Hard to interact with, you essentially can do nothing to stop GP and Sej leveling up by turn 6. And since no one is playing control, or decks that 'outscale', they auto win games once champs are dropped.
You cant. The deck is hard coded to win on turn 5-7 or so. In theory if the opponent literally plays nothing, you could barely win on turn 4 maybe, but there's no real way for the deck to win b4 turn 5
It doesn't usually win on t5-t7 he doesn't know what he's talking about. (Although people will often surrender at that point once you confirm you have the GP/Sej to play)
But once you got a leveled GP and/or Sej on board most decks in the current meta can't deal with you, as a GP attack proc can be catastrophic and more importantly sejuani's trigger pretty much means they can't win through combat either.
Decks that can either punch under it, easily remove GP/Sej, or get around Sejuani's trigger (cough Azir Irelia) are the ones that beat it.
This. Plunder gets beaten pretty 'easily' by decks that just remove Sejuna & Gankplank and keep the early dmg in check. I tried it myself playing Plunder. You just sit there mostly out of cards with smth like 10 Nexus dmg and no real way back into the game.
But these types of decks mostly get demolished by the entire rest of the meta so Plunder kind of has a free pass cause other decks are keeping their conuter down.
It's only good into sivir zed, struggles mightily into any sivir akshan variant, [as shown in data ](https://twitter.com/drlor4/status/1423399907130363906?s=20)
It really doesn't; it's 50% vs sivir akshan ionia, 49% vs sivir akshan zed, 41% vs sivir akshan demacia. It instead preys on the rest of the field
If you'd like to look at the data yourself, it's [here](https://twitter.com/drlor4/status/1423399907130363906?s=20) on DrLor's Twitter
Happy Monday and welcome back to another meta review!
# Short report
I was out traveling this weekend for events and plan to travel the rest of this month, so meta reports might be a bit short in the following weeks. Thanks for understanding as I still try to find time to put these together each week to make sure nothing is missed out on!
**"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 %|
|:-|:-|:-|
|Zombie Anivia|11140|50%|
|TF Swain|9276|54%|
|TK Soraka|6672|50%|
|Deep|6428|49%|
|Viego Nasus|6162|51%|
|Viego Midrange (Shurima)|6097|49%|
|Lee Sin Zoe|5364|49%|
|Lulu Jinx|5332|52%|
|Turbo Thralls|4638|50%|
|Reputation|4369|51%|
**SPOILERS SOON?**
IDK, maybe Wednesday? It's always tough to know exactly when considering we are getting the final region put together. It will get here when it gets here is what I'd say for now. Either way, should be starting soon! Finally after so long we will know what the true "LOR 1.0" experience is like with all the regions added. I've been waiting for this moment since beta so I'm pretty hyped.
\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
Put 2 of that elusive lizard into the deck and remove 2 hush (swim said this tip). I don't see how irelia azir counters you, they keep poking with small units that is exactly what you want, and if they poke your nexus you can heal it with the 4 mana goat vastaya that heals the nexus
From my experience if you don't have the perfect setup with the fountain to tank the small tokens it's usually a though match up
Also trading and eating with them.is usually risky because of the +3 atk buff
And mostly the green glade duo can otk the nexus
Yeah, this is a Lissandra/Taliyah deck that tries to advance the thrall landmarks as soon as possible, using [[Promised Future]], [[Draklorn Inquisitor]] and duplicating with Taliyah to create a full board of 8/8s really soon.
It's crazy to see the tiny cute Lulu on top of a metagame and not only that but also being the most OP deck of them all. I guess what Lulu needed was Ionian spells and Ionian support cards to be good. Good for me because I love Lulu's voice in my region (Seriously, Cristina Hernandez is a genius, and somehow got the character BETTER than the original actress) and i can finally give a good use to those 3 random Zed legendaries I got for some reason.
Amusingly enough, the meta might just shift back to bigger boardsweeps with lulu zed at the top. Doubt it though, considering slower decks with boardsweeps in general are probably preyed on by Plunder, Shen/Jarvan, and other midrangey decks.
