Aphelios is coming on February 3rd in the first-ever "Champion Expansion". While we still don't know exactly what this expansion will look like -- and perhaps most importantly whether it will have more collectible cards beyond the 2 revealed during the 2021 Season Opening Day stream -- that hasn't stopped people from theorycrafting new decks around the 2 cards that are confirmed. Let's dive into some of the decks that have caught our attention so far.
Swim's Zoe + Aphelios Decks
Expect a lot of Zoe + Aphelios decks on Day 1. We've already seen that Zoe is like the bacon of Runeterra -- you can make any deck better just by adding her -- and she'll certainly appreciate Aphelios's passive ability to generate cheap and uniquely-named spells. Streamer Swim theorycrafted 3 different Aphelios decks including 2 with Zoe; his favorite relied heavily on Ballistic Bot and the fact Crescendum can tutor the Bots and Infernum can give them overwhelm so they can't just be chump-blocked.
The deck that caught our eye though was this one that tucks Aphelios into an established Targon allegiance archetype, splashing 2x Atrocity for some fast-speed reach.
Morctorcus' Nightfall Decks
There's a joke in the LOR community: "If all of the cards in your hand are Nightfall, none of the cards in your hand are Nightfall." Aphelios provides a permanent solution to that problem, however. Not only are his Moon Weapons cheap enough to use as Nightfall activators for the rest of your hand, but that 1st Nightfall card you play will trigger his passive and generate another Moon Weapon meaning you can easily continue the cycle forever without emptying your hand. Streamer Morctorcus explored this concept with two very similar Nightfall decks -- one based on keeping Diana from the standard Nightfall deck and removing Nocturne, the other based on removing Diana and keeping Nocturne. Both had similar opening strategies; the Diana deck looked to finish through Cygnus the Moonstalker's elusive ability or a sneaky Atrocity.
The Nocturne deck, on the other hand, looked to keep every card other than Nocturne at 3 mana or less and win through Nocturne's L2 ability.
You can follow Morctorcus online
Aphelios + Viktor Elusive Augments
Another potential synergy for Aphelios is Augment units, since like Ballistic Bot he is usually generating a free card every Round. User KardehoN built this spicy deck featuring the criminally-underrated Nyandroid and Mechanized Mimic as well as 2x Give It All for a potential finishing move.
Gobmas's Aphelios + Yasuo Gravitum
There is an unwritten rule in Runeterra: whenever Riot releases a new card with Stun, players will try to make it work in a Yasuo deck. Aphelios's Gravitum was no exception. We found several new Yasuo decks; our favorite was this one from gobmas that included 3x Yone, Windchaser and 2x The Infinite Mindsplitter for its top end.
Axenderman's Riven + Aphelios
Finally, we found this is a combination we weren't expecting beforehand, but the more we looked at it the more it grew on us. User Axenderman partnered Aphelios with Riven: she generates 1-mana burst-speed buffs every other round while he generates 2-mana slow-speed buffs almost every round. Both should be greatly discounting your Arbiter of the Peak, setting up for a lethal swing with multiple overwhelm attackers. Plus there's that name -- "La coneja y El mudo" translates to "The rabbit and The mute". (In the lore, Aphelios drinks a poison which gives him his power to summon magical weapons but negates his ability to speak.)
That's all the Aphelios decks we have for now but check back for more as we near his release. Are there any Aphelios combos you're anxious to try out? You can theorycraft your own decks with our deckbuilder and save them to the site to share with others by logging in or creating an account.
If you see anything cool in the deck database, give it an upvote so others can find awesome creations.
Comments
So I just decided to peruse this article and to my surprise I find 2 of my own theorycrafted lists in it. While I am extremely flattered to see my deckbuilding is being appreciated, it is actually being credited to this Sith Holocron from Dongers of Runeterra. Both my Aphelios Diana and Aphelios Nocturne lists were made 3 days prior to the video being posted and were created alongside 4 other Aphelios theorycrafts I made that day. They are publicly viewable here on Out of Cards and the date on them will corroborate the fact that they definitely existed before he supposedly built them. I obviously have no problem with people finding the decks but the fact that he states that he theorycrafted them himself is upsetting. I've already commented on his video but I wanted to state this here as well. If you watch the video it is pretty clear that he is not aware of the decision making behind the card inclusions and especially not the heavy reliance on crescendum as the primary benefit of Aphelios in the the lists. I am a streamer and youtuber as well who makes new decks every single stream so I take it pretty personally to have the credit for my decks stolen from me. I am still planning on making a video on my Aphelios theorycraft decks today. I considered recording it earlier but I decided to do it closer to Aphelios' release. Anyway if you want to credit the real creator of the decklists I'm Morctorcus on Youtube and Twitch
Hey Morctorcus.
I am both baffled and livid about this. I just don't understand why anyone would ever even do this. While theorycrafting good-looking decks is definitely an art, it's not that hard to throw together a serviceable offering of your own creation. Or alternatively: if someone wants to just curate lists of others' creations, it's trivial to cite the original creators as we often do here. Even the most famous LoR content creators will accredit others when they knowingly use someone else's list -- the "cred" from passing off someone else's innovation as your own just isn't worth lying for. And these guys did this all for a video that is currently sitting at 21 views.
This article has been updated. Also, for what it's worth: we did include your theorycraft work in last month's recognition of OoC community contributions.
EDIT: It occurred to me last night that I didn't literally say the words, so please let me formally apologize for unwittingly mis-accrediting your work.
Oh my goodness, I appreciate so much that you did this. It makes me feel so much better about the situation. Also I was unaware of the fact that I had already been featured in another article which makes me feel pretty proud to hear that. Thanks for swiftly taking action and it definitely baffles me as well that something like this occurred but I'm glad it's been resolved. I also saw your name in my chat tonight which was nice to see! Again, thanks so much :) Love the site!
I'm excited to see if Targon Yasuo can finally become a deck now. They've kept printing Targon stun cards but they've been so weak that the archetype never makes sense (Sleepy Trouble Bubble, Paddle Star, and Sneaky Zeebles are all awful compared to Noxus Stun cards). In fact, even the Theorycraft Yasuo deck featured only uses 3 of Targon's Stun cards. If Aphelios isn't enough to make Targon stun at least Tier 2/3, then I think the other Targon stun cards really need a buff.