Updated for Vendetta

Kennen

Heart of the Tempest

Order

ChaosAdvanced

Kennen turns the trash into threats and another round of interaction. Matriarch brings Fizz back, Fizz replays the useful spell, and discounted Rhasas turn that setup into pressure on the next battlefield.

Key Cards

Heart of the Tempest rewards cards played from outside your hand with an Assault boost, but Matriarch and Fizz are what make those plays worth taking. Matriarch can put an eligible unit from your trash straight into base when she becomes empowered. Bringing back Fizz gives you a body and another spell, with its Energy cost waived but its Power still payable. Kennen, Storm of Shuriken remains the chosen Champion, supplying trash on play and Flow after a conquest.

Kennen’s Field Guide

Kennen wants useful cards in more places than the hand. A spell in the trash can become another action, a unit there can become another body, and a Nocturne found while looking through the deck can be played without paying its printed Energy cost. Each successful play from outside your hand can empower Heart of the Tempest. Disempowering and exhausting the Legend then gives a unit Assault 2 for the turn. The important part is making the original play do something worthwhile. Spending resources only to empower an exhausted Legend does not win a fight, and filling the trash without a way to use it does not build a board. Develop a body, find the next useful action, and let those plays supply the Legend's bonus along the way.

How Kennen wins

Kennen can make an ordinary board much cheaper to replace than it looks. Lightning Rush finds a card while putting the rest into the trash, Nocturne can become a four-Might unit for one Power when found from the top, and Rhasa gets cheaper as the trash fills. Fizz and Matriarch let those turns include another useful spell or body. That leaves resources for movement and interaction instead of spending everything on one attacker. Ride the Wind can carry a threat into another fight, while a prepared Tideturner can put a larger unit from base onto the defended battlefield. Take the point those cards opened, then decide whether holding it is better than sending the threat away again. The trash is a resource to spend, not a collection you need to protect at any cost.

Key interactions

Turn a top-deck look into a real threat

Lightning Rush · Stacked Deck · Nocturne, Horrifying · Rhasa the Sunderer

When a look or reveal finds Nocturne at the top of your deck, you may banish it and play it for one Power of any domain. Take that option during the look, before the other cards finish going to hand, trash, or back into the deck. Nocturne enters exhausted; it still needs a ready effect to move immediately. Lightning Rush sends its other cards to the trash, which can reduce Rhasa's Energy cost and stock your replay choices. Stacked Deck recycles its other cards instead. Use Rush when the trash is valuable and Stacked when you mainly need to find the right card. Rhasa's discount does not remove its Chaos Power cost.

Bring back the body that brings back the spell

Tail-Cloaked Matriarch · Fizz, Trickster · Ride the Wind · Star-Crossed

Matriarch's two-Energy, one-Chaos-Power empowerment can replay a unit costing at most three Energy and one Power to base, ignoring its cost. Fizz qualifies, and his play effect can then replay a spell costing at most three Energy with its Energy waived. You still pay that spell's Power. Ride the Wind therefore needs another Chaos Power, but gives you movement and a ready; Star-Crossed can return Fizz and an enemy unit to hand. The spell Fizz uses is recycled, so the next Fizz cannot immediately reuse that same copy from the trash. Matriarch also needs to become unempowered before her own empowerment can produce another unit. Neither card creates a free, unlimited loop.

Make the conquest pay for the next decision

Kennen, Storm of Shuriken · Lightning Rush · Heart of the Tempest

Storm of Shuriken gives a spell in your trash Flow equal to its printed cost when he conquers. That can make Lightning Rush playable from the trash for one Energy this turn, instead of its printed Flow price of two Energy and one Power. Pick the Flow option you want to pay; they do not combine. A successful outside-hand play can empower the Legend again, but an exhausted Legend still cannot activate until it readies. Flow also keeps the spell's normal timing and banishes it when it leaves the chain. Choose the spell you can afford to use now, not the most impressive name that will sit in the trash until the permission expires.

Strengths

The same cheap selection cards find threats, prepare replay targets, and help reduce Rhasa's cost, connecting setup to board development.
Matriarch and Fizz can turn a traded unit and a used spell into another useful turn without paying both printed Energy costs again.
Movement, Hidden bodies, and bounce give you ways to contest a battlefield without needing every unit to win a straight fight on its own.

