It hasn’t been a week since the Legends of Runeterra open beta started and everyone is scrambling to make their favorite decks. There has been both praise and criticism about card acquisition in the game and personally I think it will need some tweaking, especially for newer players down the road. I agree with Riot that this type of system does give you something to work towards, but it can be frustrating being forced to play weaker versions of decks unless you choose to spend money on Wildcards.
During the preview patches I got spoiled and was able to play a Demacia/Freljord deck with Fiora and Ashe, which I was hoping to rebuild. So far, I have exactly zero copies of either Champion and no Wildcards to craft them. I imagine I’m not the only one who has ran into this scenario, and it doesn’t feel good. At some point I would like to see them make a change, so you can select your very first Champion. That way you can get started on the path you want to follow much quicker.
Missing Champions you want to play with? You aren't the only one!
The Elusive Meta
Currently the meta is getting hammered with Elusive variants, so you should be seeing a lot of decks featuring Ionia as the primary region. Elusive decks can hit hard and fast, with little way to deal with their threats since they can only be blocked with other Elusive units. With that in mind, I want to discuss the Ionia/Piltover & Zaun starter deck and which cards you could add to give it a more Elusive build. On the flip side, I’ll also discuss what cards will offer decent counters.
Join 'Em!
If you’re going to play Elusive you'll want to include Ionia as one of your regions since it has the largest pool for that mechanic. Here is the starter deck with Ionia/Piltover & Zaun that everyone begins with and I’ll make some slight adjustments to it.
I will remove the following cards to make room for some Elusive options.
The Upgraded Elusive Build
For budget reasons, as we talk about switching this starter to an Elusive build, I'll assume that you’ve got some Wildcards available, or might have earned the new cards as rewards, and have a conservative total of 6 Common, 3 Rare, and 1 Epic Wildcards available for crafting.
To get us closer to an Elusive build I added the following cards to the deck.
This build keeps a very aggressive curve and lets you dip your foot into an Elusive archetype without drastically altering the original deck or breaking the bank with excessive Wildcard requirements. You can continue to expand from there, adding more Elusive cards and spells like Deny to protect yourself from removal.
There are a lot of variations of Elusive decks going around, like pairing with Demacia or Freljord to get additional buffs or maybe Noxus or Shadow Isles to go full on aggro. Here are a couple of those decks you can check out.
Beat 'Em!
If you don’t want to dive into an Elusive build right now, you’ve got plenty of options to explore with other regions that can counter the mechanic. Keep in mind that I’ve purposefully limited all my suggestions to cheap, common cards without restrictions for playing them. I’ve included Spells and Units from each region. Your best options will be playing your own Elusive units, Followers with the Challenger ability so you can force units to block, or including spells which deal direct damage or counter Elusive in other ways (like granting your own unit Elusive).
Demacia
Freljord
Ionia
Noxus
Piltover & Zaun
Shadow Isles
With Legends of Runeterra being so new we’ll continue to witness an evolving meta as players unlock additional rewards and earn more cards. If you have an Elusive deck that you’d like to share or something you’ve found that completely shuts them down, use our deckbuilder to import it and post it in the comments section below!
Comments
This is probably a drastic measure, but how bad would Elusive cards be if they could only block other Elusive units?
I dont see the point here, because we always are happy when someone block with an elusive minion, its a chance to kill it !
Not sure how viable this is at top ranks, but it's been fun getting some good wins with my Buff Spiders deck. Mostly Shadow Isles with some Demacia in there to buff units. Made this day 1 with a very limited card pool in my collection so likely due for a slight reworking.
I've been seeing around people putting in the Heimerdonger + Noxian guilatine (spelling lul) to counter elusive units. Playing a 3-cost spell gives the 3/1 elusive turret which kills almost every elusive unit by itself.
I feel like if they want to "fix" Elusive, making it a more neutral keyword found in more regions might help. Flying works in MTG because every color has access to at least a little bit of it, and there's specific counter to it.