Shugo
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16 Min read Hey all, it’s Trevor “Shugo” Yung, and today we’re diving headfirst into the deep end.
We’re about to take on the greatest challenge yet.
Some may argue it’s the most difficult run in all of Path of Champions! I suppose you could say it’ll be tough.
For articles on how to beat other runs, check out our other Path of Champions guides.
The previous adventure gave us a healthy boost of Reputation; bringing us all the way from Rank 7 up to Rank 10! Let’s take a look at what we’ve gained.
New Starting Power:
We’ve finally unlocked our basic starting power. For this adventure, it likely won’t be too impactful. Puns aside, it’s pretty minor in the grand scheme of things, but could help us push extra damage if we manage to get an early lead.
The extra chance at rare powers should hopefully help us roll some better options. Extra gold is always welcome, though 50g won’t amount to too much.
Stormrazer (Quick Attack) is our item of choice as per usual; allowing Vi to remove any threats while staying unharmed. Our Mystic Shots will cycle on cast thanks to its random starting item. Solid enough.
Before we continue, let’s revisit the usual disclaimers.
Your experience will vary depending on your champion, but this should serve as a reasonable baseline to compare to.
When it comes to PoC, the choices and possibilities are endless. One run can be completely different from the next, and your experience will differ from mine.
The Titan of the Depths has an incredibly strong global power. Damage-based removal feels atrocious when every single target has Tough. It also makes trading units in combat a major struggle. Deep archetypes historically have a poor early game to balance out the late-game nightmare they can become. Yeah, that’s not a thing anymore. Powerful early game, powerful mid game, and insane late game.
You’ll often be left with the decision to take damage or block poorly. Many of the enemies have Fearsome, making it even harder to chump-block. The good news is there are very few spells to worry about. But you’ll need a way to overcome multiple units with Challenger, Elusive, Fearsome, and Overwhelm. Oh, and they all have Tough.
Controlling the board is more important than ever. Forget spells, they aren’t efficient enough. We’re gonna be looking for the best stats we can find at a good cost. Strong cards with items are going to be extremely vital in order to keep up. The enemy doesn’t play fair, so we shouldn’t either!
This encounter is stats and Overwhelm galore. I hope your Nexus is healthy because every turn can be a real beating. You’re going to need to match every unit as it comes down, or else risk taking a ton of damage. Thankfully the Sejuani level-up isn’t much of a concern as even if she flips, there’s not a lot that procs the effect besides Overwhelm (and occasional Impact) damage.
Prioritize drafting powers or units that have an immediate impact on the board. We’re looking for cheap units with a nice extra boost in stats, or ways to combine keywords effectively. Using items and/or powers to create combinations such as Challenger + Quick Attack or Challenger + Barrier is extremely effective.
Nautilus is insanely powerful. If you can’t establish a hefty lead in the early game, Nautilus will flip and demolish absolutely everything in sight. And getting ahead? Yeah, not easy. Dreg Dredgers, Sea Scarab, and Thorny Toad will just get in your way.. All while progressing to the inevitable Deep. Come prepared!
You need to cheat. Seriously… Normal cards aren’t good enough. Focus all your attention on finding busted cards, or items to create an unstoppable champion. Forget sticking to your base deck’s strategy. It’s all about making the most unfair cards possible. If they happen to synergize along the way, awesome. But that’s just icing on the cake. And once you accomplish this, make sure you mulligan to find it!
Upon loading into the map we can see the starting power node was Epic. Unfortunately for us, we didn’t actually find an Epic power. However, we did find Reunited! This is a very welcome start as it’ll effectively offset the global power of Tough.
Of course, this doesn’t help in every case, but it will allow us to trade evenly most of the time. Best of all, it lets our crappy 3-drops like Amateur Aeronaut and Golden Crushbot and efficiently block Fearsomes.
Fearsome is a painful keyword to deal with, especially combined with Tough. Sea Scarab makes us deal with this very early. Unless you rolled a good starting item on a 2-drop, it’s extremely unlikely you can actually match the enemy this early. That means you’re immediately taking two, or blocking poorly with a 3+ attack unit. Not fun.
In addition to these early Toss units, there’s also Lure of the Depths and The Slaughter Docks. These continue to pressure the clock by digging until Deep.
Starting decks are pretty bad, so find a good power to help get you through. It’s likely worth rerolling if you have to. This first encounter can be a rough one.
While I don’t really want to help the enemy get closer to Deep, Aloof Travelers could help do some serious damage to their hand. Sejuani and Nautilus are always drawn in the opening hand.
While it’s not guaranteed to discard them, there’s a decent chance of it happening. Delaying the champion could be game-breaking, so it’s definitely worth the downsides. Besides, the other two cards are just straight disappointing… And I’m not wasting a reroll this early.
