Test-Piloting #8 - TF Sejuani Plunder Weirdness
Our test subject today is one of the weirdest so far. And yet, it sports a 55%+ win rate with over 300 games on the Masters ladder for the current patch. One of our pilots even took it to Masters!
Our test subject today is one of the weirdest so far. And yet, it sports a 55%+ win rate with over 300 games in the Masters ladder for the current patch. We have a lot of questions, and our brave pilots will try to get some answers.
Our testers:
YouXuun “Yun” won a lot more than they lost after almost a dozen games on the Platinum ladder,
jott skoplin too came out way ahead in his run with the deck on the Diamond ladder, with more than a dozen games played,
Yondy maintained a 60% win rate with about a dozen Normal games played,
And then there's jott skoplin from the Future, who we will call Future jott from now on. He modified this deck, took it all the way to Masters and told us and his past self all about his tests with his updated version.
About the Deck
So, really... What IS it with this deck? How does it even work? Are the champs there just to bait your foe to mulligan incorrectly, or do they serve a purpose? And why on Runeterra a 2:1 champ split!?
Yondy: I’m not entirely sure I have good answers for any of these questions. It's an awful house of cards that might come down at any point if you touch it. I'd like to meet the brilliant, sick mind that made this, because I too have a lot of questions.
jott skoplin: This deck is fast combo. The goal is to deal damage to the opponent's nexus. At first you deal chip damage and try to maintain board presence. Then you finish the game with Powder Pandemonium and if necessary, more chip damage.
Youxuun “Yun”: I’d say it’s aggro with a pinch of combo.
Yondy: It's an aggressive burn deck that uses its numerous Plunder activations to get value and to put damage on the opponent's Nexus, and then goes on to finish with Powder Pandemonium (or Sejuani, when you draw her).
YouuXun: About the champions, that’s the secret of the deck. They are just flex/tech cards. The deck is not meant to level them (even if sometimes they do).
jott: Precisely.
TF is just a good 4 drop that does whatever your hand is missing: either value, board clear/Plunder/damage or tempo/removal. It also does barely anything and usually dies to Blighted Ravine so you don't want that many. Since we don't run it I assume the champion spell is not that good in this deck either.
And Sejuani seems like just a good body with Overwhelm to get some extra damage through in case of a long board stall. Drawing the second one would definitely be a disaster – you don't tend to have cards to spare.
Yondy: For me it was fun to play with the Plunder mechanic. You can get value out of nowhere with Black Market Merchant and Shared Spoils, and forcing your opponent to deal with your Monkeys is always a fun way to pressure.
jott: At first I was skeptical and thought that this was just a boring burn deck. But then the deck had some gifts for me as well: Blighted Ravine, playing Riptide Rex onto an empty board, Warning Shot, especially when drawn from Pool Shark or into lethal. I even started enjoying counting to 20.
YouuXun: I’m just going to say three things: Monkey. Gross burst burn potential. Kills Annie TF :)
Future jott: I also got to have good blocks in the midgame. Taking it all the way to Masters felt pretty good too.
jott: I hope you tell us how you did it.
Future jott: I will, once you’re all finished saying your piece.
jott: Well, right now, in the Present, playing units early and utilizing them feels wasteful or at least weird. Generally the early turns have an eerie feel. Sometimes you play Powder Pandemonium without +1/+0.
Future jott: Oh, no, absolutely, the early turns here in the Future are still a mess. Sometimes you don't even get to deal any chip damage.
YouuXun: It also feels off that you're almost entirely proactive. And that you’re very bad against healing, which admittedly in this meta is not that big of a deal.
Yondy: One thing I’ll add: When it runs out of steam, it does so FAST, and if you haven’t won by rounds 8-9 then you're probably not going to win the game.
Relying on topdecking TF, Eye of Nagakabouros, Pool Shark or Black Market Merchant to stay in the game is a stressful way to lose all your hair. You could go about it faster by shaving instead.
jott: By the way, have you guys seen that there's a mysterious Monster Harpoon in there? Not that it feels off, but I don’t know what exactly it is doing. I usually just fire and forget it though.
YouuXun: Both Harpoon and Sejuani are here for removal. You have many popular targets, even: Aphelios, Viktor, Heimerdinger and other engine units. Leveled Sejuani’s ability can still keep you alive long enough to draw into lethal sometimes.
Yondy: And Sejuani has performed SO well in this deck I can't believe there's only one copy. I don't think the 2:1 split does this deck any favors, but if I were to keep it, it'd probably be 2 Sejuanis and 1 TF.
jott: I’m not so fond of Sejuani. I never even triggered her level 2 ability.
Future jott: I finally triggered the Sej ultimate. I lost that game quite decisively.
