Sivir Demacia Deck Guide

Hello everyone, Dragonguy here!

A midrange beatdown archetype that pairs Demacia with Shurima is not a completely novel idea – it has been experimented with in the past seasons, using champions like Garen and Renekton alongside Sivir.

This season, Sivir got a solid buff and a new partner in Akshan. These two have also been used in a popular Shurima Ionia deck, but it turns out that isn’t the only region pairing where this duo can shine.

Top NA player and a popular Twitch streamer BruisedByGod was one of the people responsible for creating the new take on Sivir Demacia. The deck has been feeling pretty solid in the meta, earning its spot in Tier 1 of the RuneterraCCG Meta Tier List.

Going into Demacia instead of Ionia brings Sivir a lot of new tools to utilize, but of course, these all come with certain drawbacks. Without further ado, let’s take a look at the decklist.

---

Sivir Akshan Demacia is an aggressive list that looks to use efficient utility units in the early game to gain control of the board, then leverages a strong board presence to push damage and go for the win.

While this deck may have the same champs as the popular Ionia version, that does not mean these lists play the same. Ionia has a more combo-focused approach to close out games, while Demacia wants to generate value from their units and force favorable trades with Challenger/Vulnerable.

One of the biggest reasons for this deck to be running Demacia is the Penitent Squire. She can give us Tattered Banner, which when cast gives our next summoned unit Challenger. Sivir is easily the best card in the deck to give this to, as with Quick Attack she can easily pick off almost any opposing unit.

Penitent Squire requires you to behold an Elite, so the deck runs Cithria of Cloudfield and Honored Lord to help with the card’s consistency. Another great unit to pair with Tattered Banner is Merciless Hunter. While Sivir with Challenger is great for turn-after-turn continuous value, Merciless Hunter provides more immediate value: she can give one unit Vulnerable then challenge another unit, allowing you to threaten multiple favorable trades in one action.

Brightsteel Protector is also amazing in this list, as she can punish opponents for developing on their attack turns, or be used aggressively on your attack turn. When paired with a leveled Sivir, she can give your whole board Barrier on-attack. However, that happens rarely, and Brightsteel Protector is often better on defensive turns. She can be used to protect key units that were made Vulnerable, or just dissuade the opponent from attacking altogether. To top it off, Brightsteel also counts down Akshan’s landmarks – Warlord’s Palace and Sentinel’s Hoard.

The deck runs a lot of combat tricks, plus interaction in the form of Concerted Strike, and also a single copy of Relentless Pursuit to blow opponents out with your strong board. We can make great use of the Shaped Stone for 1 mana, as it’s a strong combat trick that gets easily enabled by Preservarium and Akshan.

Additionally, the deck runs Sharpsight and The Absolver, both of which play key roles in the deck. Sharpsight is one of the best tricks in the game, and into Elusive matchups, it can give us the ability to block their attack and survive. The Absolver is ok if cast early, but if played after a champion levels, it can be quite devastating, especially on a leveled Sivir to give our entire board Overwhelm.

You ideally want to end the game between turns 6 and 8, as that is when your board should be the strongest. While the deck can play a slower game thanks to cards like Preservarium and Concerted Strike, it does not have great tools to push through damage when it doesn’t control the board. Unlike the Ionia version of Sivir Akshan, there is no Ghost + Flurry of Fists combo that can give you sudden lethal even if you have a single unit on the board.

• General mulligan tips:

You should always keep at least one copy of your champions if you see them, as they are both important for the strategy of this deck.

If you see Penitent Squire and an Elite card in your opener, you should keep them both, as Tattered Banner is an incredibly strong card for us. If you see only Penitent or an Elite, then the card that you will keep is dependent on the matchup.

Keep Preservarium for slower matchups, but generally, you should mull it away – unless you really need to turn on Shaped Stone. Ruin Runner is a card you should keep in every matchup except aggro, where you want more early game units to help survive early turns.

---

Matchups

Mulligan for: Penitent Squire +Elite, Spellshield units.

• Draven Ez has a difficult time dealing with Spellshield units, so Sivir and Ruin Runner are key cards in this matchup.
• Use Vulnerable and Challenger keywords to gain control of the board and force favorable trades with their units.
• Try not to commit too many combat tricks on a damaged unit, as their decks runs Ravenous Flock and Scorched Earth as efficient ways to kill damaged units.
• However, Draven Ez has a difficult time answering undamaged units with high health totals, so commit your combat tricks on undamaged units when possible.
• Don’t be afraid to develop a Challenger unit then burn their mana if they pass back, as this can mess up their mana curve and gain you a massive tempo advantage.
• Relentless Pursuit can be great to catch the opponent when they tap out and let you blow them out for the win.

Mulligan for: Sharpsight, Spellshield units, champions.

• We have enough early game units to apply pressure to the opponent and push damage, even through their early removal spells.
• They don’t have efficient ways to answer a Spellshield unit, which lets you pull ahead in resources.
• With Challenger and Vulnerable, we can threaten their key units they need to stabilize.
• This is a good matchup to keep Preservarium in, as it can give you more cards and options to fight through their removal.
• Sharpsight beats Mystic Shot and can let you block and kill Ezreal, so it’s usually a decent card to keep in this matchup.

