Contents
With no doubt, Kai'Sa, together with Master Yi, are currently the two most popular legends in competetive Riftbound. But Kai'Sa seems to be the most effective now - this deck that won all three Regional Open tournaments in China.
As an engineer, I really like numbers and statistics, so for my own I started to track the deckbuilding trends. I believe that knowledge should be public, that's why you can now read this article (it's my first TCG content, so sorry for my writing). As a goal, I want to determine so-called stock list for Kai'Sa, ready to be used with promise of a success.
In this article, I'm not judging the choices of players who registered certain decklists. Nor will I discuss why a particular card should be in a deck. I'm analyzing available information and looking at trends. I'm also not (yet) good storyteller, so my thoughts will be rather concise, but hopefully, useful for all of you!
Material used in this article consists of 31 publicly available decklists that performed well from end of July 2025 to Chongqing Regional Open (top8, 4-0 in Riftlab Clash, etc.).
Analysis
Let's analyze players choices for each of card types and see how their choices evolved. We'll discuss statistics on the number of copies of each card in the main deck and also take a look at flex slots.
To estimate available flex slots, I assumed that their number is determined by the difference between the average number of cards of a given type and number of staples.
What is a staple then? For this article, if a given number of copies of a particular card appear in at least 75% of the deck, it is a staple (and marked green). On the other hand, best fillers have been marked yellow (typically 50-75%).
Units
70% of available unit slots are consistent within time. Filling up remaining 30% depends mostly on strategy.
Units - distribution
Units - cards in main deck
Deck staples: 14
- Exactly 3 copies: Ravenbloom Student, Watchful Sentry
- Minimum 2 of 3 copies: Darius Trifarian, Lecturing Yordle, Thousand-Tailed Watcher, and obviously Kai'Sa Survivor.
Flex slots: 6
Most preferred fillers:
- Third copy of Darius Trifarian and Kai'Sa Survivor
- Two copies of Noxus Hopeful and Sprite Mother
- ... or maybe some Pouty Poro instead?
Spells
Building a spellbook for Kai'Sa seems to be pretty easy, since 80% of the slots are taken by best removal and combat tricks.
Spells - distribution
Spells - cards in main deck
Deck staples: 16
- Exactly 3 copies: Stupefy, Hextech Ray, Falling Star, Void Seeker
- Minimum 2 of 3 copies: Smoke Screen, Cleave
Flex slots: 4
Most preferred fillers:
- More removal: Icathian Rain and Singularity
- Combat tricks: staple wannabe Retreat or another Smoke Screen
Gear
So far, Gear doesn't seem to be playing any significant role in this deck. Let's look at the numbers and move on.
Gear - distribution
Gear - cards in main deck
Battlefields
When it comes to Battlefields, everything is basically decided. The most frequently chosen Battlefields (Void Gate and Targon's Peak) fit very well into the deck's strategy. Currently, the third most frequently chosen Battlefield is Reaver's Row, which allows us to avoid losing our defender.
Battlefields - preferences
However, it's clear that players are trying to break this trio by playing two cards supporting (mostly) drawing additional cards:
- Zaun Warrens
- Reckoner's Arena
Runes
Playing cards in this deck requires a lot of recycling, and yes, Kai'Sa Daughter of the Void ensures one power per turn, but sometimes it is not enough.
Runes - distribution
Runes - split statistics
So according to maths, it is wise to play 7 Fury Rune and 5 Mind Rune, but it's absolutely ok, if we divide our rune deck in half.
Stock list for Kai'Sa
Now based on the statistics, let's build some stock list for Kai'Sa. For this purpose I made some assumptions:
- 20 Units (including Chosen Champion)
- 20 Spells
- Runes split: 7 Fury / 5 Mind
Last, but not least - I'm proposing here only Main Deck. Sideboard selection will be then your job (but I'll show you later some trends on sideboarding).
Sideboard choices
Well, there's a plenty. Let's list the most interesting:
- Champions: Vayne Hunter, Vi Destructive or Dr. Mundo Expert
- Units: Sprite Mother (especially if you don't play it in Main Deck, Riptide Rex or Brynhir Thundersong
- Spells: Removal spells: Singularity, Icathian Rain or event Unchecked Power, fillers for main deck combat tricks and even taking turns by Time Warp
- Gears: especially Iron Ballista and Thermo Beam
Closing
As you can see, the more data, the less choices for deckbuilding. With relatively small card pool, we have to say that Stock List Kai'Sa is a stable and reasonable build at the moment. Of course this is only my proposal based on the statistics and my choice shall not be an oracle. But if you are starting your journey with Kai'Sa and looking for a decklist, feel free to use Stock List Kai'Sa and enjoy!
Let me know what do you think about this type of article. If you like it, there will be more of this content here. Firstly, for sure, I will decompose Master Yi deck (because of data available), but as soon as we receive reliable data on other legends, more of that kind of content can be created.
Stay tuned and thanks for reading!
