Day 1 Meta Decks and Budget Decks for Call of the Mountain

We’ve updated our LoR meta tier list for Call of the Mountain so use those decks instead if you’re looking for competitive decks. The budget decks below should still be pretty good!

Day 1 Call of the Mountain Decks

Hey everyone, the day is officially here! By the time you’re reading this, the brand new Legends of Runeterra set, Call of the Mountain will be launched and ready for you to play.

Our Glimpse Beyond experts have crafted a wide variety of their favorite decks for you to try out on launch day, from potential competitive contenders to budget options for new players.

Note that some of the decklists may be refined and changed over time so click on the deck link for the most recent updates if you’re reading this article at a later date.

If you want to explore all the cards or start building your own decks, head to our Card Gallery or Deck Builder.

Aurelion Sol Ramp

This is the new Aurelion Sol Ramp deck archetype. Your goal is to get out cards ahead of schedule with tools like Wyrding Stones and Catalyst of Aeons, and then eventually cast your 8-10 mana spells. We’re playing the full 3 copies of Aurelion Sol and it is how we plan on winning most of our games.

Deck code: CEBQIAYJCVKFMVYEAMAQEBIGBACACAIMCQKSCAQBAMEROAIDAECAA

In your mulligans, you should be throwing away everything that isn’t Wyrding Stones or Catalyst of Aeons. With Catalyst, you should generally be skipping the first couple of turns of the game so you can use your spell mana to cast Catalyst on Turn 3.

[See Aurelion Sol Ramp deck details]

Against aggressive decks, you should keep Spacey Sketcher, Kindly Tavern Keeper, and Avalanche in addition to these other cards to help you not die.

Play this if you like playing giant dragons and enjoy smashing people’s faces in!

Swain Leona Midrange

This deck by RattlingBones is the classic Swain midrange deck with a new twist. We get some of the best stall midrange tools in the game from Targon’s Daybreak package. Solari Soldier and Shieldbreaker shutdown most aggressive starts and then once you flip Leona, you will start stunning enemies in every combat.

Deck code: CEBQGAQDAEDQSBIDBENBYNSYMABACAZOG4BQEAYJCMLQCAIDAQBAEAYDBAAA

Add onto this the powerful closing power that you get from Leviathan and Swain and you have a really potent deck on your hands.

[See Swain Leona Midrage deck details]

In your mulligans, you should be looking to keep Solari Soldier and Solari Shieldbearer in most matchups. These cards are just hyper efficient and will allow you to stabilize vs most aggressive decks and beatdown vs other slower decks.

They also help you progress your Leona level so it’s hard for them to be bad. Beyond that, you will likely want to keep Leona because she is what this deck is largely built around.

Play this deck if you want beat down through a constantly stunned enemy board!

Draven Jinx Aggro

This discard aggro deck by NicMakesPlays is an incredibly fast deck to ladder with since you will constantly spew out giant boards that will be a mess for the opponent to deal with.

Add the addition of Elusive threats in the form of Poro Cannon and free Vision buffs for your whole board and your opponent should die very quickly.

Deck code: CEBAMAIDA4ERIIZHG4DACBABBQOCOKBNAIAQGBASAEAQIDIA

This deck can easily win the game by Turn 5, and if you don’t win the game by turn 5, you have Jinx Rockets to get you the last damage you need.

[See Draven Jinx deck details]

Mulligans with this deck are somewhat difficult. In general, you will want to be able to get a free unit into play Turn 1 off of Jury Rig or Flame Chompers being discarded b Zaunite Urchin or Poro Cannon so look to keep your Zaunite Urchin and Poro Cannon in your opening hand.

Beyond that, you’ll want to keep cards like House Spiders so you have a solid 2 drop and Draven so that you have a great 3 drop. If you have a good 1 mana play and 2 mana play I’d recommend keeping Jinx.

Play this deck if you enjoy winning very fast games but want to still have the ability to burn your opponent out when games go long!