While none of these are typically the go-to options, all three are interesting options against Nautilus. The Leona package gives a solid baseline for stats and provides Stuns that are great against Sea Monsters. Yasuo goes even further with stuns by including Concussive Palm and Yone.
Then we have Kindred, who doesn’t really care about Tough and could potentially become a powerful control engine that slays the beasts on her own. So what should we choose?
I opted for Yasuo. While arguably the worst champion himself, the focus is more on the supporting cards. Having effectively 2-3 blockers with one action, or a Fast speed Stun at a pinch is extremely valuable against all the Fearsome and Overwhelm. Leona Stuns, but with situational limitations. As for Kindred, we just don’t have enough slay support to make her viable.
Freezes, Challengers, and Vulnerable. Many of us recall this encounter from the old Labs, and it’s essentially the same one, but with Tough. The enemy will try to Freeze and Challenge your units, then bring out some Bull Elnuks and Yetis. While they can certainly be annoying threats in the mid game, the deck lacks any late-game. Without Fearsome and Overwhelm you’re free to chump block as much as you like.
The game plan is pretty straightforward. Try and avoid having your units challenged off the board for free. Any trades early on are great, and once you get a bigger unit, you’ll be able to take control easily. If planning to develop, make sure to play around Icevale Archer and Avarosan Marksman.
This encounter will either be a cakewalk or a massive pain. If your deck is unable to summon units quickly, I’d highly suggest avoiding this encounter.
Tough makes it very difficult to kill their units and helps negate the weakness of cards like Golden Narwhal. Razorscale Hunter and Redfin Hammersnout will grant Vulnerable making it very easy to be punished. Hunting Fleet and Bubble Bear have huge health stats that can rarely be matched at their cost.
Choose at your own risk. Be sure you can go wide enough to avoid repercussions. If you’ve rolled some insane early game cards, go for it. Otherwise, just take the top route.
If it wasn’t obvious enough already, I chose to face the Hunters. Poro Cannon would help, but not enough to make up for the rest of the weak followers.
These are some weird choices, but not quite bad enough to reroll. Crawling Sensation looks the most normal, but 1|1’s chump blockers fare poorly in this adventure.
Go Get It is cute, especially with Plunder, but there aren’t any summon effects to make good use of it. Honestly, Zavi is pretty good. The item buffing up to a 6|9 is great, and we’ll need all the value we can get to sustain against these Sea Monsters.
I would not have expected to ever pick this card, but a Scaled Snapper with Barrier could be super useful against these encounters. With our +1 power buff, this is a three-mana 6|2 with Barrier that can get a free block into anything if the enemy decides to attack.
At worst, we prevent an attack. At best, we get to kill something for free and keep up a 6|2 blocker. As I mentioned, there are next to no spells to worry about in this path. So that two health is perfectly safe outside of Challengers. I’ll be grabbing all three of these plus the reroll token.
Tough + Overwhelm + Scargrounds is a devastating combination. Forget about Devourer of the Depths, this is the ultimate encounter to avoid. Everything has way too much health to trade with. The Ruthless Raiders are packing a Giant’s Belt for the extra +0|+2, and the other units are just naturally defensive.
Even when you think you can trade, Elixir of Iron and Bloodsworn Pledge can massively punish you. There may not be any other tricks to worry about, but constant attack buffs and Overwhelm will become too much to handle.
Stuns and Recalls can help stall the onslaught, but you’ll need a lot more than that. Scargrounds makes it hard to compete with stats alone, so stack up some OP spells or fly over with Elusives.
Honestly, unless you know your deck’s busted enough to handle the encounter, avoid it like the plague.
This is probably the most standard encounter on the map. It’s your typical Deep game plan, except once they reach the threshold, they immediately get a Treasure. The difficulty can vary depending on how many Jettisons and Salvages they draw. There’s definitely some RNG with this one, but it’s as close to fair as possible for the initial half of the match.
Early game is a lot easier to manage without the Fearsome passive that The Beast Below has. Just be sure to keep an eye on their deck and don’t get blown out mid-combat by a Burst Toss spell.
Scars is just too powerful a foe to risk. While we have acquired some stuns, the deck will have a much better match into Shipwreck Hoarder.
As much as I like healing cards in PoC, I have no 6+ cost spells to pop the Forge. Stargazer is straight-up garbage. Too bad that Hunter’s Machete wasn’t attached to something else. Let’s be real though, Dragon Zed looks pretty good. A 5|3 with Fury and Quick Attack (+1 from Reunited) will do a great job pressuring their early units.
I know dealing one damage to all enemies is useless. And I know I said 1|1 chump blockers are also pretty poor. But drawing a card and getting two 1-drops for one spell mana is solid enough to warrant the inclusion, at least in a small capacity. Gonna scoop up those Poro Snax copies.
