[GUIDE] Taliyah/TF

3/2/2021 UPDATE

Cut 1x Stoneweaving and 1x Ancient Preparations for 2x Rite of Negation: Man, having a counterspell to protect our champions is so good. It's unfortunate we will almost always be using the destroy a mana gem version due to our lack of heavy board presence, but its necessary for sure. I want to run three copies, but that might be overkill, so I'm starting with two.

2/22/2021 UPDATE

Cut two Sai Scout for two Zap Sprayfin: Sai Scout is not very good. the body is pretty terrible for elusive and I'd rather have the card draw from Zap for one more mana and a worse body than jump through hoops for +2 health.

GUIDE

Hello everyone! I honestly think a landmark deck is going to be one of the strongest shells to put in TF in because of how much incidental draw the deck has, plus the bonus of being able to use the predict mechanic to increase the value of your draws. I'm going to be going through each card in the deck and what role it serves. I'm aware the Shurima spoilers aren't finished, and I will be updating this deck as spoilers continue to come out.

-Ancient Preparations: Without the synergies with Taliyah, I wouldn't play this card. However, it's a nice card to manipulate your early draws, be a landmark for Taliyah's level-up condition, and later provides a 2/2 blocker.

Shaped Stone: A great combat trick that we can utilize to protect our lowly-statted champions.

Stoneweaving: This is mostly here just to be a one-cost spell for TF's upgraded side, but it also has utility by tutoring some of the best cards in the game. Star Spring can be useful as a way to remove damage from our units, Hexcore can turbo level-up TF, and Veiled Temple is simply insane in this deck.

Ancient Hourglass: Most of our units are play effects, so we lose some value there, but this is honestly just a very efficient way to protect units, especially since it summons exact copies of them when it pops open. It goes without saying that is insane to duplicate with Taliyah too.

Hibernating Rockbear: Our main Taliyah target is we want to put stats on the field. This is quite slow, so be careful about playing this against aggro.

Preservarium: This is why TF should be played in this deck. It draws cards when copied by Taliyah as well.

Rock Hopper: You definitely don't want top copy the Sands with Taliyah, but this card mainly serves to be an early value and level Taliyah.

Quicksand: This card is probably worse than Hush, but Hush is insane so this is excusable. For now, I'd run two and see how good it is.

Sai Scout: The elusive is cool and all, but just a well-statted body that fixes your draws sounds good enough for now. Probably one of the first cards I'd cut.

Unraveled Earth: Helps level both of our champions, so it goes in the deck.

Desert Naturalist: A 4 mana 2/4 that summons a 5/4 is insane, even at the cost of an Ancient Preparations or Preservarium. The fact that it also can double up as enemy landmark removal makes it a staple in Taliyah decks for sure.

Golden Ambassador: Both of our champions are ultra critical to the deck working, so a tutor that also inflates their low stats and also is a suitable chump blocker is welcome.

Twisted Fate: There is so much random card draw attached to these landmark synergy cards, I just had to shove TF in there. I had to cut a lot of the cards usually run in a TF deck to make Ambassador reliable, which might be incorrect. I would consider putting Zap in the deck, but it would be difficult to utilize its strengths, especially since Shurima lacks Targon and PnZ's ability to reliable spend spell mana.

Taliyah: This card is so cool. I've always loved clone effects. Anyways, Taliyah is a very powerful win condition for the deck, oddly similar to Swain, but with more upfront utility and less finishing power. I think the deck will be good, but not as good as some of TF's other decks.