Runeterra Deck: Jinx Aggro Patch 6.4

Classic Jinx deck with Zaun support cards. It works around the Zaun-draw-system with discard-summons together with Demacia-buffs to make the early game-rush as strong as possible. It spams units with the Zaun cards, and buffs them with Demacia cards for an explosive attack power with low-mana-units. It works with “Direct Attack” and “Challenger” and has a lot of draw power.
Tags: Early-game-rush, Buffs, Draw-power, Combo

Meta:
All rush decks are good and win in pvp, even off-meta-decks when the rush works. Buffs in general are not the strongest in meta. I think Freljord, which only buffs, is the weakest region because of that, all other regions can kill or counter units, that you just buffed with 3 cards, and make your 3 cards useless with only 1 card. Ionia is maybe the strongest region because they have the counters. In general you have always an advantage by first waiting and then counter with 1 card, and Ionia is the only region with heavy support for this. But attacking with a whole army in the first rounds can still win at any time, just know, that buffing in general is not meta. Some decks wait 4 rounds or so, and have a lot of 5+ spells, they would win 100% in lategame, but very often they wait too long and you can just attack 2-3 times.

Rush-decks-Meta
Early-game-rush always beats build-up-decks that play for midgame. Midgame decks that build-up become very explosive with their 3-5-mana cards and always beat lategame-decks, because if they just wait, the midgame-combos can just one-hit you even with lategame cards. But lategame-decks, who play defensive only and only have counter-spells instead of units and play 10/10-units after 10 rounds, are the best counter against rush decks. So with rush you beat build-ups decks, and prevent their midgame-combos, but very defensive stall-decks will probably beat you. This is true in any game, “League of legends”, “Age of empires”, “Warcraft 3”, whatever you play. But in Lol for example it becomes quickly complicated because you usually have 2 rush-, 1 midgame- and 2 lategame-Champions in the team or so, but in 1v1-games it is really important and decides a lot of games. This will also never be balanced so that earlygame is as strong as midgame, devs might try while looking at the statistics, but earlygame will still have an unfair advantage over midgame and so on, you can't change that in 1v1-games, they could only soften it and give us more options to counter everything, etc.. Defensive decks like Braum/Soraka/Poros (meta), can win without fighting 1 real fight, so this is for example hard to beat since there will be no fight, high-mana cards and heavy-midgame combos would work better I think.

What is meta?:
All meta-decks in general work the same way, they only have 1 combo, or 1 key-champion, and 30 cards to support this combo. For example Jhin/Yasuo (meta) have stun-only in the deck and nothing else, Azir/irelia (strong meta) have "Sand Soldier attack"/"free-attack" in the first 1-4 rouns but maybe not a single other unit, so that the combo will always work that makes you win. This way you don't have to rely on luck and your draw-power, because you hopefully play 30 times the same card without a second combo. Draw-cards in general are op in every card game, in Yu-gi-oh for example the draw cards are limited or banned, because they were the most powerful cards. If your deck is combo-heavy and not built like this, with 1 combo only, then it is not meta. The problem is, that you don’t need any skill for these meta-decks, and it is also the most boring way of playing. To have a meta-player as an enemy is very boring for meta- and off-meta players, but everyone loves off-meta-opponents and all want them as opponents, because it’s 5-10 times more fun then and it works how the game was intended to be with a gameflow, fights, action, and counters. In Lol the enemies often spam hearts and gg, when you play off-meta, also when losing, because the first time they experienced this energy-loaded-action and strategy, but your team will probably insult you alot in the same time because they think off-meta lost it. That's why 1v1-games are much better for off-meta and strategy and smart thinking in general. You have to be much smarter and reorganize your planning every round with off-meta, players who only play meta are used to blind op-combo-playing and will have problems when they have to think the first time with a strategic off-meta deck. I explained the rush>midgame>lategame>rush principle here, so you understand that you are not bad when you lose against stalling, and you are not op when you win against build-up, this is like strengths/weaknesses in Pokemon, you just have to deal with it then, when you lose, it can happen that you are completely op in the next round.


Zaun-draw-system (16 cards):
-1* Jury-Rig (1): It’s bad more than 1 time. If not discard-summoned, you can use it with a fight, which can be a good alternative use. Wait for the attack, and when the fight already started you can summon it and also place it as a blocker, this can be useful.
-3* Zaunite Urchin (1): Can be played as last card without discarding, it just ignores the effect then.
-3 * Boom Baboon (2): Gives you “Flame Chompers!” and 2 units with 1 card, very efficient.
-2 * Flame Chompers! (2): Much better than “Jury-rig”, 0/2 with “Challenger”, this deck builds around them heavily, they get buffed fast, and you can give them “direct attack” with the equipment, and then either freekill all enemy units or defend your own attackers.
-3 * Maryam, Temple Caretaker (2): Best unit to play in earlygame, because of 2/3-stats. Without her the discard-draw-system wouldn’t work so good, with her you can change all cards you don’t need. Play her first and make your hand better, then play the discard combos if possible, after you blocked with her.
-3 * Sump Dredger (3): Can be played as last card without discarding, it just ignores the effect then.
-1 * Get Excited! (3): Extra-discard for 3 dmg. You get this spell anyway when you have Jinx and draw another as the Champion-spell. With Jinx all discard cards are good to clear the hand and level her, but it’s good in a lot of other situations too. Sometimes you have a “Flame Chomper!”, but can’t play it. It’s part of the draw-system to always be able to auto-summon the “Flame-Chompers!” and save mana with it for other cards.

