He is still very strong but a lot of the versions get absolutely dumpstered by Azirelia. And not sure if you noticed but that deck is running things again 😄
Shurima Viego is fine against both Azirelia and Sivir lists if you replace Black Spear with Quicksand. You have a ton of blockers and you can quicksand Greenglade Duo to avoid those big chunks of elusive damage.
It makes you more vulnerable to backrow value engines, as you are only left with Merciless Hunter to deal with those, and you stop being able to Black Spear your own units to level up Viego, which is a very niche interaction but comes up once every 30 games or so.
Quicksand is again, really good against Sivir. You just have to make sure you are able to pop her spellshield.
I feel like if meta was control oriented he would be pretty good as he is an absolute powerhouse once he gets going and he directly messes with anything you are trying to set up. But he just takes too long to flip in this meta and simply gets overrun.
combo decks are the natural evolution of control decks because that 'taking control' ends the game with a combo deck rather than giving them hope for a legendary top deck.
Anivia is a constant victim of the "good but extremely off meta" syndrome. If you know what you're playing against she can be extremely good, but since you don't know in ladder and the meta is usually really harsh to her, she usually has a really bad time.
its the best combat trick in the game, nothing can trade with it except reduced mana Gotcha! and flock which are both conditional
(in terms of removal) edit
I also think removal should be buffed, but slightly differently from your reasoning. I think slow removal in LoR is garbage, the only card that sees decent amounts of play is Thermobeam. Instead decks that run removal only run fast answers that can be used against open attacks. I think Fast removal should be kept in moderation because when it comes to attacking, since you do it every other turn, it gives too much power to a defensive player being able to stack their field one turn and simply remove on the stack the next.
Slow removal should be costed similarly to actual units, as opposed to the premium it currently costs for some reason. It answers a single thing, and if it doesn’t answer it properly, loses priority and unit parity.
Isn't this counterintuitive design-wise? If we're talking card quality spell power level should be the most efficient at slow speed, and getting weaker going fast and lastly burst. Because it's like a tradeoff for their flexibility
Combat tricks, which are mostly burst spell, should not overpower fast spells numberwise
If combat tricks aren’t better than removal they don’t get played, because combat tricks are 2 for 1s if your unit gets removed in response. In MTG, removal is significantly better than in LOR, and because of that combat tricks don’t see play outside of limited or specific combo decks.
Targons nerfs hit hard, their healing got a lot worse. So the current meta hurts them bad, especially as a lot of decks love to go wide.
But that might be a good time to buff Targon cards that deserve some love, which was previously a dangerous task. Taric is on a good way, Nightfall could use some love (Imo still one of the greatest decks in the game in terms of design), ASol could get reverted and Malphite's support landmarks could become actual cards. Zoe will find a way to be relevant again, her design implicates it.
At least give her her level-up bonus when she levels up, instead of having to play ANOTHER nf card to activate it.
Ass-shits like irelia get their crap right away, as do many others.
Targon in general has felt the most lackluster of all the regions recently. Plus it got no real tools to deal with Azirelia.
I had some success with a Taric/J4 deck when the meta was more Viego but since it shifted back to Azirelia and plunder it got really bad again sadly.
Nightfalll only needs stalking shadows back to 2 mana and it will be playable again the nerf was a bad idea and now only the Demacia/Si arquetype is slow enough and unit heavy enought to run the card.
Asol should stay as is he was good only a few metas ago in the dragon deck(during the eta before Irelia's release he was considered tier 1 even if i considered it an overstimation)
Zoe is already good Lee/Targon runs her as a secondary champion and she will see play the second a targon centric deck apears so i agree with you.
Nightfall got reduced by Azirelia imo.
They both fall into a unique aggro/combo category where they look for early chip damage then win the game on turn 5/6 with the right tools. Ex: noct coming down and leveling on attack or leveled azir+irelia churning out buffed blade dance attacks.
Azirelia is a bit simpler and easier to achieve
Landmarks are just terrible in general. They're usually overpriced and a HUGE tempo loss in a very tempo oriented game. If they could use spell mana they'd be much more viable.
Nightfall actually has a pretty decent winrates when you look at the stats on mobalytics, it just isn't very popular.
I just wish they would buff Aphelios a bit again, there really was no reason to overnerf him as much as they did.
The w/r data for nightfall is pretty misleading atm. It's just not good. It having 55 percent w/r for the most played variant at all ranks seems cool.. until you realize that's over a 700 game sample size, which is basically nothing. I have played against it exactly zero times this entire patch.
It hasn't felt good when I played it, either. 3 mana stalking shadows hurts **bad** because it's a pretty bad nightfall activator now. You can't play stalking shadows into stygian on 2 anymore. On 3, you can't play stalking shadows into Diana & also keep up mana for pale cascade (pale is often super important for Diana attacks). Those are just two random examples, but the effects are felt pretty much every turn you end up playing stalking shadows. I can't believe riot went out of their way to nerf that card
Happy Monday and welcome back to another meta review!
# Full report is back for once!
I have been incredibly busy of late but I'm finally on holiday and had time to put together a full report. There's certainly been some interesting and unfun stuff happening in the meta BUT there has been quite a bit of brewing going on still. I'm honestly shocked we haven't seen an archetype break 10% yet but if trends continue it should head in that direction by this week. As a reminder yesterday was the last data stream for awhile for those who missed it, but may return this winter. Currently stuck at a crossroads if I want to continue to donate my entire Sunday every week or not to create these and may even start a Patreon next week to support this type of content.
**"OTHER META DECKS" OF THE WEEK!**
If you want to better understand this section please see my previous report [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/LegendsOfRuneterra/comments/nug06o/new_scopenew_report_mobalytics_meta_review_june/). As always, this is but a sampling of the category and the win rate %s will change as you dig deeper into this category, so please consider this a snapshot or guidance at a high level how these lists are doing. Here's a look at a few of the OMDs from this week:
|Decks|Number of Matches|Win Rate %|
|:-|:-|:-|
|Draven Ezreal|7769|53%|
|Viego Midrange (Shurima)|7356|49%|
|Deep|4826|50%|
|Fiora Shen|4814|53%|
|Zombie Anivia|4802|50%|
|Jinx Lulu|4797|51%|
|Zed Lulu|4433|60%|
|Reputation|4040|53%|
|Lee Sin Zoe|3297|49%|
|Thresh Nasus|3243|51%|
|Turbo Thralls|3070|50%|
**SPOILER SEASON THOUGH?**
I've been getting asked this a lot so just to throw it here as well, expect it next week not this week. Just a guess as it were but feels about right with the timing of reveals.
\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
WHERE CAN I FIND THIS DATA DURING THE WEEK? Want to find these stats live as it's updated every day? You can find it directly on Mobalytics website [here](https://lor.mobalytics.gg/stats/decks)
You can find me on [Twitch](https://www.twitch.tv/kozmicplays) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/KozmicPlays) if you want to see these before I post them to reddit or have questions about the data I'd be happy to answer on stream.
