Legends of Runeterra

Deck Guide

Deck Tech: Nami Twisted Fate, stand as a proud tide caller!

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An amazing list that showed up recently, it holds off pretty good in the early game and finishes with big units and a lot of value, countering many meta decks.

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revised by Tabata Marques

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Why Twisted Fate and Nami

Twisted Fate is a jack of all trades, but the list is actually Nami’s.

If you build a deck that brings only one champion and you’re in Bilgewater, you can put Twisted Fate in it with your eyes closed, as he is a “toolbox”.

This list is focused on bringing a leveled Nami on board and starting to share +2/+1 markers to your allies. I honestly didn’t like the Targon version with Zoe very much, because it was a vulnerable and slow list.

This new version has uncountable ways of controlling the board. From Vile Feast for small units, to The Ruination for big armies. Basically it is a deck that will play in a control style, preventing the opponent’s advances — and instead of finishing the game with Burn, you go for straight on endless attacks, alongside Nami’s friends.

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Twisted Fate’s and Nami’s strength

Control decks usually play by defending themselves with removals and small blockers. Here, beside removals, we can’t say that their blockers are small, as Nami can make them insanely massive.

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Honestly it’s one of the most well-rounded lists, in my opinion, as we take spells that summon units to block in the early turns, we can get nice value out of Tentacle Smash, and with so many spells, eventually we have Wiggly Burblefish costing 0, creating a spell in hand and making your opponent quite uncomfortable in the match.

To finish up, we have the deck that best uses The Harrowing, since the units that are brought back, will create cards in hand and refill spell mana, because most have Attune.

General View of the Deck

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As usual, I always tend to favor and talk more about reactive decks which can stall games and finish in a big style. This deck is no different.

This list has all the tools you will ever need. We have landmark removal, spells that create spells, units that create spells, small removals, big removals, small blockers, big threats and lots of card draw.

This is kinda the theme of Bilgewater: you can have everything you want, but do you have the courage and wisdom necessary to take risks at the right times and bring the whole treasure home?!

Champion

Nami

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Let’s start with this list’s protagonist. Nami doesn’t need to be on board to level up and it is basically a crime to drop her too early on board. Your objective is to get the most value out of her, as you won’t have big threats before you drop her on board, so be aware that your opponent will hold all their shots for her.

Nami requires you to refill 8 Spell mana. The secret is not summoning units early and start using spells on round number 3, this way you get spell mana as you pass rounds and, on the third round, Double Trouble will be your golden spell, offering you two units and emptying your spell mana only. This way, Nami can be summoned on round 5 already at level 2. Keep in mind that the keyword “Attune” counts for this champion’s level up.

On level 2, however, your focus is to play as many spells as possible so you can grow your units and deal a lot of damage, and it is here that as we say in portuguese, “the son cries and the mother doesn’t see it”. The amount of missplays that happen at this moment is uncountable. A lot of times you will have lethal in hand, but if you’re not careful, you will let it slip through your hands — but it happens, it’s part of the learning process, so don’t ever give up!

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Twisted Fate

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There I go talking about Twisted Fate again. Ok, I admit, maybe I like him too much. As I commented, he is a jack of all trades, all cards are welcome; keep in mind that Blue Card has extra synergy with our other champion, as it refills 1 spell mana.

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Use him to gain tempo and get Nami summoned well — always keeping in mind that she is well summoned at turn 5 if you get good draws and use your spell mana correctly.

Curving like a good in this way, Nami will start to buff the crew and one of them will be Twisted Fate himself. If he becomes a 6/4, he will hardly be removed and every attack will be greatly impactful.

As we can grow TF and bring lots of card draw, he easily flips under our opponent’s nose and then you already know how it ends, right?

“Flipped TF, LP collected!”

For those who don’t know it, every time you play a card, TF will cast one of his too, always in the order BLUE -> RED -> YELLOW. It is quite easy to cast all TF cards in this deck, as you create many 1 cost spells in hand.

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Units

Probably the most difficult units to play in all of LoR. Because you need to spare spell mana, as you want to avoid using unit mana and many times you have a full spell mana bank, if a unit with Attune is summoned, you won’t get the 1 mana it brings. Because of that, plan your plays very well.

