Ezreal Prodigal Explorer Deck Guide – Riftbound TCG
Ezreal, Prodigal Explorer is a Riftbound Spiritforged deck focused on controlling the board through removal spells and abilities. In the later stages of the game, the Ezreal Riftbound deck dominates its foes with big units and outvalues them with their legend ability.
The deck sports several top finishes in Chinese Regional Qualifiers, as well as a second place finish in the latest 1k USD Runes & Rift Cash Cup.
Legend
Once you’ve chosen enemy units or gear twice in a round, we can use our legend to draw a card. This enables us to play removal spells without running out of cards.
Some nuances here:
- You can use this ability immediately after targeting enemies twice, even before the spells/abilities resolve and before passing focus
- It doesn’t need to be two different spells/abilities. So Bellows Breath targeting two units alone is enough to draw a card
- Gear – like Orb of Regret – targeting enemies does not count towards the Ezreal legend ability *Cries Orbs of Regret*
The main reason the Ezreal Spiritforged deck is so powerful though, is its region combination. As we will come to see, mixing Chaos and Mind allows for some unfair card combinations!
Ezreal, Prodigal Explorer
1
0
Mind Rune
5
0
Chaos Rune
7
0
Obelisk of Power
1
0
Sigil of the Storm
1
0
Void Gate
1
0
Ezreal, Prodigy
1
3
Called Shot
3
0
Seal of Discord
3
0
Bellows Breath
2
1
Factory Recall
1
1
Retreat
2
1
Stacked Deck
3
1
Stupefy
3
1
Frigid Touch
2
2
Morbid Return
1
2
Ravenbloom Student
3
2
Rebuke
1
2
Arcane Shift
2
3
Card Sharp
2
3
Fizz, Trickster
2
3
Wages of Pain
3
3
Singularity
1
6
Beast Below
1
7
Mindsplitter
1
7
Thousand-Tailed Watcher
1
7
Rhasa the Sunderer
2
10
Beast Below
1
7
Dr. Mundo, Expert
1
8
Hard Bargain
1
2
Mindsplitter
1
7
Rebuke
2
2
Downwell
1
8
Thousand-Tailed Watcher
1
7
How to Play
Chosen Champion
Ezreal Prodigy is a 3-Might unit that costs 3 energy and 1 power. This makes him a guaranteed turn 1 play going second, although the power cost means we usually want to play Seal of Discord or a Gold beforehand.
His first ability allows us to discard a card to draw 2. This adds overall consistency to the deck and allows us to put cards in our trash for Fizz Trickster and Rhasa the Sunderer.
His second ability gives us a discount on additional costs – and what a discount indeed! This means that Ezreal allows us to repeat spells like Bellows Breath and Called Shot, as well as accelerate Thousand-Tailed Watcher without having to pay an additional power.
Fun fact: The only cards currently affected by Ezreal’s ability are ones with the keyword Repeat or Accelerate!
Battlefields
Void Gate means that Wages of Pain kills 4-Might units like Draven Vanquisher and Kai'Sa Survivor. Repeated Bellows Breath also works, but is only a back-up plan because of its power cost. Moreover, it is low risk and doesn’t facilitate our opponent to clear our units – if we commit any to that battlefield at all. Just be aware that Draven and Kai’Sa play Falling Star, which clears our 7- and 8-Might units at Void Gate.
We play Void Gate in game 1, as this battlefield is good independent of the curve. Also, our other two battlefield benefits more from knowing if we go first or second.
We play Obelisk of Power going first to have a guaranteed turn 1 play with Ezreal Prodigy or Card Sharp. Conceptually, Ezreal is a very energy- and power-hungry deck, so ramping benefits us more than our enemy.
Make sure to not forget to channel and extra rune! With the recent rule changes, you are allowed to use “At the start of your turn” effects during the entirety of your first round.
Obelisk of Power slows our opponent down by limiting their ability to conquer both battlefields in a round. We choose this battlefield going second so that our opponent can’t race us down with their advantage of developing first.
