
Game Guide
Deck Guide: Bard Illaoi - The Chiming Tentacles!
08/11/22 0 comments
In this article I will explain a bit about how to understand, play and dominate the ranked ladder with one of the most consistent decks in the current meta!
Why play this deck?
Midrange
to end all Midranges, and if you like big units and broken decks, this is for sure the deck for you. It remains as a very viable option too for those that want to play something easy and well-established, besides supplying a great source of serotonin through the trap Chimes sound that rings each time you buy them.Ad
Deck Overview
Chimes
As we mentioned before, this deck plays as a classic Midrange, with the peculiarity of bringing Bard as one of its champions. Though Bard is a great strength in this deck, here we use him more because of his origin, the ability The Wandering Caretaker:

Tentacles
As for The Sea's Voice and Illaoi, they are your offensive cards, which will be your steps through the victory ladder. They create your win conditions, the Tentacles, and throughOverwhelm
, they offer plenty of threats on your board. Any one of them buffed by Esmus, Breath of the World or by trap Chimes already threaten enough to make your opponent concede immediately.

Overwhelm
and her Tentacles, through The Sea's Voice. We also have the fact that Bard will create even more trap Chimes on your cards as the rounds pass, so your units will be bigger and bigger and, in case he levels, the situation might escalate in your favor in an exponential way. Besides that, we have tools such as Blood in the Water to Rally and put even more pressure on our opponents. As a classic Midrange, this deck's strongest suit is to always have favorable trades in combat and keep a board full of threats that are hard to remove. The idea of this deck is to summon big units, attack withOverwhelm
, Rally and make your opponents cry, whichever comes first.Ad
Mulligan
Legends of Runeterra
is extremely based on which matchup you're playing. Because of that, I've separated initial card options from this deck for each of the matchups that you might face as a player. Against aggressive decks, keep your low cost units, such as Byrd, the Bellringer, Watchful Idol, Hired Gun, and also keep key removals such as Tentacle Smash and Make It Rain. These cards will be essential so you can hold on throughout the game and set up your offensive on later turns. Against combo decks, your main objective will be to get to your win condition before them, so keep your board wide and buffed with the following initial cards in hand: Byrd, the Bellringer, Illaoi, and The Sea's Voice. Try to set up a lethal attack before the combos can combo! Against control decks, you must keep Rally tools in your initial hand, such as Blood in the Water. You will probably have to attack multiple times with your tall units. Most mass removals in control decks currently only deal 2 damage, so your units that have more health than that will be in the advantage.Favorable and Unfavorable Matchups
Unfavorable
In Bard/Illaoi's case, the cards that can absolutely wreck your strategy are: removals such as Vengeance, The Ruination and Disintegrate, and freezes and barriers. Our deck doesn't have answers to the above quoted removals, though The Ruination can be played around with unit developments in defensive turns and "safe" moments.
Favorable
However, if you want a more archetype oriented answer, we can say that Bard/Illaoi has good matchups against burn and aggros in general, because it has good low cost units which end up having even better status with Bard's trap Chimes. This makes you able to not only offer aggression in offensive turns but also defend your Nexus well in defensive turns. Control decks are simply too slow currently to be able to hold off Bard/Illaoi's midgame and as we mentioned before, cards such as The Ruination can be avoided, and the mass removals used currently don't deal more than 2 damage to units, which already doesn't kill your deck's units. Besides that, keeping Blood in the Water in your hand can bring you the victory, as control decks suffer to multiple Rallies.Ad
Playstyle
Possible Changes

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Conclusion

Joey Sticks
Legends of Runeterra player since the launch of Bilgewater in May 2020. Since then, I have become a streamer and competitive player, besides doing several projects to bring English education through Runeterra.
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