Legends of Runeterra: Freljord Region Guide
Ready to journey through the icy lands of the Freljord? In this guide, we’ll cover the champions of Freljord, its signature mechanics, as well as the synergies it has with other regions.
By the end of this article, our goal is that you’ll really understand Freljord as a region and be able to create your own decks with our Legends of Runeterra deck builder. Check out our other articles that explore Bilgewater, Demacia, Ionia, Noxus, Piltover & Zaun, Shadow Isles, and Targon.
Signature Characteristics
“The Freljord is a harsh and unforgiving land. Proud and fiercely independent, its people are born warriors, with a strong raiding culture. While there are many individual tribes within the Freljord, the battle lines are being drawn in a three-way civil war that will determine the future for them all. One tribe unflinchingly honors the traditions that have ensured its survival; another follows the dream of a united future, as foretold by a young idealist; while the third worships the power of an enigmatic sorceress.” from Universe.
People from Freljord live in a rough environment. They are savage and fierce but above all else, they can endure. Despite all those things, Freljord is not mindless and without order, but they are still tribal.
Freljrod combines some of the military aspects of Noxus & Demacia with the mystical feel of Ionia to create a faction that summons followers and cast spells of unimaginable strength.
Updates for the Call of the Mountain Expansion
During the Call of the Mountain expansion (the second set introduced to LoR), Trundle, along with twelve other Freljord cards, was added to the game.
This champion and package of cards were an injection of strength to Freljord’s ramp archetype, one of its signatures.
Trundle particularly helps accomplish this archetype since he provides a strong presence during the mid-game, being a beefy unit with Regeneration.
This makes your life easier as you ramp up your mana. He also generates Ice Pillar, which grants you a lot of tempo with eight refilled mana when you play it!
If you want to try out Trundle and the improved Ramp archetype, we recommend trying out his deck with Aurelion Sol.
Deck code: CEBQKAYJAMKVMV3EAUBQCAQEAYFBGAYBAEKCCMQAAEAQGCIT
This deck will allow you to race ahead of your opponent and cheat the mana curve to play huge threats.
If your opponent isn’t ready, you can completely overwhelm them with Aurelion Sol, Eclipse Dragon, and the Infinite Mindsplitter.
Many believe Trundle to be one of the strongest champions in Legends of Runeterra, so give him a chance if you’re a Freljord fan.
Updates for the Rising Tides Expansion
The first Legends of Runeterra expansion, the Rising Tides, brought ten new Freljord cards including one champion, Sejuani.
We’ve written a separate article on our Master player’s first impressions on Sejuani so be sure to check that out to learn more about her.
Overall, the expansion set gives Freljord a lot more tools to be more aggressive in the early and mid game.
During the closed beta, Freljord was a great supporting region to a lot of the other regions because of Frostbite and buffs like Elixir of Iron.
With these added cards, there may be enough good cards to run primarily Freljord cards outside of ramp archetypes.
There are two new keywords coming to Freljord, Vulnerable and Plunder.
Vulnerable is a new debuff that allows you to force enemy units to block.
This gives Freljord additional ways to remove units, such as pesky Elusives.
The other new keyword, Plunder, is a mechanic that triggers after you summon a unit during a round where you dealt damage to the enemy Nexus.
During the launch set, Freljord wasn’t really known as a region that excelled at dealing face damage outside of Overwhelm units.
With the Rising Tides set, the region is getting new Overwhelm units like Ruthless Raider and Wolfrider along with units such as Ember Maiden that can easily damage the enemy Nexus to activate Plunder.
As a result, a new archetype that has been rising in the early phases of the expansion is Sejuani + Miss Fortune. Here’s an example decklist created by EG Swim:
Deck code: CEBQCAIBCYCQEBQLCYOSCLIFAIAQCAQGBEFAEAICAYJACAQBBAAQGAQGBEYT6
With the help of some Bilgewater firepower, this deck provides a lot more explosiveness than what you’d typically from Freljord.
It aims to bring a leveled up Sejuani online quickly with burn abilities from cards like Make it Rain, Ember Maiden, and Miss Fortune herself.
With the help of The Tuskraider and Salvage, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to find Sejuani as your closer. Give it a shot!
General Freljord Overview
The following sections were created at the time of the core set’s launch and are meant for newer players learning about how Freljord works.
Be sure to check our meta report if you’re looking for the best Freljord decks.
Mechanics and Playstyle
Mana Ramp
Being the region that has nature and growth on its side, it makes sense that Freljord has access to cards like Wyrding Stones and Catalyst of Aeons that directly increase the number of mana crystals you have available.
Being the only faction with ramp lets Freljord access their larger units and powerful spells a lot earlier than other factions.
Freeze!
Freljord is the only region that has Frostbite, a card mechanic that sets an enemy unit’s Power to 0.
