[guide][thoughts] Dec 2025 1st Place 32-man Skirmish Viktor (Seals, Combat Tricks)

[guide][thoughts]

Time of writing: Origins set, late Dec 2025:

1st Place 32-man Skirmish Viktor (pretty consistent top 8 in other skirmishes leading up to this)

1st Place Nexus Night Viktor (am able to get consistent store creds even if not first)

1st Place 32-man Skirmish Results:
R1 GhaelWinds Yasou 1-2
R2 Kaisa 2-0
R3 Ramp Yi 2-1
R4 Ramp Yi 2-0
R5 Annie 2-0
--Top 8--
R1 Viktor 2-0
R2 Kaisa 2-1
R3 Annie

Disclaimer:

Not a lot of TCG experience, but I did hit Masters in Runeterra.

I have only played around ~40 games of Viktor games up to now.

I am by no means a Viktor expert, but I would like to share with my fellow Viktors what I have experienced so far and what I believe are important.

Even then, TCGs do eventually come down to luck of the draw and your opponent’s skill level, so with that in mind, let’s dive straight into it.

General Notes:

Downside:

If you cannot swarm the base and score crucial points early before mid/late game, you will be fighting an uphill battle. Drawing the costly late game cards and combat tricks too early and not getting at least ONE SEAL feels really bad.

Main Playstyle Notes: (this should overtake any listed suggestions in other sections, but everything is situational in the end)

My Viktor has gloriously evolved from pure token generation and relying on Grand Strategem to swinging wide frugally and playing mind games with combat tricks. This is the key takeaway with this decklist.

• When going FIRST, you should ALWAYS just generate 1 token instead of playing your 2-drops.This is because on your second turn with 4 runes, there is a chance you do not have another 2-drop, and you are stuck with creating only a token on turn 2 and lose tempo. 

  • (This is just particular to my decklist, because I am running on 6 2-costs)

  • (Yes you can maybe Sprite Mother, but we are assuming the worst case)

• You should NEVER bring out Viktor unless you REALLY HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO. In the meta atm: Void Seeker in (Red Annie and Kaisa) and Charm (Green Yas, Ahri, Yi) he is too easy to kill, resulting in temp loss. I only bring him out late game when I know I can generate at least 2 tokens with trades on my turn or I have only a few cards in hard to guarantee win and can spare runes.

• Do smart trades. Play your non-recruits to trade if you dont have enough tokens (situational in the end tbh); otherwise, you should be conquering with “only” 1 token. YOUR VALUE IS NOT IN TOTAL MIGHT, BUT TOTAL BODIES. 

  • Unless you are holding to win, after a hold, use discretion to move units back to base. The only exception is purposely holding with Machine Evangel, because you force opponent to choose between giving you 3 recruits or give hold point.

  • Unless you KNOW the opponent does not have anything that can fully conquer, you can potentially hold with multiple bodies. Math is hard, so do as you will. One of my favorite examples of this is (You are against Kaisa and you go first):

    • Turn 1 with 2 runes: you create a token

    • Turn 2 with 3 runes: opponent draws dead and pass (for simplicity, they didn't have a 2-drop in hand to play)

    • *Turn 3 with 4 runes: you Sprite Mother to send a 3-might Sprite to conquer a battlefield. you then move the turn-1 token to the same battlefield, making the total might 4.

    • Turn 4 with 5 runes: opponent plays Kaisa accelerated, but now they wouldn’t want to send it into your 4-might hold to do a useless trade into a 3-might Sprite that is going to die on your next turn, so they conquer the other field to draw.

    • Conclusion: Instead of greeding and conquering 2 battlefields, you gained the same 2 points through conquering and holding, and the recruit lives, as opposed to the other scenario where both battlefields would be empty. (I’d rather not get into details on the fact that yes Sprite Mother can conquer the field that the Sprite held to get you to 3 … it’s just bad tempo)

• You should not Hidden Blade the opponent UNLESS you are at 6 points or they are about to win 

• To win (true for any deck really), our goal is to reach 6 points asap, then either:

  • Pull back all units and double conquer at 6 points.

    • Win con: Grand Strategem, Royal Decree, Watcher, any kill spells

    • If able, leave a token at each battlefield to spread opponent thin

  • Hold a battlefield when you are at 7 points.

