Hail, Champions! Hopefully, you've read up on all our champion-based theorycraft articles by now -- in case you haven't, here's a quick list:
- Unbench the Kench! 6 Tahm Kench Theorycraft Decks
- Weave Your Destiny in Runeterra With These 6 Soraka Theorycraft Decks
- Take to the Sky With These 6 Shyvana Theorycraft Decks
It's now time for the Lightning Round -- theorycrafts about the new landmarks!
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Vaults of Helia
Hypothesis: Vaults of Helia can make Zombie Anivia decks very competitive.
Execution: A Zombie Anivia frame with Helia and The Rekindler (7), Tryndamere (8), and Commander Ledros (9).
Why it could work: The change to Hush is relieving Anivia's nightmare of losing multiple Anivias to a single card, plus the free Rekindler/Tryn/Ledros will apply a lot of pressure AND value.
Why it might not: Hush was only part of Anivia's problem -- there are scarier late-game combos out there.
Hypothesis: Helia can cheat out Demacia's big late-game threats.
Execution: A Demacia dragon deck with Dragonguard Lookout (6), Stalking Broodmother (7), Tianna Crownguard (8), Kadregrin the Infernal (9), and The Harrowing.
Why it could work: Helia can cheat out a bunch of free rallies from Lookout and Tianna, and this deck should be able to setup some very nice Harrowings.
Why it might not: It doesn't have much early game besides Fiora and Shyvana, so surviving until Helia is online might be challenging.
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Star Spring
Hypothesis: Big regen units can pull out an easy auto-win from Star Spring.
Execution: A Freljord + Targon deck heavy on healing, regen, and AoE damage.
Why it could work: Auto-win decks can short-circuit other decks' gameplans, and this iteration has a nice balance of regeneration and forcing damage.
Why it might not: There are a lot of eggs in the Star Spring basket, and each needs to see the healing for it to count for the 22+ requirement.
Hypothesis: Star Spring decks will work great with the Bilgewater "self-damage" units.
Execution: An aggressive deck with self-damage units, Monkey Idol, and Gangplank.
Why it could work: Unlike most Star Spring decks which tend to be fairly passive, this concept has a lot of the Pirate Burn aggro staples so it might be able to win by either burning your opponent out quickly or the "win-by-healing" auto-win.
Why it might not: Sometimes marrying 2 non-overlapping strategies together works great; sometimes it doesn't.
The Slaughter Docks
Hypothesis: SI + BW Deep decks will work even better with Docks tossing.
Execution: A standard SI + BW Deep deck but with 3x The Slaughter Docks squeezed in.
Why it could work: Docks should just make going deep that much easier, plus after going deep each Docks is "3 mana: summon a random Sea Monster".
Why it might not: Docks are competing with Jaull Hunters and Deadbloom Wanderer for the Round 3 play, and if its not played on curve its unclear how much value its actually providing.
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Hypothesis: The Slaughter Docks means non-SI Deep decks are now viable.
Execution: A resurrected P&Z + BW "turbo-Deep" deck with Twisted Fate.
Why it could work: This region combination was actually the preferred version of Deep for a brief while and giving it more support can only help it.
Why it might not: Part of this particular archetype's appeal was the potential to flip TF, but L2 TFs just don't seem as impactful in recent metas as they use to.
Noxkraya Arena
Hypothesis: Noxkraya Arena will reward having a superior board state.
Execution: A mostly-Demacia bannerman deck with 3x Arena splashed in.
Why it could work: Bannerman decks are the best at creating early board advantage, and Garen and Fiora can both work well with free Single Combats.
Why it might not: You don't get any value from the Arena until after you play it on Round 5, and that's about when bannerman decks tend to fall off.
Hypothesis: Frostbit units will always be "weakest", so Arena will often enable you to kill them off for free.
Execution: An Ashe/Sejuani Noxus deck with 2x Arena in place of Avarosan Hearthguard and Scorched Earth in place of Noxian Guillotine.
Why it could work: This is already a strong archetype -- plus Culling Strike can eliminate all 3 new heroes!
Why it might not: This archetype hasn't been the same since the Trifarian Assessor nerf.
The Howling Abyss
Hypothesis: Since this landmark is so random, the best strategy is strong ramp and healing.
Execution: A Freljord/Targon ramp/stall deck.
Why it could work: Most L2 champions are powerful, so statistically, you should be finding some very powerful plays.
Why it might not: Everything from Abyss is random, so the deck will be inconsistent by nature.
Bonus! NicMakesPlays' Braum + Vi Poros
Hypothesis: Poro Cannon and Patched Porobot are the key to finally make poros viable.
Execution: A Professor von Yipp deck with 15 poros not counting Cannon, Poro Herder, Braum, or Aurora Porealis.
Why it could work: Poro Snax is actually a really nice buff if you can play it at the right time, and there are getting to be enough ways to draw/generate poros that the previous issues about consistency should be addressed.
Why it might not: Our initial concern with poros was that they couldn't deal well with aggro and they had trouble apply enough pressure against control decks. It's unclear if the aforementioned is enough to change that state.
That will be it for our series on Monuments of Power theorycrafting. Be sure to check back for our upcoming articles about what new decks people are playing in practice!
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