Deck Tech: Taliyah Ziggs - Discover this deck's whole power!

I play Taliyah/Ziggs since the deck's creation, and in the midst of so many matches with this list, I was adapting it till we have this version which I consider best, which is the one I use in the majority of tourneys I play, including Seasonals, which happened this last saturday (14).

I played 7 matches with it on saturday and won 6, losing only to Mono Viego Shurima, which is another strong list in the meta. That being said, I decided to bring my list and explain each card, besides some important tips.

This list is focused on landmarks and their destruction, so most cards are landmarks or create landmarks which are destroyed (by you or the opponent themselves), and like so level up Taliyah and Ziggs at the same time.

With them leveled, all you need to do is put overwhelm in them with Absolver or with Herald Of The Magus, which gives the keyword permanently and globally and there, you will have powerful and lethal attacks.

In case you still can't finish games, there is the presence of The Arsenal, which is still the best possible finisher in this deck.

Taliyah

Taliyah levels up after you played/summoned 5 landmarks and has the ability to duplicate a landmark, so it is important that every time you summon the champion on board you have landmarks to be duplicated - in case you don't have them, her ability will be lost.

After the fifth landmark, she levels up and becomes a great attacker, given her excellent status and the ability Threaded Volley which causes 2 damage 3 times to her blocker. When Taliyah's blocker dies, the exceeding damage from this skill goes to the Nexus and if she has overwhelm, is more damage still that goes to the opponent's Nexus.

It is important to know that in case Taliyah is stunned, returned, eliminated or transformed with Minimorph, Threaded Volley is canceled.

Ziggs

Ziggs levels up even easier than Taliyah. He only needs 4 landmarks to be destroyed, which is quite simple to do with this deck. If you use the spell Unraveled Earth 2x, 4 Roiling Sands will be created, so after the opponent summons 4 units, Ziggs will be leveled 2. This is only one form of leveling up this champion, but there are several others in this list.

When the champion reaches his level 2, while he is on board, every time a landmark is destroyed, Ziggs causes 2 damage to the enemy Nexus. Besides that, he also has an ability similar to Taliyah's, Short Fuse, which when he is level 2 causes 2 damage to his blocker and also the Nexus, so this mechanic also works well with Overwhelm.

There are 6 units in Taliyah/Ziggs, most of them being landmark creators. Inventive Chemist is the only 1 drop in this deck, which you will always leave on your mulligan. She creates the landmark Scrappy Bomb, which has countdown 3 and when destroyed causes 1 damage to the Nexus. By having countdown 3, if you put her on round 1, on 3 you can combo Scrappy Bomb with Rite of the Arcane and removes one important opponent unit.

Rock Hopper is another form of creating Roiling Sands, which is the easiest way of leveling Ziggs, as the landmark is destroyed instantly after the opponent summon or play any unit.

Endless Devout is an excellent 3 drop. It has good status (3/3) and when it dies, summons the landmark Sarcophagus, which by being destroyed or coming to the end of its countdown (3), summons the unit Restored Devout, which is a 5/3 with the fearsome keyword, which can be hard to be blocked. Besides that, the Sarcophagus is a great target for Rite of The Arcane and also Desert Naturalist.

Speaking of her, the Desert Naturalist serves both to destroy one of your landmarks (Ideally Sarcophagus), and summon a Grumpy Rockbear just as much as you can remove a problematic opponent landmark. Ideal to remove Buried Sun Disc when you're facing Mono Shurima.

Herald of the Magus, which I talked about previously, is meant to be played after 4 landmarks have been destroyed, which is very easy to do in this deck. After that, your champions are granted +2+2 and Overwhelm globally.

The Arsenal is the deck's finisher and your second wincon (the first is the champions.) As you destroy landmarks, he gains a random keyword (that is globally, so he doesn't need to be on board to gain the keywords from the destroyed landmarks before his arrival, but when he comes on board he still keeps on gaining keywords when a landmark is destroyed), so depending on your luck, you can have an Arsenal with Scouts, Elusive and Spellshield, which will grant you victory in an easy way.

Starting with the burst ones, we have Absolver, which is one of the ways to give Overwhelm to your opponents.

Unleashed Energy destroys a landmark to increase the status of a unit. This spell can be used in different ways: you can increase Taliyah's or Ziggs' attack with Overwhelm to deal more damage, it can destroy Hexplosive Minefield and lower the opponent's blockers by stunning the strongest one and also might be a way to burst lethal with Ziggs. If the opponent is only 2 health, you just need to burst destroy any landmark and like so Ziggs causes lethal damage to the Nexus.