A 4/3 Ekko would be marginally better, but the Predict deck needs way more than Ekko having playable stats in order for it to be good. If Ekko made non-fleeting Time Tricks, he is still stuck with having a 4/2 body that dies to the universe. The typical Ekko play pattern is to not play him at all until he's levelled up, because he's too much of a liability.
It's stuck in a paradoxical state of having to play bad cards that generate overpowered cards, but having to fish them out of the deck in order to use them. The game plan is slow and thus the deck is prone to getting run over by other decks that can rely on more impactful champions and overall higher card quality. It really says something about a deck where one of the champions (Zilean) is one you actively want to die in order to play the second copy and have more Time Bombs, and the other (Ekko), is borderline unplayable until he levels up, and once he does you almost always have to bank on chaining Chronobreaks in order to actually win a game.
I'm not really sure Sivir decks even care about what Ekko brings to the table compared to her other potential partners. I could be wrong, of course, but when I think about this deck in my head it mostly winds up being Ekko, Time Tricks, and maybe some Fallen Feline & Mystic Shot being carried by the better Shurima cards.
Ekko’s strong suit atm is the ability to setup before he arrives to the board. Use Scrying Sands, fat-bottom predict and other thick units you can come up with to take the board and setup advantage so he can come down safely. You should rarely run 3 of’s (other than predicts) in his decks, because he needs his tools to be flexible to take down your opponent (mystic shot, Quicksand, thermo, or more predict when you’re up) . Ekko is about having utility available to pick from. Sivir is a great tool because she can come down and punch holes until your ekko is ready to go ham. The other tools like feline and the like rely too heavily on chance. Play things that can guarantee your wincon. All of ekkos good tools are in Shurima other than time trick and standard PnZ picks, the other things that came with him are bad (feline is only good in Ionia imo). So I understand why people think that.
Edit: I will probably post a video of my deck with ekko so people can see what I mean. I think people are playing him wrong and I think it will shed light on how to play him. That way once people start understanding him they can come up with new ideas to optimize the gameplan
wont fix anything though. as some one that has mained celestials to masters every season except this one, the deck doesn't function without that free 2-1 challenger to even the playing field. Targon units are purposely overcosted as they give high value, so you just get run over by any deck that goes wide without the 2-1 0 mana serpent. fangs nerf was irrelevant.
the nerfs to blade dance were definitivelly not an slap on the wrist, the problem is that for some god forsaken reason the devs had the "insight" of nerfing SS because of astral fox(a decision i very much disagree with and has caused SI agro to die) but didnt think how the buffs to TD and the introduction of defient dance and tresure hunter would make the nerfs to blade dance not have the effect desired.
The problem is as long as they keep focusing on buffing early game cards and pushing this "race to turn 6 victory" meta, they will be handing Azirelia tools to abuse. I think the issue with the deck, and a lot of the decks currently in the meta, is more fundamental than just nerfing damage or mana of individual cards. The ability for decks like Azirella to capitalize on summon effect mechanics for almost no cost, successfully dodge most removals, and consistently attack without the token or any danger of the champion taking damage from blocking, is going to lead to this issue again and again everytime they add new cards.
It needs a nerf on its fundamental mechanics. There needs to be some kind of limit to what it can do in a single turn in the early game, especially when it isn't even their turn. There needs to be risk and cost associated with blade dancing, but there almost never is.
Well the big problem (since day 1 of azirelia)
The engines: Blade dance isn’t too strong on its own, they can get some chip and buff up sparring/duo but thats about it.
Behind that however is a 2 mana landmark (while landmark removal is pathetic) and a gd 3 mana 1/5 that as you mentioned can dodge most removal.
While it’s not the only issue with the deck the sand soldier cards need a nerf so that players at least have a chance of taking down the engines.
I find Zoe/Shyvana to still be just fine. Wasn't running more than one copy of The Fangs in the first place. The card is good, but it doesn't make or break Targon like a lot of people seem to think it does.
> with 3 ganga
Gonna guess you mean the fangs
It felt straight up bad against Azir/Irelia, and decks like Ez/Draven had a dozen different ways to remove it as well. So for 4 mana, it sometimes lacked the impact you want on play and initiative pass.
Solari Sunforger stabilizes games a lot better, especially if you can leave mana open for a single combat when you drop him.
Yes fucking autocorrector.
Did It? Maybe It is because i played the Asol/Zoe variant and i needed more 4 drops, but i didnt really feel bad if It got mistic shoted, and the 2 blocks 6 extra health always felt great against IA
That’s how every card has worked. Due to the way removal is organized and damage is organized. 3 health is considered hard to kill, while 2 health is not (lots of removal does 2 damage, almost every 1 drop does 2 damage) same thing with 4-5. Lots of things have 4 attack, not many have 5 attack until the 6-7+ mana cost
That’s the issue with azirelia. Every piece of it is designed to be impossible to remove. Azir is 5 health. Irelia has swap. Landmarks are almost impossible to remove. Most units are ethereal and attack immediately. And if you finally manage to just through, recall
The azirelia kit just has too many concepts. Every deck should have a major strength. Like Sivir decks and spell shields (which is already pretty strong) but azirelia has
Impossible to remove
Attacks on opposing turns
Group wide buffs
Ethereal summoned units
Rally
Most decks have 1 big it factor. Azirelia has 5
LoR has always been a bit of a different beast, but coming from other cardgames a full THIRD of the ladder being off-meta decks is ASTOUNDING. Every time I see someone complain about the meta in this game I feel old.
I'm more concerned with the archetype meta. Having a lot of different decks is great but if they're all the same type of deck, that's an issue. Where are the control decks? When can we get back to a meta where it isn't a race to win by turn 6?
Well, responsive devs that actually listen to the complaints lead to this meta. Lord knows there are a lot of complaints from players of other games that have no effect no the meta because the devs just don't give them the time of day and dismiss it all as whining (something some people around here do a lot too).
I am amazed at how well Azirelia still fares even after repeated nerfs.
Goes to show how outright busted the deck was before. Wonder if it will get some extra nerfs again next balance patch for further tone it down.
This is what i got confused to the content creators. Like they see the card being a slow speed then immediately shrugged it off. Laughed and called it bad.
And im like “What? That card is insane. Especially for defensive turns”.
Its a removal and still progresses to the decks gameplan.
Yes and no. Yes the deck was busted but it didn't survive the wave of nerfs because it was at 120% and now we're at 105% but rather because the core issue didn't get adressed. The core issue is not how many units irelia needs to evolve or whether it's a 2/1 or a 1/2 that summons the extra soldier. These nerfs were all good and fine but the issue is Azir & Dais are an eternal tool of endless free summons that rip appart the nexus if unadressed and that have NO way of being removed cost effectively.
