Runeterra Deck: Katarina Bilgewater Patch 6.4

An assassin style deck to kill enemy units fast with with Noxian single-target-dmg. Katarina is a mobilize/double-attack-card and double-attacks are good with “Quick Attack”, so the main combo consists of single target dmg to kill key-units and then attack often with “Quick Attack”. The Bilgewater cards provide defense and draw cards (Tentacles), and also more mobilize and Aoe-dmg (Make it Rain).
Lore: The Lore is probably Katarina being in Bilgewater, but the Noxus-theme in general brings Assassin-style-dmg to the more chaotic Bilgewater.
Tags: midgame-build-up, spell-dmg, quick-attack, combo


“Quick Attack” Units:
2 * Annie (1): no real “Quick Attack”, but good synergy because the 2 dmg work similar.
1 * Legion Drummer (3): Gives other units “Quick Attack”, good but dies fast, becomes much stronger in lategame with 4-8-atk units.
1* Arena Kingpin (3): Cheap 4/2-”Quick Attack”-unit

1 * Katarina (3): One of the strongest mobilize-cards in the game. The downside is, you have to call her back and then you don’t have enough units, so it's not possible to play more than 1 Katarina except in very specialized call-back-spam-decks.

3 * Draven (3): It’s always best to play him fast and attack as fast as you can, he is the strongest "Quick Attack” unit in the deck, and it’s easy to evolve him, and counterattack with him.
Tips:
-He has to “strike “ 2 times with an Axe used on him, this means, you can equip only 1 Axe, but then use “Whirling Death” in battle on one unit, then you will evolve with the second strike. You can also use 2 * “Whirling Death" for example when the enemy is attacking, but it’s more expensive. To normally evolve him you can either wait for 4 axes, and then equip 2 at once and evolve with 1 strike, or you can attack with 1 axe and wait for next time. You should never discard a hand-card (except Katarina's free-spell), but if you have to do this, it can be a surprising all-in-kill-combo, because you get more dmg than normally expected.


“Double Attack” Cards:
No “mobilize”-spam, because it just has a simple synergy with “Quick Attack”, but you are not dependent on it. It’s more important that you are able to combo the mobilize as much as possible, so only a few but strong mobilize cards.

1 * Katarina (3): Strongest and cheapest Double-attack-card from Noxus/Bilgewater. It’s of course important to have other units together with Katarina, or otherwise you can not use the double attack which is her main-strength and the reason to play her.
Tips:
-She has “Quick attack” and gets called back after 1 hit, this means you can safely hit a 4/8-unit for example because you do the first hit. The opponent will get 3 dmg, and can’t attack Katarina back, because she gets called back immediately after the hit. This does not work if the enemy also has “Quick Attack”
-You have to plan the mana with her for 2 rounds minimum. When you play her you maybe want to make use of the free 1-dmg-spell, and you will need 4 mana in the opponent’s turn to to mobilize-attack, the 1-dmg is free for 0-mana then when evolved.
-The double attacks are very efficient with Draven, other “Quick Attack”-units, or “Battering Ram”, so try to wait for a good mobilize-synergy, but it can be efficient at any time to overrun the enemy fast.

1 * Ruined Reckoner (4): Gives you 1 free attack, good on Draven and some others, but Katarinas mobilize works for all units and is still stronger. It wouldn't be good to draw 2 of it, for maximum combo-possibilities with other cards, istead of with the same card itself.

1 * Citrus Courier (6): One of the strongest mobilize-cards, that also heals the whole army, but only works with plunder, so you have to prepare it with spell-dmg or with attacking first but save 6 mana for it.


“Tentacle”-Cards (draw/defend):
With “Quick Attack” you need some efficient defense, to not waste you attackers for blocking. No Illaoi, because she needs more heavy Tentacle-Support, the Tentacles work really good as a draw/Defense-System if the synergy is good enough with other cards.

1 * Eye of God (2): a Free 2/2-Tentacle with every attack, so a must-have for double-attack-decks if you don’t already have defense.
1 * Tentacle Smash (3): Good synergy with other spell-dmg-cards, and can of course do a lot of kill-dmg if you already have a Tentacle. In the start it can be used on 0/1-atk enemies to kill one and also get a Blocker because it survives then, otherwise you can save it until you need it or can combo it.
2 * The Sea’s Voice (3): Free 1/1 with every attack, not op without full Tentacle-support, but a very strong 3/3-defense-unit when you just need the extra 1/1-units and also attack often.

