Top 5 Most Forgotten P&Z Cards (which you've probably never seen!)

Carrying on with the series of articles covering "forgotten cards you've probably never seen", today we'll discuss Piltover & Zaun, the last region in this series. I left this region for last because I believed it would be the hardest to write, and it really was.

If you have never seen one of these articles: I always pick 5 cards from a region which are not necessarily weak, or bad, but have been forgotten by players and don't really make much of a difference in the game. If they ceased to exist, no one would notice they were gone.

Please keep in mind this article was centered around the competitive scene, and ranked queues (I don't play Path of Champions, unfortunately). It is also based on my 4-year experience playing and casting LoR professionally.

I invite you all to post in our comment section your own list of the top 5 most forgotten Piltover & Zaun cards. Let's go!

We've already started our list with a controversial card, considering Charlatan Fishmonger was released in the last expansion, Fate's Voyage, and it is a bit odd to say cards from this expansion are already "forgotten" cards.

We have two main arguments to justify Charlatan Fishmonger's spot in this list. The first one is that it is a card that wouldn't be missed if it disappeared, which I mentioned briefly in this article's introduction. And, secondly, Piltover & Zaun is the most "famous" and "present" region in the entire game, which means it was incredibly difficult to choose cards for this list.

In the lack of a more forgettable card, I unfortunately had to include Charlatan Fishmonger in this article, as there were practically no other cards (except the next 4 cards) that could be considered "forgotten" Piltover & Zaun cards.

(I invite you to take a look at your collection to see if Piltover & Zaun really is this memorable of a region. The cards in this region have either played in a meta deck, or are memorable, like Jae Medarda.)

But, let's circle back to our first reason; really, if Charlatan Fishmonger disappeared all of a sudden, very few people would notice because, since he was released, he was certainly the least explored card in Janna's entire package.

The main idea behind this card is to give Piltover & Zaun players a way to draw cards that also disrupts their opponent, and like so force a disruptive game style. It is quite similar to strategies that discard cards from your opponent's hand, which we can find in Bandle City, but adapted to Piltover & Zaun.

Charlatan Fishmonger isn't a bad card, and can be quite strong against heavy control decks. But, as Piltover & Zaun lists are basically Nilah Janna or Twisted Fate Janna, besides Burn Aggro decks in Eternal, many times Charlatan Fishmonger isn't included in these decks simply because he doesn't really fit a faster game rhythm.

Maybe in a slower meta, in which discarding your opponent's cards is relevant, he can thrive. For now, most times, he will be the worst-performing card in all current decks with this region, and this is why he isn't in any of the best Piltover & Zaun decks right now.

Volunteer Elnuk is from the Empires of the Ascended expansion, and it came to the game in Ekko's package.

This card is perplexing because it supports the (now long-dead) Elnuk archetype. LoR veterans will remember the time when Elnuks were meta, and will even remember it was one of the best decks in Beta with Ezreal back in 2020. Maybe Volunteer Elnuk was an attempt at reviving this archetype years later, considering this deck's second region has always been Piltover & Zaun.

Besides the fact this archetype was nerfed, it became incredibly obsolete as the years went on. This list also became even weirder to build because of Ezreal's rework. Legends of Runeterra has evolved significantly; even when Empires of the Ascended was released, an Elnuks list would never be able to compete with any meta deck.

Volunteer Elnuk only ever saw play in the first few weeks of the Empires of the Ascended expansion. Afterward, it was never touched again, except when it was randomly generated (let's all admit most Piltover & Zaun cards can be created randomly, which made it really difficult to write this list).

Finally, I can't see a promising future for Volunteer Elnuk. Piltover & Zaun was the region that changed and pioneered mechanics the most throughout the years. This Elnuk theme probably won't return any time soon, which means Volunteer Elnuk will remain forgotten.

Salvaged Scrap was released in the Worldwalker expansion, the one which didn't have any champions for Piltover & Zaun.

If you already read my other articles about this subject, you know how the cards that usually show up in these lists are from expansions that didn't have champions for the region in question.

This happens because usually these cards either become really impactful, like Sputtering Songspinner, which is also a Worldwalker card, or are forgotten cards, like Salvaged Scrap.

In Worldwalker, we got Kai'Sa and also the first decks with Runeterra champions, which means, Piltover & Zaun wasn't one of the strongest regions in the game yet.

