Legends of Runeterra has finally released its newest expansion, Beyond the Bandlewood, and the set has both given players new Champions to use and revitalized already-established decks. While the expansion features cards supporting multiple playstyles, Beyond the Bandlewood has particularly brought viability back to control decks.
While some of the new Champions only shine in certain decks, others, like Nami and Senna, are incredibly versatile cards that can see success with several different deck partners. Knowing which combinations have risen to the top can help players save resources and quickly rise through the tiers of the new ranked season.
Veigar and Senna
Legends of Runeterra already had a non-Champion version of Senna, but this version comes with a slew of spell and darkness synergies that let her pair extremely well with Veigar.
Senna can generate darkness spells, accelerate slow spells to fast, and lower the cost of damage spells by one. Veigar makes these darkness spells even more potent by increasing their damage by one each round. With more darkness spell support from cards like Stilted Robemaker and Darkbulb Acolytle, this deck quickly gains the ability to deal quick, massive damage to either units or the enemy nexus.
Nami and Fizz
Fizz has always been a niche hero that excels with a lot of quick, cheap spells, but the introduction of Nami allows players to build an incredibly strong deck centered on buffing elusive units.
Nami has decent utility in her base form with her ability to grant the weakest ally +1/+0 every time a spell is cast, but she becomes incredibly powerful once she levels up and that number changes to +2+1. While players wait for the right time to engage in a massively boosted elusive attack, Fizz can help prune enemy defensive and various prank-generating cards can play with opponents' mana tempo.
Draven and Sion
Draven has always been a fairly popular deck mate for the destructive, chaotic Champion Jinx, but he's found a better home with Beyond the Bandelwood's powerhouse Sion. At only three cost, Draven is an aggressive early-game Champion that levels up by using his Spinning Blades cards.
While these card prerequisites of discarding can sometimes be negative, Sion brings with him a level-up condition and several support cards that thrive on being sent to the discard pile. While the goal of this deck is still to win early by overwhelming the opponent with attacks, Sion gives the deck strong offensive options for games that last into later rounds.
Caitlyn and Teemo
Teemo's Poison Puffcap has been around for quite a while, but Caitlyn and her various trap support cards have elevated the deck into the upper levels of competitive play.
Teemo is still great at generating early attacks and traps, and cards like Hexcore Factory, Puffcap Peddler, and Chump Whump still do a lot of heavy lifting. Caitlyn's new type of trap, Flashbombs, offers much-needed unit damage to the deck, and Corin, Mastermind offers another win condition with her ability to trigger traps and do massive damage to the opponent's units and Nexus.
Lulu and Poppy
Lulu was underused upon release but found new life in a support/elusive deck with Zed. While that deck still sees significant play, Poppy, the new Bandle City/Demacia Champion, plays incredibly well with Lulu. Lulu and her associated unit cards balance their strong support abilities with relatively mediocre stats.
This weakness is mitigated by Poppy's ability which grants all allies with equal or less power to her +1/+1 when she attacks. Combined with other boosts from Young Witch, Twin Disciples, and more, it becomes relatively easy to quickly boost an entire board of units.
Senna and Ezreal
While Senna was revealed in proximity to her fellow Shadow Isles Champion Veigar, she also performs extremely well with Piltover & Zaun's Ezreal. Senna's boost to spell speed and lowered spell costs go nicely with Ezreal's desire to see and use spells, but this deck is most concerned about cycling through copies of Go Hard.
This spell does one to a unit and creates two copies of itself in the player's deck. Once this spell has been cast three times, all remaining copies transform into Pack Your Bags. The ability to deal five damage to all enemies and the enemy Nexus is already strong, but Senna making it playable as a fast spell elevates it even more.
Ziggs and Xerath
Ziggs and Xerath are both new Champions released in Beyond the Bandlewood, and they both synergize with landmark destruction. While landmarks have been in the game for quite a while, the destruction concept is new.
Xerath does damage to the weakest enemy each time a landmark is actively destroyed or completes its countdown. Ziggs only damages defenders in his base form, but after leveling up from landmark destruction, he can deal damage to both enemy characters and the enemy Nexus. These two are joined by fantastic support cards like Waste Walker that get stronger with each destroyed landmark.
Taliya and Lissandra
Neither Taliya nor Lissandra was released with Beyond the Bandlewood, but their deck received plenty of great new cards with the expansion. Dubbed "Turbo Thrawls," this deck aims to combine Lissandra's Thrawl generation through landmarks with Taliya's power to duplicate landmarks and level up after five landmarks have been played.
The deck also uses landmarks such as Ancient Preparations and Preservarium to boost its drawing capabilities and consistency. New additions Waste Walker add more early-game power to the deck to combat aggro decks that this pairing has traditionally struggled against.
Zoe and Nami
Nami, Bilgewater's mermaid-like Champion, has proven to be a versatile Legends of Runeterra card that works in a number of different deck variations. Regardless of her partner, Nami decks look to generate as many cheap spells as possible and use them to boost elusive units that can directly strike the enemy Nexus.
Zoe generates a spell each time she strikes the Nexus, and at only 1 attack and 1 health, she appreciates the buffs from Nami. This particular combination makes for an incredibly aggressive deck that is able to strike for big numbers in the mid-game.
Tristana and Fizz
Tristana doesn't really need another Champion to make a great deck, but Fizz offers solid utility and synergizes with Tristana's demand for multi-region units. Tristana gains +1/+0 every time a multi-region unit is summoned, and she also grants the summoned unit the same boost.
The Bandle City region has numerous cards that are or can create multi-region units, so it's easy to quickly build a board of allies with great stats for their cost. Bandle City Mayor makes these multi-region units cost less, and Yordles in Arms can give players' whole board a massive boost for a finishing attack.