Today, we’re going to be doing battle with Illaoi Kayn. If you’ve been following us, you’ve seen this deck in action in our previous video. We’ve taken it to the past two Daily Rumbles and it’s gotten us six wins in both of those. This deck has some serious merit and power, so we wanted to bring it to one of our later videos.
Illaoi got buffed in the recent patch. Tentacle Smash now costs one less mana, Nagakabouros got an upgrade, and Eye of Nagakabouros is now a focus instead of a burst.
On the other hand, Kayn got nerfed. Aatrox Kayn isn’t a particularly good deck anymore, and Kayn now needs four cultists to get the natural draw.
When you’re looking to assemble an Illaoi deck, you can quickly see its strengths and weaknesses. It’s great at putting stats under the board quickly with the combination of tentacles and Illaoi. It’s also great at smashing through defenses with a couple of 10 power overwhelm units.
Outside of that, there’s not a lot of power or interactivity in the Bilgewater faction. There aren’t a lot of good early game units, late game units, or other singular packages.
That’s what we’re looking to get out of Kane’s cultist suite. It adds a lot to the deck, with a nice early game play in The Forsaken Baccai, protection with The Expanse’s Protection, and the best combat trick in the game with Momentous Choice. It also has good removal spells with Furious Wielder and The Unforgiven Cold.
These days, you’re seeing Illaoi run around a lot with Demacia, which gives her access to Strikes and some moderately okay combat tricks. You can also pair her up with Ionia, which gives her a little bit of punch with Syncopate and Ghost, and some protection with Deny and combat tricks. But we’re really interested in fitting Kayn into the equation.
When you look at the other decks, the Champions just aren’t very good. Pairing Illaoi with Jarvan isn’t that impressive, and pairing her with Ionia sacrifices the power you get out of champions. Kayn is an exceptionally powerful champion, and this deck is a great way to make use of that power.
So that’s what we’re going to be doing battle with today. We’ve got a great deck with a lot of power and synergies, and we’re excited to see how it performs. Stay tuned for the results!