Riftbound: Deck Tech - RAT Ezreal

Today, we'll show you how to play RAT Ezreal with Ezreal - Prodigal Explorer.

This is currently one of the strongest lists in the game because it plays an extremely consistent early game combo with Pit Crew (popularly known as "RAT") and a strong late game with blue finishers like Time Warp and Thousand-Tailed Watcher.

Before we begin, however, let me introduce myself. My name is Total, and I used to cast Legends of Runeterra tournaments professionally. I covered all the official tournaments, including Worlds, and I am known for creating deck guides for LoR as well. Now, I am a part of the Riftbound community!

Deck Code:

CMAAAAAAAAAACAQAABM2MAIAAABAIAAALNP3OAOMAEBQGACRPKDACAYDAAAHJNQBYAAQEAYAIJDACAYBSUAQGBAAAB5HXLABVABAMAYAQUAYQAOHAHEADUQB3UAQCAYBSUAQAAQCAMAIOAMRAEAQGAKVAEBAGACQSYAQCAYBSUAQ

The main idea behind this deck is to score points as quickly as possible by using your Pit Crew early on, and stacking resources in your hand and on your board. This way, you'll be able to set up an equally explosive late game with Time Warp or Thousand-Tailed Watcher.

To do that, you must equip Cull on your Pit Crew because this will allow you to create a Gold Gear Token whenever you conquer a battlefield. When you do this, you'll ready your Pit Crew so that you can return it to your base and keep playing your combo.

To support this strategy, this deck plays lots of card draw and tools that create Gears, such as Card Sharp and Wages of Pain, as well as Gears you can play directly from your hand.

You'll finish the game by conquering both battlefields in the same turn with your "RAT" and Thousand-Tailed Watcher, or by holding twice with Time Warp.

Ezreal Prodigal Explorer is in this list because of his colors. You won't activate his effect that often as you play, and it isn't too impactful depending on the matchup (against Irelia, for instance, it's definitely not that relevant).

Nonetheless, we'll soon see when we discuss battlefields that this deck in particular can use his effect much better because of the way one of its battlefields works.

Ezreal - Prodigy is one of the most consistent cards in the entire game. This list plays 3 copies of him so that you can draw as many cards as you possible. You simply must find your combo as fast as possible.

Hall of Legends is the battlefield we mentioned before, the one that can take advantage of Ezreal - Prodigy a bit better. Depending on the turn, after you target enemy units and Gears twice, you may activate your Legend's effect and try to conquer this battlefield. If you succeed, you may pay 1 energy and immediately activate your Legend's effect again to draw an extra card.

Depending on the board state, if your hand is good enough for the Pit Crew combo, you can activate this effect as often as you want. You only need to have enough energies to ready your Legend several times.

Void Gate helps you remove enemy units. This deck only deals 3 damage with its spells, but, with Void Gate, you'll kill units with 4 Might, like Kai'Sa, Noxus Hopeful, Nocturne - Horrifying, and enemy RATs. Usually, you'll leave this battlefield to the very last minute or for decks that use these cards.

Veiled Temple is great because it makes your combos consistent. It readies your Gold Gear Tokens and lets you play Seal of Discord during your Pit Crew combo without losing many resources.

Early Game

The main idea behind this list early on is to look for your Pit Crew and Cull, so you must mulligan after these cards and try to get card draw in your opening hand.

Do not play Seal of Discord or discard Scrapheap early on with your Ezreal. These Gears are part of this deck's main combo and will be extremely important to score points.

If you have Pit Crew and Cull in turn 2, you can already start playing your combo. Ready your RAT, conquer a battlefield with it, then return it to the base. Don't forget that you must always play Pit Crew before Cull.

Card Sharp is part of this combo and should always come into play first to ready RAT.

Mid Game

Use Stupefy, Frigid Touch, and Wages of Pain (straight from your hand) to fight for battlefields, or open the way so that RAT can score points and win showdowns.

Use Hard Bargain to prevent the opponent from killing RAT. This is your only way to protect it against spells apart from Arcane Shift. However, you shouldn't use Arcane Shift with RAT, and we'll show you why soon.

Mindsplitter comes in at this time and gives you information about the opponent's hand. It will also let you discard any cards, particularly win conditions, they may have.

End Game

To finish, use Thousand-Tailed Watcher and conquer two battlefields at once. Play Arcane Shift to put Watcher in play again and prevent the opponent from defending themselves, as it will nerf their Might considerably.

This combo might be expensive (12 energies and 4 Power to Accelerate twice), but it wins the game on the spot and completely destroys the opponent's defenses.

Time Warp comes in as your last resource. It lets you conquer twice and finish the game.

This deck has an advantage against practically everything in the meta. However, against Kai'Sa or any red deck with removals that deal 4 damage or more to Pit Crew, it usually struggles a lot.

Overall, whether your opponent can or can't remove your RAT is crucial.

Against Draven, it's a toss-up. They might play removals to deal with this deck. In the worst-case scenario, they do, and you won't be able to play all that well. In the best-case scenario, they don't play removals and you'll dominate the early game. However, you tend to lose control after they put one or more Rhasa in play.

Against Annie, you'll also struggle because they might play removals. If they don't, it's the same as we mentioned above because these lists are in similar colors.

The rest of the meta can't really prevent your combo unless they dominate both battlefields and defend both, which is rare.

To avoid risky battles, always play RAT on a free battlefield or save a few spells to protect it.

If you follow these tips, this deck will dominate most matches.

Factory Recall is useful against Irelia and any other deck that centers around equipment cards.

Ornn - Forge God works as a win condition against Kai'Sa. It is too big for Kai'Sa lists, and they can't remove him. Your deck, in this case, becomes a holding list with him. Don't waste Gold Gear Tokens: use them to make Ornn gigantic.

Switcheroo is ideal against Irelia and orange lists, as it protects your win conditions in the mid to late game.

Bellows Breath removes important units with 2 Might, like Traveling Merchant and Poros.

Last Rites helps a lot against Kai'Sa because it lets you put pressure on them and revives RAT.

Unchecked Power is the best anti-Draven option in the game. Use it to clear the board after the opponent plays all their Rhasa at once.

If you read this far, thank you! I hope you had fun and enjoyed reading this article.

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See you next time!