Ezreal Draven decks, as a midrange, slow-burn archetype, have been popular in the meta since Ezreal’s level up condition was improved, and Tri-beam Improbulator was introduced. Here, we take a closer look at the deck and its match-ups in the meta.
The Game Plan
Ezreal Draven decks are built around a slower midrange strategy. The aim is to keep high tempo in the early game with House Spider, Arachnoid Sentry and Draven, while slowly damaging the opponent with Ballistic Bot’s Ignition, Ezreal, or open attacking with units on a clear board.
As you clear the opponent's board with spells, you also move towards playing a high impact Tri-beam Improbulator with the vast amount of 3-drops in this deck. Around turns 8-10, your opponent is usually down to roughly half their starting health, and you can play Captain Farron and a levelled up Ezreal, both of which will help close out the game.
The Cards
This deck combines early game spells such as Ravenous Flock, Mystic Shot and Culling Strike with early tempo units in House Spider, Draven and Arachnoid Sentry to provide a high tempo game plan; playing your units whilst removing opponent’s threats to sneak in early damage.
Ballistic Bot, Draven and Stress Testing are your main sources of discard targets. Using Rummage and Sump Dredger this way can generate card advantage. There are 16, 3-cost cards in total which means Tri-beam Improbulator can reach anywhere from 4 to 7 damage. Given the wide range of available followers to summon with this card, there is not a definitive best time to use it. Generally speaking, 5 and above is good value for this card. Don’t hold onto it for too long unless you have 3-drops in hand that you are planning on playing soon.
Noxian Guillotine and Scorched Earth are answers to big threats such as Nasus or Frostguard Thralls; the latter also being useful against landmarks, particularly Tahm Soraka. Thermogenic Beam is always a good card in PnZ decks because of its versatility.
Ezreal will level up at around a similar time to when you can play Captain Farron, both of which provide similar ways to close out the game.
Arachnoid Sentry vs Thorn of the Rose is a close call in this list. The latter is more versatile but has a slightly worse statline, but either are a strong fit for this deck. Three Culling Strikes is a meta call with the abundance of Azir decks, but this could easily be changed to additional Scorched Earths depending on the frequency of landmark decks in the meta.
The Mulligan
When facing aggressive decks, you will want to search for House Spider, Mystic Shot and Arachnoid Sentry. Culling Strike is ideal if facing against Irelia Azir to take out the deck’s champions, and Statikk Shock can ping the 1/1 Blades and Sand Soldiers.
Against other midrange or control decks, searching for a Tri-beam Improbulator is ideal. As you will inevitably draw into your 3-drops, you can increase Tri-beam Improbulator’s damage to provide great value for the cost of the spell. Ballistic Bot and Sump Dredger are also useful against slower decks.
Draven is a must-keep regardless of the deck you are facing, as he can be played early enough to deal with aggro, and can generate discard fodder for later Rummage or Sump Dredger targets. For Ezreal, it is normally better to throw him back, although he could be kept if you know your opponent has few ways of removing him, for example, when facing Lissandra decks.
The Match-ups
This deck has particularly favourable match-ups against fast aggro decks, such as Irelia Azir, because of the cheap spells and units that can prevent early aggression. Culling Strikes and Scorched Earth provide a favourable match-up to Tahm Soraka lists. It generally has good match-ups with most of the decks you will find on ladder, which is particularly down to the high amounts of aggro present.
Ezreal Draven can struggle against beefy midrange decks like Ashe Sejuani or Shyvana Aurelion Sol, where the opponent's units are too big for the spells in this deck to deal with. However, both Ravenous Flock, Noxian Guillotine and Scorched Earth can be really useful at dealing with midrange lists, so more of these types of cards can be added depending on what decks you face. Braum decks with The Scargrounds will also be challenging to face, so look to keep Culling Strikes in your opening hand.
Your Nexus health is very important with this list, as there are no opportunities for healing (besides a lucky Tri-Beam), so always play cautiously against decks that can go over the top, such as aggro Burn or Thresh Nasus’ Atrocity.
Thanks for reading this in-depth analysis of Ezreal Draven. How have you fared with this deck? Are there any cards you think we missed?
Comments
I think I have never played with Ezreal because it always pisses me off to face him. Maybe I'll try this one.
Well, my first note is that I don't see an actual decklist posted :) I would be interested in seeing, since I've never been terribly good with Ezreal, and in fact I don't think I've ever even leveled him up, haha.
Here you go, mine is obviously quite similar to minuano's
Great guide you covered the most important aspects of the deck.
There is one statement that I don't agree with however and that is saying that EZ/Draven have a favorable match up against Azir/Irelia, the match up is a pretty even one because contrary to other aggro decks Azir/Irelia can protect their unit from removal.
I feel it's a bit more like 55/45. I think Irelia Azir's defensive cards aren't really enough against Ezreal Draven, it also might depend on the deck and the skill of the players involved. Some players just don't play around stuff I found out. Tri-beam also swings the match really hard if you can get it down even when it's at 2. Though of course, sometimes Irelia Azir just nut draws.
Most blade dance have on play effect, that already put you in tricky spot, you either have to accept the damage from the blades and sand soldier and use the removal on the units or use removal on the sand soldiers/blades in which case they still have the attack token and their units, either way you will take damage, Then there is Azir, with 5 health he is difficult to get rid off unless you have culling strike and that still cost 3 mana and they only need 2 to keep him alive. They also have homecoming to recall captain Farron and any big unit that you get from Tri-beam.
So yeah Ez/Draven have the tools to counter Irelia/Azir but they also have the tools to play around the counters.
Ok, you're not using removal for their Blades/Sand Soldiers, you're using minions like House Spider or Draven to block them. If they remove Azir from their board they get much less value which is completely worth it since they need to use 3 mana to play him again, so it's technically 5 mana to do that. If you had Culling the turn they play Azir, then they effectively lost Azir on that turn which is very good for you. Unless you're talking about NopeifyBADCARDNAME which is completely fair. Though I don't see it often being run over Lead and Follow but again that's just talking about deck variations. Other ways to kill Azir could be done through Thermogenic Beam, Tri-beam Improbulator, and Ravenous Flock (though this one doesn't happen much for me). Their other minions are fairly easy to remove since they die to Mystic Shot or Flock except for the Marshal and Azir. Homecoming isn't much of an issue when you can also just kill their unit, and by the time Farron comes down there usually isn't many minions. If you used Tri-beam you probably don't mind too much if they used Homecoming, you don't often get to use a big Tri-beam in this matchup since all you want to do is remove, so you're using it for removal over a juicy 6+ mana minion.
At least when I'm playing this specific matchup, most exchanges of spells are favored for me rather than my opponent. I win this matchup a lot too but I can't really credit it to my skills as much since I don't actually play Ranked.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-M6xqsZT3Q
Here a video of master player Ultraman using Ez/draven, he face against Azir/Irelia 3 times. The first at 02:32, the second at 07:58 the last one at 30:14
This should give you an idea about how favorable the match up is when you face competent players rather than random netdeckers.
Personally, from my experience, I have almost always beaten Irelia Azir with his list.
Although they do have lots of recall, I found it is best to time your removal spells such as culling strike on a turn when their blade dance is relatively weak. By removing their stuff before they snowball you will have a good chance against that deck. Of course, I may have been fortunate 😄 and it is definitely the hardest aggro deck to face.