At the time, we explored this region very little in terms of deck diversity. Only later, at certain points of the meta, that discard decks popped up again, and we finally tested Salvaged Scrap.

To be quite fair with you, this card briefly saw some play in Jinx lists and a few "Big Discard" decks with Sion, but, as this meta didn't last long, we couldn't really notice its existence. Even more so because it was only used when these lists were first being built as an alternative that let us play a more value-based game plan. As everyone soon realized discard decks don't truly care about value, we left Salvaged Scrap behind.

Another reason is that, in practice, usually the cards you create with this spell aren't all that great, even though they are cheaper than usual. This happens because the targets we discard are usually already cheap, like Flame Chompers!, which will create 3-cost cards in our hand if we discard it with Salvaged Scrap.

Another great reason is that this card only creates cards from the regions you're using in your deck, which prevents you from creating cards from regions you're not playing. This means you can't create a Freljord follower if you don't have Freljord in your deck.

If you stop and take a look at Piltover & Zaun's 3-cost cards, most of them aren't that strong, which would force you to use a support region that has strong followers in the mana bracket you want to tap into. As we never found the perfect proportion between cost, region, and the cards we'll discard, we completely forgot about Salvaged Scrap.

Really, this invitation is incredibly discreet - so discreet that it went by unnoticed.

This card was released in the Worldwalker expansion, and, as we've already discussed, this expansion was one of the worst for Piltover & Zaun in terms of card diversity - they're either great, or terrible. And Discreet Invitation is terrible.

This spell has some interesting flavor: it represents a scenario in which you use a fake ticket (and this ticket is Discreet Invitation) to see Chempunk Shredder's concert dressed as Shady Character.

Even though it has an interesting "flavor", this card is unplayable simply because it is a relatively expensive spell that creates expensive followers with mediocre effects.

The problem with this spell is that it can be created randomly through Seraphine, so many of you have probably already seen it in your hand because of this. However, let's all consider only the intention of adding this card to your deck. I doubt any player ever thought about using this spell in their list.

You must always use at least 5 mana to summon the cheapest card in this spell, and 6 to summon the most expensive card. And none of these units are great or usable.

When you create a spell that creates useless cards, this spell is more useless than the cards it generates, and that is precisely what Discreet Invitation is.

This card focused only on its flavor, and the joke about "crashing a concert", and its playable part was completely forgotten.

As usual, the first spot in these lists is chosen through this method: I look at my collection and choose the card that I (after playing 4 years professionally and also casting LoR tournaments) can't even remember what it does, and I usually ask myself if I have ever seen it in my life.

Our pick today was Coup de Grace, which I didn't even remember existed, much less remember what it does.

This spell shuffles an enemy follower in your opponent's deck, and then they draw a card.

The main issue with this spell is that Piltover & Zaun is the removal region, which means, there are millions of cards that remove other cards and are much better than Coup de Grace.

We can list Hexbliterator, for instance, which costs six mana, and is much more efficient, for instance.

This spell was released in the Beyond the Bandlewood expansion, with Caitlyn and Jayce, more specifically in Caitlyn's package.

The main idea behind Coup de Grace is to boost the synergy in Caitlyn's Flashbomb decks, and force your opponent to draw cards so they can draw more Flashbombs or Puffcaps. However, at this time, Puffcap decks were divided into lists with Freljord that Frostbit other cards, which means, they didn't remove units, just delayed the opponent's game plan, or decks with Bandle City that abused the combo with Corina, Mastermind, and focused on shuffling lots of Puffcaps and play Corina. No heavy removals.

This means these decks have never had this slower game style that lets you play a 5-mana spell that removes a single unit and makes your opponent draw a single card. Historically, these lists have always raced against time, trying their best to shuffle as much Puffcaps as they could to finally then force their opponent to draw all of them in a single turn, and not force them to draw cards gradually during the match.

Not to mention it is a 5-mana spell, and as a result, it couldn't be adapted into Jayce decks at the time, that always demanded spells that cost 6 or more.

Finally, this spell became obsolete in record time, and, as time went on, Puffcap lists evolved until they became something entirely different from what we had before, with a game strategy that focuses a lot more on an "Elusive Aggro" style. As a result, this "slow" game style disappeared (even during the Beyond the Bandlewood expansion), and so we forgot all about Coup de Grace.

If you read this far, thank you. I hope you had fun.

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See you next time!