How to play : LeBlanc Deceiver

The loop to learn first runs through LeBlanc, Fragmented. She is your chosen champion, so she waits in the Champion Zone for 3 energy and 1 Order power. Hold a battlefield where she stands, discard a card, and the legend copies her. The copy dies at the start of your next Beginning Phase, and her Deathknell draws one card, or two during your Beginning Phase: so the copy draws you two, and four with Karthus, Eternal on the board. Your Awaken Phase has already readied the legend, so if you still hold that battlefield when the points are scored a moment later, the next copy arrives at once.

Everything else feeds that loop or wins with it. The cheap Deathknell units refund themselves when they die: Watchful Sentry draws a card, Soaring Scout and Black Rose Dignitary channel a rune exhausted, and Honest Broker leaves a Gold token you can later cash in for 1 power of any domain. Those runes carry you to the top of the curve: sixteen units with 5 might or more, from Vi, Peacekeeper to Rift Herald. Karthus, Eternal doubles all of it: while he is on the board, a Sentry draws two, a Scout channels two runes and a Ruined Rex deals 4 twice.

You draw four and may send back up to two. Keep the two-energy units: Watchful Sentry, Soaring Scout and Honest Broker need no power, so any rune pays for them, and your first turn is played on two runes (three if you go second). Karthus, Eternal and Black Rose Dignitary, at 3 energy, are keeps too. The hand we want holds two cheap units and Karthus: bodies for the battlefields early, and the card that makes each of their deaths count twice.

Send back the top of the curve first: Harnessed Dragon and Rift Herald cost 8 energy, and the Dragon also takes 2 Order power. Ruined Rex and Thousand-Tailed Watcher can stay next to two cheap units, never in their place, and Mirror Image does nothing until there is a unit worth copying. Never mulligan to find LeBlanc, Fragmented: she is already waiting in the Champion Zone.

Your early units are not there to win fights: they are there to die usefully, so attack and defend with them freely. Black Rose Dignitary has Assault and attacks with 3 might, and like Soaring Scout it channels a rune when it dies. Those runes arrive exhausted, so their energy waits for your next turn, but each one brings Ruined Rex and Glasc Mixologist closer. Keep Honest Broker’s Gold for Mind power: only four of your twelve runes are Mind, and Ruined Rex and Thousand-Tailed Watcher both ask for it.

Play LeBlanc, Fragmented early and walk her to a battlefield with company. The legend copies another unit at the battlefield you conquered or held, so what stands there decides what you get: beside LeBlanc, a second LeBlanc that draws two when it dies at your next Beginning Phase; beside a Watchful Sentry, a Sentry that draws one. The copy arrives ready, and at Windswept Hillock, where units have Ganking, it can move straight on to the other battlefield. Never leave it alone where you mean to hold, though: it dies before scoring, and with no unit of yours left there, that battlefield is no longer yours to score.

Sequence your deaths. Play Karthus, Eternal before you kill anything on purpose: every Deathknell after him triggers an additional time. Glasc Mixologist shows why. Its Deathknell plays a unit costing up to 3 energy and 1 power from your trash, ignoring its cost, and with Karthus out it plays two. The same card tells you what to discard to the legend: a spare Karthus or a Black Rose Dignitary, because the Mixologist can play it back from the trash, and it brings back LeBlanc, Fragmented the same way if she has died.

Baited Hook climbs the might ladder. For 1 energy, 1 Order power and an exhaust, it kills a friendly unit; you then look at your top five cards and may play, free, a unit with up to 1 more might than the one you killed. Kill a 5 (Vi, Peacekeeper or Glasc Mixologist) to find a 6: Ruined Rex, or Harnessed Dragon, whose play effect still kills an enemy unit. Kill a 6 to find a 7: Rift Herald, or Thousand-Tailed Watcher, which gives every enemy unit -3 might this turn as it arrives, never below 1. The best bait is a Reflection, which dies at your next Beginning Phase anyway: you get its Deathknell now and a bigger unit for free.

Sacrifice and Deathgrip are Reactions, so a unit that is about to die can die on your terms instead. When their removal targets your Ruined Rex, answer with Sacrifice for 1 energy: the Rex dies as Sacrifice’s additional cost, you draw two and channel a rune, the Rex’s Deathknell still deals 4 to an enemy unit, and their spell finds nothing left to kill. Sacrifice needs a Mighty unit, one with 5 might or more. Deathgrip, for 2 energy, kills any friendly unit to give another friendly unit that much might this turn, then draws one: in a showdown, the Rex’s 6 might goes to the unit that has to win, and its 4 damage still lands. Keep 1 or 2 energy open on their turn.

Mirror Image copies any unit, theirs included, for 3 energy and 2 power: a ready Reflection at your base until your next Beginning Phase. A Reflection never gets the copied card’s play effects (its own token text says so), so copy for the body and the Deathknell. A copy of your Rift Herald looks at your top three and may draw a unit from them each time it moves to a battlefield, then, as it dies, plays a unit from your hand to your base without paying its energy (you still pay its power). Hidden Blade kills any unit at a battlefield, whatever its might, and its controller draws two. Hide it at a battlefield you control for 1 power and, from the next turn on, the opponent’s included, it costs 0 energy as a Reaction; aim it at your own Reflection and the two cards are yours, on top of its Deathknell.