Deck Tech: Nasus Kindred, a rewarding sacrifice

Nasus Kindred is a list that has caught everybody's eyes amongst the season's control decks, as it has consistent mid and late game moments and performs well within its mechanic of slaying as many units as possible, in order to have the biggest chance possible of summoning a Nasus capable of ending the game without many effective answers.

Though Kindred was released into the game a long time ago, they never got to see much play among the many meta game moments, be it because of their vulnerability or difficulty in finding an appropriate partner.

However, we now have some resources that were released in the latest expansions that enabled them to deal much better with metas focused on aggressive decks, and ended up being an excellent support for the finisher Nasus.

Deck Summary: Necessary Sacrifices

Kindred and Nasus' skills allow for both to benefit from slaying allied and enemy units.

With that in mind, all plays must always focus on slaying units, with either to intent to prevent enemy attacks and protect your Nexus, or to seek plays that make your opponents sacrifice some units of their own in unfavorable trades.

Kindred

Kindred needs to be on board and see as many units being slayed as possible, and in this deck we won't run out of resources for this to happen and for their level up to be guaranteed.

With many disposable units available from the very beginning of the matches, we can sacrifice them in many moments while we look for a quicker level up. After leveling up, they will definitely become a constant headache for your opponent.

Nasus

Nasus is granted +1/+1 for each slayed unit throughout the match without having to be on board, which by itself already makes him a more interesting unit than Kindred themselves along the match.

After dealing 10+ damage, Nasus levels up and has an aura that makes enemy units -1/0 in their base status and he acquires a Spellshield, allowing for favorable attacks thanks to his big status - which makes his removal difficult, either by combat or spells.

Summoning him on board with the biggest status possible is your priority in this deck, as he will be responsible for the big finish around mid to late game.

One of the main mechanics for this deck to work is to have plenty of cards that enable slays, on your side of the board or the enemy's side, and it is also very important that you use them the most efficient way possible, so your Nasus and Kindred can shine through them.

The deck works around having units that need to be slayed, such as The Wings and the Wave or Fading Icon, which have low cost, create additional units, but don't have much relevant status for combat... However they are interesting bodies to enable a certain spell, unit or equipment that requires a slay to be played.

Another unit that will be a target to intentional slays is The Undying, which will always come back in the following turn with the potential of being an even more offensive unit and the same passive body for future slays with other goals.

As for Ravenous Butcher and Forsaken Baccai, they will have more defensive roles and might even have good bodies for unfavorable trades with your opponent, always trying to gather more slays for the deck's general mechanics.

All spells and equipment have as their main role to slay enemy or allied units, but in most cases slays will also have an additional positive side throughout the match.

Hate Spike lots of times will use your inexpressive units that are created throughout your match in combat to clean your opponent's board and eventually grant a positive status for an important unit such as Kindred or Nasus when they do get summoned on board. The same will happen with Rite of Calling and Glimpse Beyond, which will allow for slays on useless units so that you can add more cards to your hand.

The use of Vile Feast will be impactful, as it can enable more slays on board and can even remove a threat in the enemy board if it's on the lower health side. This also enables Black Spear, though situational, which can be used on bigger targets that might be giving you a headache.

A versatile resource that will help you a lot along the match is the equipment The Darkin Halberd, which when used carefully can delay your opponent from dealing with your most important units. It can increase a unit's status' in +2/+2 and also can be relocated everytime this unit is slayed. This equipment ends up being more synergistic with our deck because it demands a slay to be played.

Finally, the most expensive spells in the deck are focused on dealing with late game moments and prevent removals when you try to finish the game with Nasus. Rite of Negation can deny any spells targeting Nasus and Atrocity can deal potentially lethal damage to the enemy Nexus when targeting a big unit.

Playing around slays can seem easy at first, but it is important to know how to manage your units throughout the match to avoid not having units in defensive turns and to make your opponent take damage as most of your trades will be favorable to you and unfavorable to them. It will be important to ponder upon when to play a card and use a spell and when to save mana for a more interesting turn later and maybe slay more units on both sides of the board.

We have plenty low cost units such as The Wings and the Wave and Fading Icon which enable slaying resources in your side of the board and can also be used as sacrifices to slay enemy units, so it is interesting for us to have as many low cost units possible in hand at this early game.

Kindred is interesting to help out with most of your slays early in your mid game, and the husk created by Hate Spike and the stats created by The Darkin Halberd can keep her in game for longer till Nasus gets on board. Him on board, preferably with at least 10 power, and Atrocity, will guarantee that this damage is dealt directly to the Nexus, resulting in victory.

Twisted Fate/Nami

Twisted Fate isn't much of a threat here because he is so fragile when he is summoned at first. The focus point will always be Nami, which will try to stay alive for most of the game and will buff her allies to have favorable trades, but our deck has a lot of resources to threaten her and prevent this from happening.

Kai'Sa

This deck needs to see many units on board with many different keywords, and our skills will try to remove them as quickly as possible. This will make her eventual summoning slower and weaker because they're gonna have few allies and it will delay for a short time until she comes and levels up, therefore becoming more threatening to our weakest units.

Ezreal/Kennen

Their focus will be to stall the general mechanic of slays, as only slays caused by your units, spells and equipment count for our champions' passives.

Ezreal Kennen will try at all costs to slay the units in your board, and this will make necessary more carefulness when summoning a unit in rounds when it isn't possible to prevent them from doing so.

Miss Fortune/Twisted Fate

Some effective removals show up in this deck because of cards such as Make It Rain and Noxian Fervor which will eventually prevent you from keeping units on board to slay, and this will slow down your champions' level up too.

For players that like to control boards and matches more geared towards mid/late game, this is the deck to have fun with, especially since it brings back into the spotlight a champion that so far hasn't seen much play as a consistent unit in this list. Kindred brings a lot of value to the deck and can be the engine for Nasus' growth.

This is my cue, so any questions or opinions, I'm available in the comment section!