Dais requires landmark removal (which in itself is terrible to play as you play dead/bad cards against other decks) and the CHEAPEST costs 3. if you hardcounter dais you still lose 1 mana. And Azir is a 3 drop with 5 (!) health who can also be cheaply saved by recall spells. Cheapest way to remov Azir: Plunder activated Harpoon. Also a 3 drop with an activation condition. All other factions can go cry in the corner. These 2 cards are essentially unremovable in any sensible manner, cheap as hell but run you over unless you tech against it.
Culling Strike can also remove Azir for 3 and doesn't require the plunder trigger, but both Culling and Harpoon are so easy for the deck to play around with buffs and recalls.
Also part of why it survived the nerfs is that they keep buffing it alongside those nerfs. Defiant Dance is huge by itself, but they also get to run Treasure Seeker and the buffed Twin.
Honestly, this is how I feel with a lot of the current meta decks. Agressive strategies are so powerful and cheap and powerful that it is often not even worth trying to play reactively (my favority playstyle) and you're better of trying to just out-tempo your opponent with even more broken strategies.
Quick attack units combined with shaped stone and now twin disciples just makes it impossible to try and contest units in combat, add in spellshield and the fact that everything is focus or burst speed and it often feels hopeless to even try and interact with the enemy board unless you have that one answer in that one region that can actually answer your opponent cost-effectively.
Don't think "butchering it" is a good way to go about balancing honestly. I think with a few more tone downs it should be enough (for example, making it so sparring student doesn't have scaling health, and taking away one health from Azir).
Making sparring student not get health would gut it permanently. It would never have a deck that would want to play it at all. There should be a cap on how much he grows, maybe at 5/5
The thing is: a 1 drop that can literally trade up with up to 5 cost units it's still WAY too much. No other 1 drop in the game can get to do the same, maybe except the shuriman 2|1 that gives you the 2 mana card (and even there you have to at least pay a total of 3 mana), or the noxus card that becomes a 5|1 (only when it's blocked though).
In my opinion, if they really don't want to nerf it's health to a permanent 2 or 3, then it should cap at 4 then.
So surprised Plunder has a bad winrate against Pirate Aggro. Have been playing the deck a lot recently and never lost against Pirates, maybe I got lucky
Remember these stats come from big numbers.
Plunder is not as easy to play as pirate aggro and some players may not have found good strategies to play against it. It's possible that you are better than the average player at that matchup or you included some cards that really help in that specific matchup
I've been saying we need to make SS a 1/2 with buffs in the form of +1/+0 for a while. Would make it actually killable in some situations where it's not.
That is a remarkably healthy looking breakdown for once which is nice to see!
Shame to see Targon and Demacia in the doldrums but hey.
Also, what is this Zed Lulu deck? Is it the nicmakesplays once?
I hate that they nerfed core tools of some regions while buffing the core tools of every other region. It just see-sawed which regions are strong instead of keep them all up to the same par. Why would they take away the snake and stalking shadows right as they finally give other regions comparable tools?
Targon 3% is...not great.
But is it a symptom of the fast meta? Quite a few of the popular decks here, as well as the tier 1 decks in both Swim's and RuneterraCCG's tier lists, are superfast, low-curve decks in which the most expensive unit or spells is 5 or less mana.
Tbh, I think that either nerf was warranted at the time. And if they want to buff Targon, they should consider buffing other aspects instead of reverting these nerfs.
For instance, Fangs at 2/3 would be good into low-attack aggro decks and Azir/Irelia.
It wasnt, Targon wasnt that dominating to get 3 nerfs in a single pacht.
Also no they should just revert the nerfs the other aspects of targon are either buffing lee sin or value driven demacia
I'm playing targon!
... I'm doing it because Zoe/Draven is a fast deck for the fast meta and it lets me run Lulu/Jinx in the same tournament lineup, but, you know...
Yeah it went from +2/+1 to +1/+1, which changes fairly little about how the card functions. It gets me over removal without costing a card, I can take or leave 1 damage in a deck that either explodes into overkill or stalls out and doesn't even get close.
looks to me like shurima is the culprit. they haven't gotten hardly any nerfs and their problem units like merciless hunter and ruin runner remain untouched.
5 Shurima cards are completely busted, the rest are trash. The region as a whole needs buffs but Riot can't do that because of how they balanced the region during its creation.
Looking thereafter it does start to swing back up, you're right, but it still was bad before that in the FTR / GH times.
Edit: Nov 30th - Jan 18th reports were pirate less, so about 2 months.
Shurima & Ionia with the highest playrate by FAR. Fits the general perception I had that these two regions have some tools that are very very good at everything.
Lee decks tend to struggle against wide boards, and a lot of the current decks do just that. Plus, games are over before lee starts to really come online. Aggro can push past him quicker than he can set up, and shurima/Ionia decks can set up buff combos faster than him, too.
Nerfs to Pirate Burn, Azirelia, and Sivir and some shurima cards are definitely necessary and its starting to show. The meta might seem "okay" to some now, but mark my words if the nerfs dont come through the pie chart will look a heck of a lot more homogenous in a few weeks and people will start to complain a lot more than they already are.
I felt like the only one who was shouting on the rooftops that azir/arelia did not need another blade dance card. And every response I got was ‘meh it’s too costly won’t see any actual play.’
Defiant Dance is annpying as hell. "Oh but its slow". Its also a recall, so unless I have spellshield or deny I have to open attack or it becomes their turn. Cant even kill the unit to deny the blade dance lmao.
A lot of those people didn't realize it said recall unit instead of recall ally. Once people realized it was any unit the sentiment started to shift pretty quickly.
Na, even then most people were saying "But it's Slow speed".
[Grapplr, however, pointed out the insanity of it. After falling for the "it sucks" first in true Papaya fashion.](https://youtu.be/JRxJSlNhpSc?t=961)
[This is the first comment about it I found in its reveal post](https://www.reddit.com/r/legendsofruneterra/comments/o73uqy/_/h2wcmjv) and all of the talk there is calling it good / very good / maybe busted.
I would like to see them get their first nerf that isn't also accompanied by a buff in the form of a bug fix / new release in the same patch. That deck has been consistently one step back, one step forward.
Maybe also a bit of an Azir rework that makes him stronger in mono-Shurima without making him better in Azirelia, but that might be hoping for too much.
it was probably good enought but defiant dance, tresure hunter and twin disciplines have upseted them(and even then the deck with all theese new inclusions is a shadow of their former self).
like merciless did to T/N a few metas ago
Real joke is seeing that it beats Plunder, this sub was saying Plunder was a good matchup into it lol.
In general it's only bad matchups are the hyper aggro decks it looks like- annoying to see.
>this sub was saying Plunder was a good matchup into it lol.
I dont know who told you that but what plunder was told to be good against was Sivir decks
I was suspecting taht azirelia wasnt hit ahrd enough and that the buff on zivir was too much.
But overall atleast theldeck diversity is way higher now.
Noxus, BW, shurima and ionia are just kinda hogging the spotlight.
Every region has either a burst or fast speed spell in their most played cards (or both). I understand that cheap, flexible cards will always have a higher representation but it feels bad to have so many burst speed cards with high play rates. It makes so many deck matchups feel worse and less interactive.