While I’d often opt to cut Amateur Aeronaut, Gotcha is just an awful card against Tough units. Even when I’m lucky to cast it for two mana it’s subpar at best. So let’s just remove it instead.
Right from the start you’ll see Proto Poro and Ruthless Raider ready to immediately put on the pressure. The Impact damage is nearly unavoidable due to its two Tough health on turn one. A 4|2 Ruthless Raider is nothing to scoff at either.
There are another two 2-drops that can either be very threatening or a complete joke. Faces of the Old Ones can ramp but only triggers if The Tuskraider is in hand. Then there’s Avarosan Sentry, but not in a normal fashion. It’s a two-mana 5|4 Ephemeral! This is one of those times where chump blockers do matter, but thanks to the poor AI, sometimes they’ll just play it on their defending turn.
Outside of any early aggression, Wolfrider and Ursine Spiritwalker can come down as powerful mid game threats. Although as long as you can deny the Plunder, you should be okay. In many cases, they’ll come down pre-attack anyway.
Sejuani herself comes with Regeneration, making her much harder to remove. She’s typically the biggest threat to watch as the Vulnerable trigger can threaten a lot of damage with Overwhelm. Beware of Fury of the North.
If you can survive the aggression it’s very possible to out-sustain Sejuani. Shatter is often pretty harmless and Shared Spoils won’t often draw since the AI prioritizes playing cards ASAP instead of waiting for Plunder to be enabled. If you can stay out of Overwhelm range you’ll be set.
I’m not too thrilled about any of these. Ephemeral is not what I wanna see, and while Wrathful Rider does grow to an 8|6, it’ll still be trading with a lot, and we’ve already got Vi.
Zephyr Sage doesn’t have a ton of good targets, but Concussive Palm and Yone would be excellent. At worst it’ll at least provide another blocker.
Duelist is usually a pretty underwhelming power. The buff is temporary and is useless on defending turns. However, we’ve got just the right deck for it. Zed and Yasuo get to pair their Quick Attack with Challenger.
What’s even better is giving Challenger to our 6|2 Barrier Scaled Snappers! Alongside Stormrazer Vi we can look to strike down just about anything. Looks good to me!
Do NOT underestimate the poros. These are not 1|1’s. They’re not even 4|4’s. They are 8|8’s, 9|9’s, 10|10’s, and beyond! On the surface, the starting power may look weak as it only affects the specific Poro that dies. Plus putting a copy into the deck doesn’t mean they will draw more of them, right? WRONG.
There are only three types of main poros, and the deck is full of them. There’s Affectionate Poro, the Challenger. Augmented Poro, which normally doesn’t exist but has, you guessed it, Augment.
Then of course the Jubilant Poro which creates a random Poro. Because of this, the odds of finding a duplicate Poro is extremely high, especially when they have Call the Wild to refuel their hand.
Trying to trade and outvalue this deck is a losing battle. The poros will continue to respawn and become bigger and bigger each time. The best option is to stack up an Elusive and dodge the poros all together before they can grow too big. Certain leveled-up champions could also get the job done as well.
This encounter is heavily built around triggering the passive ability. There’s a ton of 1-drops, along with Jailbreak, Double Trouble, and Marai Warden to flood the board as quickly as possible.
These units are typically on the weak side, but in large volume can force some damage to leak through. Be careful not to let them draw too much. Not only will it get them closer to Deep, they can also summon Ruined Rex to barrage the board.
If you’ve got the ability to match their width, it’s quite easy to sustain until you can take over the game. The deck also consists of a lot of trash such as Abyssal Guard, Tidal Wave, and Sunk Cost.
You will need to watch out for Ye Been Warned, Hired Gun, and Boxtopus as it does give them some control over combat. But outside of that and any random 1-drop high rolls, the deck doesn’t do much.
There’s a Smooth Soloist beyond the poros, so while it is an exceptionally challenging encounter, the reward is worth the fight!
I did ask for a better Hunter’s Machete earlier, and now we got it! Scaled Snapper + Barrier + Challenger + Scout. What a fantastic way to help win the board.
All of these powers are acceptable. Flexible Gameplan helps smooth out draws, Welcome Gifts opens up some high roll potential while giving general value, and Feral Senses lets you pick your next draw every turn. While I was leaning towards Welcome Gifts, we have yet to use a reroll, so let’s gamble and look for something better!
Raiding Party is awful against Tough blockers. Slow But Steady is powerful, except we don’t play Slow spells. Can’t Stop; Won’t Stop could be cute with Duelist, but I’m not over the moon about it. Let’s run it back again.
Not terrible powers, but definitely less exciting than what we’ve seen before. Disarmed is great in many other PoC adventures, but less relevant against all the massive Sea Monsters. Time to pop that final reroll.
