By Ghael Winds

By: GhaelWinds

Riftbound has begun its competition in earnest. With the full set revealed, weekly tournaments have taken off and has become the centerpiece of Riftbound’s budding meta and competitive spirit. If you don’t know me, I am Ghael and I have been playing Riftbound since the Trial Meta (a time where we only had the four trial decks from the Macao Open with a spattering of few other decks). At that time Jinx was considered second best to Viktor before I came to the scene and slowly I was able to convince the majority that all you needed for Jinx to beat Viktor was a bit of change of playstyle. Fast forwarding to now, I had abandoned our girl for the new hot decks like Dazzle Sett that became my love child as I crafted and fashioned that deck to viability. Once I felt secure in that deck, I decided it was time to come back to the first deck I loved.

 
Jinx, Across the Reveals

Back in the trial meta, Jinx was played as an attrition deck where she slowly ripped at the opponent with card advantage. As more and more decks got renewing resources that paled in comparison to what Jinx could do I began to have less and less hope in her…she needed a new playstyle. So I tried to play Control Jinx, using new cards like void seeker, hextech ray, and starfall as staples using her to control the board and using the Immortal Phoenix to keep her board presence high, but it just never had the sticking power. If she was trying to go slower other decks would have more power later than her. I tried to take her faster, but then decks like Yi or Sett had more power than her and more board presence early. I was stuck on where to go with her, it felt doomed. Until Nocturne. 

Nocturne and the Revitalization of Aggro Jinx

Nocturne was the key that Jinx was missing. She needed to have a very strong early board presence with a high ceiling that can cheat out strong units on the board. With Nocturne and Flame Chompers representing this ceiling Jinx had a strong way to stay in contention to create the list that I will continue to refine it’s Match Ups

This list is hard focused on getting lots of units on the board early, getting quick points and then finishing off the game with the Vi and Ride the Wind combo which it can consistently find throughout the game. We use cards that help “thin” our deck like Stacked Deck, Mystic Poro, and Traveling Merchant to make our deck very fine tuned to always find the cards we need when we need them. The basic idea is to throw your units on the board getting as much early presence as possible and then finding outs with your deck thinning tools and if you can follow that you will win a majority of matches.

Match Ups and Tournament Performance

I am not proud of my tournament performance with this deck, I went 4-2 losing to an Annie and a Kai’sa both were very winnable sets. But I will briefly go over the various meta Match Ups for this version of Jinx:

Kai’sa: Very difficult Match Up, she has a lot of tools to slow and control you while still being able to play at speed and put Jinx on a clock. Your best tools in this Match Up is the ballista in the sideboard to keep taking out their smaller units and to hold units more in your hand. Ride the Wind is imperative in this matchup to take early clears and you do not need to save it for Vi to get over large boards as Kai’sa wont have it. 

Viktor: This is a winning Match Up for Jinx. The basic idea for how to fight Viktor is to keep a 3 or 4 might body on each battlefield, and keep your smaller stuff in back. You can use Vi more aggressively in this Match Up as we will be trying to hold more often. The best way to beat Viktor is to make him use resources to get over your units then retake with units you kept in back. No sideboard necessary.

Sett: This is a tough Match Up for Jinx. This matchup is one of tricks. Sett, Kingpin will be very difficult for Jinx to deal with so you want to be threatening him with rocket if he can’t buff it. If Sett, Kingpin is ever left on a battlefield we want to try and threaten it with Vi going over it and rocketing it in base to kill it for good. Gust is a card that needs to be kept for winning trades against Call to Glory or otherwise making trades in your favor. I could write a whole dissertation on gust but for now this should suffice. Sideboard in Rebuke over Legion Rearguard.

Dazzling Aurora: I will put all dazzles (decks that play Dazzling Aurora) in this same category, though for some the Match Up changes and I will mention that at the end. These are in general a favored Match Up, our most important card in this is Ride the Wind as that card can represent putting the dazzlers on a turn quicker clock which can mean the difference between wins and losses. The hardest version of Dazzle for Jinx to fight is Volibear as he can maintain high tempo presence pre-dazzle hitting the board. Against Volibear we want to keep rocket to try and curb his early presence and keep on getting double points every turn.


Jinx’s Future

Jinx has a very promising future. Prismaticism got second in the tournament using a version that's close to what I was playing before the Nocturne realization. With more time focusing more on the intricacies of her individual match ups I believe she can be a force to be reckoned with. I don’t believe she will have the raw strength to be in a top 3, but as it stands right now she is very playable with a strong ability to contend with even the top decks in our current early format.

You can find the journey of jinx this week at my youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@GhaelWindsRiftbound make sure to send me some love!