By using Frostbite with cards like Icevale Archer and Shatter, you can win trades in combat but more importantly, there are a good amount of cards that trigger effects based on frostbitten units.
Spells like Winter’s Breath destroy whole frostbitten boards and champions like Ashe (more on her later) require Frostbite in order to level up.
Overwhelm with the Forces of Nature
Freljord aims to crush its opponents with incredible power which is shown by them having the most access to the mechanic Overwhelm. Overwhelm means any extra damage done to a blocking unit carries over to the opponents’ health.
Overwhelm is a staple Freljord mechanic that is primarily only shared with Noxus. Freljord’s big hulking units can swing a few times before they go down which lets them get a lot of mileage out of their immense Power.
This pairs incredibly well with Freljord’s mana ramp since you can bring out huge threats like Scarmother Vrynna before opponents have the proper answers to stopping them.
Unleash…Poros?
The lands of Freljord feature not only large and ancient creatures but poros as well. Poros can be found in other regions but Freljord has the most, as well as tools to make them stronger. Cards like Lonely Poro, Poro Herder, Heart of the Fluft can summon, draw, and even combine your Poros.
Braum himself can continually generate poros to defeat his enemies (more on this in the champion section). If you were ever looking to playing with cute and cuddly poros that can turn into devastating powerhouses, join the tribes of Freljord.
Regenerate and Survive
The icy winds of the Freljord can be harsh and merciless so it’s natural that those who live there are resilient and strong-willed. As a result, some Freljord units feature abilities that help them survive and reward them for surviving.
There aren’t many units with Regeneration but Freljord has almost all of them. Similar to Hearthstone, when units take damage in LoR, they keep their damage unless they’re healed.
Regeneration causes a unit like Scarmaiden Reaver or She Who Wanders to restore back to max health at the end of each round (so it’s more like Magic the Gathering).
Units with Regeneration can easily run away with the game because if you cannot kill them in a round, then they will continue to accrue value. Because Freljord has access to a lot of defensive buffs, it can be hard to take down a unit with Regeneration unless you have hard removal like Vengeance that immediately kills the units.
The other side of Freljord’s resilience is that they actually grow stronger when they take damage and don’t die. This is exemplified by cards like Unscarred Reaver, Scarthane Steffen, and Scarmother Vrynna (which was shown earlier).
This works well for Freljord because they have a lot of ways to heal or buff their units Health so they can get a lot of continual value out of the survive mechanic.
Freljord Champions
In this section, we’ll discuss the Freljord champions in order from lowest mana cost to highest (we covered Trundle and Sejuani at the beginning of the article)
If you’re unfamiliar with how champions work, check out our LoR mechanics guide.
The TL:DR is:
- Every deck can have up to 6 total champions, only 3 of the same kind.
- Champions fulfill conditions to level up.
- When they level up, they become stronger and gain new abilities. Leveling up causes all copies to level up.
- Only one copy of a specific champion can be on the board at once. If you draw other copies while a champion is on the board, they will transform into a spell form until that champion is removed. Playing the spell will shuffle the champion back into your deck instead of going to the graveyard.
Braum
Braum is the only champion that has 0 power but he’s built to take a beating. Being the lowest cost unit with Regenerate and Challenger to guarantee he gets use of it, Braum is great at taking hits for his weaker allies.
With these keywords combined, Braum can reliably level up by Challenging enemies and regenerating to survive 10 total damage.
Braum Leveled Up
When Braum levels, he can continually summon Mighty Poros each round he takes damage allowing him to quickly generate value unless his opponent find a way to kill him through his high amount of health.
Braum works great with poro decks and cards that take advantage of his regenerating health pool. He really fulfills the fantasy of what it feels like to play Braum in League.
Braum’s Champion Spell
You can use his champion spell, Take Heart, when he gets damaged to permanently increase his Power and Health making him able to challenge and remove low health units every round.
It’s also useful for making your units with Overwhelm even bigger and bring your opponent closer to defeat.
Ashe
Ashe is great in aggressive decks that utilize Freljord’s frostbite mechanics to win trades and push through with damage.
Frostbiting units count towards Ashe’s level up even if she’s not on the board making her one of the easiest champions to level up. She only needs for you to have frostbitten at least 5 enemies in order to level up.
Ashe Leveled Up
Once Ashe is leveled, frozen units cannot block which makes it incredibly easy to push through damage even when the opponent puts down strong blockers.
Ashe also gets an Enchanted Crystal Arrow upon leveling up. It’s is a cheap spell with an AoE freeze effect and card draw.
With Ashe’s passive freeze against the strongest enemy and Crystal Arrow freezing small units, Ashe can easily push for lethal around round 6 or 7 unless the opponent has a board wipe or multiple strong units on board.
Ashe’s Champion Spell
Ashe’s champion spell is pretty straightforward, just another option to Frostbite to either help her level up or help her keep applying pressure.
