Seraphine's Showdown Deck: the full list

by Riccardo Emanuele Eustor·Riftbound Zone

Riot has updated the official Radiance page with card-by-card lists for both Showdown Decks. Seraphine's is led by the Starry-Eyed Songstress Legend and runs 40 cards across main deck and champions, six Mind Runes and six Order Runes, three battlefields and two token pairs. Both decks ship in a single box, «Evelynn vs Seraphine», landing on October 23 alongside the rest of the set.

The LegendThe discount is paid in board space

Starry-Eyed Songstress is card RAD 151/167 and runs two colours, Mind and Order. Her text is a single line: as an additional cost to play a spell, you may exhaust Seraphine and three friendly units to make that spell cost 2 less.

It is an expensive discount, and it is the whole point of the deck: four of your cards on the table stop working for that turn. Affording it means fielding plenty of small bodies, which is why the list is packed with 1 and 2 Might units and with tokens.

The engineExhausting isn't a cost here, it's the plan

The list is built so that exhausting your units actually pays, instead of being a price you swallow. Four cards say so outright.

• Seraphine, Inspiring (RAD 065a/167): once each turn, when you exhaust three or more friendly units at the same time, you may draw a card. That is exactly what the Legend's cost does.
• Strigian Oracle (RAD 053/167, 2 energy, 2 Might): when it becomes exhausted it triggers [Predict], looking at the top card of your deck and optionally recycling it. There are three copies.
• Party Crasher (RAD 122/167): costs 1 less for each exhausted unit you control. From 9 energy, it can fall a long way.
• High Note (RAD 048/167): gives a unit minus Might equal to the number of exhausted units you control, and can be played on your opponent's turn.

Closing the loop is Raucous Anthem (7 energy): it readies all your units and gives them +3 Might for the turn. It is also one of the spells the Legend most wants to discount.

The bodiesRecruits and Mechs, or: fuel to exhaust

Exhausting three units a turn means having them. The deck manufactures its own: Concert Poster (1 energy) pays 1 to put a 1 Might Recruit at your base, Faithful Manufactor brings one along when it enters, Industrious Mechsmith arrives with a 3 Might Mech, and Rousing Display makes two — or four if you show off a card costing 7 or more from hand.

The best piece is Heimerdinger, Academy Instructor: while he sits at a battlefield, unit tokens you would play there become 3 Might Mechs instead. He is also the promo being handed out at this week's Pre-Rift events, so plenty of players will already have him.

The payoffsWhat there actually is to discount

The big cards that justify the whole mechanism are few but heavy: Supernova (9 energy: deal 10 to a unit and draw 2), The Empyrean (8/8), Dune Devourer (7/7) and Moonlight Affliction, which strips 10 Might off a unit and can be played on your opponent's turn. Meticulous Restorationist acts as the recycler: when you play a card costing 7 or more, you may play it back from your trash for Order.

Two cards aren't from Radiance at all: Faithful Manufactor comes from Origins and Moonlight Affliction from Unleashed. These preconstructed decks draw on every set released so far, not just the newest one.

Our takeThe first cards we'd double up

The deck runs nine single copies, and that is where the preconstructed hand shows most: one copy in a 40-card deck rarely turns up when you want it. If we were touching anything first, we'd go for the cards the engine wants early rather than late — Party Crasher, which with a board full of exhausted units becomes one of the best-rate units in the list, and Burn Away, the only cheap piece of removal here. That's our read of the list, not Riot's advice.

Source: Riot Games — The Radiance Overview. Images: Riot Games.