you can usually Feel the Rush or beat them down with Trundle/Tryndamere.

Standard anti-aggro mulligan. Keep Avalanche, Wyrding Stones, Trundle with Catalyst/Wyrding Stones if going first or if the hand already has Avalanche; Icequake if we’re tossing everything else; and Troll Scavenger. You can also keep Concussive Palm if you want.

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Patch 1.14 Update

The Minah Swiftfoot buff was nice but probably won’t come up too often. At the same time, this deck suffered a pretty big nerf as Wyrding Stones lost 1 HP. Trundle also got a small nerf, losing 1 HP, and Ice Pillar losing 2 HP. This Trundle nerf does not matter as much because the champion was pretty overpowered in the first place. The Wyrding Stones change hurts more because now you have to be much more careful with blocks and Stones dies to Fleetfeathet Tracker paired up with Miss Fortune.

However, I played a few games on ladder after the patch and climbed up to number 10, only losing once to Twisted Fate Go Hard. At least for the moment, Scout aggro does not seem to be too prevalent on the ladder. If the meta changes to be more aggressive and I end up changing the list, I’ll probably post another update.

Thanks for reading and good luck in your games! If you try this deck out, let me know if you have any questions or modifications you found useful.