Buff-Cards (8 cards):
-3 * Inspiring Light (2): Better the more units you have, wait for 3+ units if possible.
-1 * Dawnspeakers (3): also tanky 1/4 and pulls aggro because of the auto-buff
-1 * Lux:Illuminated (3): She has Barrier in every fight, and a +1/1 buff. very nice for “Flame-Chompers!”, you can make them 1/3 and kill a 1-life unit for free.
-1 * Poppy (4): A 4-mana-unit like jinx but without “direct attack”. She has the perfect buff for all, but you must be careful when you play her, sometimes maybe wait for challenger-units, or just play for a single-buff all-in to snowball from it. With Cataclysm everyone gets the buff a second time, but it doesn’t lvl her, because she has to attack with others for leveling.
-1 * Aberrant Mageseeker (5): “Challenger”, and buff for all
-1 * Dreamlight Alina (8): Best buff. “Lux: Illuminated” needs 20 total keywords while attacking, and this card gives you always 11 * Spirit-Stacks, as new units or for your existing unit.

Jinx:
Buffs are good with Jinx buffs in general, and draw-decks are good with her. With enough draw-power you can easily clear your hand and draw cards again for her ultimate. And buffs are good for “direct attack”-units. “Challenger” works well with "Direct attack“, because it protects the direct attack units, so that they have more attack than the enemy, or you use the “The Darkin Harp” to have “Challenger” and “Direct attack” at the same time, which is the strongest thing to have. You also need things like “Mystic shot” in battle to lower their life and freekill them then. The deck is designed to buff jinx as early as possible and attack rush attack as early as possible. Jinx is a “draw card” herself too, which works good with the Zaun-draw-system, you only have to lvl her to get 2 cards.
Tricks:
-Try not to play her in the start with 4 mana, wait a bit until you have more mana. And the moment you clear your hand is always a tiny all-in-maneuvre, because it is strong but also weakens you.
-Sometimes you can combo-clear you hand with “Maryam, Temple Caretaker” by getting spell mana, and then use it to cast a spell.

Other Strong cards:
-Swiftwing Flight: “Challenger”-Support (5 * “Flame Chompers!”, 1 * “Aberrant Mageseeker”, 1 * spawned card from the effect). “Blindig Assault/Valor” is typically the best spawn-option.
-Thermogenic Beam: Kills 3+ life-units, important to have one.
-Acorn, the Hextechnician: Saves you mana in earlygame, 1 mana more is very important for any rush deck in the start.
-Eager Apprentice: Saves you mana, stronger than “Acorn, the Hextechnician”, you can play “mystic shot” or “inspiring light" with only 2 initial mana, but only has 2/1 stats, so not more than one in the deck.
-”The Darkin Harp”: best on “Flame-Chompers!” with “Challenger” and buffs, but also good on any 2/1-unit. It’s even good for deffing with a 4/1-unit, and then equip it again.With 8 mana you can play it in lategame. This is very effective because you don’t have to put another 8-mana card in the deck. Then you can draw 2 cards, which alone is very good, and it also has “direct attack” as an 8/6-unit.
-Prismatic Barrier: good buff-support, counters a lot of kill-spells or buff-tricks in battle
-Cataklysm: Double attack for Poppy or any direct-attack unit. It often does 2-5 dmg, very similar to “Howling Gale”. It’s a must-have for any “direct attack”-deck
-Garen: Best Finisher-Card for Early-game Rush-decks. To lvl him is very easy, you only have to attack or block 2 times. Regeneration makes him very op. Once leveled you can attack twice with your buffed early-game army. After attacking, the enemy can only play 1 card in his round, then you can attack again.

Dmg-Spells:
These are important for “Direct attack”-units, to lower the enemies health, so that you can freekill them, best in battle, but outside of battle it’s cheaper.
-Mystic Shot: 2 dmg as fast in battle, best for “direct attack”.
-Howling Gale: Works good, because you can always play a 1-2 mana card before in a low-lvl-unit-deck, but to have or draw 2 would be bad.
-”Get Excited!”: Uses the Zaun-Draw-system to maybe spawn a “Flame-Chompers!”, and can clear the hand to level jinx.