Keep in mind it’s Burst speed to get the most of your combat trades.
Anivia
Anivia is a unique card. She is the only Freljord card that can’t block and comes out on at 6 mana which is unusual since most other can’t block cards are aggressively costed at 3 or less.
Anivia deals 1 damage whenever she attacks. The repeated damage combines well with Freljord cards like Avalanche. You can combo them together to cut down small to medium sized creatures with ease.
Anivia also has a Last Breath mechanic. Last Breath causes an effect to trigger when a unit dies.
In Anivia’s case, she has the effect, “Revive me transformed into Eggnivia”, a 0|1 unit with “Can’t Block”.
Funny enough, this is also how she levels up. If the Eggnivia survives until the next round, it will transform into Anivia’s final form.
Anivia Leveled Up
After leveling up, Anivia becomes a 5|4 and her AoE damage increases to 2. She’ll still maintain her characteristics “Can’t Block” and her Last Breath, so she’s extremely sticky as a threat.
She becomes an incredible pressure tool that hits the checkmarks as a potent win condition for grindy midrange decks and pure control decks.
Anivia’s Champion Spell
Anivia’s champion spell allows you to Frostbite 2 enemies at Burst speed. This makes Anivia a great pairing with Ashe and decks that want to play grindy, controlled matches.
Tryndamere
Tryndamere is the premier heavy hitter champion of Freljord. With 8 Power and Overwhelm (in his pre-level up form!), few things can stand a hit from him and live to tell the tale.
Tryndamere’s level up conditions is probably the easiest…he just has to die…yup that’s it. You can use him as a blocker that can stop and remove a big enemy unit or force your enemy to kill him before he kills them in his vanilla state.
Tryndamere Leveled Up
The scary thing about Tryndamere is that he revives leveled up after he dies the first time, meaning that he can usually attack two to three times before he goes down.
However, with Overwhelm as a 9|9, chances are that the opponent can’t survive two, let alone three swings from him.
Tryndamere works amazing as a closer and a great payoff for dedicating your early game to ramp.
Pair him with Nexus healing, ramp, and removal and you can use him as a potent end game to a control deck.
Tryndamere’s Champion Spell
Turn anyone on the board into a pseudo-Tryndamere if this card is in your hand. Being burst allows you to win a decisive fight and then shuffle it back in your deck for immense value.
Synergies with Other Factions
In Legends of Runeterra there are many, many synergies to take advantage of by strategically pairing with other regions. In this section we’ll be discussing a few of them for Freljord but there are definitely way more.
Use our Deck Builder to experiment and let us know in the comment section below what you think would work!
Demacia (Tryndamere + Garen)
Demacia and Freljord can work together in order to bring out the most in their big units.
By using Freljord’s ramp with Wyrding Stones and Catalyst of Aeons combined with Demacia’s Mobilize you can quickly reach the strong top end of your deck.
Cards like Garen and give the combination access to the “Ready” mechanic which allows them to have an explosive string of turns when they finally are able to establish a board.
If played on curve, Garen will level up effect will trigger the same turn you can play Tryndamere. This is around the time that you will be slapping down huge threat after huge threat letting you threaten combat with large units every round to quickly end the game.
Shadow Isles (Anivia + Thresh)
Freljord brings the best out of the Last Breath and resurrection side of Shadow Isles. Together, they have a plethora of potent Last Breath cards. Most notably, Freljord is the only faction that has a champion that uses Last breath, Anivia.
Normally you cannot have multiple copies of a champion on a board but with Thresh, you can bring Anivia out, have her attack and deal 2 damage to all enemies, have her die, revive her back into play, and have Eggnivia spawn ANOTHER Anivia. If you really get going, you can have 2, 3, or even 4 copies of Anivia or other expensive lLast Breath followers into play that you can activate with cards like Chronicler of Ruin.
Noxus (Vladimir + Braum)
This synergy allows Noxus to play the value game. By combining Noxus cards that trigger benefits when allies survive damage, with beefy units like Braum from Freljord, you’ll have a massive supply of Health to convert into damage.
Since Vladimir hurts his allies to hurt the enemy Nexus when he attacks, and Braum wants to take the pain to level up, they make a great combo. After leveling up, Braum becomes a 0|7 that generates Mighty Poros every time he takes damage.
The idea is to repeatedly trigger these effects to generate enough value to overwhelm your opponent. This makes it possible for Noxus to utilize effects that generate card advantage and repeated value to really grind it out.
Closing Thoughts
We hope you enjoyed our deep dive on Freljord! Check out our other articles that explore Bilgewater, Demacia, Ionia, Noxus, Piltover & Zaun, Shadow Isles, and Targon.
Be sure to check out our Legends of Runeterra site and subscribe to our email list to keep up with all the latest LoR content.
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