Tawan
Azir, Emperor of the Sands didn’t have the biggest crowd at the last Regional Qualifiers, but he kept showing up in the Top 8, and his plan is a good one to understand even if you never play him.
Emperor of the Sands
Calm · Order
Pay ①, exhaust: Play a 2 Might Sand Soldier unit token to your base. Use only if you’ve played an Equipment this turn.
SFD · 197/221 · EN · Art by 蛋费鸡丁
What his Legend does
Azir’s Legend does two things. It gives your Sand Soldiers Weaponmaster, and for one Energy you can exhaust him to play a 2 Might Sand Soldier token to your base, but only if you’ve already played an Equipment this turn (Riot Games, n.d.-a). Weaponmaster lets a unit take an Equipment for one Power less when you play it, so every fresh Sand Soldier can pick up gear at a discount.
His champion cards
Azir’s two champion cards are about moving the army around. Azir, Ascendant can swap places with a unit you control for one Calm Power and take one of its Equipment with him, and he can only do that once per turn. Azir, Sovereign has Accelerate, and whenever he attacks you may move any number of your token units to that battlefield (Riot Games, n.d.-a).
Why it matters
This is a gear and tokens deck. Every piece of Equipment you play lets you make another Sand Soldier, Weaponmaster lets those soldiers pick the gear up cheaply, and Sovereign pulls the whole crowd to the same battlefield when he attacks. It’s a bit like a general who keeps recruiting while the army marches.
I think the clever part is that the Legend only works when you keep playing Equipment, so the deck has a natural rhythm of gear first and soldiers second.
At the Regional Qualifiers
Azir never had the biggest crowd, with 79 players in Barcelona and Los Angeles and 92 in Singapore, which is between 3.7% and 4.9% of the field, but he kept finishing near the top. He came 3rd in Barcelona, 3rd and 4th in Los Angeles, and his best result in Singapore was 10th (Riot Games, 2026a, 2026b, 2026c).
Those numbers are from before Radiance released, so they show the old meta, but three Top 8 finishes from so few players say a lot. All of our Azir lists are on the Decks & meta page.
The Overnumbered version
The standard Legend is by 蛋费鸡丁, and the Overnumbered alternate art is by Envar Studio (Riot Games, n.d.-a).
In League of Legends
Azir, the Emperor of the Sands
Mage · Shurima
Azir was a mortal emperor of Shurima, a proud man on the verge of immortality who was betrayed and murdered at the moment of his greatest triumph. Thousands of years later he has been reborn as an Ascended being, and with his buried city risen from the sand he wants to bring Shurima back to its former glory (Riot Games, n.d.-b).
From the Rift to the table
Sand Soldiers are the heart of Azir in League, where he sends them out to fight for him, and the Legend makes them the heart of the deck too. Ascendant echoes the Ascended beings of Shurima, and Sovereign fits an emperor who commands instead of fights (Riot Games, n.d.-a; Riot Games, n.d.-b). His full story is on his official League of Legends champion page.
If you want to see the Legend everyone was playing against him, our Irelia Spotlight is the one to read, and every Spotlight so far is on the Cards page. Next up is Ornn, who turns gear into power.
It are what it are.
References
Riot Games. (n.d.-a). Card gallery. Riftbound: League of Legends Trading Card Game. Retrieved October 3, 2026, from https://playriftbound.com/en-us/card-gallery/
Riot Games. (n.d.-b). Azir, the Emperor of the Sands. League of Legends. Retrieved October 3, 2026, from https://leagueoflegends.com/en-us/champions/azir/
Riot Games. (2026a, August 26). Barcelona’s top decks. Riftbound: League of Legends Trading Card Game. https://playriftbound.com/en-us/news/organizedplay/barcelonas-top-decks/
Riot Games. (2026b, September 30). Los Angeles’ top decks. Riftbound: League of Legends Trading Card Game. https://playriftbound.com/en-us/news/organizedplay/los-angeles-top-decks/
Riot Games. (2026c, September 9). Singapore’s top decks. Riftbound: League of Legends Trading Card Game. https://playriftbound.com/en-us/news/organizedplay/singapores-top-decks/
Tawan was created under Riot Games’ “Legal Jibber Jabber” policy using assets owned by Riot Games. Riot Games does not endorse or sponsor this project.