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There is no greater symbol of Noxian might than Darius, the nation's most feared and battle-hardened commander. Rising from humble origins to become the Hand of Noxus, he cleaves through the empire's enemies—many of them Noxians themselves. Knowing that he never doubts his cause is just, and never hesitates once his axe is raised, those who stand against the leader of the Trifarian Legion can expect no mercy.
Overview
The Noxian leader strikes fear into his foes while rallying his allies as a senior commander, which is fitting considering he combines the aggression of Fury and the unified assault of Order. Both domains feature solid units combined with cost-effective removals. Then, it is no surprise to see its representative emerge as an aggressive midrange legend, aimed at quickly seizing the board and looking to end the match before the opponent can reach its comfort zone.
The Hand of Noxus lets you add another energy if you've played a card prior, meaning that you can play the entire game with one more energy than your opponent. However, this also means Darius is forced to play two cards per turn to make use of its ability. In that context, the legend almost sole strategy is to play in a rush, as to end the match before our hand inevitably becomes empty.
Against aggressive foes, this is a strong ability. Indeed, the extra energy allows Darius to be explosive early, and quickly get on the board, often forcing its opponent to adopt a reactive role it isn't designed to assume.
Matches against control oriented decks are a bit trickier, as the opponent knowns from the get-go their goal is to exhaust our hand before we reach eight points. With that in mind, it is up to OGN-253 to find a way to snowball, and develop too much for the opponent to be able to keep up. Early in a match, adding one energy equals a 50% or 25% increase of our total pool. Yet, the more the match progresses, and the less impactful the ability becomes.
Spiritforged Darius Deck
Darius Signature Cards
OGN-027 was a staple unit of the Origins metagame, included in multiple copies alongside OGN-039 in most Fury decks. The card isn't fantastic on its own, but only need you to play two cards per turn to turn into a machine. Its ability to grow to 7 might and move twice every turn is huge to anchor the mid-game and force the opponent to focus on removing it before it can snowball.
With Spiritforged, a bit of competition joined the party, such as SFD-021. As a result, OGN-027 isn't as popular as it was in the first set, but remains a powerful inclusion for any aggressive Fury legend, such as Annie or Draven.
OGN-254 and OGN-243 aren't bad cards, but simply don't compare to other available options, meaning they don't see play.
OGN-243 doesn't fit the play style of OGN-253, far from a token based strategy to instead look for strong units on their own. As for Token specialists such as Viktor or Azir, they tend to play control and rarely make tokens the primary focus of their strategy.
OGN-254 suffer from the same fate, cut in favour of the cheaper OGN-213. Once again, it isn't out of the question to run one copy of the signature spell, but most players typically use OGN-029 when they look for more removal. Four is a lot of runes to invest, and would limit OGN-253 too much for that turn. Indeed, the legend is looking for very cost-efficient spells, both because it focuses on mid-sized units and due to the legion keyword requiring to play two cards per turn.
Darius Staple Cards and Synergies
OGN-242 has become the key card for OGN-253, joined by OGN-226 and sometimes SFD-165 for another way to special summon units. Most of the deck is built around optimizing for OGN-242, with units ranging from 2 to 5 or 6 might, alongside a way to manipulate their might if necessary, such as SFD-166.
Darius can also play a midrange build, mostly based on the best units the Fury domain has to offer. Arguably, the OGN-242 build packs more of a punch, but is also fragile against gear removal, which can derail your entire game plan. As such, the midrange deck is considered a safer option, with a lower ceiling when it comes to possible high rolls or explosive play patterns.
In tournaments, considering Darius isn't a dominant legends, the list with the best ability to steal games is posting better results overall.