Weaknesses

Energy discounts still leave real Power payments. A hand full of replay lines can stall if the runes and Seals cannot fund them.
Recycling or banishing cards shrinks the trash that discounts Rhasa. Check its new cost after using the other engine pieces.
Hidden cards require an earlier controlled battlefield, and Matriarch requires a real transition into empowered. The strongest turns need preparation that the opponent can disrupt.

Shadow's Pick

Kennen tournament list by LekHаngTomYum

1st place · Castle Black TCG: Vendetta Summoner Skirmish I At CARDTOPIA, 2026-08-30

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Deck total $400.67

Legend (1)

1x$0.10 ea.

Runes (12)

9x$0.11 ea.
3x$0.10 ea.

Battlefields (3)

1x$0.08 ea.
1x$0.12 ea.
1x$0.22 ea.

Spells (15)

1x$0.29 ea.
Energy
2
2x$0.36 ea.
Energy
2
3x$25.47 ea.
Energy
1
2x$0.58 ea.
Power
1
Energy
2
1x$0.12 ea.
Power
1
Energy
3
3x$12.77 ea.
Energy
1
2x$0.16 ea.
Power
1
Energy
3
1x$1.37 ea.
Power
2
Energy
2

Gear (3)

3x$39.41 ea.
Power
1
Energy
0

Units (22)

1xChosen$7.66 ea.
Might
4
Power
1
Energy
3
3x$12.42 ea.
Might
3
Power
1
Energy
3
3x$5.61 ea.
Might
4
Power
1
Energy
4
3x$5.81 ea.
Might
6
Power
1
Energy
10
3x$0.34 ea.
Might
4
Energy
4
3x$3.47 ea.
Might
2
Energy
2
3x$0.28 ea.
Might
3
Energy
3
3x$0.20 ea.
Might
2
Energy
2

Sideboard (10)

1x$0.08 ea.
Energy
2
2x$0.17 ea.
Energy
1
1x$1.35 ea.
Energy
2
1x$1.80 ea.
Might
5
Energy
6
1x$56.25 ea.
Energy
3
1x$0.27 ea.
Might
3
Energy
3
2x$4.21 ea.
Power
1
Energy
2
1x$1.37 ea.
Power
2
Energy
2

Shadow's take

This is my Kennen pick because the three Matriarchs, three Tornado Warriors, and three Fizz give the cheap-threat plan a dependable way to keep working. Hide Tornado at a battlefield on an earlier turn, get an unempowered Matriarch there, and Tornado's face-up play can empower her without paying the usual two Energy and one Chaos Power. She brings Fizz back at base, and Fizz can turn the spell you already used into the movement or interaction you need now. You still pay that spell's Power, which is why the three Seals of Discord matter even when the Energy payments look small. I like having Rhasa as the straightforward payoff for all that setup. Sometimes the right play is to put a six-Might unit on the board cheaply and make the opponent answer it. Save the more involved sequence for a turn where it earns a point or keeps a battlefield. Tornado disempowers its target at the end of the turn, so Matriarch can be empowered again later; revealing it beside an already empowered Matriarch does not produce another replay.

The Game Plan

Early gameLook for a cheap unit or a way to find one, with Power available for the plays that follow. Merchant can start filtering cards into the trash when it moves; Lightning Rush finds a card while stocking the trash, and Stacked Deck can find a missing Seal or threat. Nocturne is an attractive hit from either look, but the one-Power play still enters exhausted. Do not count it as an immediate attacker without Ride the Wind. Kennen is available from the Champion Zone and burns two when played, which starts the trash plan without requiring another unit in hand. A Seal costs one Chaos Power and enters ready, so it can provide Chaos Power immediately and again after future ready steps. Take a battlefield you can defend before investing in a Hidden card there.
MidgameDecide whether the turn needs a new threat, another spell, or a better location for a threat you already have. If Matriarch is unempowered beside a Tornado hidden on an earlier turn, revealing Tornado can bring Fizz back for no unit payment. Fizz can then replay Ride the Wind for one Chaos Power, moving and readying an exhausted Kennen from base into the next fight. Once the Legend is empowered, its Action can give Kennen Assault 2 during that showdown. You have turned the prepared battlefield and trash into pressure without spending the Energy for both Fizz and Ride again. A normal Matriarch activation remains available when you did not prepare Tornado, but costs two Energy and one Chaos Power before the spell's Power. Keep track of what leaves the trash before playing Rhasa; an apparently free six-Might unit may need Energy after Fizz, Flow, or Shadows of the Past has used the cards that discounted it.
Late gameUse the board you have built to close the remaining scoring routes. Nocturne's Ganking lets it standard-move between battlefields, while Ride the Wind can move another unit and ready it. A hidden Tideturner swaps with a unit you control at another location, but does not ready either unit just for swapping. Star-Crossed can save Fizz and remove an enemy; Deathgrip can instead sacrifice a body, add its Might to another friendly unit, and draw. I would choose based on which unit must remain at the battlefield after the exchange. Returning your only defender to hand may save the card and lose the game. When Kennen conquers, choose a Flow spell you can actually use before the turn ends. Abandon buys time by countering a spell back to hand, so spend that time taking the point before the opponent has the resources to play it again.

