Runeterra Deck: Stunning Steel Patch 1.8

Overview: This deck is just a theorycraft and idea I came up with myself. I am by no means a vastly experienced deckbuilder. This format might be wonky and I apologize beforehand , but improvements will be made. The goal of this deck is to play the daybreak archetype with a splash of Ionia for Yasuo. Yasuo in my opinion is a better deck in Noxus still due to having options like Swain, Katarina, and the minotaurs. Still with such a strong emphasis on stun it would be a shame to not run Yasuo and Fae bladetwirler. This is why we aren't using concussive palm for the time being.We aren't focused on protecting our cards as much outside deny for board wipes.We win through getting rid of our opponents blockers with stun or our Invoke toolbox and dealing combat damage.The below is a guideline I made for myself when testing the deck. I'll update it as I gain experience and the meta unfolds. I will add a changelog and update as needed.


IMPORTANT: I will transfer this wall of text to a pastebin and archive it at some point. As the meta unravels itself the deck will have to be refined multiple times. If my changes don't make sense to you or you have success with another card please follow your mind.
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CHANGELOG- See update section at the bottom for more details :)

[1.0.1] - 2020-08-26
### Additions - 3x Young witch, 3x concussive palm, 1x Zenith blade, 1x more Solari Shieldbearer
### Removed - 2x Will of Ionia, 3x Shadow Assassin, 3x Fae bladetwirler

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Early game - The two MVPs in this deck are spacey sketcher and the Solari Priestess giving us incredible flexibility Spacey Sketcher can grab a variety of cards with a decent mix of utility. The serpent is one of the best picks as you get to establish a strong board turn 1 with a 2/1 challenger which can give you early game board control. The messenger AKA the good doggo cycles for us and plays on a curve. The charger is the worst due to it's linear usage as a 4/1 overwhelm and the Trickster is a solid unit but we have a lot of good cards to play on turn 3. Despite the flexibility of her invoke card pool we don't really want to rely on her in every case. Solari Soldier comes in at 2/2 with a +1/1 buff with his daybreak, providing a good deterrent to aggro decks while pressuring control. Solari Shieldbearer is a wall against powerful threats at anypoint of the game. Do not just play her on curve against aggro deck ,try to combine her with steel tempest to stop their closing play. Fae bladetwirler and stun decks go together like peanut butter and jelly. She provides little to the deck herself but with the zenith blade becomes a nightmare to the opponent. She is our early game threat which until answered can wreak havoc once she gets a few buffs plus overwhelm. Speaking of our turn 3 play Solari Priestess also fixes our curve and provides access to our threats or answers to our opponents. We only want to avoid the Golden Sister early on due to how weak the pair is EXCEPT for elusive aggro matchups. For some reason riot designed these sisters to counter that archetype by granting lifesteal and an elusive blocker. The best card for us is Written in Stars even if we have Yasuo or Leona already in our hand. We buff the champion drawn and discount the cost which is nice for Yasuo as it extends his threat range when leveled up to kill just about anything. Leona becomes insanely hard to remove as a 6/8 and enables a large amount of combos. In addition our previous copies of the champion become their spells and in Yasuo's case allows us to play steel tempest. Leona's spell Morning Light is incredibly powerful and can end the game the following turn depending on the board state. The rest of the choices are situational but try to pick the best card for the curve and/or board state. "Comets" is a very powerful removal against decks that dig from the grave. Meteor shower can shut down aggro decks by potentially killing two units or setting up a good block. The Traveler is difficult to evaluate as a choice because he has an invoke with no range control. He can help with card advantage in a pinch or when top decking if you don't have the sisters in your options.

The Mid Game - The early game involved a lot of invoke synergy alongside our daybreak which made it seem more complicated than it really is. The midgame is where we start to become scary for our opponent(hopefully). We want to have Leona by turn 4 to play Rahvun right after her to set up our cascade of daybreak effects. Yasuo is best not played immediately without any support. Try to hold on to him until your opponent cannot respond with an immediate answer. Yasuo is enhanced by Leona and vice versa, but don't get too caught up with playing the combo. Leona can get rid of blockers with her stun and playing Morning Light with an established board can be our win condition. The plan here is to keep our board alive for this chance to deal massive damage if we don't end it outright. This is when the Zenith blade comes into play, giving us multiple overwhelms when used with daybreak.

The Late Game - With the addition of powerful late game cards like Dragons from Targon the late game is not going to serve us well. Yasuo is a must have on the board to chip away at larger enemies and kill off smaller ones. This is where variance in the deck between Yone and Mindsplitter. Yone can be played in response to punish development while Mindsplitter locks down two cards. I decided that Mindsplitter is worth the extra mana and inability to respond to threats. Yone can win games or delay the inevitable but his shortcoming is the statline. Mindsplitter does both jobs slower ,but his higher stats with the repeatable effect can break the stalemate. The fact this big dragon has fury means he can be chump blocked quite a few times and it does not matter too much, stick a zenith blade on him for game. Yasuo becomes a cheat engine here by killing units at blazing speeds with Mindsplitter or combo with Leona.

Update: Young witch has been working as a great turn 2 play and even more so when we attack on odds. Playing her on turn 2 safely if possible and attacking with a quick attack + 1 follower. Solari Soldiers and The Serpent ( a celestial card that you may get from sketcher). Fae bladetwirler has potential, but we need results faster than she can provide. We want to curve out and she doesn't play too well with our curve. In a Noxus/Ionia deck there are plenty of 1 to 3 drop stuns to use to ramp her up early. In Ionia/Targo however we only run steel tempest and Concussive palm. This deck CAN produce more stuns than Noxus with some daybreak spam but it also can fall short. At the very least young witch is elusive thus making her a great target for zenith blade. Despite all of the positives she is still more fragile than fae bladetwirler and if the meta becomes very ping heavy she will be replaced for whatever 2 drop fits the meta. Next concussive palm was added to help with the aggro decks breathing down our necks. Will of Ionia was removed due to the heavy cost and Solari priestess being such a game changing toolbox. If we need it dead we can hope for either the 6 cost obliterate or the 5 cost 4 damage and 1 ping to another enemy. These 2 cards come at next to no deck cost and with the addition of spellshields is a big deal now. One more note in that Mindsplitter gets around spellshields with his ability so you CAN stun Aurelion Sol giving him an edge on Yone . It's slower than Yone but your blocker is a 8/8 that if he survives gains 1/1! This actually doubles his health in cases where he is blocked by 2 attack creatues.