It was worth the wait. Despite not being heavily 1-drop focused, Yipp’s Genius is still an incredibly powerful ability. Our Poro Cannons and Dust Up Diplomacys become supercharged and make our early game miles better than before. That’s the kind of powerhouse lead that’s necessary to pressure Nautilus.
Alright, even with Yipp’s Genius I still don’t want more copies of these. Maybe if Poro Cannon had an item that wasn’t a drawback. I’m happy to pick up one last reroll token and move on.
If you need a break from all the insanity, Feral Mystic is here for you. There’s actually not a lot to be scared of here. The passive power benefits both players, giving you the chance to accelerate your game plan.
Wyrding Stones and Faces of the Old Ones aren’t gonna hurt you, and just like before, there are a few 8+ drops that actually enable it.
The same Plunder buddies, Wolfrider and Ursine Spiritwalker are here once again. Except for this time, there’s almost nothing that triggers it. Unless you let something hit you. Ancestral Boon is here to do next to absolutely nothing as the AI freely casts it pre-10 mana.
The only cards to watch for are Icy Yeti, It That Stares, and Uzgar the Ancient. I’m sure you’re quivering in your boots right now. Honestly, that’s it. If you’re in rough shape from the previous encounters, all aboard the easy train to Nautilus!
Jaull Hunters can be an annoying deck to account for. The draw and Toss triggers can occur frequently, all while discounting its future Sea Monsters. This makes it challenging to play around as you can never know just what they’ll have. After enough triggers, the sky’s the limit.
If you’ve built up a good game plan into these Sea Monsters thus far then feel free to challenge them once again. Just know you can’t account for everything due to the discount. If anything, prioritize passing more frequently in order to reveal what’s rolling in the deep…
.. I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself. 🙂
We took a real beating from the poros. With that Epic Champion Item Chest behind Feral Mystic, it’s a no-brainer to take the top path.
There we go, we got our healing. And even better, it’s attached to one of the best cards in our deck. Easy choice here.
Zed + Challenger + Scout? Yes, please. The other options are solid too but the earlier we get started, the better!
In most cases, I’d be thrilled to drop the Golden Crushbot. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not keeping it in here by choice. It’s just, sometimes you get beat up real bad… So if ya need to take the healing, take it!
Nautilus is rocking the same core early game like most others with Dreg Dredgers, Sea Scarab, and Thorny Toad. However, there’s also the addition of Vile Feast and Sapling Toss that give a cheap form of interaction.
While they may not seem impactful on the surface, they both double up in value thanks to the passive death trigger.
How you block or trade units can make a big difference in the match. It may even be important to not take a free block if removing it would put them near Deep range.
This is a big part of why chump blockers aren’t very effective. Every time a unit dies, the clock ticks closer to your demise.
We may have survived the keywords from the previous encounters, but Nautilus combines ALL of them. Sapling Toss and Jaull Hunters take control with Challenger, Abyssal Eye flies right in with Elusive, Terror of the Tides gives everything Fearsome, and Nautilus is packing Overwhelm!?
Yep, he’s a 13|13 Overwhelm now.
These threats take over the game fast, and in combination with a preset Slaughter Docks, can turn the tide of battle in an instant. The most threatening card to watch for is Devourer of the Depths.
Even worse, it’s packing a Giant’s Belt to give it an additional two health. Which as you know, only makes his Obliterate more threatening. If these come down discounted from Nautilus you’ll not only lose your board but have to deal with theirs.
Even if you manage to dodge or play around Devourer, you still need to be cautious of the other threats. Terror of the Tides can simply end the game with its attack trigger and passive ability. And if you aren’t ready for Elusives then Abyssal Eye can do the job on its own. Then if things last any longer there’s always the Treasures that can mess up everything.
How you approach this encounter will vary greatly based on what you’ve drafted. Hopefully, you’ve found a core win condition and built up some overpowered, unfair cards of your own.
Remember to keep a close eye on their deck and play around the Toss if you have to. If you can aggro them down, dive headfirst. But if you start to approach the depths, just be sure you’ve got plans to avoid sinking!
We defeated The Titan of the Depths! That leaves us with one final adventure before the inevitable reset for Path of Champions 2.0. Are you excited? I know I am!
If you wanna see what we know so far, check out my 2022 Roadmap review article here!
A lot of what we do in a day is based around our natural habits and behavior. It’s so obvious if we actually take a moment to consider it, but in reality, most of our actions are automated.
When you get a moment of free time, what’s the first thing you gravitate towards? When you walk into the living room, what action tends to follow next?
We don’t have to live life on autopilot.
If you enjoyed this guide, check out our past and future Path of Champions guides.
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