Mel
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Excellent (8/10)
High Investment Required
Epic Relics
Paid Relics
Mel is widely regarded as a powerful and highly engaging spellslinger, though her heavy reliance on mana generation and specific Epic or Paid relics makes her feel incomplete at lower investment levels.
Chase Gun Spam
Ensures multiple copies of Mel are drawn, allowing you to repeatedly play her after she is removed from the board.
Generates 0-cost Warning Shots upon summoning, providing immediate burst damage and level-up progression.- Doubles the Warning Shot generation, maximizing direct Nexus damage.
Strategy
This is widely considered Mel's most optimal and fastest build, especially for stacked accounts with her 6-star upgrade. It circumvents her inherent mana issues by relying entirely on 0-cost Warning Shots. The strategy involves playing Mel, casting the Warning Shots, and actively allowing her to die in combat. Echoing Spirit ensures you have multiple copies of Mel in hand to replay her, resetting the Warning Shot generation for rapid Turn 2 or 3 victories.
Rebuttal Control
Mel's signature relic reduces the cost of a spell, draws a card, and creates multiple copies, fueling her spell-heavy engine.- Reduces the cost of her champion spell, Rebuttal, and provides consistent access to it.
Provides crucial early-game mana acceleration to cast her expensive spells.
Strategy
This build focuses on Mel's intended spell-slinging playstyle. Searing Brilliance and Echoing Spirit ensure consistent access to her powerful champion spell, Rebuttal. Hidden Tome provides the necessary mana to cast these spells early in the Game. To maximize this build's effectiveness, players often recommend cutting other spells from the deck during the Adventure to guarantee Searing Brilliance targets Rebuttal.
Chemtech Scaler
Serves as the primary win condition, doubling all spell casts once 6 mana gems are reached.
Provides the consistent spell mana required to fuel her abilities each round.- Ensures consistent access to Mel and her champion spell.
Strategy
A slower, control-oriented build that aims to stall the Game until you reach 6 mana gems. Once Chemtech Duplicator activates, Mel's spell damage output scales dramatically, allowing her to clear massive boards and deal heavy Overwhelm damage to the Nexus. Archangel's Staff is critical here to ensure you have the resources to cast multiple spells per turn.
Rare Relic Foundation
Generates fleeting copies of Mel each round to be used as Rebuttal spells.- Refills spell mana to ensure you can cast the generated Rebuttal spells.
- Provides a late-game win condition by doubling spell effects.
Strategy
For newer accounts without Epic relics, this build provides a solid foundation for Mel's control playstyle. The Grand General's Counterplan generates consistent removal via her champion spell, while Archangel's Staff ensures you have the mana to cast it. Chemtech Duplicator serves as the primary finisher once you reach the late-game.
Other Relic Options
Highly synergistic at 6 stars, as her constellation will duplicate the generated Hex Core, accelerating her level-up and providing valuable keywords.
A highly aggressive option that synergizes with her spell Overwhelm to deal massive direct Nexus damage with Pow-Pows.
Excellent for consistently drawing and discounting 3-cost or 4-cost spells, especially when combined with her constellation cost reductions.
Provides much-needed survivability, allowing Mel to attack safely and generate her spells without risking her low base health.
Constellation
Mel is a powerful but highly mana-dependent spellslinger. Her performance scales dramatically with investment, often feeling sluggish or incomplete before reaching her 5-star mana upgrade. Her dual-region status (Noxus and Piltover & Zaun) is a significant hidden strength, allowing her to benefit from a wider variety of regional Adventure nodes.
Sacrifice for Progress
When you kill a unit with a spell, deal 1 to all enemies and the enemy Nexus.
Strength & Strategy
+1 Starting Mana. When you play a damaging spell, increase the damage dealt by other copies of it Everywhere by 1.Review
Players note that this power can feel underwhelming, as it does not effectively scale the damage of her leveled-up champion spell or generated spells.
Sacrifice for Progress II
When you kill a unit with a spell, deal 2 to all enemies and the enemy Nexus.Review
A significant power spike. The ability to deal area-of-effect damage and strike the enemy Nexus upon killing a unit provides crucial board control and reach.
Gemcrafting
When you play a spell, grant a random ally in hand +1|+1.Review
Widely considered her weakest and most forgettable upgrade. The hand-buff mechanic feels disconnected from her primary spell-damage win condition, as she rarely relies on unit combat stats.
Manaflow
Game Start: Get a mana gem.Review
An absolutely essential upgrade. The extra starting mana allows Mel to be played on Turn 1, drastically improving her tempo and smoothing out her early-game curve.
Soul's Reflection
When you play a spell, create a Fleeting copy of it in hand, once per spell each round.Review
A powerful upgrade that duplicates the first spell played each round. While some players criticize that the copied spell retains its full mana cost, it synergizes exceptionally well with 0-cost spells from Dreadway Chase Gun or heavily discounted spells.
Gameplay Tips
- Maximize Rebuttal
Mel's champion spell, Rebuttal, is her most reliable tool for removing high-stat threats. Its damage scales based on the enemy's attack, making it highly effective even against massive units in Nightmare Adventures.
- The Lest Sacrifice
You can use the spell 'Solar Snare' to target and kill your own 'Lest' follower. This refunds 2 spell mana and triggers Mel's 3-star power, dealing 2 damage to all enemies and the enemy Nexus simultaneously.
- Avoid Gloom Powers
Never draft the 'Your spells deal damage in the form of Gloom' power. Gloom prevents Mel's 3-star power from triggering on enemy deaths and completely negates her spell Overwhelm mechanic, effectively bricking her kit.
- Manage Hand Space
When using builds that generate many spells (like Dreadway Chase Gun or Searing Brilliance), be careful not to over-draft card draw powers. Your hand will quickly overfill, causing you to obliterate key drawn cards.
- Beware Formidable Enemies
Mel's damage output relies heavily on enemy attack stats for Rebuttal to be effective. She struggles significantly against Formidable units (which have high health but 0 attack) and encounters like the Baron Nashor Adventure.