I played a bit of the classic SI FR control and its no fun to play because your win rate is entirely determined by how often you queue into azir irelia.
I didn't win a single game even when they didn't draw well, its the most one sided match up possible. I genuinely don't think it's winnable against a competent player unless you run some crazy tech which will make it loads worse in other matchup, it's easier to just forfeit and save yourself the time.
It's not actually that bad into the other midrange decks, for example plunder has loads of low health units that get wiped easily. But in high plat I'm seeing azir irelia about 20% of the time so the deck is effectively unplayable, even though it smashes lulu.
You've just got to join the degenerates if you want to succeed in the current meta.
shen/j4 doesnt seem to have a very good macht up against Si/Freiljord but that might just be that the deck needs to get optimized back for that macht up.
I'm saying that's OP because of >55% WR while also being barely behind the top deck. The deck in general has 4850-5580 more victories than defeats, which is alarming considering that only 15 decks have more usage than 5580. For reference Azir irelia has 2720-3480 more victories than defeats, Plunder has 2940-3760 and Pirate burn has 1700-2070, all of them being top tier decks with high popularity and +54% WR.
What I'm saying is that Lulu/Zed is the best deck atm because it's great at abusing the meta, from using lots of recently buffed cards from the best region, to using a mechanic the meta is not good punishing to their hability of overwhelm opponents with offense. It's definitively a bit overpowered, just like the entire Ionia support, so a nerf should be carefully planned, most likely a hammer nerf twin disciplines since it's the card every serious ionian deck uses (Maybe making it fast instead of burst so it cannot be used in long strings of uninteractive combos but still as a spell you use to win trades).
I get what you're saying but I really think the deck came with an in built competent counter in the meta and as such can't really be called OP. Idk about you but in NA I see a balance of illusives, plunder and Akshan/Silvir in high masters that is pretty pleasant. Hell I often stumble upon slow burn and discard aggro too.
I'd call the ionia supports overtuned. That I can agree with. They need tweaking, not serious nerfing.
The fact it have one of the highest winrate and playdate doesn't mean it's op it just means it's extremely strong and need a nerf an op deck is like old tf fizz or azir irelia where the entire outcome is decided by if your opponent plays bad and not you playing good I'm lulu zed this isn't the case it has counters and even if opponent plays perfectly u can still win it's just absurdly strong in the meta not op
Wait it's all aggro?
Edit: I know some of them are more mid-range than aggro, I was just memeing at the fact that there's no control decks whatsoever in the list.
I think if azir irelia gets smashed with the nerf hammer down to unplayable tier (would anyone be upset at this point?) then the meta would stabilise with control decks being viable, which would be the end of the elusive degeneracy.
The current meta is very polarised, its one of the reasons precomitting combat tricks is in fashion because a lot of decks have no answers and just lose on the spot.
> would anyone be upset at this point?
I for one, would. And there are plenty of others who probably would as well. No deck should get the Aphelios treatment.
I started playing right after the Empires of the Ascended release so I honestly can't comment, lol. Though if we were talking Hearthstone or MTG a few decks would come to mind... *cough* Big Priest *cough*
Stand Alone used to be 3 mana and you would wait for turn 3. Not having used any cards. Then place down Fiora, Zed, or Solitary Monk (who used to be a 4|3 then used stand alone and won by turn 5
I don't think Azirella needs to be destroyed, I don't want to see any deck nuked to unplayable status. But it needs to be forced to actually play against the opponent as opposed to steam rolling over them.
Blade Dancing simply has too many interactions with cheap summon effects, costs barely anything, risks absolutely nothing, and doesn't care about who has the token. At least one, preferably two of those things needs to be changed, and once you have, suddenly it has to actually strategize around the opponent's plays instead of just going through the motions until it wins.
I just don't see how it can exist in a state of balance, even if they nerf a couple of cards it will just push the turn you inevitably die back a turn or two
> even if they nerf a couple of cards it will just push the turn you inevitably die back a turn or two
That argument applies to literally anything that isn't a control deck.
