The front runner to the meta inside our first set in Riftbound centers around the Fury and Mind Legend Kai'sa Daughter of the Void. Just from her ability we can see she wants to play lots of spells, and with her card pool we can see some good spells to build with. In particular, we can see lots of spells with big Power costs that Kai'sa can help mitigate slowing down your Rune building with her ability. Let's dissect

Decklist: Kai'Sa | Riftbound | Will Sobel

Legend:

1 Kai'Sa - Daughter of the Void (OGN-247)

Runes:

7 Fury Rune (OGN-007)

5 Mind Rune (OGN-089)

Battlefields:

1 The Dreaming Tree (OGN-292)

1 Startipped Peak (OGN-288)

1 Grove of the God-Willow (OGN-280)

Units:

1 Pouty Poro (OGN-013)

2 Kai'Sa - Survivor (OGN-039)

3 Darius - Trifarian (OGN-027)

3 Lecturing Yordle (OGN-087)

3 Noxus Hopeful (OGN-012)

3 Ravenbloom Student (OGN-103)

3 Thousand-Tailed Watcher (OGN-116)

3 Watchful Sentry (OGN-096)

Spells:

2 Icathian Rain (OGN-248)

2 Time Warp (OGN-122)

3 Cleave (OGN-004)

3 Falling Star (OGN-029)

3 Hextech Ray (OGN-009)

3 Retreat (OGN-104)

3 Stupefy (OGN-095)

The deck runs lean on units which is out of the ordinary for this game. Kai'sa wants board presence, but deals with her opponents using removal spells that she plays at a discount.

In our early game we want to create a modest board presence with Lecturing Yordle, Pouty Poro, Watchful Sentry, and Noxus Hopeful. All these units come out with a discount or built in card advantage allowing us to dig into our deck for removal or one of our midgame units. These early units are lacking in the Might department, but can attrition your opponents army (against Viktor) or gain you an early second point while holding a useful battlefield.

Once we hit the midgame Kai'sa takes full control of battlefields using efficient units like Darius - Trifarian who can move quickly with some of your cheap spells or Ravenbloom Student which can attack or defend well depending on the amount of Reactions in your hand. The true star of the midgame here, though, is our chosen Champion: Kai'Sa - Survivor. She can accelerate into a battlefield and gain you card advantage when she conquers a battlefield. You may lose the element of surprise by telegraphing this as your Champion, but using Accelerate here allows you to bring a power house and draw as early as turn two when you're the second player.

While these units contest and battle to gain points here and there you can whittle away at the enemy board presence with the suite of removal spells. Perhaps the spell that benefits the most from Kai'sa's ability is a simple Hextech Ray. With a free recycle off your Legend we pay a meager 1 Energy to deal 3 damage to a unit making it one of the best spells in the early game (and one of the most annoying.) Pairing this with Stupefy means we can sink a 4 Might unit and draw a card for just 2 Energy!

Another early game trick from this deck involves Retreating your own Lecturing Yordle to protect it from defeat while ramping your Runes and drawing another card. This simple interaction is often overlooked as convoluted but ramp becomes quite valuable in this deck that already benefits from the midgame.

Moving into the endgame we look for ways to remove entire groups from a needed battlefield and we can do this one of two ways. First is with Kai'sa's signature spell Icathian Rain which divides damage in chucks of 2 which can easily clean up lingering defenders. Second is with Thousand-Tailed Watcher by handing out -3 to every enemy unit (regardless of location) and then swinging in with Accelerate. Thousand-Tailed Watcher is easily the best unit from the first set, and while it isn't technically removal it creates an opening for attackers to steamroll a battlefield that was well-defended. Both of these cards can swing games that we didn't have confidence in previously and usually lock us in for a 2-point swing by conquering and defending. With a little luck and some good timing Thousand-Tailed Watcher can even be used for a powerful 4-point swing by conquering both battlefields with a little help from other units and then holding it.

If all this fails us we have a powerful back up plan with Time Warp. This ends up being much cheaper than it appears since we can pay one from Kai'sa to recycle, then we'll immediately get 2 Runes back at the beginning of the extra turn. Time Warp is another one of the most powerful cards in Origins as we get extra points for holding, but a whole other turn for setup and attacks. Time Warp is flexible since it just allows for more playing. We can use our extra resources to destroy enemy units or shore up a battlefield to defend and hold for more points.

While Kai'sa is popping off in the beginning of the meta I'm confident we'll see some other Legends take some of the share. So far, the general consensus seems to be Master Yi is the incumbent. Viktor, Sett, and Darius are all coming up in the next tier of competitive decks - and I have my eye on Darius in particular since his ability is comparable to ramp to make bigger plays faster. Unfortunately, I don't think Darius' pool of cards is as easy to parse as Kai'sa. As the meta continues to evolve, we'll be keeping an eye on decks and gameplay - until next time enjoy your Nexus Nights!