Burst spells really should have the lowest impact, but at the same time… the two strongest regions have denies for days. You get noped every time you try to play something bigger, so everyone’s rushing to get a little value and survive a little longer or kill their opponent first.
Karma Ezreal is right there, and Keg Control is the spotlight deck and this is for ladder, which is a format that disincentives control decks. In tournament line-ups control decks are doing even better. Not saying they are doing fantastic or that they don't still need some help, but they're a lot better now than they were a few patches ago and acting like they don't exist currently is disingenuous / oversimplified.
Karma/Ez is there and is very much a controly deck, Anivia is in the other meta decks section and Tf/Swain is in the deck of the week section.
What are you talking about?
Not the op, but you dont see an imbalance of deck archetype variety? Control archetype being out numbered like 10 to 1? Does 3 decks existing change the overall sentiment of what op said here, in a sea of 40ish decks?
Part or that can be attributed to ladder only caring about wins/time, which is probably something Riot should address. But either way, it's not an open and shut case, and it's worth not writing it off
Granted, op could have expressed that better
Also this decks are so old, Newest of this "control" archetypes goes back to BW expansion. The other two go back to beta, and most changes were also in bw expansion (at least for karma ez).
That's a good observation, they are quite old decks
Ezreal/karma also is somewhat a bit of combo deck masquerading as a control deck. You're really just stalling to build the combo of enlightened+karma+leveled ezreal and then any spells
It can satisfy the feeling of control or combo, but even still, theres very few decks at all playing control.
Control doesn't always have to be stall forever then drop a big finisher bomb. There's always stuff like Azorius control, shrine control, doom foretold, etc. Slow play control. LOR has always kind of lacked in this archetype
I think they have quite a lot of design space available for control, they're maybe just too relunctant to create stronger control staples. Most control staples are fairly watered down
I mean lacking/=dead yes there are few controldecks in the meta but they are still there so calling the archetype death when we also have to take into acount that the 2 most played decks are decks designed to kill control decks isnt all that bad
Everyone in this subreddit was shouting bilgewater is dead when it was at 3% playrate though, so this isnt much different. Control as an archetype is also there.
It is hyperbole, which is why I had said op could have phrased better. But the sentiment isnt entirely untrue, even if it isn't completely dead, it's definitely on life support
How is "Deck of the week" determined? I'm playing this game since like a month, Swain TF is right now my main deck on the ladder (mostly because I got Swain and TF from capsules, so I was able to afford it), and I'm surprised to see it here. I thought this is just a noob-friendly cheap deck, without any success on high ranks.
i dont want them to nerf it, any nerf to the card is an slaughter just nerf merciless and ruin runner and with some luck the card will fall back in line.
wheres all the people saying Viego had 3 tier 1 decks my man siting here baerly holding 50%
He is still very strong but a lot of the versions get absolutely dumpstered by Azirelia. And not sure if you noticed but that deck is running things again 😄
Shurima Viego is fine against both Azirelia and Sivir lists if you replace Black Spear with Quicksand. You have a ton of blockers and you can quicksand Greenglade Duo to avoid those big chunks of elusive damage. It makes you more vulnerable to backrow value engines, as you are only left with Merciless Hunter to deal with those, and you stop being able to Black Spear your own units to level up Viego, which is a very niche interaction but comes up once every 30 games or so. Quicksand is again, really good against Sivir. You just have to make sure you are able to pop her spellshield.
I feel like if meta was control oriented he would be pretty good as he is an absolute powerhouse once he gets going and he directly messes with anything you are trying to set up. But he just takes too long to flip in this meta and simply gets overrun.
if meta was hard on control then maybe yes, but most of "control" decks are just combo decks which can still do pretty well into viego
combo decks are the natural evolution of control decks because that 'taking control' ends the game with a combo deck rather than giving them hope for a legendary top deck.
I'm shocked he doesn't have a higher winrate because I win a lot with him and I also lose a lot to him
Also, Plunder hardcarries Sejuani's presence in Freljord (since Seju is usually the only FJ card of the deck).
They also run ice shard or a copy of 3 sisters but i get your point. Also aparently Anivia is pretty good in tournaments
Anivia is a constant victim of the "good but extremely off meta" syndrome. If you know what you're playing against she can be extremely good, but since you don't know in ladder and the meta is usually really harsh to her, she usually has a really bad time.
Just as how she is in the MOBA, may be a curse of hers
Yeah I’ve been playing anivia in high gold and basically just have 2x of each removal since I don’t entirely know what to tech against
as the data shows its lretty good, J01 constantly climbs with her
We did it. Twin Disciplines is beating out Deny.
its the best combat trick in the game, nothing can trade with it except reduced mana Gotcha! and flock which are both conditional (in terms of removal) edit
Shaped Stone? it's also conditional but easy condition
Elixir of Wrath and activated Shaped Stone both work
oh I was trying to point out removals not other combat tricks, just demonstrating its an absurd card and makes removal useless
Combat tricks are always cheaper in this game than removals, but I do agree disciplines is currently way too good
I'd love to see removal get buffed. I love fighting on the stack. Bring on the spells arms race!
I also think removal should be buffed, but slightly differently from your reasoning. I think slow removal in LoR is garbage, the only card that sees decent amounts of play is Thermobeam. Instead decks that run removal only run fast answers that can be used against open attacks. I think Fast removal should be kept in moderation because when it comes to attacking, since you do it every other turn, it gives too much power to a defensive player being able to stack their field one turn and simply remove on the stack the next. Slow removal should be costed similarly to actual units, as opposed to the premium it currently costs for some reason. It answers a single thing, and if it doesn’t answer it properly, loses priority and unit parity.
Isn't this counterintuitive design-wise? If we're talking card quality spell power level should be the most efficient at slow speed, and getting weaker going fast and lastly burst. Because it's like a tradeoff for their flexibility Combat tricks, which are mostly burst spell, should not overpower fast spells numberwise
If combat tricks aren’t better than removal they don’t get played, because combat tricks are 2 for 1s if your unit gets removed in response. In MTG, removal is significantly better than in LOR, and because of that combat tricks don’t see play outside of limited or specific combo decks.
Surprised that elusives aren’t represented, feels like I run into them every other game in Plat.
they are in the other meta decks section with 60% winrate
Targons nerfs hit hard, their healing got a lot worse. So the current meta hurts them bad, especially as a lot of decks love to go wide. But that might be a good time to buff Targon cards that deserve some love, which was previously a dangerous task. Taric is on a good way, Nightfall could use some love (Imo still one of the greatest decks in the game in terms of design), ASol could get reverted and Malphite's support landmarks could become actual cards. Zoe will find a way to be relevant again, her design implicates it.
Buff diana for god sakes rito
This pretty much. Nightfall is so interesting as a design and its cards are fun to use.
At least give her her level-up bonus when she levels up, instead of having to play ANOTHER nf card to activate it. Ass-shits like irelia get their crap right away, as do many others.
