Riven Fizz Papercraft: a Competitive OTK Deck

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Paperfizz dragon created by mathologue • last updated 1 year ago

Regions

20

20

Types

6

19

15

0

0

Rarities

6

3

10

21

Mana Cost

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7+

Champions (6)

1

Fizz

3

3

Riven

3

followers (19)

1

Blade Squire

3

1

Yordle Squire

2

2

Conchologist

3

2

House Spider

2

2

Runeweaver

3

4

Ruined Reckoner

3

6

Papercraft Dragon

3

Spells (15)

1

Elixir of Wrath

3

1

Trinket Trade

3

2

Pokey Stick

3

3

Might

3

3

Wallop

2

4

Friendship!

1

• Origins: 

Hi, ASOLid roamer here! In this article, I will present to you Fizz Riven, which I played all the way from platinum 4 to the top master ladder, where I remain consistently in the top 10. Now, several other players are starting to pick up this deck, so I thought it would be interesting to share my experience of the deck with you!

This deck first originated from Swim, who built an OTK deck around the new card Papercraft Dragon. The idea is to stick a Papercraft Dragon on Fizz, give him a bunch of buffs, and have him kill the opponent while denying all counterplay thanks to Fizz’s ability. I immediately fell in love with the concept and started spamming the deck on the ladder, making some changes left and right to arrive with the current list.

• Gameplan:

This is, by theory, an OTK deck. Papercraft dragon is a new unit with the Attach keyword, that will grant +2/+2 and double strike to the targeted ally. With the right keywords such as elusive and overwhelm, this essentially doubles the targeted unit’s damage output! The idea is to abuse the very strong papercraft dragon’s effect with fizz’s extreme evasiveness, providing a nearly non-interactable OTK.

Papercraft Dragon is obviously the mistress card of this deck, but it needs a proper host – the two main targets being Riven and Fizz. 

Fizz provides a nimble body that will be invulnerable to the opponent’s counterplay. However, due to his weak base 2/1 statline, he will usually need 2 to 3 attacks to end the game with papercraft dragon.

Riven is the opposite of Fizz, having a bulky 4/5 body after level-up (it’s very easy to do so in this deck). Thanks to her level 2 ability to double the first attack pump effect she receives each round, it won’t be too hard for her to kill the opponent in one swing, but will be vulnerable to removal, stuns, etc… 

If you play against competitive decks, most of them have a way to interact with a highly buffed Riven, so you generally want to stick papercraft dragon on Fizz. However, in some aggressive fast matchups such as scouts or pirate burn, Fizz will usually be too slow. In these situations, Riven will prove to be a good host because, with no counterplay on the opponent’s side, it is easy to raise Riven’s power up to 10-12 attack, dealing lethal damage with papercraft dragon and overwhelm.

Ruin Reckoner provides a crucial extra attack, for more lethal reach or to play around freezes by launching multiple attacks in different turns.

But to win the game, you also need to survive your opponent’s aggression. We play 5 one drops and 8 2 drops for that. We also run Wallop, a very good defensive card to buy you the extra turn you desperately need or protect a key unit from a challenger. It can even be used offensively to push more damage by stunning the blocker of your overwhelm unit.

Of course, you won’t draw papercraft dragon every game and will be forced to work with only Fizz or Riven. Sometimes, you will only have papercraft, but no Fizz or Riven, so you will need to attach it to a follower. Being adaptive is a crucial skill for this deck, and will sometimes net you crazy lethals.

Some good general guidelines would be: 

• Get as much chip damage early on. The less hp your opponent will have, the less mana you will have to commit to kill him, and therefore the more mana you will hold for counterplay.
• Don’t necessarily go for one turn kill combos. Avoid at all costs to drop below to 0 mana if the opponent still holds enough mana to play his removals/stuns… As long as you can survive the next turn, it’s ok if they survive on 4 or 5 hp – you will just kill them on the next attack. Of course, if you’re in direct danger and cannot survive the next turn, then you will unfortunately have to commit everything and accept the loss if there is an answer. This is why the first tip is so important.
• Count how much mana damage costs, and save mana accordingly. This is probably the most important point to understand. This deck is very tricky and offers A LOT of different lines each turn, so being aware of the exact mana you will be left with for how much damage you’re dealing is crucial to answer your opponent’s threats.

Now, we need to get to the mulligans. These will be a little different because some cards like Papercraft Dragon are crucial to have. 

I will give a hierarchy order for different cards, and if you don’t have them in your opening hand, you will have to full mulligan for them. Note that this order can vary highly between matchups, so I’ll be giving a general guideline and some examples.

General:

1. Papercraft Dragon
2. Fizz – Riven
3. one / two drops

For example, if your starting hand is: 2 papercraft dragons, Riven, and Elixir of Wrath. The priority one and two cards are in your hand, so you kick the second papercraft and the elixir. 

Let’s do another one: Papercraft Dragon, Fizz, Conchologist, and Might. You have a very good starting hand and can just kick the Might because you already have a priority 2 type card.

To illustrate how much this hierarchy can change among the matchups, here are some specific examples:

Darkness:

1. Fizz 
2. Papercraft Dragon
3. Riven – one / two drops

Fizz is crucial for this matchup, having it or not will often decide the issue of the match.

Scout:

1. Papercraft Dragon
2. Riven
3. one / two drops – Fizz

Here, you just need to set up a big OTK with riven, with no concerns for any removal, because scout doesn’t run any. So going for a gigantic Riven is the way to go here.

• Closing words:

This deck has the advantage of having no extremely polarized matchup in this meta, with a very strong power level when piloted correctly. Because of this, I believe it is one of the best decks to climb right now if you want to avoid running into an unwinnable matchup and letting your skill decide the match.

However, playing it can get exhausting sometimes, as a very small mistake can cost you the game – but it makes it feel all the more rewarding when you make the correct decisions. If you like extremely high-skill ceiling decks that reward you for making the optimal play, then this is probably the deck for you!