Riven/Katarina Grand Plaza Deck Guide

Welcome everyone, for today I have brewed up a fun little take on Plaza Scouts!

I got the idea to use Riven in Plaza Scout when I found out that attacking with a Scout unit triggers her Reforge ability. Next, I thought of Katarina how can maximize the synergy of Riven’s passive even further. Scouts already use The Grand Plaza, so it was a natural addition, and it worked great with Katarina’s level-up. After much refining, here is the list I settled on:

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Riven/Katarina Plaza

Regions

18

22

Types

6

16

15

3

0

Rarities

6

7

10

17

Mana Cost

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7+

Champions (6)

3

Katarina

3

3

Riven

3

landmarks (3)

3

The Grand Plaza

3

followers (16)

2

Arena Bookie

2

2

House Spider

3

3

Iron Ballista

3

4

Grizzled Ranger

3

5

Kato The Arm

3

5

Radiant Guardian

2

Spells (15)

2

Blinding Assault

3

2

Sharpsight

3

2

Single Combat

3

2

Weapon Hilt

3

3

Scorched Earth

2

8

Judgment

1

Unlike the Plaza Scouts you’re used to seeing, this version is helmed by 3-drop superstars Katarina and Riven. Katarina lets you use Plaza on both players’ turns, potentially multiple times, and Riven adds Blade Fragments to your hand every time you do so. You can use that to generate massive card advantage from your Scouts, Quick Attackers, and Challengers. We also run enough Overwhelm to push through damage while taking favorable trades, so even go-wide strategies will struggle to handle us.

Core Cards

Katarina: Kat is an advantage MACHINE with Plaza. Quick Attack plus her strike effect, when added to Challenger, means she is always taking favorable attacks and is a pain to deal with. She synergizes with Riven to get you extra Reforge triggers, and she allows you to leverage the power of Plaza both players’ turns.

Riven: The Quick Attack fragments she generates we want to use with our Challenger units to clear our opponent’s board.  Don’t force her to level up – only do it when you have a compelling reason to. Let it happen naturally, and when you see the opening, push through big damage to close a game. Most of the time our fragments are best used with Arena Bookie to try and draw into more units.

The Grand Plaza: Having one out early feels overwhelmingly strong. Not drawing the Plaza can be rough but it is definitely still possible to win without it.

Arena Bookie: Use it to cycle all our extra Blade Fragments. It is a nice way to turn Reforge into a pure card advantage.

Blinding Assault: Everyone knows Valor, but have you tried it with a Quick Attack Fragment? The value!

Grizzled Ranger: This is one of our best targets to give Quick Attack in combination with Plaza buff. Rather than using his Scout attack to activate his Last Breath to get a follow-up with the Badgerber, we can use both Grizzled Ranger’s attacks to kill two units and save the Last Breath for another turn.

House Spider: Use these with Plaza to create two Challengers at once – or to simply clog up the board with 2 units for the price of one.

Iron Ballista: This cost-efficient unit can push through those final points of damage you need by Challenging our opponent’s lowest health unit.

Combat Tricks and Removal

Sharpsight: This cost-efficient combat trick can either catch some Ezreal off guard or push through that final damage we need. Just an all-around good combat trick.

Single Combat: Try to use this when a unit on your side is already sentenced to death, in response to your opponent’s removal. Remember that it can also sometimes be used to save a Katarina; the strike will return her to hand if she is able to survive the combat.

Weapon Hilt: Nifty combat trick to go along with Riven’s Reforge. Great when we have Arena Bookie on the board since we can cycle the Blade Fragment.

Scorched Earth: This acts as a creature removal when we need it, but can also be used to great effect in the Plaza mirror. Not to mention there are a few other landmarks seeing the various frequency of play.

Flex Units & Spells

Kato the Arm: He has fantastic synergy with both of our champions, and is a stat-efficient threat all on his own. Hitting a level 2 Riven with his buff can lead to a devastating amount of damage. That would be one of those “compelling reasons” to level up Riven I mentioned earlier.

Radiant Guardian: She is great in the Plaza mirror, and also good against Ezreal/Draven’s removal. She lets us sustain against burn decks as well.

Judgment: I like Judgment for the blowout potential, and because of its strength against a regular Scout deck that can’t play around that spell at all.

Conclusion

This deck is an absolute blast to play – Katarina, Riven, and The Grand Plaza synergize so well with each other. If you like value-based strategies like Ezreal/Draven, or rules-bending strategies like Plaza/Scout I think you would enjoy this deck and should give it a try.

In the future, I can tell you I will be looking for more Noxian self-discard effects like Arena Bookie. I dare to dream that there are more on the way with payoff cards like Vision and Survival Skills already available. I also will be watching any new Demacian Scouts with interest since I think there is room for improvement there.

This deck feels decently competitive, and is just missing one or two pieces to push it into that upper echelon of decks.