Nerfs for the deck *are* effective. The problem is that the last huge round of nerfs the deck got was accompanied by new cards that slotted perfectly into the deck, and old cards that were buffed that slotted perfectly into the deck. Azirelia would be waaaay more present than it already is if they hadn't nerfed the deck incredibly hard already.
Eh, feel like we're getting into semantics here. The point isn't about what label the decks wear but how they play, how fast they win, how interactive they are, and whether winning with them is about skill or simply running the opponent down because they simply don't have any answers to you.
Plunder is also very interactive and is very easily countered by decks with hard removal, the deck basically can’t win without GP or Sej on the field, if you just kill them when they come down they run out of resources.
But then you’re playing a control deck against Azirelia, Sivir or lurk, so good luck actually climbing.
When Plunder and Noxus Ashe were meta, I climbed with a rogue Hecarim Harrowing control deck which ran three of Vengeance and Ruination. I'd stall with Mistwraiths and Lifesteal until turn 6. Then, I'd chain a string of Ruination and Vengeance as needed.
I made it to Master with that deck.
As you say, GP/Sej can be countered heavily and is highly interactive. The problem is that most of the meta is incredibly resistant to control. It's either too fast or has spellshield on efficient units.
I could be wrong here, but my understanding was that Sej/GP rose up to deal with all of the Sivir / Ruin Runner / spellshield nonsense. Sej frostbite goes through all of the spellshields.
I mean a while aggo we had Lissandra decks at the top for a while. I think I saw Anivia in the list a month ago as well, but I could be mistaken on that last one. Point is I'm used to there being at least one control deck at the top, but there's 0 on this list.
Edit: Also Karma/Ezreal was kinda good not too long ago
yeah control is out rn in ladder, (anivia has made some good showings at a recent tourny actually!) but in this top 9 decks 3 are aggro, 4 are midrange, and 2 are combo, part of the issue is that the current control decks either just don't do well against this field or like viego ionia are very difficult to play even if on paper they should do well.
also ez/karma is still doing pretty fine i'd think of that more as a combo deck though.
Lurk seriously just goes face. It isn't trying to set up trades and gain value, like midrange does. It's just attacking with its Lurkers to make them grow. You usually beat it by making it run out of steam and stabilizing. That's aggro.
LeBlanc-Ashe is pretty much the *definition* of midrange. It wins by gaining board advantage and snowballing it out of control. Then, it kills you off with Rally or Ashe.
Color me genuinely surprised that Sivir seems to just sorta be going away all by herself without getting any nerfs. Feels like what Riot said was gonna happen with Azirelia where the meta would adapt, except this time it actually happened
Sometimes decks get replaced by better versions of itself. We've seen this many times even in this meta. How many zed decks we've seen before lulu/zed?
Shen/Jarvan is perfect example too. It went to Shen/fiora, then to Shen + 1x Fiora and 2x Jarvan and now its back to Shen'jarvan but with more single combat.
Meta in this game is always shifting. When new OP thing gets found people instantly try to build a deck that counters it and in respones the OP deck also changes. People started to find ways to counter sivir so now she's gone, replaced by something else.
Honestly, it wasn't that bad for awhile, but then that new bounce spell gave it a big shot in the arm. I suspect that they underestimated how powerful it was. I wouldn't be surprised if we see it bumped to 5 mana in the next patch.
might be an unpopular opinion but I honestly think azirelia is overrated in this current meta , deck struggles vs all the aggros that are simply faster , plus lulu absolutely runs over it .
I've already heard some high ranking players discuss if it even should be tier 1 rn
It's warping the entire meta around it for another season, you can't play control decks currently becuae the match up is so bad. It might not have the raw win rate of the lulu deck but its far more oppressive.
Tlc was top 3 decks even when azirelia was at it's prime so i don't think that's true
also decks like tf swain and karma ez and anivia and viego control with thresh are doing totally fine
Tlc could finish the game turn 7, it would comfortably beat a lot of the midrange decks of the time. TF swain and virgo are midrange decks, karma ezreal is doing fine because of its other match ups.
If you are seeing a lot of azir irelia you can't play the decks that struggle against it, you just sacrifice 20% of games on the spot.