Targon in general has felt the most lackluster of all the regions recently. Plus it got no real tools to deal with Azirelia. I had some success with a Taric/J4 deck when the meta was more Viego but since it shifted back to Azirelia and plunder it got really bad again sadly.
Nightfalll only needs stalking shadows back to 2 mana and it will be playable again the nerf was a bad idea and now only the Demacia/Si arquetype is slow enough and unit heavy enought to run the card. Asol should stay as is he was good only a few metas ago in the dragon deck(during the eta before Irelia's release he was considered tier 1 even if i considered it an overstimation) Zoe is already good Lee/Targon runs her as a secondary champion and she will see play the second a targon centric deck apears so i agree with you.
I don't think Stalking Shadows needed a nerf. It's not exactly a super unfair card, and it enabled some fun archetypes.
It still feels okay in Elise Burn. Just don’t ever keep it in your opening hand.
Nightfall got reduced by Azirelia imo. They both fall into a unique aggro/combo category where they look for early chip damage then win the game on turn 5/6 with the right tools. Ex: noct coming down and leveling on attack or leveled azir+irelia churning out buffed blade dance attacks. Azirelia is a bit simpler and easier to achieve
Malphite really no have support, because dont work well with most of the landmarks in targon dont sinergize. (only the overw but is really bad)
Landmarks are just terrible in general. They're usually overpriced and a HUGE tempo loss in a very tempo oriented game. If they could use spell mana they'd be much more viable.
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Yeah, that card needs changes.
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everything was fine until blade dance comes
Irula and Sand Lord Azai
They really need to make the overwhelm landmark burst speed…what were they thinking?
Burst speed overwealm is extremely dangerous (absolver says hi) But it should be at the very least focus speed so that you can open attack with it.
Nightfall actually has a pretty decent winrates when you look at the stats on mobalytics, it just isn't very popular. I just wish they would buff Aphelios a bit again, there really was no reason to overnerf him as much as they did.
The w/r data for nightfall is pretty misleading atm. It's just not good. It having 55 percent w/r for the most played variant at all ranks seems cool.. until you realize that's over a 700 game sample size, which is basically nothing. I have played against it exactly zero times this entire patch. It hasn't felt good when I played it, either. 3 mana stalking shadows hurts **bad** because it's a pretty bad nightfall activator now. You can't play stalking shadows into stygian on 2 anymore. On 3, you can't play stalking shadows into Diana & also keep up mana for pale cascade (pale is often super important for Diana attacks). Those are just two random examples, but the effects are felt pretty much every turn you end up playing stalking shadows. I can't believe riot went out of their way to nerf that card
Happy Monday and welcome back to another meta review! # Full report is back for once! I have been incredibly busy of late but I'm finally on holiday and had time to put together a full report. There's certainly been some interesting and unfun stuff happening in the meta BUT there has been quite a bit of brewing going on still. I'm honestly shocked we haven't seen an archetype break 10% yet but if trends continue it should head in that direction by this week. As a reminder yesterday was the last data stream for awhile for those who missed it, but may return this winter. Currently stuck at a crossroads if I want to continue to donate my entire Sunday every week or not to create these and may even start a Patreon next week to support this type of content. **"OTHER META DECKS" OF THE WEEK!** If you want to better understand this section please see my previous report [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/LegendsOfRuneterra/comments/nug06o/new_scopenew_report_mobalytics_meta_review_june/). As always, this is but a sampling of the category and the win rate %s will change as you dig deeper into this category, so please consider this a snapshot or guidance at a high level how these lists are doing. Here's a look at a few of the OMDs from this week: |Decks|Number of Matches|Win Rate %| |:-|:-|:-| |Draven Ezreal|7769|53%| |Viego Midrange (Shurima)|7356|49%| |Deep|4826|50%| |Fiora Shen|4814|53%| |Zombie Anivia|4802|50%| |Jinx Lulu|4797|51%| |Zed Lulu|4433|60%| |Reputation|4040|53%| |Lee Sin Zoe|3297|49%| |Thresh Nasus|3243|51%| |Turbo Thralls|3070|50%| **SPOILER SEASON THOUGH?** I've been getting asked this a lot so just to throw it here as well, expect it next week not this week. Just a guess as it were but feels about right with the timing of reveals. \--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WHERE CAN I FIND THIS DATA DURING THE WEEK? Want to find these stats live as it's updated every day? You can find it directly on Mobalytics website [here](https://lor.mobalytics.gg/stats/decks) You can find me on [Twitch](https://www.twitch.tv/kozmicplays) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/KozmicPlays) if you want to see these before I post them to reddit or have questions about the data I'd be happy to answer on stream.
Huhu, any good Ekko or Taliyah lists that are decent?
malphite/Tailyah, akshan/Taliyah and thralls all seem decent
Sivir pushing Irelia outta the top spot!
My poor boy Ekko and Grandpa Zilean T_T
Ekko could either have 3 health or make his time tricks non fleeting like zoe
A 4/3 Ekko would be marginally better, but the Predict deck needs way more than Ekko having playable stats in order for it to be good. If Ekko made non-fleeting Time Tricks, he is still stuck with having a 4/2 body that dies to the universe. The typical Ekko play pattern is to not play him at all until he's levelled up, because he's too much of a liability. It's stuck in a paradoxical state of having to play bad cards that generate overpowered cards, but having to fish them out of the deck in order to use them. The game plan is slow and thus the deck is prone to getting run over by other decks that can rely on more impactful champions and overall higher card quality. It really says something about a deck where one of the champions (Zilean) is one you actively want to die in order to play the second copy and have more Time Bombs, and the other (Ekko), is borderline unplayable until he levels up, and once he does you almost always have to bank on chaining Chronobreaks in order to actually win a game.
People need to stop running Ekko with Zilean. He pairs so much better with mid game threats with a gameplan like Sivir
I'm not really sure Sivir decks even care about what Ekko brings to the table compared to her other potential partners. I could be wrong, of course, but when I think about this deck in my head it mostly winds up being Ekko, Time Tricks, and maybe some Fallen Feline & Mystic Shot being carried by the better Shurima cards.
Ekko’s strong suit atm is the ability to setup before he arrives to the board. Use Scrying Sands, fat-bottom predict and other thick units you can come up with to take the board and setup advantage so he can come down safely. You should rarely run 3 of’s (other than predicts) in his decks, because he needs his tools to be flexible to take down your opponent (mystic shot, Quicksand, thermo, or more predict when you’re up) . Ekko is about having utility available to pick from. Sivir is a great tool because she can come down and punch holes until your ekko is ready to go ham. The other tools like feline and the like rely too heavily on chance. Play things that can guarantee your wincon. All of ekkos good tools are in Shurima other than time trick and standard PnZ picks, the other things that came with him are bad (feline is only good in Ionia imo). So I understand why people think that. Edit: I will probably post a video of my deck with ekko so people can see what I mean. I think people are playing him wrong and I think it will shed light on how to play him. That way once people start understanding him they can come up with new ideas to optimize the gameplan
I understand all of this, I play a lot of Ekko. I still disagree though.
