Deck Guide: Mischievous Marai OTK 20+ Burst damage at turn 10

Introduction

The arrival of Variety set in Patch 4.2.0 brought to the game a different proposal of meta, which so far we haven't had in Legends of Runeterra, in which all new cards promote new ideas for deck building.

And out of all these cards, the one who is most popular with the community, without a shadow of a doubt, is Mischievous Marai. This follower solved many issues Bilgewater control lists had, regarding dealing direct damage to the enemy board. Bibi, as she is called affectionately by the community and by the game's lore, won the hearts of LoR players - and is currently one of the most popular cards in all of Runeterra.

The possibilities of OTK combo creations with this card are insane. Let's take a look at one of them which is becoming really popular in the community, with which it is possible to deal +20 damage at turn 10, at burst speed.

OTK comes from "One Turn Kill", and it is used in card games when you "kill" your opponent in a single turn.

This list was popularized by the American player and content creator, "Majiinbae". You can notice straight away some very key traits of this list, and the first of them is that this is an Allegiance deck.

This means the deck building is focused on triggering the ability of a single card, which has an Allegiance effect, which in this case is Yordle Grifter. Usually when you build a list like this, it is common to take at most 2 or 6 cards from a region different from the one in your Allegiance card in your deck, so you can increase drastically your chances of activating this effect.

Allegiance: When you summon this card, it gets an Allegiance bonus if the card on the top of your deck has the same region as this card.

The whole deck is focused on activating the effect of Yordle Grifter, as the most important card for our OTK combo is created when this Yordle's Allegiance effect is activated, Warning Shot.

The Combo

To win immediately the game at turn 10, you need the following cards in your hand.

Yeah, we need 7 cards to deal 20+ damage to the enemy Nexus. As much as it is 70% of your whole hand, it is relatively easy to create and draw the elements of this combo, once you take 3 copies of each of those cards in your deck, and you can generate Warning Shot with Yordle Grifter.

To activate the combo you need -

ATTENTION: IT IS NECESSARY TO HAVE 13 MANA TO DO THE COMBO.

— Play the Mischievous Marai on board. — This is the only moment you might have issues, as you'll be passing your action priority to your opponent, and there are a few ways of interrupting this combo. But we'll talk about that soon.

— After that, your opponent might try to remove Mischievous Marai with some sort of slow or fast speed spell. But they don't know you can deal 20+ damage at burst speed.

— Play Line 'Em Up — now you have 2 Powder Kegs on board.

— Then, play Divine Judgment on your Powder Keg. You now have 3 Kegs on board.

— Now play all your Warning Shots in hand.

— 1 Warning Shot deals 5 points of damage.

— 2 Warning Shot deals 11 points of damage.

— 3 Warning Shot deals 18 points of damage.

— and the 4th Warning Shot makes 26 points of damage to the enemy Nexus.

Things to know about this deck

The Bilgewater region isn't famous for having strong control mechanics or tools, or even interesting blockers. As a result, this list suffers against very fast decks, and/or with big followers and units. So you can guarantee as fast as possible the combo elements in your hand, the deck is filled with card draw.

But pay attention, these spells are a bit expensive, and can make you lose too much time in a turn that it might have been better to invest your mana in blockers.

While your combo isn't available, the most important cards for you will always be Marai Warden and Twisted Fate. With Marai Warden, you can bring the presence of a few blockers on board, and maybe even get lucky, as it might generate a 1 cost unit that has strong stats, such as Crusty Codger.

As for Twisted Fate, he is your board clear tool, in case your problem is a gigantic number of small followers on the other side. Red card alongside one Powder Keg is enough to destroy most 2 cost units in the game.

The hard part of the deck might be managing your cards in hand, because remember: you'll need 6 to 7 cards to complete the combo, and you'll get a full hand very easily.

Yordle Grifter as much as it is one of the most important cards in the deck, besides creating a Warning Shot, draws a card from the enemy deck. As a result, our Yordle friend can be a double-edged sword, and you might end up burning a few cards in this process, during the turn of the rounds.

Alternative Win Conditions

Don't think this list only works with the combo. In truth, it is a deck that sometimes wins through sheer board pressure. The Bilgewater region is quite aggressive, and you'll easily deal a few points of damage to the enemy Nexus here and there in the first few turns, what is called "chip damage". That makes your combo easier, as it lowers the amount of Warning Shots you'll need to end the game.

In some matchups, you'll get there just with the presence of Mischievous Marai dealing a lot of damage, and also Zap Sprayfin is a perfect card to poke damage to the enemy Nexus.

With the incredible amount of card draw in the deck, sometimes it is worth it to play for your Twisted Fate level up - which is a theme we didn't see since the times before this champion was heavily nerfed.

Most Effective Cards

Yeah, the Mischievous Marai OTK isn't fail proof, as when you play a unit in Legends of Runeterra, you're passing priority for your opponent to answer your board, and it is at that moment that some cards may disrupt your combo.

There are three ways of disrupting this combo for good, and another three ways of disrupting the combo temporarily by using one card.

The following cards disrupt the combo for good:

These cards disrupt the combo temporarily:

Counters, In General

The Demacia region might be strong again, and that is a bit worrying for your list, as the demacian units' health stats are a bit too high for our direct damage removals.

Aggressive decks with Fearsome units will also run you over in the ranked ladder. And, in general, any list that has direct damage to the Nexus, or that is very aggressive, is enough to end your happiness. You can't be equally aggressive, and you won't have time to gather the pieces for your combo.

Viktor decks are one of the few slow lists that can win. The champion Viktor will have lots of time to get stats and keywords. This way, at turn 6 your opponent might have a gigantic attacker, maybe Elusive with Spellshield, ready to end the game.

Decks

These are 3 lists that most win against the Mischievous Marai combo.

So far, we have only seen a list that is 100% focused on the OTK combo, but there are other functionalities for Mischievous Marai.

This card is very useful in the current meta game when it comes to enabling removals for slow Bilgewater control lists. The following variant is focused on bringing value generation tools and card draw from the Piltover & Zaun region, alongside a few elements of direct damage and cheap removals. Its main win condition is the card Glorious Evolution with Elusive units such as Wiggly Burblefish.

The next variant is a remake of my own from a Curious Shellfolk Norra's portals list. This deck without Mischievous Marai was the list I took to Masters this season, but I'm having a lot of success as well after the addition of our dear Keg Lady.

Our win condition is having more value in our hands than our opponents, and winning the game with Elusive units, or with the board pressure created by Norra's portals, or with the card Mind Meld.

I hope you liked the article and that you have learned a bit more about the latest OTK combo in Legends of Runeterra. If you liked the article, don't forget to share and comment on social media! See you.