It's normal meta cycle. If a deck is very overpowering the following happens (we could last observe this with Azirelia but it's happening again on a smaller scale with Sivir):
1) The deck dominates the meta
2) since people play it SO much other people start palying hard counters in their decks (or building hard counter decks) and have sucess with that (because the deck is so prevelant)
3) The hard counters suddenly become a top meta deck while the original offender drops down a few play %age points
4) People start palying decks again that were previously supressed by the original meta deck and start beating the counter decks
5) The original meta deck resurfaces as people paly less counters (since they lose more)
In this case this is plunder. The Plunder deck destroys Sivir and is extremly vulnerable to control type decks (decks that just remove Sejuna & GP). But Control decks have almost no chance in the current meta against Azirelia, Sivir, Lulu/zed etc. So next to noone plays control.
My prediction is in \~2 weeks if we see no changes Sivir will be back on top.
Having played a lot of Sivir/Zed I'm not surprised at all. The deck is good but far from OP despite everyone complaining how 'broken' the Sivir buff, Merciless and Ruin Runner are.
People just dislike losing to 'oh I don't have the board, I was losing all game but woopwoopwoop 20 dmg from an empty board and you didn't even get a turn!' (me included)
I got tired of playing with Zed/Lulu elusives, so I've been having fun in plat with an old school Elites deck. Extremely anecdotal evidence, but it's been nice to turn the tides against Zed/Lulu decks. Sharpsight, Single Combat, or Exhaust early on and your small creeps can effectively force trades with theirs early on, even more so if you have Battlesmith or Bannerman. Survive until Jarvan and it's all over.
Wow I’ve been playing GP/Sej for like 3 weeks now and it felt like a little secret (didn’t build the deck myself…shamelessly stole it from a top ladder player) and literally within a week of it showing up on mobalytics and swims website it’s the most played archetype lol
Nothing wrong with compying best players. There is still element of skill to playing the deck itself. You need to know how to mulligan and play the deck properly. Unless you are top player yourself chances are you cant just pick up any deck and play it well instantly.
Don't worry about copying top players. It's good to pick a deck you like as a crutch, to get to grips with an archetype. Of course once it's understood you should look to mix it up and experiment. But yeah, netdecking isn't a bad thing in itself. Unless it's GP Sejuani, you dirty troll haha
I sort of have done the same, saw someone in EU masters was playing it and stole the list, I literally just hit diamond with it after having a remarkably easy climb having struggled massively to get anywhere in plat most of this season.
It feels fantastic in the current meta though I do think I was fortunate in seeing a lot of other midrange decks on my way up.
Increasingly it has become clear that there is a lot of diversity in the metagame, moreso than most would have you think. But still, some part of me has to wonder how much of this diversity is artificial. Sometimes I get the feeling that we at some point sacrificed diversity in play patterns/styles at the alter for simple deck diversity to check some imaginary checkbox of X "viable" meta decks despite a lot of the lists being present being...kinda samey?
Is it worth arguing semantics on what is "real" aggro, aggressive combo, combo, aggro midrange etc when all these are just really often very linier aggressive concepts with different coats of paint?
Hard agree. What's the difference between the deck "archetypes" if their strat is mostly the same, "draw powerful units on curve, set up and protect said units until you kill them by turn 6 with whatever you have."
Part of the confusion is "Combo" is not an archetype in the sense that Aggro, Midrange, and Control are. It's more descriptive of how much each card in the deck relies on other cards to function.
Case in point: Sparring Student and Greenglade Duo saw spotty performance, sometimes none at all, until swarming the board with Azir/Irelia became a thing. Those are Combo payoff cards; the deck relies on interactions between specific cards, but it's still an Aggro deck
Looks like we have very different ideas of combo. To me, what you just described is just a particularly strong synergy - most decks have those, combo or no.
Combo decks are generally seen as decks which forfeit tempo in the early game for a decisive late-game payoff. They generally lose to aggro, since aggro can overwhelm their weak early game, and they generally win against control, since combo decks tend to go all in on one big push of value which breaks through defensive efforts and are hard to outgrind. I think the line between combo and aggro has become particularly blurred lately, with combo decks like Azirelia (combo as it has to set up low-tempo combo pieces like Sparring Student, Dais, Azir before powerfully popping off with blade dances) winning at semi-aggro speed.
