Senna Karma Control: An Enlightened Darkness

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Darkness Enlightened created by IzzetTinkerer • last updated 2 years ago

Regions

Types

Rarities

Mana Cost

Champions (6)

followers (13)

Spells (21)

Origins

Good evening card gamers. IzzetTinkerer here, and I have to say I’m a person of simple tastes. If there is a deck that can consistently kill my opponent’s units and win a game of attrition against most decks in the current metagame, then I will at least give it a spin.

When I came across Alanzq‘s latest concept of Spooky Karma, utilizing Karma with Senna, I was in love. Together, they create the potential for a very strong spell-based control deck.

As always, I enjoy taking lists from many sources and shifting the numbers to make the deck to my own liking – and this is what I’ve done here in the decklist I present to you above.

Gameplan

With how deep Ionia and Shadow Isles are in terms of their card pools, there are many ways to build Spooky Karma, but my main focus with it is Go Hard. Go Hard as a removal spell and a finisher that synergises with both champions very well. With Senna, Go Hard can be cast at Fast Speed, effectively bringing six additional highly interactive ping effects to this deck.

With a leveled-up Karma, cloning the Go Hards is particularly powerful, but even more powerful is the play of putting your third Go Hard on the stack. Level 2 Karma will copy the third Go Hard that will immediately turn into Pack Your Bags.

This is not a newly-discovered interaction by any means, but paired with Senna, it can be a particularly powerful play that can secure the board very well against anything aggressive.

The remainder of the deck has very strong control options and tech choices to handle specific aspects of the metagame, as well as techs for enabling your controlling game plan.

Shadow Assassin and Rivershaper both cantrip you while contesting the board in the mid-game. Fading Icon and Minion have the premier task of chump blocking forever. Icon provides two bodies, one of which can block a Fearsome, while the Minion keeps coming back to delay and soak up as much damage as possible. Concussive Palm also works very well in this tempo role.

Go Hard, Vile Feast, and Withering Wail gain back lots of health very consistently. Vengeance at six mana is a very strong buff to every Shadow Isles control archetype.

Scattered Pod, as well as being an alternate win condition with Elusive, can consistently find you copies of Go Hard. Otherwise, the Scattered Pod will always find a relevant interactive spell. In a tournament format with open decklists (ex. Seasonal Tournament), I recommend adding one copy of The Ruination to obfuscate the opponent, making them unsure what you tutored.

The Box is tech specifically for the Ahri Kennen matchup. Always keep this against that matchup, it ultimately negates Kinkou Wayfinder.

The spread of counters, Deny and Nopeify! help to keep our champions on board. In the late game, having one or both champions on board leads to such value generation that most decks can’t contest with.

Tech choices may include adding Deep Meditation or Glimpse Beyond. Meditation offers a Burst option for Scattered Pod and a strong refill in the unlikely event that you’re out of gas. Glimpse Beyond offers a Slay that counts for the Senna level up and brings value to Minion or the Vile Feast Spiderlings.

Another tech choice may be Catalogue of Regrets. Given that the metagame is slower, the tempo loss won’t hurt quite as much as in other metas.

Verdict

Senna Karma can definitely compete and control a lot of board states the current meta can create.

However, it still lags behind other control builds in the current metagame. Kindred paired with either Ionia or Piltover; or your classic Darkness deck both will make for consistently stronger and versatile options if your only goal is to climb the ladder.

But for a player that wants to learn how control works in Legends of Runeterra, whilst still picking up some convincing wins, Senna Karma can provide a great training ground.