Pantheon Akshan: A Fated Duo

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Panth/Akshan created by twinsunz • last updated 1 year ago

Regions

22

18

Types

6

19

15

0

0

Rarities

6

1

10

23

Mana Cost

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7+

Champions (6)

2

Akshan

3

4

Pantheon

3

followers (19)

1

Saga Seeker

3

2

Mountain Goat

3

3

Vekauran Vagabond

3

3

Wounded Whiteflame

3

4

Blinded Mystic

2

4

Profiteer

3

5

Vekauran Bruiser

2

Spells (15)

1

Shaped Stone

3

2

Pale Cascade

3

2

Sunblessed Vigor

1

2

The Absolver

3

3

We Stand Together

2

4

Bastion

2

4

Rite of Negation

1

• Origins

After all of the Magic Misadventure reveals had concluded, I knew Pantheon was the champion I personally was most excited for. I love champions who really need to dive into combat in order to reach their full potential, and Pantheon does that in a stunning way once he is leveled.

I also quickly came to love the Fate keyword, even though we only have it on three units as of now. There are so many synergies with Pantheon and his followers that I wanted to try.

Of course, I naturally wanted to pair Pantheon with Taric and Demacia in order to get even more value out of buff spells and have access to strong Rally effects. I also wanted to try Pantheon with Riven and the Reforge package, because Blade Fragments help level Pantheon easily.

After trying both of those, I went back to the drawing board and realized that Pantheon would pair incredibly well with Akshan who benefits from various self-targeting effects. Pair these two champions with other tools from their respective regions like Gems, Lucky Finds, and cheap buffs – and you have the makings of a powerful combat-centric midrange deck.

• Gameplan

This deck plays somewhere in the range between a midrange combat-heavy value deck, and a one-turn kill combo deck.

The overall plan is simple though because you play the deck in the same way regardless of the win-con you end up in.

To start, you need to outvalue your opponents with your board, and trade efficiently while keeping your units alive with your various protection spells.

The new Fated keyword on the Saga Seeker and Wounded Whiteflame gives you additional value when you do this. On top of that, the self-targeting propels the rest of our gameplan up as well, including leveling up Akshan through the progression of his Landmark, and of course, leveling up our new favorite Targon champion Pantheon.

Our aim is to have Pantheon leveled between turns 7 and 9, and when he does come down, we want to quickly finish the game. This means we don’t have to force ourselves to target our allies every single round, especially on the early rounds of between turns 1 and 3. But after that, we should be consistently targeting our own units in order to progress our final win condition.

Besides just our vast targeting spells, we also have the Mountain Goat who will generate Gems for additional procs, as well as the Blinded Mystic and Profiteer who offers a self-target proc at no additional mana cost, which is huge in a value deck.

We must remember we do not have a whole lot of access to removal outside of finding Challenger on a Lucky Find, and we will never have access to Rally. This means we have to make the most out of each attack we get, and apply as much pressure as possible against slower decks, or purely outvalue those pesky aggro decks.

The consistency of this deck comes from always being able to make at least one of your units massive on stats and being able to level your champions very easily. This allows you to use either one of your champions (ideally Pantheon) to close out the game, or simply use The Absolver or Lucky Finds to grant Overwhelm to your biggest unit, and destroy that opposing Nexus.

Mulligans are fairly simple here. We always want to keep Saga Seeker, Mountain Goat, and Akshan. If we have one or two of those already, we can consider keeping the Wounded Whiteflame or the Vekauran Vagabond. We certainly do not want Pantheon or any of our other higher-cost units in our starting hand.

It is also great to keep 1 or 2 spells depending on how we will hit our curve or not. The best spells to keep in the starting hand are Shaped Stone, Pale Cascade, or We Stand Together. 

• Verdict

Even though Pantheon and Akshan might not have the Rally mechanic that Demacia brings, or the huge attack buffs that Noxus offers, I believe this is one of the stronger and more consistent Pantheon decks you can play.

I believe Warlord’s Palace provides so much value. Being able to have a Predict and draw is extremely important for finding either Pantheon in the later stages of the game, or if you already have him finding another spell to help close the game out.

Beyond that, Warlord’s Hoard provides insane value by either getting you more draw, or giving your champions a much-desired stat buff along with Spellshield. These outcomes happen very consistently once you get the basics of the deck down, and provide a really strong force that your opponents will have to work hard to defend against.