Coral Creatures

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It’s a unit that goes well with Nami, as it has a good body to be buffed (she likes units with low power and high health stats).

Quite simple, it creates a 1 cost spell and refills 1 spell mana. The lurker spell it creates puts a Snapjaw Swarm on the top of your deck, you will be stuck IN CASE YOU PLAY IT, it is only worth it in case you will win with your attack, otherwise you will have to conform with a horrible Snapjaw Swarm topdeck.

Zap Sprayfin

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As our friend Coral Creatures it will refill your spell mana and give you a spell in hand, and at least it is a spell from our deck, so probably you will get something good. Zap Sprayfin helps both our champions level ups’, what a based unit.

Its real strength is his ELUSIVE power, and if he is boosted by Nami, he can hit even harder and even find lethal.

Wiggly Burblefish

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It is the crew’s main sailor, it gets its mana cost discounted by 1 for each spell that you cast in the game, it rapidly gets to 0 cost and every time it is summoned it creates a 1 cost spell in your hand.

We have Fading Memories in this list precisely to copy a Burblefish, keeping on with the elusive offensive and in the 1 cost spell card creation.

Fleet Admiral Shelly

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A Gangplank enemy coming directly from the Navy, Fleet Admiral Shelly comes to show you with how many spells you can build an army of elusives.

She is the deck’s big gun, with her effect of “when you play 2 spells each round, grant other allies +1/+1”, basically all followers will give you 1 cost spells and who gets the most out of this is this Admiral.

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Spells

Here the list is vast. We’ll go by speed order.

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Burst Spells

Fading Memories

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ZERO mana, copies a follower in hand. It is to be used later in Wiggly Burblefish, but nothing prevents you from being creative and stealing some opponent’s unit to help you on the offensive or on the defensive.

Shadow Isles Tellstones

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A recently buffed card, it was already excellent, it is now peaking. The three spells are usable, so let’s talk about each one.

Mark of the Isles - 1 mana, grants ephemeral and +2/+2 to a unit, and with Nami and Fleet Admiral Shelly on board, basically for 2 mana, you will be granting +1/+1 to your whole board, +4/+2 with Nami and still granting +2/+2 and ephemeral with the mark on someone. Usually the lethals come through this card right there.

Spirit Journey - is probably the least used card. As the unit dies and comes back, you can prevent it from attacking, allowing you to protect one of your units.

The best use is to make a big opponent unit come back to its initial status, for instance, Illaoi’s Tentacle is a 1 mana 1/1 and grows each time you swarm, if you use Spirit Journey, it dies and comes back as a 1/1.

Crumble is our landmark destroyer. You can also use it to slay units, and as you need to summon many small units, sacrificing one of them to stop another bigger unit is quite chill. Again, be creative.

Eye of Nagakabouros

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A new spell that came on top. For 5 mana, drawing 2 and still putting a 2/2 unit at burst speed on board is quite strong, you get a sudden blocker in the middle of an attack and this list synergizes with units a lot, so having units that draw cards is essential.

Fast Spells

Vile Feast

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Ever since beta, it is one of the best cards for control decks. For 2 mana, it drains 1 and still creates a 1/1 blocker on board, it is a lot happening for just 2 mana.

There isn’t much to say, you are summoning units using a spell, which is excellent for the list.

Simple and efficient.

Glimpse Beyond

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It was also, since beta, one of the best card draws. As the game is very much about combat and units, your board is always under constant threat, so you just sacrifice your threatened unit and draw your two cards.

As Vile Feast, simple and efficient.

Vengeance

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A recently buffed card, spending 6 mana to kill anything is quite important, mostly in a Viego and Bard meta.

Slow Spells

Answered Prayer

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A decent spell to make sure you won’t brick on round 3.

It has a different effect in case you want to spend more mana to create an even bigger unit.

Double Trouble

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One of the deck’s main spells, as it summons two units and makes you spend all your spell mana, helping out Nami’s level up a lot.

Tentacle Smash

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Another excellent new spell on this list, for 4 mana you summon a 3/3 tentacle and it strikes the targeted unit, that is, beside getting a unit, it serves as removal.