Mulligan
jott: Pretty much toss the big stuff and keep the small stuff. Sometimes I hard-mulliganed for one-drops since you can usually get something on 2 and it's often best to pass round 2 anyway.
Warning Shot is always useful.
YouuXun: Keep at least one Warning Shot / Crackshot Corsair. Trigger as many plunders as early as you can. Sometimes you'll have to take unfavorable trades just to get the plunder trigger, or even a bit of chip damage.
Yondy: I couldn’t agree more.
You're ALWAYS happy to see Crackshot Corsair in your starting hand, as it's a surefire way to start getting your Plunder going and to start chipping away at your opponent's health.
Against aggressive decks or decks with low-health units like Zoe Aphelios Vi, Make It Rain and Blighted Ravine can work as both a Plunder activator (that's right, Blighted Ravine activates Plunder! It's brilliant!) and a good way to clear the board.
jott: Yeah, when your life total matters it’s probably a good idea to keep Ravine.
Yondy: All other keeps are dependent on whether or not you already have a Plunder enabler in your hand. If you do, it might be a good idea to keep Monkey Business to have free blocks, Jagged Taskmaster to buff your one-cost units and Black Market Merchant to get free value and bullshit stealing (it has to be really frustrating to lose to your own cards).
If you don't have a way to activate Plunder, I'd recommend mulliganing your hand away.
Future jott: Go for one-drops.
If you have a one-drop, think about when and what Plunder activators you want to trigger and what will you trigger them with, adjust accordingly.
If you have time, playing Eye of Nagakabouros early is probably better, but I usually don't feel like it.
-Don’t forget to consider keeping Ravine against aggro.
Yondy: Cards you probably never want to see in your starting hand are Pool Shark, Powder Pandemonium, and Riptide Rex (you want to draw them later in the game).
Ideas for the Future…
Yondy: Blighted Ravine is a brilliant inclusion but having three copies clutters your hand and draws too much. I'd say two is the perfect number of copies.
Monkey Business hasn't performed that well for me, as you either lose the first or second monkey as your opponent almost always plays around it. Still, I get that it has a necessary function in the deck, so I'd cut only one copy.
YouuXun: I'd swap Riptide Rex for Parrrley. I'm sure Rex is solid if I ever had the chance to use him as a finisher, but I kind of want to try Parrrley as an extra burn + Plunder trigger + removal.
Yondy: I know both jotts will disagree, but I would like an extra copy of Sejuani or two, and probably a copy or two of Pilfered Goods because it helps you keep up in value and level your Twisted Fate (which is not impossible in this deck considering you run 3x Eye of Nagakabouros, 3x Black Market Merchant, 3x Shared Spoils and 2x Pool Shark). What can I say, I really like my champions.
jott: Just changed Sejuani and the “fire and forget system”–
Yondy: Monster Harpoon.
jott: –for Omen Hawks, and it seems good so far (although with a sample size of about two games). I’ll let Future jott share how it goes.
…and lessons for the Past
Future jott: Alright, now it’s time for me to impart my wisdom.
Since Past me changed the Monster Harpoon and the Sejuani for two Omen Hawks, keeping up with the opponent on board has been easier and sometimes this results in a big enough advantage that you win even without the finishers. Reading my ideas on the TFs made me think that maybe they were just bait, so I replaced them with Blabbering Bjergs. This resulted in me exclusively drawing Rex (before either of the Bjergs).
I learned from this that even though a four-mana 3/4 is clearly worse than TF, it's not game-losing worse, and usually the problems that I would have used the TF for, resolved themselves. Personal experience and some heuristics determined that maybe I should try to avoid drawing useless Bjergs. To do this I cut one Bjerg and added the Sejuani back–
Yondy: I knew it!
Future jott: –because having 2 Rexes in hand feels wrong and there don't seem to be any other good options. This also continues the board advantage theme and gives the deck buffs somewhere to land.
So, in the end, the changes I made from the original version were -1x Monster Harpoon, -2x Twisted Fate, +1 Babbling Bjerg, +2 Omen Hawk.
As to how to climb to Masters with it, the things I previously said still hold: go for one-drops in the Mulligan Phase, plan your Plunders, and mind your use of Ravines.
Conclusion
YouuXun: I went on a seven-game win streak with the deck. Really good in the current meta.
Future jott: Hopefully we’ve managed to give you enough to start winning with the deck NOW, or at least a heads-up for the possibility of seeing round-four Ravines outside of hard Control archetypes.
Yondy: It was really fun to see a different take on the Plunder archetype. Powder Pandemonium is a really unexpected way to end a game that no opponent can predict or play around. A surprisingly competitive deck, I believe that with a little bit more support, it could become an actual meta contender! I'd keep an eye on it.
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