Elusive Shadowcombo (budget)

This deck, created by Swim, looks to combine wide boards of Elusive threats with gigantic buffs in the form of Keeper of Masks and Encroaching Shadows.

Deck code: CECAGAIFBQXTCBIBAIDBCFBMHEBQGBICAQHACAQCAUAQCAIFFABACAIFFMAQCARR

You should be looking to play this deck as a combo deck where you chump block early with Hapless Aristocrats and Oblivious Islander and save your Elusive cards for one key turn and then play everything at once and kill your opponent from the full 20 hp.

[See Elusive Shadowcombo deck details]

You should be avoiding playing Navori Bladescout on Turn 1 and Keeper of Masks on Turn 2 unless you are forced to because you need to save those cards for your big turn.

Cards like Stalking Shadows and Glimpse Beyond will help you find your Elusives and EncroachingShadows takes your Elusive damage into overdrive while basically making them immune to most removal spells.

In general, you should be looking to keep Encroaching Shadows, Greenglade Duo, and stall tools in most matchups. You really are just looking to set up a big Elusive combo and the three things you need for that are your Elusives, your buffs, and time.

As such, vs aggro look to keep cards like Vile Feast and Hapless Aristocrat, keep your Elusive threats like Greenglade Duo in every matchup, and keep Encroaching Shadows in every matchup but the mirror.

This deck is both incredibly cheap and incredibly powerful. It will win games quick vs a large number of matchups.

Budget Burn (budget)

This is one of the classic archetypes of the game and it’s great if you love playing fast matches.  It allows you to deal a decent chunk of early damage with aggressive cheap creatures and then finish the game by casting a bunch of high damage spells at the opponent’s Nexus.

Deck code: CECACAYECICQCAYCB4PCKKAEAECBCJZUGYBAEAYDAQAQEAIDDEXQA

For mulligans, you want to have a curve of 1 mana plays and 2 mana plays. The dream is playing 3 1 drops in the first 2 turns.

[See Budget Burn deck details]

Poro Cannon, to note, counts as a 1 mana play because you can play an Elusive Poro on Turn 1. Play this deck if you want to kill your opponent as soon as possible on a budget!

Budget Spider Aggro (budget)

Spider Aggro is one of the oldest archetypes in Legends of Runeterra, and it is still pretty solid as a deck.

Deck code: CEBAIAIFEQTSQOAGAEBQSDYXDEUDOAYCAECTCNIBAMCQIAIBAMTACAQBAMBDG

A flipped Elise is a force to be reckoned with and after you’ve put that early damage in, Darius should do a great job at closing out the game.

[See Budget Spiders deck details]

For mulligans, you mostly want to keep a strong 1 drop and 2 drop and you will basically always keep Elise. Keep Vile Feast if you are against aggressive decks.

If you want to play a deck that’s cheap and able to win a lot of games by relentlessly swarming your opponents, this is another great option.

Targon Purrsuit of Perfection (memes!)

This is deck by Silverfuse is a bit of a meme deck but Invoke gave us a great way to generate additional cards with a variety of names. Because of this, Subpurssible became a pretty solid card and Pursuit of Purrfection became much more attainable.

Deck code: CEBAIAYJJNGFMYABAICACAYGAMEQ6GRDFEYFIAQBAQASCAICAQEQCBYDBEIBYMZWHZLVQ

This deck is definitely focused on trying to accomplish a unique goal but hey, if you want to cast Purrsuit of Perfection this is probably the best way to do it up to this point in the game’s lifespan.

[See Purrsuit of Perfection deck details]

For mulligans, I’d try to just look to keep a curve of 1 mana plays and 2 mana plays – and let’s be real, if you’re playing this deck, keep Purrsuit of Purrfection in your opening hand, it will increase the odds that you are able to play a 30/30 cat.

Play this deck if you want to play with the new Targon cards in the most way possible!

Thanks for reading! If you want to explore all the cards or start building your own decks, head to our Card Gallery or Deck Builder.