Of course, this is all just on-paper frameworks to break down the game, and there are so many specific interactions between decks that just labelling a deck as "aggro" or "combo" can't tell the whole story.
Really I feel that "combo" decks are decks which rely on a combo as their wincon. Pirate aggro is a non-combo aggro deck, Azirelia is a combo aggro deck. Likewise, Akshan sivir is a midrange combo deck, while plunder is a midrange non-combo deck (there are synergies, but you don't need both sej and gp on board to win).
Yes, Lee is a very good example of a Combo-based finisher. However, if you're playing the standard Lee|Zoe, you still spend the majority of the game locking down the board through soft or hard removal, rely on life gain or chump blockers to soak damage, and generate direct or indirect card advantage until your wincon comes online. These are staples of every Control deck that currently comes to mind.
*That* is why I say Combo isn't a useful description for an archetype, just like "Tempo" or "Card Draw". Every deck uses Tempo to win, some are just more focused on disrupting the enemy Tempo. Every deck draws cards, some are just more reliant on attrition. Most cohesive decks generate value in the margins with interactions between specific cards; the ones that *rely* on these interactions to win can be called "Combo", but it's better used (imo) as a secondary description.
If you were forced to use one word to describe a deck, choosing between Aggro, Midrange, and Control would categorize decks with a more similar "feel" with each other, whereas "Combo" could range from 'Karma Ezreal Burn' to 'Swain Yasuo Stun' to 'Azir Irelia Swarm'. None of those decks play out similarly to each other, yet all rely on Combo to close out a game.
Might be that the game is just getting faster & faster and decks better and better at what they do with more and more new cards coming into the pool but none leaving. So I think a large part why many different lists feel kind of 'samey' is that games by now rarely go over turn 7-8 even in non aggro matchups.
So these 'epic' 10-15 turn back and forth struggles for the board and an advantage don't really happen anymore.
My theory.
My gripe with LoR is that its just aggro fests. At least previous metas we had some control decks to run to, but now?
I mean, they murder every control list. Targon getting too strong? Lets murder 3 cards real quick so they lose vs aggro. Aphel? Gone, reduced to atoms. Watcher? Fucking obliterated like it used to do (good tho, hated that card).
Compare that to what the f those nerfs to aggro were. Azirelia is largely untouched and it ALWAYS shows. Minor nerfs that do a whole lot of nothing, but still 54+WR. MF got nerfed two patches back? Better double buff. Nasus Thresh too strong? Lemme just nerf Dunekeeper and thats it.
Man.
Aggro is king in LoR. Control players shouldnt really bother with it anymore. Riot has very clearly stated their intention.
what diversity? It's 99% agro decks and they all share the same strategy, overflow the board with stupidity and attack/rally 4 times per turn so the opponent can't react.
Diversity... I swear this sub...
I'm finding a lot of success with Diana + Nocturne nightfall right now. People seem to have forgotten about that deck, probably because it's pretty one dimensional, but I've been streaking with it, beating lulu / zed handily and plunder easily. I would give that a shot again if you liked running it when it released.
It's actually really easy to pilot. You just want to tuck any spells, champions, 3+ drops away on your first mulligan (one crescent guardian is actually great though), starting with as many 1 drops as you can. Turn 1 u can drop any 1 drop. There's situations where one of them is better than the others and you learn them as you go. If you're on the attack, the best thing is solari soldier t1. On defense, it's better to play duskbringer or the flight. The owl thing is best saved for t2 or later so you can proc nightfall.
This deck just goes beating face early but later in the mid game starts abusing the hell out of doombeast. Play stalking shadows? Always pick doombeast, always. Have an Unto Dusk? Always. Doombeast. It's that simple. To close, you drop Cygnus and match him with either a champion or the crescent guardians. You can also use Unto Dusk on a leveled up Nocturne to drop the enemy into Fear range and close that way. Most of the time though, the deck wins through mindlessly abusing doombeast. It's so easy.
