- Origins
Good evening card gamers. IzzetTinkerer here, taking a break from the news across LoR to bring an unlikely deck that’s got me some sneaky wins and that I may take to Seasonals!
After missing two Prime Glories this season, and having one of the worst seasons personally after the Bandle City was released, I was a little pessimistic going in, and took Taliyah Ziggs landmark destruction into the Last Chance Gauntlet. Somehow I’m on my way to yet another Seasonals.
The original version is based on a list by MegaMogwai, but I’ve retooled it to fit the evolving meta. It’s a deck I’ve kept in my back pocket simply because it has reasonable tech against a lot of the meta.
- Gameplan
This is a midrange deck that uses landmark generation and landmark destruction to assist with building a strong board through the early to mid-game, then features a multitude of win conditions.
The deck contests the board with its reasonable curve of value-generating units. Inventive Chemist and Rock Hopper both bring landmarks that will inevitably be destroyed, which works to words both champions’ level-ups.
Endless Devout does this similarly, but it would need to trade first, which is not a difficult thing to do. The play of Desert Naturalist onto Sarcophagus is still immensely powerful, and the turning point that this deck pressures best with.
Herald of the Magus was intended for this deck. Both Taliyah and Ziggs ping their blockers, so the Overwhelm is very good on both champions. The bug that prevented Ziggs from progressing his level up off of his own reappearance from Ancient Hourglass was fixed in Patch 2.20, bringing the strength of this deck up.
Then, of course, the deck plays The Arsenal. Slightly less strong than before after his bug fix/change from last month, he still brings a lot of power and a must-answer threat alongside the rest of our board.
Multiple Roiling Sands in the deck allow us to dictate the blocking situations in a lot of combats. Rite of the Arcane is a staple in this archetype and very effective removal against threats like Poppy.
Hexplosive Minefield is a deceptively strong tempo piece that can shut down units like Rek’Sai or even Sivir (going through her Spellshield).
- Gauntlet
As I said at the start of the article, this deck was able to bring me through the Last Chance Gauntlet, right into this upcoming Seasonals.
While this deck can compete on ladder, it has some particularly poor matchups. The matchups where Taliyah Ziggs is weak, namely Plunder or Poppy Zed, are ones a lineup that plays it would ban.
Stats by Lor-meta show that Taliyah Ziggs is usually favoured against Lurk, Demacia Midrange like Sivir Akshan, and very controlling decks (Darkness, Jayce variants).
It’s favoured into control because of its diversity of hard to answer threats. There are few ways for the opponent to reasonably answer the tempo of generation of a 2/4, a 5/4, and a 5/3 with Fearsome in one action.
Against Lurk and Sivir Akshan, there is a single card that can completely turn the entire matchup in our favour: Hexplosive Minefield. Always stunning the strongest unit shuts down an attack from Pyke or Rek’Sai, as well as a levelled up Sivir. Taliyah’s play effect to clone a Landmark, as well as the additional stuns it gives when it’s destroyed by Desert Naturalist or Rite of the Arcane means we can shut down multiple units.
Even against a deck like Bandle Tree, as long as you shut down a Poppy, the Fearsome on
- Verdict
This deck can pull off unexpected wins here and there, simply due to its versatility, but it’s at its best in a Best-of-Three line up to target control.
Always be happy to see your Seasonals opponent playing Darkness or Jayce and look to deploy a buffed Taliyah or broken Arsenal against them.
It fills the role of being very strong against lots of reasonable Gauntlet picks and can supplement similar decks like it going into the upcoming Seasonal Tournament.
As for my upcoming Seasonals lineup, I’m likely to play this deck alongside Sivir Akshan. I’m currently testing a third deck; something that may help with other matchups, but I’m optimistic with landmark destruction by my side.
