LoR Homebrews: Flying Fish

A Papercraft Fizz Renekton brew

Jul 15, 2022

Hi, this is Itch. I can be found around Discord (@itch #1817), but not much else. As a sworn Johnny, I always build my own decks, even at the price of not climbing too high on ladder.

This deck was created by a friend and myself, from the ground up, before we found out that the archetype already existed.

The Concept, on Paper

Combining Papercraft Dragon with big Elusive or Overwhelm units is nothing new.

Akshan/Renekton has recently been growing in popularity, especially now with the addition of Byrd, the Bellringer – we try to build a big unit with Overwhelm and/or Double Attack, and use it to push big chunks of damage onto the enemy nexus.

However, I believe there may perhaps be a better way to maximize this archetype's potential.

You can check the dekclist [HERE]

Many of the cards in the more popular versions, although they help advance the overall gameplan, aren't highly impactful themselves. If we can somehow cut all the cards that don't add strong tempo or value, and run more predict cards that also actively progress our gameplan, we can pull off lethal combos faster without falling behind.

Something's Fishy

So why allegiance, and why Fizz?

Aside from Papercraft Dragon, Bandle City doesn't actually offer that much for our gameplan that can't be replicated with Shuriman cards.

Fizz is obviously a great target for power and double attack buffs. Since both Fizz and Renekton are great buff targets, Golden Ambassador and Chamber of Renewal both help turbo our damage output.

With so few units that aren't strong buff targets, Xenotype Researchers has a very high chance of giving us a powerful stat buff.

Ancient Preparations can help us in the early game in finding any missing combo pieces, survive the midgame against many aggressive decks, and guarantee a late-game allegiance proc (yes, round 5-6 is actually late game with this deck).

Preservarium gives us slightly more reach.

Obviously, all four landmark cards (including Rock Hopper) help guarantee that our Shaped Stone will be activated early into the match.

Merciless Hunter can help clear key threats, enable extra Overwhelm damage, and in certain situations sneak in for early Fearsome chip damage.

We only run one copy of The Absolver, since by the time we level up a champion, the game is already won, so in most cases Absolver is just a worse Shaped Stone.

Let's Fly!

Mulligan

Generally, we always want to mulligan for Ancient Preparation, or at least one follower that costs three or less.

Always toss back Fizz, unless we're up against an aggressive deck and don't have any other early plays. It's okay to lose our first Fizz, if he's not buffed and we need to survive until we can combo off.

Against slower decks, or if we already have early game plays, we should be more greedy and look for combo pieces, like Golden Ambassador, Chamber of Renewal and Overwhelm units.

Most of our spells are always mulliganed away. Depending on the matchup, we may want to keep Shaped Stone, Quicksand or Rite of Negation though. If we're able to already start pulling together our Overwhelm combo pieces, Exhaust or Ruthless Predator are also sometimes a keep.

Gameplan

Our gameplan is relatively simple: play out early units to survive while we assemble cards in hand to push for that big swing turn.

Although it's very satisfying when we do, we don't necessarily need to push for a full OTK. Early chip into a two-rounds kill is usually how we end up winning.

Whenever possible, try to bank mana (unless you need it to push damage) – it helps keep Fizz slippery, and often helps for playing out that top deck we wished we could have.

In Conclusion

This deck is extremely satisfying, if you like fast paced OTKs and sneaky combos.

I've personally had a lot of success with this deck on ladder, gauntlet and friendly tournaments – I change a few cards when playing an open-decklists format, like adding 1 Feral Prescience to protect Fizz at 0 mana, but the core principles are the same.

And I actually have a 100% win rate in the "mirror", since it has a similar gameplan, but goes slightly faster.

I hope you enjoy this homebrew, and good luck Overwhelming the opposition!