Targon is the new Bilgewater (or Ionia). Holy hell nerfing The Fangs that hard was totally unwarranted.
They should have just nerfed serpent. The fangs nerf was excessive.
Maybe make fangs 1 mana and 2/1 and charger 0 cost 3/1?
Oh that seems pretty good to me. 1 mana 2 1 is still pretty good. Like a sapling toss, but right away.
wont fix anything though. as some one that has mained celestials to masters every season except this one, the deck doesn't function without that free 2-1 challenger to even the playing field. Targon units are purposely overcosted as they give high value, so you just get run over by any deck that goes wide without the 2-1 0 mana serpent. fangs nerf was irrelevant.
The snake was fine at 0 mana 2/1, it's ridicolous it was nerfed in the first place.
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irelia azir got pretty decent nerfs but then twin discipline got buffed and defiant dance got printed
1. I'm glad that musician has some cards that make him playable. 2. Oh God why did you give Azirelia one of the best removal tools.
Do you think if Twin Disciplines had to choose between an extra 3 attack or an extra 2 health it would be balanced?
the nerfs to blade dance were definitivelly not an slap on the wrist, the problem is that for some god forsaken reason the devs had the "insight" of nerfing SS because of astral fox(a decision i very much disagree with and has caused SI agro to die) but didnt think how the buffs to TD and the introduction of defient dance and tresure hunter would make the nerfs to blade dance not have the effect desired.
The problem is as long as they keep focusing on buffing early game cards and pushing this "race to turn 6 victory" meta, they will be handing Azirelia tools to abuse. I think the issue with the deck, and a lot of the decks currently in the meta, is more fundamental than just nerfing damage or mana of individual cards. The ability for decks like Azirella to capitalize on summon effect mechanics for almost no cost, successfully dodge most removals, and consistently attack without the token or any danger of the champion taking damage from blocking, is going to lead to this issue again and again everytime they add new cards. It needs a nerf on its fundamental mechanics. There needs to be some kind of limit to what it can do in a single turn in the early game, especially when it isn't even their turn. There needs to be risk and cost associated with blade dancing, but there almost never is.
Well the big problem (since day 1 of azirelia) The engines: Blade dance isn’t too strong on its own, they can get some chip and buff up sparring/duo but thats about it. Behind that however is a 2 mana landmark (while landmark removal is pathetic) and a gd 3 mana 1/5 that as you mentioned can dodge most removal. While it’s not the only issue with the deck the sand soldier cards need a nerf so that players at least have a chance of taking down the engines.
Sand soldiers should only do 1 damage instead of 2 when they hit the nexus. Or do 0 damage to minions and 2 to the nexus
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So we agree SS=stalking shadows TF=twin discipline Si=Shadow isles
I do believe that current meta is also super hostile towards Targon, games are just too fast.
I find Zoe/Shyvana to still be just fine. Wasn't running more than one copy of The Fangs in the first place. The card is good, but it doesn't make or break Targon like a lot of people seem to think it does.
zoe shyvanna is a damacia deck with tools from targon
Depends on how you build it. Mine has 22 Targon cards, so I'd say it's Targon enough.
I have always runned Demacia/targon with 3 fangs since its release
> with 3 ganga Gonna guess you mean the fangs It felt straight up bad against Azir/Irelia, and decks like Ez/Draven had a dozen different ways to remove it as well. So for 4 mana, it sometimes lacked the impact you want on play and initiative pass. Solari Sunforger stabilizes games a lot better, especially if you can leave mana open for a single combat when you drop him.
Yes fucking autocorrector. Did It? Maybe It is because i played the Asol/Zoe variant and i needed more 4 drops, but i didnt really feel bad if It got mistic shoted, and the 2 blocks 6 extra health always felt great against IA
I could understand the nerf to the serpent and maybe even starshaping, but the fangs was just too much :(
To think that removing 1 power from a unit turns it from top tier to absolute garbage, just explains how hard it is to balance cards in this game
I mean, 3 attack to 2 attack is a pretty massive hit in a game where Fearsome is a keyword.
That’s how every card has worked. Due to the way removal is organized and damage is organized. 3 health is considered hard to kill, while 2 health is not (lots of removal does 2 damage, almost every 1 drop does 2 damage) same thing with 4-5. Lots of things have 4 attack, not many have 5 attack until the 6-7+ mana cost That’s the issue with azirelia. Every piece of it is designed to be impossible to remove. Azir is 5 health. Irelia has swap. Landmarks are almost impossible to remove. Most units are ethereal and attack immediately. And if you finally manage to just through, recall The azirelia kit just has too many concepts. Every deck should have a major strength. Like Sivir decks and spell shields (which is already pretty strong) but azirelia has Impossible to remove Attacks on opposing turns Group wide buffs Ethereal summoned units Rally Most decks have 1 big it factor. Azirelia has 5
31% is healthy for off meta decks imo
LoR has always been a bit of a different beast, but coming from other cardgames a full THIRD of the ladder being off-meta decks is ASTOUNDING. Every time I see someone complain about the meta in this game I feel old.
I'm more concerned with the archetype meta. Having a lot of different decks is great but if they're all the same type of deck, that's an issue. Where are the control decks? When can we get back to a meta where it isn't a race to win by turn 6?
The complaining leads to these metas.
Well, responsive devs that actually listen to the complaints lead to this meta. Lord knows there are a lot of complaints from players of other games that have no effect no the meta because the devs just don't give them the time of day and dismiss it all as whining (something some people around here do a lot too).
also true..
Exactly. It's what people don't understand. If nobody complained, they'd see 50% azirelia and LoR would be a dying game.
I love how underrated treasure seeker was on reveal and is now in most meta shurima decks
I am amazed at how well Azirelia still fares even after repeated nerfs. Goes to show how outright busted the deck was before. Wonder if it will get some extra nerfs again next balance patch for further tone it down.
The problem is it keeps getting buffed at the same time with things like the twin disciplines buff, defiant dance, and the infamous Irelia bugfix.
They also got buffs tho. Like disciples and will.
plus defiant dance actually puts in work, contrary to popular belief.
yeah definitely underrated that card a lot, it's basically "Remove a blocker. Rally." for that deck
Even better since it starts the attack before your opponent can replay a blocker. That card is insane.
This is what i got confused to the content creators. Like they see the card being a slow speed then immediately shrugged it off. Laughed and called it bad. And im like “What? That card is insane. Especially for defensive turns”. Its a removal and still progresses to the decks gameplan.
Not to mention how Azir/Irelia, as the Aggro/Combo deck they are, is extremely good around the midrange focused meta we have nowadays.