Quicksand is one of the strongest spells lately, because it takes out the keywords from that annoying unit which is proposing a lethal attack, so it is essential to have copies of this spell in the deck.

Unraveled Earth, besides being very important to level up your champions, it buys you a card, which can help in those situations in which you need to find an answer.

Moving on th fast spells, we have Pokey Stick, which besides buying you a card, might be the damage you're missing for Nexus lethal and also helps you remove small units;

Ancient Hourglass is ideal to protect your champions (or The Arsenal) which are about to be removed. A nice combo with this spell is when you have a Taliyah on your hand and mana enough to drop the champion duplicating the landmark Stasis Statue. With that, you can have 3 Taliyah on board, or 2 Ziggs, or even 2 Arsenals with a bunch of keywords;

Rite of Negation is important to deny spells such as Feel The Rush, Ruination, among others. Ideal too to stop that bunch of burn spells such as Get Excited! and Mystic Shot going straight to your nexus.

The last spell of this deck is Rite of the Arcane, which I mentioned previously. It is a very efficient removal that can take out important units from your opponent.

There are only two playable landmarks in this list: Preservarium and Hexplosive Minefield.

The first is an excellent card draw (buys two cards total), which can be duplicated by Taliyah and buy even more cards. As for the second, it is a way to stop problematic units, stunning them. Quick reminder that destroying this landmark (and this can be made in burst speed), one more enemy is stunned.

The best mulligan with this deck is the one that has units with a curve in your hand. So it is very important to have in your initial hand Inventive Chemist, Rock Hopper and Endless Devout. Ziggs is also a good call and I like to have him, if possible, Unraveled Earth, because it slows down opponent's developments because of the vulnerable they receive, being able to be easily slain.

Against matchups that you know Rite of Negation will be very important (as it is in Feel The Rush), I think it is interesting to keep this card in your initial hand. Now against matchups that depend a lot on one specific unit (such as Scouts, which depends a lot on Miss Fortune), I recommend keeping Rite of the Arcane.

If you're facing Mono Shurima or Lissandra/Taliyah, keep Desert Naturalist in your initial hand and against aggros keep every low drops possible.

Playing with this deck you will opt to advance your champs level ups, that is: by summoning the biggest possible number of landmarks and the ideal plan is to have a Taliyah on 5 duplicating a landmark, leveling up and starting to make powerful attacks.

Having both champions on board, flipped, is practically guaranteeing your victory, and by arriving at this point, you will only worry about getting Overwhelm to finish your games. Again, I repeat: if nothing goes right, don't worry, The Arsenal always saves the day, so don't give up.

Feel The Rush

Taliyah Ziggs shines with negation spells and unit protections in relation to main spell and the spell removals from this deck.

Caitlyn/Ezreal

Taliyah Ziggs' late game is superior, there are answers to removals and it is of interest to this deck the destruction of its landmarks.

Mono Shurima

Taliyah/Ziggs can put on board pressure, which is the low point of Mono Shurima. With the nerf, the win rate went up because of the fact that the deck needs at least one more turn to flip the sun disc, so Taliyah/Ziggs can win before.

Pirates or Spiders

Shurima and Bandlecity don't have many answers to burn and swarm, only with Rite of the Arcane or Rite of Negation against Decimate or Noxian Fervor, but to that it will be needed to lose gems and the game will be even more weird.

Azir/Irelia

Taliyah/Ziggs is easily answered with Ionia spells present in Azir/Irelia and it also doesn't answer Blade Dance well. Quite the hard matchup.

Pantheon / Yuumi

The main weakness against this deck is the difficulty removing units, which units with Fated are strong against, so Pantheon and Yuumi simply grow together and tend to overwhelm Taliyah/Ziggs.

Most versions of Taliyah/Ziggs bring copies of the landmark Ancient Preparations and start matches playing this landmark.

Though I agree that predict is quite strong and can help your top deck a lot, I prefer to use one more copy of The Arsenal and Pokey Stick, given these cards' versatility.

Besides that, playing Ancient Preparations on round 1, you can't use Rite of the Arcane on round 3, because the landmark is destroyed before that and not to mention that you destroying the landmark yourself with Rite of the Arcane, for instance, you lose the unit which is summoned, so I don't like this card being present in the deck.

Final Thoughts

I talked about everything that I know about this deck, but if you have any questions, just ask me and I will answer. Till next article! ;)