Gear
As mentioned before, Ezreal Prodigal Explorer is a power-hungry Riftbound Spiritforged deck. Most of our cards have a power cost attached to them – and those who don’t help us cover that cost.
We are more than happy to draw an additional copy of this card. When playing the Ezreal Spiritforged deck, you will quickly realize how different the games feel where you draw Seal versus those where you don’t.
Search Spells
These cards are here to increase the consistency of the deck and fill our trash for Rhasa the Sunderer.
Called Shot is the more conditional one of them. We only want to play it when we have Ezreal Prodigy and Seal of Discord or Gold on the board. In return, it allows us to generate a card advantage and skim our deck.
Stacked Deck is less conditional, enabling us to search for our Seals and Gold generators as early as turn 1.
Removal Combos
These cards are the bread and butter of our deck and enable our removal-focused playstyle in the first place.
Wages of Pain clears our opponent’s 2-drop at a battlefield while generating a Gold. Paired with Stupefy, it clears Kai'Sa Survivor and Draven Vanquisher while also activating your legend ability!
Bellows Breath is a more combo-oriented damage-dealing card yearning to be paired up with Might reduction.
Conceptually, this card is complementary to Wages of Pain – it deramps us and can target enemy units in the base. This makes it extremely difficult for our opponent to form a gameplan against us, as we can both remove their units at battlefields and their base.
Frigid Touch allows us to remove two 4-Might units like Kai'Sa Survivor and Noxus Hopeful at the same location, as well as a 2-Might unit. On its own, Frigid Touch activates our legend ability and helps us win combats.
Pairing Thousand-Tailed Watcher with Bellows Breath enables us to remove three 5-Might units at the enemy’s base while developing a 7-Might unit. This is the biggest power play this Ezreal Riftbound deck has, especially if you can pay the Accelerate cost of Thousand-Tailed Watcher to additionally conquer a battlefield. Be aware that this combo costs 8-10 energy, depending on the runes you are willing to recycle and if Ezreal Prodigy is on the board.
The Protection
As it turns out, Ezreal Prodigy is central to our gameplan, enabling our removal combos without recycling too many runes. So why not run some protection for our MVP!
We are especially susceptible to Falling Star – a spell both Kai'Sa Daughter of the Void and Draven Glorious Executioner run in their main deck. Retreat allows us to replay Ezreal Prodigy while also ramping us into our costly units and removal combos.
Retreat also comes in handy in slow matchups, where we voluntarily retreat cards like Fizz Trickster and Mindsplitter to utilize their ability for an additional time.
Against Draven Glorious Executioner specifically, you want to send a unit into a battlefield (to kill an enemy unit and/or gain a VP) and Retreat it in your own turn, before Draven Glorious Executioner can initiate a combat on their turn and draw a card when you retreat.
If Ezreal Prodigy happens to die regardless, we have Morbid Return as a safety net. It costs 2 energy and doesn’t target an enemy but can come in clutch when we run low on cards and need more value to win the game.
More Removal Spells!
This spell is straightforward. It clears two 6-Might units and activates Ezreal Prodigy on its own. This is especially good versus Draven Glorious Executioner, as it removes units like Draven Vanquisher and Darius Trifarian with one card. Should they dare to react with Spinning Axe on their Draven Vanquisher, we Stupefy their ass and make them lose their dear weapon!
Be mindful of your Mind Rune count, though. It is easy to announce Singularity, just to realise you don’t have enough Mind Runes! Also, since you can’t use Seal of Discord for this card, it is easy to deramp too much with Singularity. Sometimes, it is better to wait a turn for the more perfect removal turn, instead of rushing a Singularity and being stuck with too few runes for the coming turns.
Factory Recall is a non-conditional gear removal that progresses our legend ability. Almost all meta decks run some type of gear, except for Kai'Sa Daughter of the Void. It is convenient to bounce a Spinning Axe or Guardian Angel, and shines when it removes a Dazzling Aurora from the board (and in combination with Mindsplitter from the opponent’s hand!)
