Welcome back to another article discussing the specific card choices when building a cube - today we are looking at the Order domain. The other 9 articles can be navigated below:
Order Legends
Each Legend you include should guide the card list for that domain. Order Legends want to do a variety of different strategies:
- , , , , and wants to play a swarm strategy
- is also swarmy, but needing Equipment specifically to make units
- and are seeking large units, to both conquer and hold
Despite several “swarm” strategies, each Legend in that class is seeking different cards to accomplish that goal - it is quite a challenge to balance those needs against each other with only 55 slots. Due to the need for a lot of token synergies to support multiple Order drafters in the same pod, was cut from the legend pool - see “Notable Exclusions” for more explanation.
is an outlier here by wanting big spells - which doesn’t obviously synergize with what the others are doing. In practice though, a spell-heavy deck does want tokens - multiple bodies off the same piece of cardboard to conquer - which Order has in abundance. While Mind has six big spells to draft, Order effortlessly brings another five spells with 5+ energy cost, so Lux should have plenty of options to choose from.
Order Cards
Out of 55 cards, we have a split of 33 units, 17 spells and 5 gear. Despite fielding slightly fewer unit cards than Fury, so many Order units produce tokens that in games they have far and away the most bodies on board. I also included every viable Equipment to support both Azir and Fiora.
Unit Choices
I would recommend no less than five 2-drops per color, and generally 6+ is ideal. Order is the most prolific of all domains in the early game, with seven 2-drops and a whopping eleven 3-drops! Units like and put in work by synergizing with both token decks and Ambessa. There are 5 Empower-able units in Order alone to try and improve Ambessa’s chances of using her Legend ability, and many of them are later-pack picks which should fall to you without much effort.
Card quality is pretty high for Order - aside from the XP cards in Unleashed, they have a deep bench of “good stuff” units. You don’t need synergies to include or in your deck - they just kill units easily.
Order has a lot of sneaky synergy - obviously works well with her own Legend, but also empowers Kennen just in time to use his +2 Assault in the same combat. Renata Glasc is best with Azir but also enables lots of double conquering with ready tokens from countless Order cards - and she also works on Gold!
12/33 units here are Champion units, and all of them are exceptional from the Chosen Champion zone. , and are generically good in any deck. Many others are specific in a way that means they will fall to you late in the pack - , , and both Fioras are game-changing for their specific Legends while not being super high picks for other players.
Non-Unit Choices
As mentioned earlier, we have 4 Equipment primarily for Azir. In a 25-card deck, you want about 6-8 Equipment total to make him playable. While you might need to pick up a early, several others will fall to you later in the pack. With several Calm and Body Equipment in the list as well, it's definitely a strategy to pursue if you get him.
is an absolute bomb in draft play, providing a steady stream of units each turn. is the strongest board clear in the format, having a Gear that refills your base the same turn is a two-card combo that can grind out long games for . Speaking of Lux, into can clear out enemy holds while drawing 2 cards along the way.
Various token decks like , , or will appreciate , , , and Grand Stratagem to take advantage of their wide boards.
Meanwhile big unit decks like , , and will make the most use of , , or , saving their critical units in times of need.
The removal package is one of the most appealing parts of Order - from and to and - sometimes you just want to kill units without too many conditions.
Spicy Picks
These are a few cards that you could replace - every cube has a bit of flavor that the designer just happens to like, these are my pet cards. If you have a better idea for the card slot, go ahead and swap them out.
There aren’t too many spicy choices for Order - the Legends are pulling in so many directions I didn’t feel like I had too many slots to play around with. Comment below if you think any cards are particularly unusual!
is probably the most borderline Equipment - it does require a lot of tokens to be consistently re-equipped. I wanted to include it because so many Order cards produce 3+ Recruits that I felt it would find the right deck. It also makes a Recruit into a Mighty Unit, triggering ’s legend ability.
obviously works well for the Lux legend. However, she doesn’t have a power cost; she can also be splashed into various Mind-domain spell decks like Kai’sa and Jhin, giving her more pull outside of her natural domain.
Notable Exclusions:
For all colors I opted not to have Seals or Decrees. Seals are a bit too swingy - if you get them early they can be extremely powerful, but they are dead draws late game and most decks have no way to discard/draw them away. I didn’t want to include too many “hate” cards that warp matchups after sideboarding, and just personally I am not a fan of Decrees and their power level.
Karthus was originally in the list, but he turned out to be somewhat of a trap. While Order has several Deathknell units, the other domains have 0-2 each. That meant you relied solely on Order units to synergize - and often those units were picked by other players. Players were picking Karthus early and then struggling to line up both a good Deathknell and Karthus at the same time in-game.
’s exclusion from the list comes from the tightness of slots - you really want every card to be desirable by multiple decks in the domain. Cards like Karthus, , , , , , and only shine when you get them all together. Instead, LeBlanc lives in the 12-player expansion pack where I can add a disproportionate amount of Deathknell cards to complement the solid amount in the main list.
Because Leona is also in the expansion, several stun and buff cards are there such as , Keeper of Shadows, , and . You could absolutely include cards like these as budget replacements as they don’t require Leona’s legend to make an impact on games.
Cards I considered including but just fell short - and can provide more swarm buffs. and can provide more card draw if needed. is also generically useful, one of the few Gear that can work on offense and defense. If you want some spice, add for some crazy combo potential!
Changelog: Vendetta v2
Changes from the initial Vendetta list:
- Karthus
- LeBlanc, Fragmented
- Noxian Drummer
- Shen, Leader of the Kinkou Order
- Rally the Troops
- Black Rose Dignitary
- Escaped Grayback
- Faithful Manufactor
- Kayle, Justified
- The Ruination
- Legend (to 12 player expansion)
- Legend (to main legend list)
As mentioned above, Karthus and came out to focus more on relevant synergies. With Ambessa being promoted to the main list, I wanted more Empowered units ( and ) to enable her.
, well, we tried him! Usually I like “extra point” cards, but he is expensive, deramps you a lot, and his condition is quite hard to meet. seems to be much better without so many conditions, and Shen’s legend can have something else tank for her - instead of the big guy himself needing to survive. Exhausting most of your runes for a do-nothing big body and hoping it survives with exactly 1 other unit was just too much to ask of a deck.
is a new addition because, well, I didn’t own it before. Also I wanted to add more “control” style cards to the format to see what players do with them. The format is very fast and tempo oriented, so having powerful reset buttons forces aggro decks to hold back or be able to rebuild to close out a win.