Battlefields

Blind

Zaun Warrens · Fizz, Trickster · Traveling Merchant

Warrens gives you control over which card becomes trash when you conquer: discard one, then draw one. That can place Fizz where Matriarch wants him or put a useful spell within reach of Fizz. I would start here when the opening has enough actual bodies to take the battlefield and needs a more specific next card. Do not discard the only interaction that protects the Hold simply because it has a good replay story. You still need the body and Power that make that replay possible.

Going First

Minefield · Rhasa the Sunderer · Lightning Rush

Choose Minefield when the first conquest can help turn an early Rhasa or replay package on. The conquest puts the top two cards into your trash, adding to the work done by Rush and Kennen's play effect. It does not draw those cards, and you do not choose which ones go. If the hand already has plenty of trash setup but no way to find the next answer, I would prefer Warrens' filtering. Minefield is useful when you can spend the new trash advantage soon.

Going Second

Forbidding Waste · Tornado Warrior · Tideturner

Waste helps retake a battlefield from one defender by reducing that unit's Might by two while it defends alone. It also punishes your own lone Matriarch or Rhasa when the opponent attacks back. A previously hidden Tornado adds another friendly body, removing the alone condition, and can also start Matriarch's replay if the setup is right. Tideturner can change which unit is there, but a simple one-for-one swap still leaves one defender. Choose Waste for the fight it improves, not as a blanket benefit to every defensive line.

Sideboard

Answer Gear without losing the Power plan

Salvage · Ravenbloom Prefect · Shadows of the Past

Two Salvages can remove an existing Gear and draw, while Prefect can banish itself to banish a Gear the opponent plays later. Prefect does not stop that Gear's already-triggered play effect. I would trim a slower recovery card such as Shadows of the Past when stopping the Gear matters sooner. Fizz can replay Salvage without its Energy payment, but you still need Order Power; Seal of Discord only adds Chaos. Keep an appropriate rune available rather than discovering that problem after you have already committed Fizz.

Spend less to protect the decisive exchange

Gust · Hard Bargain · Switcheroo · Rhasa the Sunderer

Gust returns a battlefield unit with three Might or less and can save your Fizz or remove an opposing small unit. Hard Bargain counters unless the opponent pays two Energy, with an optional repeat for another two-Energy demand. The extra Switcheroo is for fights where swapping two units' Might at the same battlefield changes the result. I would consider trimming a Rhasa when the opponent is winning through exchanges before another large body can help. Keep enough threats to make the tempo you gain matter, and do not treat Hard Bargain as unconditional against spare Energy.

Go longer with a purpose

Kharox · Tornado Warrior · Last Rites · Deathgrip

Kharox gives Tornado another empowerment target, but you first have to pay for the six-Energy unit and get it to the battlefield where Tornado is hidden. Its empowerment burns three from an opponent and can play a unit from their trash without its cost. Last Rites instead gives its wearer +2 Might and a chance to play a unit from your trash when it conquers or holds, paying that unit's costs. Equipping it costs one Chaos Power and recycling two cards, so do not recycle the unit you wanted to replay. I would use these over lower-impact combat cards such as Deathgrip only when the game allows the setup. They are not emergency answers to a point you are already about to lose.

Disrupt the opposing trash

Forge of the Future · Shadows of the Past · Rhasa the Sunderer

Forge produces a Recruit at base when played, then can sacrifice itself to recycle up to four cards from trashes. Bring it in when specific opposing replay targets keep undoing your trades, considering a trim to Shadows of the Past if your own recovery is less urgent. The activation has ordinary timing on your turn; it is not a Reaction to a replay already pending. Recycling your own cards is possible too, but reduces the discount on Rhasa and can remove the spell Fizz needed next.

Updated for Vendetta

Kennen

Heart of the Tempest

Order

ChaosAdvanced

Key Cards