Rebuke is another generically good card that swings the tempo in our favour while targeting an enemy for Ezreal Prodigal Explorer. It is mandatory to win the Irelia Blade Dancer matchup, but also comes in clutch against Ferrous Forerunner.
An Angel with a Shotgun
Fizz Trickster is one of the strongest cards of the Spiritforged expansion. He allows us to play our removal spells an additional time, making him an extremely flexible play. If you play Fizz Trickster for Wages, you essentially developed a 3-Might unit for 0 energy and 1 power!
Fizz Trickster means that you not only play with the cards in your hand but also with the cards in your trash. Always be aware of what you have and what you lack in your discard pile.
Arcane Shift is another highly-flexible card.
Stuck with a bricked hand? Arcane Shift Ezreal Prodigy!
Need to outgrind your opponent? Arcane Shift Mindsplitter!
Need another round of mass-removal? Arcane Shift Thousand-Tailed Watcher!
The true MVP of Arcane Shift, though, comes in combination with Fizz Trickster. When Arcane Shift is in your trash, you can play Fizz Trickster targeting Fizz and use his ability an additional time to play Wages of Pain. In Ezreal-connoisseur circles, this is called Machine Gun Fizz, or as I like to call it – Angle With a Shotgun.
Units
We can’t win a game without units after all, so we need to run at least some.
Ravenbloom Student has obvious synergy with our deck. It is our only going-first play and generally a keep in our Mulligan phase. This unit works especially well together with Stupefy and Frigid Touch but in reality sky is the limit for Ravenbloom Student in our Riftbound Ezreal deck.
Ravenbloom Student creates up to two Gold gear tokens for us. Gold gears are almost always advantageous for us to have, so we are happy if our opponent gives us a second one off Card Sharp. A common line for us is to play Card Sharp on 3, Seal of Discord + Ezreal Prodigy on 5, and Mindsplitter on 7. Without the Gold off Card Sharp, we have an awkward turn with 6 runes where we don’t have anything to do unless our opponent actively plays into our open mana.
Beast Below is effectively Rebuke with a body. It can generate additional value by letting us replay our Fizz and Ezreal Prodigy, and enable the same pattern as Retreat does versus Draven – go in with a unit and bounce it to our hand before they can initiate a combat and draw a card.
Mindsplitter is an incredible development play. You not only get to discard a key piece from your opponent’s hand but also know their hand. This means you only need to play around the cards you saw (plus their potential topdeck), adding a lot of hidden value to Mindsplitter.
Rhasa the Sunderer is a late-game unit for only one power. With all the cheap spells we play, our discard pile tends to fill quickly, discounting Rhasa. Don’t be afraid to discard him early though, as he is usually a brick in the early rounds of the game!
Sideboard
We run more copies of Beast Below, Mindsplitter, and Watcher for the Irelia, Kai’Sa and Draven matchup respectively. Additional copies of Rebuke are for the aforementioned Irelia matchup as well as decks that run large units like Ferrous Forerunner.
Dr. Mundo Expert counters the heavy-removal Kai’Sa list, as he has simply too much Might to be removed by damage spells, and Kai’Sa doesn’t have access to cards like Rebuke or Hidden Blade. It also carries the rare Master Yi matchup for the same lack of hard removal.
Hard Bargain stops Kai’Sa from cheesing you with Time Warp and can sometimes stop Singularity from removing your backline.
Downwell is for decks that run Ruin Runner, as well as Irelia, who tends to deramp a lot, meaning they lack the mana after Downwell to redevelop quickly. Downwell generally works well against decks that run units you can not/do not want to target, like Ornn Forge God.
It also has the combo potential with Rhasa – when you Downwell to clear the board and then play Rhasa, you are the first to develop units and thus the first to get onto battlefields.
Alternate Versions
The Vex-Factor
Deck not found: alanzq-ezreal-bologna-list-y0m2gw
Alanzq recently won the Bologna Regional Qualifier with this list! It makes use of Vex Cheerless to reduce the cost of our power-hungry cards as well as making it more punishing for our opponent to interact with our units – an especially promising gameplan against Irelia.
