Test Piloting: Rocksaint's Taric Illaoi
Riwan pilots test (and greatly tweak!) Rocksaint's brew.
Alright, test run #4! If you're interested in seeing how these tests shape up, you can check
For the first two tests, our brave pilots took for a ride little-tested brews crafted by top pilots (Prodigy and TealRead, respectively).
For the third test-drive, we chose a weird brew found while digging Balco's data for last Friday's Weekend Warrior Weapons, Katarina Riven Rumble.
Today, we're going for one of Rocksaint's (many!) homebrews; behold…
Rocksaint's Gems in the Water – Illaoi Taric
Our testers:
Sarah, regularbird and Valdez piloted this brew in Normals (for around half a dozen games each), with minimal changes.
Double Fight Night Champ Leer tested it in Diamond and played around eight games.
YouuXun tested it in Normals for around a dozen games, and tweaked it a lot… so much so that they ended with Illaoi Soraka! =)
How did the deck feel?
Leer: I'd say it's a midrange deck that wants to lethal the opponent on round six or seven, before the opponent out-values us. We put Zenith Blade on Tentacles, draw two cards with Taric, and do the usual Illaoi things. Tentacle Smash is a really good card.
Valdez: Agreed, I would say it's a slow midrange deck. You try to assemble a good board, and then you smack 'em in the face.
regularbird: This is a midrange deck that is built around developing a Tentacle and keeping it alive. By copying a Zenith Blade onto a Tentacle via Taric, you can push a lot of Overwhelm damage via said Tentacle and Illaoi,
Sarah: A fairly midrange brew, yes. The Tentacle is clearly the main goal, and it accomplishes that – I took down A-Sol with the Tentacle, it grew to 10+ often. And Blood in the Water felt good for added pressure.
Valdez: Blood-in-the-Water-ing my Taric was satisfying, and Blood in the Water generally surprised me.
regularbird: Blood in the Water can indeed set up very strong repeat attacks. Mountain Sojourners buffs the whole attack when swinging for end-game pushes.
YouuXun: Blood in the Water onto Taric for double rally is hilarious.
Leer: Well, hilariously bad compared to Golden Aegis… 🙂. Also, attacking with Sojourners and Taric at the same time is a bit utopic, and in my games it never happened.
Sarah: Yeah, three Mountain Sojourners is probably too much.
Valdez: You may have to cut one of them. I would also love to add three copies of Make it Rain for the aggro matchup.
Sarah: I'd aim for two Sojourners too – I had them sitting in my hand way too much. Taric also played a very minimal role, but he did squeak out some decent card draw early in one game. And I think I'd like one copy of Hush – it would have saved me in a couple of games.
Leer: Yeah, against something like Fizz Riven, a silence effect would be grand. I too would like less Sojourners, and less Spring Guardians.
regularbird: In my case, I think Spring Guardian is an okay body to play, but Spring Gifts often felt slow or awkward, even if it can keep a Tentacle up following a Tentacle Smash against a powerful unit. And Fortune Croaker is an unfortunate draw tool.
Leer: Agreed on Fortune Croaker (nice word play, by the way!) – I'd replace them with Guiding Touch. We don't want to damage our units, but want to keep them alive. Guiding Touch would improve our odds against the (removal-centered) Noxus archetypes, and also works with Taric.
Valdez: I liked that this brew played a little different from all the other Illaoi decks – it's more of a combo deck, with a big Taric turn. So that was nice.
regularbird: Yeah, Taric is one of the most satisfying cards in the game, and anytime you are transferring Zenith Blade to a powerful unit, it feels awesome. Having said that… I gotta say I was steamrolled when piloting this deck. I was often unsure about whether to develop Taric or Illaoi first on Round four – I find it difficult to play midrange decks that lack efficient removal. I think it's a well executed idea, but it doesn't feel fast enough to respond to threats.
Valdez: Yep, maybe it's a bit too slow.
regularbird: Tentacle Smash is often in an awkward spot – it's hard to want to risk your Tentacle when so much of the game plan depends on keeping it up.
Leer: Well, Illaoi Demacia has the same "problem", yet it works great – I do think Tentacle Smash is a great card. Overall, I think this brew is a worse version of Illaoi Demacia, with the upside of playing Zenith Blade. We beat swarm decks like Fizz Aphelios and Bard Demacia archetypes, but lose hard against all things Noxus.
Meanwhile, in YouuXun's Lab…
YouuXun: In my case, well… I made a lot of changes.
The original version felt too slow, with no way to come back. Very 'win more', so to speak. Spacey Sketcher didn't contribute any significant cards, and somehow I ran out of cards despite a decent amount of card draw. I found it tough to grow Tentacles to a big unit, and your combos are too weak for the mana cost.
So, I changed it to this second version…
... providing more unit survivability through combat tricks (Bastion, Guiding Touch) that people don't expect. This version was still too slow, card draw was still problematic – even if less of an issue – and, again, Tentacles were a bit hard to grow. The added survivability and combat tricks allowed for better trades, though.
So, I went for this third version, swapping Taric for Soraka:
... which provided an alternate wincon in Star Spring, and with card draw no longer an issue. Also, having Soraka on the board really deters enemies from attacking or blocking, allowing for Tentacles to grow.
Problems with this version were that it's hard to level Soraka if your foe knows what they are doing, and triple-drawing Star Springs was also a bit of an issue.
For the final version, I cut one Star Spring and added an Answered Prayer. We may need to cut Mentor of the Stones, too, and maybe make room for Boxtopus and Shakedown.
In Closing
There you go!
An original homebrew…
… and a radical different take on said homebrew!
We hope you've enjoyed this brief test-piloting session! If you have any feedback for future test-runs, please let us know…
… and if you take any of these decks for a spin, best of luck! =)
Built at Riwan — a Discord about whacky experiments!
 | A guest post by
|
 | A guest post by
|
 | A guest post by
|
 | A guest post by
|