Budget Friendly Meta Decks for Runeterra - Hyper Aggro Endure feat. Kalista

Are you on a budget? Playing in your first week in the Legends of Runeterra and want to get into ladder play, but have no idea what you could possibly afford? Are you also a cold, heartless bastard who desires an excuse to kill their own allies with reckless abandon? Rejoice! Do we ever have the deck for you!

Hyper Aggro Endure

Essentially, this deck has two components that are both outlined in the name of the deck itself. In the beginning of the game, it plays like an all out "hyper aggro" deck, with cheap, tiny minions. These cheap minions fall into one of two camps: minions that have last breath effects who you want to have die, and minions who facilitate and/or benefit from their deaths. The circle of life. The second part of the deck is where the "Endure" comes in. Namely, They Who Endure, which is both an absolutely fantastic band name, and one part of the late game damage combo that you can use to close out games. But lets focus on the aggro component first...

Your Chumps

Don't get too attached to these guys. These are the minions you are looking to kill for fun and profit. Play them early, and attack, attack, attack. If they get blocked, then all the better! Hapless Aristocrat replaces itself with a spider, Warden's Prey grants you a card in hand (that you can then also sacrifice), and Cursed Keeper replaces itself with a massive 4/3 Escaped Abomination on board.

Your Enablers

With all those Last Breath minions, you need some way of activating them, right? Glimpse Beyond kills off one of your minions in exchange for letting you draw two cards. Since this is a fast spell, try to cast it in response to either a block or a damage spell from your opponent. Blighted Caretaker sacrifices one of your minions and creates two 2/1 saplings with both challenger and ephemeral that can let you either clear some of your opponent's minions or just force blocks to clear the way for beefier minions to attack the enemy nexus. Because the saplings are ephemeral, you're also guaranteed two additional minion deaths, which can become important later. Ravenous Butcher is there to set up impressive first and second turn boards by letting you get a last breath payoff along with a free 3/2 body. And, finally, we have Barkbeast, who just sits back and benefits from the first death it sees by buffing up from a 1/1 to a 3/3 for only 1 mana.

Your Combo

You're going to be doing some serious damage in the early turns of the game, but there are still going to be many matches where you just run out of steam and your opponent catches up. That's where your combo comes into play to let you finish off games you probably had no right to win in the first place. They Who Endure is a creature for 7 mana that gets +1/+1 for every ally that died this game... And now you can see where the fun and profit is coming from. By the end of many games, this guy will have stats in the 20's and be more than enough to one-shot your opponent with just a single attack, and he has overwhelm! But, there are still occasions where your opponent is going to be able to stop it from attacking or outright kill it. One Vengeance and it's game over, right? Wrong. That's where Atrocity comes into play. Because of how the stack works, as soon as your opponents casts a spell that would kill your behemoth, you can cast Atrocity on it in response, thus killing it and targeting the damage from its attack stat directly into the nexus of your opponent, winning the game. The combo costs 13 mana, so make sure that you only throw down your They Who Endure if you have a full 10 mana and 3 spell mana available. Ideally, you'd want to play it on a turn in which you have the attack token so that you can attack with it first and force a response from your opponent.

Your Champion

Here's the only costly card in the deck. You're going to want to add 3x Kalista to the deck. She's not mandatory by any means as she doesn't aid in the overall combo, but she synergizes incredibly well with the overall theme of killing off your own minions. She will raise the win rate of the deck substantially all on her own. If you don't have the resources to craft her just yet, or if you can only afford 1-2 of her, that's fine. You can still play the deck, and just craft her later when you have more resources. In the meantime, you can consider replacing her with Elise.

Other Beneficial Cards

Stalking Shadows gives you extra card draw and lets you specifically fish for specific minions in a pinch, while also giving you an extra ephemeral copy (more deaths! yay!). Doombeast is a great finisher that will drain two health from your opponent. And Wraithcaller is just a solid addition to any aggro deck that utilizes the Shadow Isles. At worst, it's 6/5 worth of stats for 4 mana spread out over two allies. Nice deal!

And Now, the Completed Deck

Mulligans

Your ideal keeps would be anything that costs 0-1 mana and/or Cursed Keeper. If you're attacking second, definitely mulligan for a 1-drop, Ravenous Butcher, and Cursed Keeper so you can swing for 8 on turn two. Blighted Caretaker becomes a priority when facing aggro. If you've satisfied all of the above, then keeping Kalista can also be an option to keep as she provides tremendous value.

Have you tried this deck before? Are you planning to in the future? How big have you managed to get your They Who Endure? Let us know in the comments below!