«DonCapucino's Lady»: reviewing the Irelia guide written by the Lucca winner
Image: the cover of the «DonCapucino's Lady» guide (Chef's Formula).
On 23 September DonCapucino put his Irelia guide on sale on Metafy: the same list he had used twelve days earlier to win the Lucca Showdown Series without dropping a single match. I read all of it. Here is how it is built, what it is actually worth and who should buy it — without spoiling it for you.
How to read this review
The guide is a paid product and I received a free copy from the author: reviewing it was my own decision, not something he asked for. I have no arrangement with him or with the Chef's Formula team, and I make nothing from the link at the bottom of this page. Out of respect for paid work, you will not find the list here, nor card counts, nor sideboard plans: I am telling you how the guide is built, not what it says.
The credentialWritten by the winner, on the list that won
In competitive play that is always the starting point: who signs it, and what they have won. 614 entrants in Lucca, 11 wins, 2 draws, no losses, thirteen rounds across Swiss and top cut. But the detail that matters most is another one: the guide is built on the exact list from that tournament, not on a cleaned-up version written afterwards.
That difference counts for more than it seems. Plenty of competitive guides come out months after the result, with a deck already tuned for the next metagame, so what you read is never quite what actually won. Here the link is direct and stated openly.
The second thing in its favour is focus. Since Irelia was released, DonCapucino has played nothing else competitively: this is not a guide by someone who tried twenty decks and settled on one, it is a guide by someone who has played one deck for a year. You can tell, and you can tell mostly in the details nobody else bothers to write down.
The Lucca win, told round by round →
The structureSixteen chapters, and the weight sits on the matchups
Five sections, sixteen chapters. An introduction, then the deck block — main deck, sideboard, battlefields and a full chapter on the cards that were cut — then the game plan split across three chapters, then the matchups, then the closing thoughts.
The centre of gravity is the matchup section: on its own it is more than half the guide, and these are real chapters, not courtesy paragraphs. Each one follows the same shape — which card is the pivot on the play and on the draw, mulligan priorities listed separately for each, the sideboard plan split the same way, and a card-by-card explanation of why each one comes in there specifically.
Six Legends are covered: Master Yi, the Irelia mirror, Rek'Sai, Azir, Kennen and Jayce Aurora. The Diana chapter is not in yet and is announced for 30 September.
The strengthsWhat makes it work
Every card has a reason — and so does every card count
The main deck chapter is not an annotated list. For each card you get the role, the turn you want it on, and — whenever the count is not three — the reason it is not three. That is exactly the part you never get by copying a list off a Top 8, and it is the first thing you need the day you have to decide whether to change something.
The chapter on the cards that were cut
Nine cards tested and set aside, each with the reason it did not make it. It is the rarest chapter in this kind of product and, to me, the most useful: it saves you weeks of testing and, more importantly, it shows you how the author thinks. When the metagame moves — and it will — that reasoning is what you need, not the list. It is written honestly, too: there is a line making it clear that if you like those cards it does not mean you are wrong, especially if your yardstick is your local store tournament.
Battlefields treated as an actual decision
Not «play the good one»: the blind pick, the choice on the play, the choice on the draw, each with its reasoning, plus the exceptions where you should deviate. In a game where the battlefield decides half of the combats, giving it a full chapter is the right call — and almost nobody makes it.
It teaches a way of thinking, not a sequence to repeat
The game plan section works on two ideas that hold far beyond Irelia: managing the point race — when to accept being behind and when you absolutely have to level it — and rune counting, meaning building your turn so you always keep the resources to answer. Anyone who finishes the guide taking away only those two things has still learned something that transfers to any deck.
It also says what it does not know
There are passages where the author states that a choice depends on the metagame and that he may change it, one where he admits what he would change after the tournament, and one where he argues against a habit that is common among high-level players, explaining why it does not fully convince him. Those are the most interesting pages in the whole thing: a reasoned opinion is precisely what you cannot get for free.
Before you buyFour things worth knowing
None of these is a flaw: they are the shape of the product, and they tell you whether it is the right thing for you right now.
- It is in English. There is no Italian edition. It reads easily enough, but if written English is a struggle for you, factor that in before spending.
- It starts from an established level. No rules explanations, no glossary: it goes straight in. If you have only just opened your first preconstructed deck it is early; if you go to tournaments it is pitched exactly right.
- It is written, not illustrated. Game situations are described in prose, and there is one opening hand discussed step by step that is among the best pages in it. If you learn better by seeing the board, everything is still explained — you just have to picture it yourself.
- It is tied to the current metagame. Written after the 18 September ban list, with Vendetta on the table and Radiance arriving on 23 October: this is material to use now, and the author does keep it updated — the Diana chapter is already dated 30 September, and today's six matchups are the ones that matter most at this moment.
In practiceWho it is for, and who it is not for
Buy it if…
- You play Irelia right now, or you are thinking of taking her to a tournament in the coming weeks.
- You own the deck and you lose games without quite knowing where you lose them.
- You want to learn the «protect the carry, win the resource war» style, which is a way of playing Riftbound, not just a deck.
- You face Irelia often: read backwards, the matchup chapters tell you what the player across the table is thinking. It is the most underrated use of someone else's guide.
Skip it if…
- You have just started: everything else is taken for granted here.
- You are shopping for «what should I play?»: this is a single-deck guide, written by someone who loves that deck.
- Written English is a struggle for you.
- You want something that will still hold up next year: this is tied to today's metagame, by design.
The contextA market that did not exist a year ago
Riftbound turns one at the end of October, and for almost all of that time the competitive material has been free and scattered: threads on X, Discord channels, videos, lists posted the Monday after a tournament. Useful stuff, but stuff you had to assemble yourself — if you wanted to genuinely understand a deck, the editing work was yours.
Paid guides are the answer to that scatter, and here they have only just appeared. Chef's Formula is one of the competitive teams that has started publishing them on a clear model: free content to get known — the September tierlist is there for anyone — and structured paid material for those who want to go deep. In other card games this has existed for years; in Riftbound it is taking shape right now, in front of all of us.
For Italy the shift matters more than it looks. Until now we have imported: guides bought abroad, advice picked up in international Discords, lists handed down from elsewhere. This time the direction reverses. The tournament is Italian — Lucca, 614 entrants — but the guide that came out of it is not aimed at the home market: it is written in English, published under an international team's banner, and speaks to anyone, wherever they play. It is not just a good product: it is a signal about where the scene here is heading.
The verdict
9 out of 10
A guide written by the player who won, on the list that won, by someone who plays that Legend and nothing else. The chapter on the cards that were cut and the six matchups are worth the read on their own; the game plan teaches a way of thinking that will serve you elsewhere too. All that needs saying is what it is not: it is not a course for beginners, it is in English, and it captures the metagame as it stands today.
- If you play Irelia today, this is the best material out there on the subject.
- If you are looking for a guide that tells you what to play, this is not it.
- If you play against Irelia often, buy it anyway and read it backwards.
- It costs $10, a one-off payment.
«Thinking about something is simple, but putting those thoughts into words is a completely different story.» — from the guide's closing chapter.
Source: «DonCapucino's Lady» by DonCapucino (Chef's Formula), published on Metafy on 23 September 2026 and updated on the 24th. Opening image: the guide's own cover, by Chef's Formula. Riftbound Zone has no commercial arrangement with the author, the team or Metafy, and receives no commission on purchases.
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