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The Ruination

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The famous reset button, if your opponent is playing a Midrange Demacia list, which usually doesn’t have card draw and needs to work with what it got on board.

The Ruination is a good tool. I even don’t mulligan it away when I’m against these midranges that don’t draw cards.

The Harrowing

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For 9 mana, it revives your strongest units. Unfortunately your units are quite small,so usually you revive 2 Namis, 1 Fleet Admiral Shelly and some Wiggly Burblefish.

The cool thing is that most of your units refill spell mana and others create spells in your hand, this way if you use them efficiently, you can easily find an elusive lethal.

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Gameplay

Game Style and Mulligan

If you’re fighting against aggressive decks you can throw a party, because it will be an easy match. Throw your strategy to the ground and do everything you can to clean your opponent’s board, while you keep your Nexus points full.

Against any other decks that don’t suffocate you early, your plan will be to spare mana on the first few rounds and play a spell close to 3 mana, in the best situation it will be Double Trouble.

Go on summoning units using your Spell mana, until you eventually summon Nami at level 2. You can be sure that your Nami will be shot down the second she is summoned, so use your spells well to buff some of your units meanwhile. The same goes for Fleet Admiral Shelly.

In case you lose all Namis, don’t lose your head. The Harrowing will bring them all back and each spell is +6/+3 for spell cast!

Favorable Matchups

Annie Ezreal

Though this list comes well prepared with removals, it simply can’t take The Harrowing. It’s too many units at once, it is impossible for Noxus or Piltover to deal with.

Tentacle Smash crushes Ezreal and Annie, as their power is quite low.

Play your game and let your opponent deal with it. Keeping The Harrowing on your initial hand is quite interesting.

Lurk

As always, the lists I write about here are hated by lurk decks. We have all the resources to deal with each unit and even put on units bigger than lurkers themselves.

Keep Twisted Fate or a Vengeance for Rek’sai, this one can’t attack under any circumstances.

There’s no secret, avoid the attacks, remove units and collect the POINTS.

Aphelios Vi Zoe

Dangerous list, but it needs to fill out the board with small units and in the end finish it up with The Winding Light, and it is only summoned on round 7, after one Nightfall, you can keep The Ruination on your initial hand, as it will be a blast on the round that The Winding Light comes to wreck havoc.

Aphelios is another dangerous thing on this deck, but nothing a Tentacle Smash can’t deal with.

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Frozen Thralls

As with Sundisk, it is dependable on landmarks.

Our list has Shadow Isles Tellstones, which gives you a Crumble, so break their landmark and it’s GG.

It goes without saying that Frozen Thralls are big units and Nami can prepare a big unit to face them too.

Unfavorable Matchups

Twisted Fate and Annie

We have an article on this list. The catch is similar to Ezreal, but Bilgewater makes all the difference in this matchup.

The list is a lot more aggressive than Piltover’s and deals easily with our The Harrowing, with a Red Card Twisted Fate, already buffed by Tybaulk, or even Riptide Rex, which now with its latest buff is quite powerful.

Ahri Bard

A midrange list, with the goal of hitting a lot with elusives.

It has too many protections and removals. It is quite hard to keep a strong unit on board and deal with the elusive units. Play for the interactions and try to remove your opponent’s board.

Lux Jayce

This deck removes our threats really well and Lux is simply too beefy for us. The only removal that deals with her well is Vengeance itself, and even then we’re still one mana in disadvantage.

Your The Ruination will make the difference in this matchup, as Demacia cries to this type of removals.

Changes

Well, I wasn’t the creator behind this list and all versions have come exactly the same.

I played it a bunch of times and found it pretty perfect.

I simply love Tentacle Smash, which besides removing summons a unit, so I would take 3 for consistency.

Final Thoughts

Simply a very powerful and coherent list, I can’t imagine any nerf to it, just buffs.

Very powerful, but very hard. I caught myself making a million wrong plays and losing won games because I missed some interaction. I recommend you watch this deck’s gameplay.

I recommend this deck heavily if you already play Runeterra and feel like you can take on a bigger challenge!