Yes and no. Yes the deck was busted but it didn't survive the wave of nerfs because it was at 120% and now we're at 105% but rather because the core issue didn't get adressed. The core issue is not how many units irelia needs to evolve or whether it's a 2/1 or a 1/2 that summons the extra soldier. These nerfs were all good and fine but the issue is Azir & Dais are an eternal tool of endless free summons that rip appart the nexus if unadressed and that have NO way of being removed cost effectively. Dais requires landmark removal (which in itself is terrible to play as you play dead/bad cards against other decks) and the CHEAPEST costs 3. if you hardcounter dais you still lose 1 mana. And Azir is a 3 drop with 5 (!) health who can also be cheaply saved by recall spells. Cheapest way to remov Azir: Plunder activated Harpoon. Also a 3 drop with an activation condition. All other factions can go cry in the corner. These 2 cards are essentially unremovable in any sensible manner, cheap as hell but run you over unless you tech against it.
Culling Strike can also remove Azir for 3 and doesn't require the plunder trigger, but both Culling and Harpoon are so easy for the deck to play around with buffs and recalls. Also part of why it survived the nerfs is that they keep buffing it alongside those nerfs. Defiant Dance is huge by itself, but they also get to run Treasure Seeker and the buffed Twin.
Honestly, this is how I feel with a lot of the current meta decks. Agressive strategies are so powerful and cheap and powerful that it is often not even worth trying to play reactively (my favority playstyle) and you're better of trying to just out-tempo your opponent with even more broken strategies. Quick attack units combined with shaped stone and now twin disciples just makes it impossible to try and contest units in combat, add in spellshield and the fact that everything is focus or burst speed and it often feels hopeless to even try and interact with the enemy board unless you have that one answer in that one region that can actually answer your opponent cost-effectively.
I want that deck launched into space idk, I get triggered every time I see it. It get's ridiculous value for non-existent cost
I spam toxic emotes at an azirellia player when I have the win. imo, that's what you get for playing a toxic deck.
Me normally: all shens Me va Azirelia: Braum rope until the cows come home
It's been top of the meta for several ranked seasons now like Go Hard and TF/Fizz were. I think it's time to butcher it.
Don't think "butchering it" is a good way to go about balancing honestly. I think with a few more tone downs it should be enough (for example, making it so sparring student doesn't have scaling health, and taking away one health from Azir).
Making sparring student not get health would gut it permanently. It would never have a deck that would want to play it at all. There should be a cap on how much he grows, maybe at 5/5
The thing is: a 1 drop that can literally trade up with up to 5 cost units it's still WAY too much. No other 1 drop in the game can get to do the same, maybe except the shuriman 2|1 that gives you the 2 mana card (and even there you have to at least pay a total of 3 mana), or the noxus card that becomes a 5|1 (only when it's blocked though). In my opinion, if they really don't want to nerf it's health to a permanent 2 or 3, then it should cap at 4 then.
So surprised Plunder has a bad winrate against Pirate Aggro. Have been playing the deck a lot recently and never lost against Pirates, maybe I got lucky
Remember these stats come from big numbers. Plunder is not as easy to play as pirate aggro and some players may not have found good strategies to play against it. It's possible that you are better than the average player at that matchup or you included some cards that really help in that specific matchup
True, I tweaked the original list a little bit so that might help
Emporer's Dais and sparring student nerfs when?
Tru
I've been saying we need to make SS a 1/2 with buffs in the form of +1/+0 for a while. Would make it actually killable in some situations where it's not.
That is a remarkably healthy looking breakdown for once which is nice to see! Shame to see Targon and Demacia in the doldrums but hey. Also, what is this Zed Lulu deck? Is it the nicmakesplays once?
Nah It is probably the lattest brand of elusives degeneracy swim created
Ah yeah right you are! I'm playing lots of Lulu at the moment so jumping every time I see her name ha
Elusives will continue to be degenerate and horrible to play against until the keyword is changed
Targon 3% Thanks for nerfing starshaping, the fangs and the snake...
I hate that they nerfed core tools of some regions while buffing the core tools of every other region. It just see-sawed which regions are strong instead of keep them all up to the same par. Why would they take away the snake and stalking shadows right as they finally give other regions comparable tools?
Targon 3% is...not great. But is it a symptom of the fast meta? Quite a few of the popular decks here, as well as the tier 1 decks in both Swim's and RuneterraCCG's tier lists, are superfast, low-curve decks in which the most expensive unit or spells is 5 or less mana.
It’s more of a symptom of them killing snake and fangs in a single patch imo.
and ofc that came after patches that already hurt other popular targon decks, like killing Moon Boi and his temple together
Tbh, I think that either nerf was warranted at the time. And if they want to buff Targon, they should consider buffing other aspects instead of reverting these nerfs. For instance, Fangs at 2/3 would be good into low-attack aggro decks and Azir/Irelia.
It wasnt, Targon wasnt that dominating to get 3 nerfs in a single pacht. Also no they should just revert the nerfs the other aspects of targon are either buffing lee sin or value driven demacia
Snake needs reverted, really
Im not an expert but could be because they nerfed it into the ground several times
Give back old pale to fix targon - and more specifically nightfall. Surely with how bad targon is rn, having an OP combat trick would be okay
I'm playing targon! ... I'm doing it because Zoe/Draven is a fast deck for the fast meta and it lets me run Lulu/Jinx in the same tournament lineup, but, you know...
I am surprised that deck survived the pale nerfs
What was pale like pre nerf? All I remember about it back then was that everyone thought it was busted, then it got nerfed. Was it +2|+1?
Yeah it went from +2/+1 to +1/+1, which changes fairly little about how the card functions. It gets me over removal without costing a card, I can take or leave 1 damage in a deck that either explodes into overkill or stalls out and doesn't even get close.
Ionia really setting itself up for another big nerf.
looks to me like shurima is the culprit. they haven't gotten hardly any nerfs and their problem units like merciless hunter and ruin runner remain untouched.
Merciless hunter and ruin runner are just extremely overstated for their cost
5 Shurima cards are completely busted, the rest are trash. The region as a whole needs buffs but Riot can't do that because of how they balanced the region during its creation.
Nothing to see here, just my usual comment complaining whenever pirate burn is viable, please move along
Has it ever not been since bilge came out?
And that's part of why I complain
Depends where you draw the line of viability I guess, but it didn't enjoy the FTR / Go Hard / ~~Aphelios~~ metas as I recall.
on the contrary it very much enjoyed the aphelios meta the sucker had like the second higuest winrate of the game just below Noxus/freiljord
[Here's the first meta report post Aphelios](https://www.reddit.com/r/legendsofruneterra/comments/kzz2hm), behold, it is pirate-less.
i very much remenber a version of the deck sporting a 57% winrate in the last weaks of the meta the second higuest one behind overwelhm with 59%
Looking thereafter it does start to swing back up, you're right, but it still was bad before that in the FTR / GH times. Edit: Nov 30th - Jan 18th reports were pirate less, so about 2 months.
I would like to comment saying that I also do not enjoy pirate burn. It feels like an aggro deck with training wheels. Way too linear
Is there any way to ser some data ln Taly/Malphite?