2 * Eye of Nagakabouros (5): Best draw card to get for the Noxus/Bilgewater-theme, that also supports the Defense for this deck. It works better than “Dedicant of the Challenge (4)”, because putting your hand in the deck has bad synergy with Draven's axes, or Katarina's call-back. Very often the opponent will just wait a round in midgame, because waiting gives you the reaction-advantage, and many try to play and win with this only. 5 Mana are not that cheap, but there are very often situations where you have the mana left for 1 or 2 rounds, and then you can snowball hard after that, if you find the right time-spot. When the enemy waits for you to play your units, so that he can play his “mega-kill-card” to make all your 3 cards wasted, then it’s perfect to play the draw card instead, so he has to play a card and you can react again.


Spell-dmg, Spell-dmg-support:
The Deck has a focus on spell-dmg, for assassin-style kill-dmg, to be able to free-attack again after you assassinated the strong blockers.

1 * FormlessBlade (1): Very strong for “Quick Attack”, because you can use it in battle to win with 3/3 against 3/5 for example, or you can combo it and play it with “Make it rain” to kill a 3-def-unit. It’s combo-based-dmg and so it’s best to have only 1 in this deck, and use the other spells more heavily.

3 * Ravenous Flock (1): The strongest Kill-spell, only Noxus has this 4-dmg-version for 1 mana. The enemies have to be wounded, so 3 * “Make it Rain” is the obvious combo for it, but also good with all other cards or with double attacks, Annie can also stun when evolved.

3 * Make it Rain (2): Only Bilgewater has this 3*1-dmg-Aoe-dmg. Combined with the strongest single target-dmg of Noxus the deck becomes very kill-heavy.

1 * Disintegrate (2): simple one-hit-kill, but as a combo-card you want to draw it as much as possible together with other cards and not 2 times, but with Annie's Champion spell you can get a second one.

1 * Pirouette (3): Becomes a 1 mana card with Plunder, so usable with double-attacks, or with “Make it Rain”, or with “Katarina's 1-dmg-spell”. It’s a combo card, so only possible to play it one time, but then it’s very efficient to use it in the right moment.

1 * Tentacle Smash (3): Not as cheap as other cards, but high combo-potential with tentacle-support, and can give you a blocker against 0/1-atk.units.

3 * Whirling Death (3): All “Strike”-spells are really powerful in Legends of runeterra, and there exist a lot of decks which only play a “troll-combo” that is only about strike-spells, in the sense that the champions only become side-figures without a meaning anymore, because you could do this combo with every unit in the game and win. Noxus has one of the strongest strike-spells for only 3 mana, and with 3 Dravens you can get up to 5. In this deck it’s more a defense-synergy you can use when the enemy is attacking, and not a 30-card-support-troll-combo, so it’s very strong, but still fair, fun and strategy-heavy. With Draven it’s especially good, because you can buff Draven’s atk with axes, and then kill everyone with less def, and he also evolves faster then. With Katarina it’s not so good, because she gets called back when you do it, but you can discard her free-1-dmg-spell which is a good synergy with Dravens Axes again. Having this, means you don’t need to buff def anymore, you can just buff atk, and then “block” with it, which saves a ressources and is really op.

2 * Zap Sprayfin (4): A draw card that is only efficient when you play around spell-combos that are always usable, and kill-dmg is of course always combinable, so it’s a very usable draw-card with a Bilgewater/Noxus-theme. It can provide a “plunder”-trigger as elusive and helps with mana with “attune”

1 * Riptide Rex (8): Best Lategame-dmg


Other strong cards:
1 * The Darkin Ballista (1): Good Equipment if you already have “Quick Attack”. Becomes a strong def- or kill-unit in lategame.
2 * Jagged Butcher (2): Strong lvl-1-unit, only 2 because you have to activate plunder, and it’s not a pure plunder-only-deck
1 * Fortune Croaker (2): Draw Card for better game-speed, it works better than “Grave Physician” (2), because you don’t have to discard a card, and often you don’t need def, because you only attack anyway.
2 * Marai warden (2): Cheapest double-spawn def unit.
1 * The Darkin Harpoon (2): Good draw-equipment, good lategeme-unit for 9 mana
1 * Buhru Lookout (5): For 5 mana it’s a really good double-spawn-def-unit, sometimes you can combo it with other tentacle-cards, but the main use is defense, so it’s always a good addition.
2 * Battering Ram (6): Two times, because it’s very efficient with double-attacks, and it also has 12 def. You can’t put it 3 times in the deck, but the synergy is really good and it’s the best lategame-unit you can always use to snowball.