Mulligan for: Brightsteel Protector, Sharpsight, Merciless Hunter/Penitent Squire + Elite, Sivir.

• Sivir Ionia often wants to develop on their earlier turns and use strong units to push a large amount of damage. Brightsteel Protector is amazing in these spots and can often shut down an attack.
• This deck has become a bit infamous for surprise kills with Ghost and Flurry of Fists, but Sharpsight can act as a good counter for this if it’s just on one unit.
• You want to use the Vulnerable and Challenger units to trade into their priority units like Sivir, or use them to kill off a smaller unit like Young Witch without losing your own unit.
• While their deck doesn’t have great ways to pop Spellshields, our deck also doesn’t. However, Concerted Strike is a great way to deal with units without Spellshields.
• Be prepared for a impactful combat trick play from them around turns 5-7, as this can decide the game.
• If the opponent has 4 mana open, try to be wary of Spirit’s Refuge and decide if you can afford to play around it or not, as we only run Concerted Strike to pop the Barrier.

Mulligan for: Early units, 1x Concerted Strike, champions.

• Look for early units to kill off their early lurk units.
• Try to leverage Quick Attack to push damage and keep their high-attack but low-health Lurkers from blocking.
• Be ok with getting your units damaged if it won’t kill them – eventually the Lurkers’ attack values will scale to a point where they kill your unit even at full HP anyway.
• Try to save a Concerted Stirke to answer their Rek’Sai and Overwhelm units, and make sure to commit it before attacks are declared to avoid letting their attack triggers go off.

Mulligan for: Early units.

• Against Pirate Aggro, we are usually dependent on how many early drop units we can draw to stave off their aggression. Fortunately, our early drops can usually trade with theirs to help contain their pressure.
• Be willing to trade off your units to save health, especially since your deck does not run any healing in it.
• Try to use your attack to force unfavorable trades through Vulnerable and Challenger, and push damage of your own to start threatening lethal.
• You often want to use a defensive Brightsteel Protector, as it can heavily punish an opponents development and even dissuade an entire attack turn.

Mulligan for: Relentless Pursuit, Spellshield units, Merciless Hunter.

• Their deck runs some early units that can make our early plays feel weaker. Greenglade Lookout as it can let them get to Viego or Invasive Hydravine a turn earlier.
• Viego will scale to be larger than our units, so we do not win a prolonged game against them.
• Concerted Strike is great for taking out a Viego or Invasive Hydravine, but is susceptible to Deny or Syncopation. However, it is often the correct play to go for the kill on them even if it can be countered.
• Their deck is good at generating chump-blockers, making it difficult to go wide efficiently.
• While you can push through damage with your early units, it’s often difficult to make the final push of damage. This is a matchup where Relentless Pursuit can shine.

Mulligan for: Honored Lord, Merciless Hunter, Akshan, Sivir, Pentinet Squire.

• This deck has been making a comeback since it can be good into decks with a lot of smaller units. Unfortunately, that includes our list here.
• Since we don’t have Single Combat and rely only on Concerted Strike, we don’t have efficient ways to remove their units outside of combat.
• Our deck also struggles to pop Barriers, making it difficult to win combat against Barriers.
• The deck needs to use Challenger and Vulnerable to force favorable trades and gain board control to close out the game.
• Their deck runs a decent amount of combat tricks, meaning you’ll need to decide when to use your combat tricks to try and win a trade, or save them for future trades.

Mulligan for: 1x Concerted Strike, 1-drop your opponent is attacking on odds, Spellshield units.

• GP Sejuani is known to be a good choice into Sivir decks, and our deck is no exception.
• The addition of Concerted Strike gives the deck a better chance to remove Gangplank or Sejuani, but if they drop Sejuani after she’s levelled our deck has no way to remove her as long as they can proc a Freeze.
• They have enough early units to try and halt our early aggression, and their champs come online the same time we want to go for the kill, which can shut down our strategy.
• Do what you can to prevent early Plunder triggers, such as trading units to stop Nexus damage or Sharpsighting just to block a Zap Sprayfin. Delaying their champ level-ups or forcing them to use spells for no value but just to level-up their champs can give us a chance to develop for a game-winning attack.
• Prioritize killing a Sejuani if she is unlevelled, as levelled she is basically impossible for us to beat.
• Try to use Merciless Hunter or Challenger from Tattered Banner to threaten their Plunder engines like Monkey Idol and Crackshot Corsair.

---

Closing Thoughts

Demacia Akshan Sivir has proven to be an interesting and strong archetype – it will definitely win you games and help you climb. Sivir with Challenger is incredibly powerful and can easily outvalue opponents.

While this deck has served me well in my play on ladder, for tournament play, I would highly recommend making modifications to the deck depending on the matchups you’re expecting and targeting. Especially adding more Rallies to the list allows you to leverage the strengths of using Demacia as the second region instead of Ionia.

Thank you all for reading, and I hope you all have a great day.