    • Win con: Grand Strategem, Hidden Blade, combat tricks

    • I would still leave a few units in base in case anything bad happens

Important Tricks/Reminders:

• You can Cull the Weak when you have no units to kill one of your opponent’s

• Cull the Weak DOES NOT TARGET

• Back To Back NEEDS at least 2 units for targets. There is no Erata atm specifying it can target 1, so be careful on that. I have lost a game due to losing hold thinking I got it.

• Note on Seals, you can:

  • Tap the seal to bring out other seals

  • *** You can float a rune, then recycle the seal, to play units such as Vanguard Captain and Machine Evangel. The STRONGEST going-second play on turn 1 with 3 runes is to bring out the Seal of Unity with Vanguard Captain and 2 recruits.

Runes:

 Due to running more combat tricks, I have decided to go down from 7 order runes to 6. "Perfectly balanced, as all things should be"

Battlefield:

• Dreaming Tree (always use for first match)

  • This is the reason why the main deck has 8 target-your-own-unit cards (3 Stupefy, 3 Hidden Blades, 2 Back to Back)

  • You should always be Hidden Blading and Stupefying your own units here UNLESS you are 100% sure you can trade

  • Yes, this battlefield might also be good for the opponent, but in the end it should be a tug of war and a battle of wits. Just worry about its value to you.

• Vilemaw’s Lair (usually for when you are going second, used after you win Dreaming Tree since opponent will likely want to go first)

  • Just neutral and a good counter to move decks. I love conquering with a token here and sending Machine Evangel to anchor. The opponent has to deal with it.

• Trifarian War Camp (usually for when you are going first)

  • Really good into Red decks to, for example, buff your Machine Evangel or Viktor out of lethal 4 dmg spell range, and your number of units to trade into your opponent.

  • On the flip side, be aware of your Riptide Rex/Singularity not being able to kill because you forgot the opponent is at 7 might, not 6 anymore :(

Main Deck:

 With my current deck right now, I would say the only things that are not really stables right now are the following: They are meant to be sideboarded situationally imo (which I will go into in the Matchups section) or if you feel like replacing them, feel free.

• Back to Back - 2: (purely to mess with opponents and proc Dreaming tree. Should keep 1 even when sideboarding UNLESS against Big Unit decks, which will be useless)

• Smoke Screen - 2: (purely to mess with opponents. Should keep 1 even when sideboarding UNLESS against Big Unit decks, which will be useless)

• Imperial Decree - 1: (tbh not 100% sure about this one. Because you dont have 3 salvages initially into AURORA, this and Grand Strategem is here as deterrent)

• Riptide Rex - 1: (you lose HUGE TEMPO if the dmg doesnt kill, so at least you get a body now)

• Singularity - 1: (it used to be 3 singularities, but you lose HUGE TEMPO if they can counter somehow. There is 1 more in sideboard to replace Rex when you are not into Kaisa OR Aurora)

Sideboard:

• Retreat - 1: Put in main deck against Viktor and Kaisa to get token generators back and avoid the Blue and Red kill spells in some scenarios

• Salvages - 3: Put in main deck against Aurora and honestly maybe 1 or 2 into gears like Zhonya’s Hourglass

• Smoke Screen - 1: Put in main deck to replace Back-to-Back into agro/combat decks. Feels good to trade opponent units into tokens.

• Imperial Decree - 1: Put in main deck into the big bois.

• Vanguard Attendant - 1: Put in main deck into aggro decks as surprise. It was alright

  • (Note: Proving Ground card. Can be replaced with Sprite Mother.)

• Singularity -1: Put in main deck into Retreat-less decks to board clear, not if they are too big, which you should be prioritizing Royal Decree

Ideal Opening Hand:

• The Hand: 

  • Seal (YOU PRAY FOR THIS) - 1 

  • Token Generator (Vanguard Captain pref, or Machine Evangel) - 1 

  • Any 2 Cost - 1 

  • (any thing) - 1

• The Mulligan: (depends on matchup) 

  • Aggro: Might be controversial, but I think development is important, so lowkey mull the Strategem/Decrees (since you need to have units first), but maybe not the Watcher. If against Kaisa, I personally also mull Singularity.

  • MidRange: (no suggestions)

  • Ramp: (no suggestions)

  • Aurora: (no suggestions, but you will need to look for Salvages fast)

  • Mirror: Remove all 3 Cull the Weak

  • In General: The one for sure I mull is Consult the Past. It’s a dead card in hand for too long. You have other draw mechanics, and you need to develop board.