Treasure Hunting with Malzahar
Ezreal, Prodigal Explorer
1
0
Mind Rune
5
0
Chaos Rune
7
0
Aspirant's Climb
1
0
Sigil of the Storm
1
0
Vilemaw's Lair
1
0
Ezreal, Prodigy
1
3
Called Shot
3
0
Seal of Discord
3
0
Bellows Breath
1
1
Retreat
1
1
Stacked Deck
3
1
Stupefy
3
1
Frigid Touch
1
2
Hard Bargain
1
2
Pack of Wonders
1
2
Rebuke
2
2
Treasure Trove
3
2
Arcane Shift
1
3
Fizz, Trickster
2
3
Last Rites
1
3
Wages of Pain
2
3
Malzahar, Fanatic
3
4
Singularity
2
6
Mindsplitter
3
7
Thousand-Tailed Watcher
1
7
Soulgorger
1
8
Rhasa the Sunderer
1
10
Acceptable Losses
2
1
Retreat
1
1
Dr. Mundo, Expert
1
8
Morbid Return
1
2
Temporal Portal
1
3
Factory Recall
1
1
Downwell
1
8
This Ezreal Riftbound deck goes all-in on the control gameplan, aiming to ramp with Treasure Trove. This becomes especially potent in combination with Malzahar Fanatic when you go Treasure Trove on 2, Malzahar on 4, into Mindsplitter the following round.
The downside of this list is that Malzahar becomes a brick after your 4/5-rune turn. Also, developing Treasure Trove over a Ravenbloom Student or Card Sharp on your first turn means you are falling behind on board and will allow your enemy to double score early on.
Rat on the Loose
Ezreal, Prodigal Explorer
1
0
Mind Rune
6
0
Chaos Rune
6
0
Void Gate
1
0
Hall of Legends
1
0
Veiled Temple
1
0
Ezreal, Prodigy
2
3
Called Shot
3
0
Seal of Discord
3
0
Bellows Breath
2
1
Cull
3
1
Stacked Deck
3
1
Stupefy
3
1
Frigid Touch
2
2
Hard Bargain
1
2
Rebuke
2
2
Arcane Shift
1
3
Boots of Swiftness
1
3
Card Sharp
3
3
Pit Crew
3
3
Wages of Pain
2
3
Mindsplitter
2
7
Thousand-Tailed Watcher
2
7
Unchecked Power
1
7
Time Warp
1
10
Factory Recall
2
1
Switcheroo
2
2
Ornn, Forge God
2
6
Bellows Breath
1
1
Last Rites
1
3
This version was popular at the beginning of the Spiritforged meta in China, topping several Regional Qualifiers.
The idea is that you equip Pit Crew with Cull. This way, when you conquer a battlefield, Cull will generate a Gold Gear token, readying Pit Crew. This allows Pit Crew to dodge out of harm’s way, either returning to base, or – if equipped with Boots of Swiftness – conquering the other battlefield before running home.
This list has the big advantage of running Ornn Forge God in the sideboard, which is a gamechanger against Irelia and Kai’Sa.
The downside of this Ezreal version is that it is quite inconsistent. The games where you see Cull + Pit Crew early feel great – the ones where you miss a piece don’t.
Closing Words
Ezreal is a skill-intensive spell-slinger deck that excels at removal. If you enjoy a consistent game experience where you win and lose due to your skill, this deck might just be for you!
Feel free to leave a comment about this guide or any questions that you hav,e and I will make sure to answer! You can also reach out to me on Twitter. Thank you for reading!
Hi, as always a fantastic job. I only ask you to fix the incorrect links within the guide that incorrectly display Shurelya’s Requiem and Spinning Axe (this is when the article explains how to play Fizz Trickster optimally). Thanks
Good catch, thank you!
Wow, such a comprehensive and well written guide! I bet the person who wrote this is incredibly handsome and smart.