Zilean Taliyah is one of the most popular decks in Patch 5.8 of the Standard meta and should be a popular choice in tournaments. You must understand how this deck works if you’re trying to play Runeterra competitively!
Decklist
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The Zilean Taliyah deck revolves around landmarks, using them to advance Taliyah’s level-up condition. A leveled Taliyah can create a copy of one of your high-cost landmarks like The Rootbound Path or The Heart of the Tree, which offers more value to put you ahead of the opponent. A leveled Zilean can also be a win condition, letting you create a copy of each non-fleeting card he saw you play. The Time Bombs along with Rite of Passage can clear out low-health units and burn down the opponent’s Nexus.
Early Predict units are important to find key cards for upcoming turns. We’re usually looking for one of our landmarks and Taliyah to get our game plan online. We want to play Zilean as early as possible to create the 4 Time Bombs in the deck and start playing them. This helps us level him up as early as possible and benefit from his value ability in the late game.
Zilean usually sits in the back and doesn’t attack. We can use him as a blocker if it doesn’t kill him, especially against aggro decks to shut them down from striking out Nexus.
Win Condition Landmarks
The Rootedbound Path draws you two cards on two turns, the third Story is where it becomes a win condition, reducing the cost of all cards in your hand by 1. This allows for one powerful turn, giving you the ability to play more cards that can be difficult for the opposing player to keep up with. We want to play The Rootedbound Path
The Heart of the Tree is a late-game landmark, that offers healing on the first turn, grants Spirit to all units everywhere, and Manifest a card that costs 8 or more and reduces its cost by half. The last Story is important to us, capable of creating a win condition that we don’t have to spend much mana to play. This will be random and each game the three choices will be different, but we’ll likely always find something worth picking that might catch your opponent off guard.
Using Taliyah and Empire Reconstructor, we can create more copies of those two landmarks, making sure we keep the value engine rolling and win the late game. Rite of Passage is also an option to get those landmarks back on the board once they’ve been destroyed.
Taliyah is perfect on turn 5 to create a copy of The Rootedbound Path, giving us more card draw and a double cost reduction turn to accelerate our game plan. She’s also insanely annoying when she’s leveled, forcing players to sacrifice a unit to block her so they don’t end up taking 10 damage to their Nexus.
Defensive Spells
Ionia offers many defensive spells to protect your units, landmarks, and Nexus. We have cards like Tag Out!, Blooming Bud, and Unworthy Soul to shut down a threat on the board for the turn. This slows down the opponent’s game plan and buys you enough time until you take over the game.
Nopeify are Deny are great to counter spells, especially those that can destroy your landmarks.
Quick Sand is good for removing keywords and weakening an opponent’s attacker. This comes in clutch if the opponent has an Elusiuve or Overwhelm win condition that’s about to destroy your Nexus.
Mulligan:
- Zilean for the early predict and Time Bomb. You want to find those Time Bombs as early as possible to level up both champions and weaken the opponent’s side of the board.
- The Rootedbound Path for the mid-game. This gives you the early card draw and if played on turn 4, you’ll have the perfect Taliyah follow up play.
- Taliyah or Empire Reconstructor to create more copies.
Other Cards to Include
- Weight of Judgment gives you more control on the board, letting you deal 4 damage to a follower or if need be, 2 damage to a champion.
- Armed Acquisitioner is a replacement for Portal Pioneer, providing that Explorer spell and can block/attack with his 3|1 stats.
- Merciless Hunter gives Vulnerable to one of the opponent’s units, allowing you to pick them off with one of your attackers. specifically, Taliyah.