Matchups: 

Generally:

• *** I believe Purple is Viktor’s vice. Anticipating dmg and combat tricks from Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, and Orange is pretty straight forward, but I personally have a hard time predicting Purple MOVING cards. 

• Going second in games does not actually feel bad, since you can actually get your token generators out 1 turn earlier compared to going first. (And I won my skirmish going second every round, not by choice of course). Still choose to go first if possible.

• If the opponent deck is aggro, good luck. Try to force their kill spells on tokens by scoring early and leave runes up to make them do unfavorable trades into tokens at battlefields. 

• If the opponent deck is mid range, I’d rely on the combat tricks and kill spells more than ever. Time to big brain with trades

• If the opponent deck runs big bois, you should be able to win by creating bodies and relying on Strategem and Royal Decree. Put salvages in to replace combat tricks if it’s Aurora

Challenging Matchups:

• Annie (Aggro): 

  • *Combat Tricks and Singularity

  • Smoke screen for Vayne and some other stuff

  • Save a Hidden Blade against their usual win-con in late game: Vi

  • Machine Evangel and Singularity will be your friend here, as against most decks. Only problem is they are a bit slow, so I pray you can have a good early board to back them up. 

  • Rex only targets the battlefield, and they could Flash/Fight or Flight/Gust, so not advised

• Yasou (GhaelWinds version): 

  • THE BRAIN WILL HURT.

  • *Combat tricks, especially Smoke Screening Yas when he moves to battlefield. 

  • Be aware of the Ganking Battlefield: Windswept Hilllock. You will most likely need to lock that down for that game.

    • In case you didn’t know, you can move Ganking units from the battlefield and Readied units from the base at the SAME time to the other other battlefield for showdown.

• Kai'Sa (Aggro): 

  • *Combat Tricks and Rex

  • Must conquer points and play smart with bodies to anticipate Rain. At time of writing, I am 5-0 into Kaisa (some were experimental and not meta), but in all the instances where I beat them, I had more points than them when they had enough runes to Rain. I was able to basically trade with all their units and they had nothing to do on their Rain turn. It is very important to just develop a board.

  • You will lose if you Singularity their Kaisa/Darius and they retreat, so that is why I went down to 1 and placed in a Rex to have at least a body in case. Against Annie Singularity is okay

• Sett:

  • *Singularity will be your best friend here, but make sure you have some temp to back up spamming them

  • Very annoying tbh, Need to really get those points early and use your removals to at least push his big units back to base to score nifty points. Then can swarm to win with your win cons.

• Viktor (Mirror):

  • *Combat tricks

  • Take out all the Cull the Weak after game 1

  • Ngl, it REALLY comes down to draw luck and going FIRST is important. Whoever generates more tokens wins.

  • The art of trading is very important here. Whoever has more bodies win in the end

  • Do not stack/hold if possible except with Machine Evangel. I have been Watchered before and you basically lose.

Easier/Even Matchups:

• Aurora (Yi/MF): 

  • *Decree and Strategem should be enough to deal with big units late game

  • Main deck the Salvages and you should be fine tbh

  • I would personally take out 1 if not both Watchers, as *Decree and Strategem are your main tools. Sprite Mother has the accelerate you are looking for.

• Miss Fortune (non-Auroras): 

  • As always, don't swarm when holding, even when trading due to Bullet Time 

  • Mindsplitter and Sabotages are annoying, but I don’t think you really need Strategem to win if you play right. Watcher would be enough, if needed. 

• Master Yi (non-Auroras):

  • *Combat tricks

  • Usually they have a single unit that will be at 2 or 3 might, and a rune or two up to bring the might to 4 or 5 (which will be 6 7 (our generation is cooked) when defending). I would swing in FIRST to make them at their max might then Smoke Screen so you can trade even using a non-token unit, then conquer with a token

Unsure Matchups: (usually due to lack of playtesting)

• Ahri: I don’t run Siphon Power anymore into her, and she might have Fox Fire for board wipe. Just don’t get too greedy when board swarming her. MATH MATTERS

• Any other Legends:anything not in meta should not be a problem tbh

References:

At the time of writing, there were only 2 YT videos that I am aware of going over their 1st Skirmish Viktor.I want to give a shoutout to them for some of the inspiration:

The Rising Turtle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uC9K8DewtoQ&t=296s

Team Gank Ninja: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rp_wR9TixgI&t=213s

I might do a YT video too, but I'm unsure atm..