LoR Deck Guide: Giant Women (Shyvana, Matron, and Cithria)

How to Play Giant Women

Look, I’m a simple man.

Offer me the chance to make units with larger stats than my opponent’s nexus and you’ll have my interest.

Tell me I can do it and still be reasonably competitive and you’ll get my undivided attention.

I’m Jordan “WhatAmI,” Abronson, and today we’re here to discuss the latest new Spectral Matron craze featuring the biggest of Cithrias.

Giant Women

Deck Code: CECQEBAAAUHAIAYAAYEAWDQCAECSYMIDAEAAWEY2AEBQKBACAEAQACIBAMAAKAA

[See Giant Women deck details]

At first glance, this deck looks rather like a pile of random Demacia creatures thrown together and frantically looking around for a plan of some sort.

Secretly though, if you peel away the outer coating, this is actually a brutal combo/control deck that just happens to use creatures to get it done.

All this deck actually cares about doing is surviving and drawing cards until turn seven or eight when we cast Spectral Matron targeting Cithria, Lady of Clouds.

The doubling effect of Cithria happens on Summon, so this will often either one-shot our opponent completely, or at the very least wreck their board and set them up for an easy follow-up kill.

There are an awful lot of different builds of this deck from Elites, to Slay style, to going all-in with Mask Mother.

I’ll go deeper into why I have settled on this one later in key choices, but for now, let’s just say that Dragons are cool and I like challenging my opponent’s creatures and leave it at that.

Phase One: The Control

It’s a bit weird to call ourselves a control deck when we are missing all the general features those styles of decks tend to conglomerate around.

We’ve got exactly zero sweepers and a total of three Single Combats for removal, right? Well not quite.

As long as we don’t care about our units we can visualize every one of them, especially those with Challenger, as removal spells.

Even if our opponent is the one doing the removing then we will still often trade either even or ahead on tempo, which is all we care about.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter exactly how you survive until your power cards come online right?

As long as we make it through the scary early turns no one is going to care if we did it by fighting for the board or casting an Avalanche or two.

Phase Two: Drawing and Dragons

In the midgame, we’ll be attempting to swing things in our favor with Shyvana and Screeching Dragon while setting up for our endgame engine to come down.

This is generally the time you want to be looking to cast Stalking Shadows, Glimpse, and Mobilize, as well as chowing down on any cute little elephants wandering by.

While it may seem a bit out of place in a deck that claims not to care about its creatures, Sharpsight can also be an invaluable tool during these turns.

We’re all about the board, and while many of our opponents will be doing more powerful things in the mid-game a timely buff spell can swing many encounters.

This phase also has a little bit of an “Oops I Win,” element that I always like with Shyvanna.

Sometimes you don’t need to combo out and a Dragon Chow aided turbo leveled Shyvanna will run away with the game against an aggressive or midrange opponent.

Phase Three: Unleash the Ladies

This will generally happen between turns seven and ten.

We’ve survived the early and mid-game and it’s our turn to do some ridiculously unfair things.

Spectral Matron targeting Cithria Lady of Clouds will double your onboard stats, give everything Challenger, and drop a 12|12 Fearsome alongside a 10|10 Ephemeral.

I don’t know what kind of board swings you’ve been playing with lately, but that kind of nonsense can put even a Tri-Beam Improbulator to shame.

A lot of the time you’ll simply be able to assign where your opponent blocks and smash through for lethal on the turn this combo comes online.

Even if you can’t though, that only phase one.

If you have another Spectral Matron it just keeps going.

Even if you don’t then two turns later the real Slim Shady, non-ephemeral this time will be coming down to double you up again.

Barring Ruination there’s really not much to do against that kind of onslaught.

Key Choices

So the first question a lot of people are going to have about this particular list is “Where are the Radiant Guardians?”.

I’ve found that Radiant is a card that gets worse the better your opponents get and as such, I tend to look for every opportunity to cut it from my decks.

Beyond that, though this is a deck where you really want to try to control the board more than just stay alive.

I think the Radiant Guardian, and to a lesser extent, the Mask Mother packages are inconsistent ways to do that and tend to lead to game states of hoping your opponent either doesn’t have certain cards or doesn’t act in a certain way.

I prefer controlling my destiny.

Beyond that, though this deck has such a ridiculous amount of late-game power that all we should really be asking ourselves when building the rest of the shell is how can we consistently survive to get that power online.

Out of all of my testing, the Dragons have proven themselves to be the most consistent out of the gate, so they’re what I would recommend.

That said I do think this deck has a lot further to be pushed and I would encourage folks to experiment.

One of the coolest things about this is that there are only really nine locked-in cards in this deck, Spectral Matron, Cithria Lady of Clouds, and Stalking Shadows.

As far as I am concerned everything else is up for grabs.

Tips

• Think like a control player.
  • What that means is that while you want to keep your opponent’s side of the board clear and keep your creatures alive for your combo turns, the pass button is your friend.
  • Since there are so few people who can go over the top of what you do the turn clock advancing is almost always in your favor.
  • Even Aurelion Sol starts to look pretty tiny next to a 24|24 Spectral Matron.
• Try to hold Mobilize as long as you can.
  • Don’t get me wrong, there will be times when it is right to Mobilize out a turn three Shyvanna or turn four Screeching Dragon.
  • That said though you really do want to save it for Spectral Matron if at all possible. That one extra turn can mean an extra attack token which is absolutely game-breaking.
• Your Single Combats are precious.
  • You have lots of Challengers to get at your opponent’s backline, but only three cards in your deck that will do damage whenever you need them to.
  • Don’t just blow that at the first opportunity.
  • Ask yourself if this is the key moment that will help you stabilize or turn the game around in your favor.

Conclusion

This deck is extremely fun to pilot and, while it could definitely still use some polish, does some pretty impressively powerful things.

It can go over the top of pretty much anyone, and due to Mobilize can often outpace the other Matron deck in the format if Lissandra comes calling.

It’s definitely a bit strange to be playing a control deck full of creatures, but if you can wrap your head around the playstyle it can also be quite rewarding.

Wishing everyone the best of luck out there and may your missing combo pieces always show up in your Stalking Shadows.

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, feel free to ask WhatAmI during his streams (around 10AM PST basically every day).

WhatAmI streams at twitch.tv/xxwhatamixx around 10AM PST every day