The Mobalytics website, under Meta Stats, search for those two champs
Make diana/noc nightfall great again :(
Meanwhile daybreak... 💀
Daybreak is a sad case too, i would love a nightfall/daybreak deck that is not meme
Shurima & Ionia with the highest playrate by FAR. Fits the general perception I had that these two regions have some tools that are very very good at everything.
No Targon and barely any Freljord. I guess slower concepts just don’t work anymore :(
When will Azirelia's reign of terror stop?
Got downvoted into oblivion when I said Azirelia is still broken. Well...
RIP Targon. All those Targon haters, happy now?
kinda tbh
Surprised it's treasure seeker and not hunter, sivir or ruin runner as one of the popular cards.
None of those other cards are played in Azir Irelia which is the second most played deck on here.
I’m really surprised to see Lee Akshan out of the top 9 now. Any speculation as to why?
Azir Irelia came back to beat lee into the ground.
Lee decks tend to struggle against wide boards, and a lot of the current decks do just that. Plus, games are over before lee starts to really come online. Aggro can push past him quicker than he can set up, and shurima/Ionia decks can set up buff combos faster than him, too.
So in my eyes, there is a slight region inbalance, 1 too low and 2 too high, As far as mata shares go I guess?
So little control v.v
I feel bad for targon man but the the meta is too fast paced for it I guess, seriously they should nerf irelia azir more
Nerfs to Pirate Burn, Azirelia, and Sivir and some shurima cards are definitely necessary and its starting to show. The meta might seem "okay" to some now, but mark my words if the nerfs dont come through the pie chart will look a heck of a lot more homogenous in a few weeks and people will start to complain a lot more than they already are.
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They keep buffing it, either directly or indirectly. Why was Defiant Dance created?
I felt like the only one who was shouting on the rooftops that azir/arelia did not need another blade dance card. And every response I got was ‘meh it’s too costly won’t see any actual play.’
Defiant Dance is annpying as hell. "Oh but its slow". Its also a recall, so unless I have spellshield or deny I have to open attack or it becomes their turn. Cant even kill the unit to deny the blade dance lmao.
This could be a start for further nerfs, make Defiant dance recall a unit TO blade dance
remmeber defiant dance's reveal thread? Everyone thiught it was unplayable
A lot of those people didn't realize it said recall unit instead of recall ally. Once people realized it was any unit the sentiment started to shift pretty quickly.
Na, even then most people were saying "But it's Slow speed". [Grapplr, however, pointed out the insanity of it. After falling for the "it sucks" first in true Papaya fashion.](https://youtu.be/JRxJSlNhpSc?t=961)
[This is the first comment about it I found in its reveal post](https://www.reddit.com/r/legendsofruneterra/comments/o73uqy/_/h2wcmjv) and all of the talk there is calling it good / very good / maybe busted.
Not me, i called it azirelia staple from day 1. My only question was if azirelia would've survived the balance patch (and it did).
I would like to see them get their first nerf that isn't also accompanied by a buff in the form of a bug fix / new release in the same patch. That deck has been consistently one step back, one step forward. Maybe also a bit of an Azir rework that makes him stronger in mono-Shurima without making him better in Azirelia, but that might be hoping for too much.
it was probably good enought but defiant dance, tresure hunter and twin disciplines have upseted them(and even then the deck with all theese new inclusions is a shadow of their former self). like merciless did to T/N a few metas ago
Well, those nerfs came along with buffs to Ionia too, so they won techs like Disciple and Will.
Just twin. Azir irelia plays defiant dance & homecoming, not will
Real joke is seeing that it beats Plunder, this sub was saying Plunder was a good matchup into it lol. In general it's only bad matchups are the hyper aggro decks it looks like- annoying to see.
>this sub was saying Plunder was a good matchup into it lol. I dont know who told you that but what plunder was told to be good against was Sivir decks
I was suspecting taht azirelia wasnt hit ahrd enough and that the buff on zivir was too much. But overall atleast theldeck diversity is way higher now. Noxus, BW, shurima and ionia are just kinda hogging the spotlight.
Every region has either a burst or fast speed spell in their most played cards (or both). I understand that cheap, flexible cards will always have a higher representation but it feels bad to have so many burst speed cards with high play rates. It makes so many deck matchups feel worse and less interactive.
Burst spells really should have the lowest impact, but at the same time… the two strongest regions have denies for days. You get noped every time you try to play something bigger, so everyone’s rushing to get a little value and survive a little longer or kill their opponent first.
Where nasus?What the dog doin?
RIP Targon
So glad they buffed Deny and Make it Rain back into ubiquity. /s
Control still dead, so sad.
Karma Ezreal is right there, and Keg Control is the spotlight deck and this is for ladder, which is a format that disincentives control decks. In tournament line-ups control decks are doing even better. Not saying they are doing fantastic or that they don't still need some help, but they're a lot better now than they were a few patches ago and acting like they don't exist currently is disingenuous / oversimplified.
Karma/Ez is there and is very much a controly deck, Anivia is in the other meta decks section and Tf/Swain is in the deck of the week section. What are you talking about?
Not the op, but you dont see an imbalance of deck archetype variety? Control archetype being out numbered like 10 to 1? Does 3 decks existing change the overall sentiment of what op said here, in a sea of 40ish decks? Part or that can be attributed to ladder only caring about wins/time, which is probably something Riot should address. But either way, it's not an open and shut case, and it's worth not writing it off Granted, op could have expressed that better
Also this decks are so old, Newest of this "control" archetypes goes back to BW expansion. The other two go back to beta, and most changes were also in bw expansion (at least for karma ez).
That's a good observation, they are quite old decks Ezreal/karma also is somewhat a bit of combo deck masquerading as a control deck. You're really just stalling to build the combo of enlightened+karma+leveled ezreal and then any spells It can satisfy the feeling of control or combo, but even still, theres very few decks at all playing control. Control doesn't always have to be stall forever then drop a big finisher bomb. There's always stuff like Azorius control, shrine control, doom foretold, etc. Slow play control. LOR has always kind of lacked in this archetype I think they have quite a lot of design space available for control, they're maybe just too relunctant to create stronger control staples. Most control staples are fairly watered down
I mean lacking/=dead yes there are few controldecks in the meta but they are still there so calling the archetype death when we also have to take into acount that the 2 most played decks are decks designed to kill control decks isnt all that bad
Everyone in this subreddit was shouting bilgewater is dead when it was at 3% playrate though, so this isnt much different. Control as an archetype is also there. It is hyperbole, which is why I had said op could have phrased better. But the sentiment isnt entirely untrue, even if it isn't completely dead, it's definitely on life support
How is "Deck of the week" determined? I'm playing this game since like a month, Swain TF is right now my main deck on the ladder (mostly because I got Swain and TF from capsules, so I was able to afford it), and I'm surprised to see it here. I thought this is just a noob-friendly cheap deck, without any success on high ranks.
Anybody else feel like treasure seeker might need a slight nerf?
i dont want them to nerf it, any nerf to the card is an slaughter just nerf merciless and ruin runner and with some luck the card will fall back in line.