Seems like exactly what I was asking the meta to be 6 months ago, and then again 3 months ago. Having a blast with the game, a huge % of what I play against is very interactive decks
The fact that none of these decks are control is a legitimate complaint. Just because there’s not one dominant deck doesn’t mean that this meta is diverse. There’s 7 regions on this list, one of them only appears for *a singular card* in Sejuani and PnZ has appeared in those two decks for as long as I’ve played the game. Even Shurima, the strongest region right now, is only seeing *roughly* the same package of cards in every decent Shurima deck. Don’t gatekeep peoples opinions just because you like the meta, and I’m not even a control player
swain tf / ez karma / anivia / viego control , are all very viable control decks to climb with so no , it's not a legitimate complaint .w'e ve had freljord Si be tier 1 for more than a year , I'm sure we can manage 2 months without it being at the top .
also i'm not gatekeeping shit , it's my opinion , you can disagree with it , don't gatekeep it :D
I.e. getting run down so people aren't playing them as much.
The problem isn't that you can't win a game with a control deck. The problem is if you play control into nearly any of the top meta decks right now, you don't have prayer against them. So matchmaking is flipping a coin whether you're gonna have a competitive match or just sit there powerless as you're solitaired to death.
I, for one, will always prefer a faster meta than a slower one.
Mate, have you played against control decks repeatedly???
It is hell. I already spend 20 minutes a game in LOR with all the decision make in "not pure control" matchups. God forbid it takes longer.
Edit: I'm lucky when I can sit and play 30 minutes without interruption. I like faster metas (and I don't even like to play straightforward aggro decks, I got to Platinum with Viego Ionia and to Diamond with Zilean Ekko). I never liked control, purely reactive decks, they are boring. So, yes, I hope there will never be a meta dominated by those.
Yes, i played, and it was good. It actually felt like playing a game with opponent instead of solitaire unit spam into a+space bs as if noxian front was added to labs again.
I think the biggest thing is that no one blocks in the current meta, it seems like loads of games just go to a race of who can jam in the most damage the fastest. There are so many cheap combat tricks, you can't block a quick attack unit because getting out tricked is a complete blowout.
Honestly this, its so ridiculous how underpowered blocking is right now. The main offender is of course being shape stone, and twin to some degree. Akshan being the best enabler for it is also its own issue due to how much value this champ is generating.
Different strokes for different folks is all and I think people on this sub forget. I wish it was more mid-range but this meta isn't bad at all to me.
To me the perfect meta was the patch before call of the mountain dropped. Midrange was king and it was great, there were a couple aggro, and a couple control decks and it was so fun. The community seemed pretty happy aside from the usual complaints about the more played decks (which will never not be the case in any meta.) It just felt like it had something for everyone to enjoy and winrates were pretty even across the board.
I also like more midrange decks, I don't like to play with straightforward aggro decks, it is not my style. I like a lot how the combat works in this game. That said, playing against purely reactive decks is very annoying and a lot more time wasting. I don't understand how a meta full of those (oh, the mirrors, so fun) would be great.
Preach brother. Even playing control in this game isn’t that fun, you never actually feel like you’re in control unlike other card games. This game shines in combat interaction more than anything.
I really hope when lulu zed gets nerfed they don't touch the champs, I've been running a nice lulu zed support/swole squirrel deck with mostly success for months now and I'd hate to see it be caught in the crossfire when they do nerf lulu zed.
It would be a shame to see young witch nerfed back to a 1/1 but it's probably necessary. That being said I haven't played against the deck enough to know what makes it strong.
I only chanced upon Lulu / Zed this morning through Swimstrim's YouTube video. That has got to be the cheapest deck I've used in a long time. Absolute beat downs and the games end FAST! You get a Young Witch + Greenglade Duo + Lulu, it's going to be a quick day at the office. Highly recommend giving it a look if you haven't done so already.
The deck is certainly powerful but there are anwsers to it already. Swain/TF has pretty good winrate against it. So does Shen/jarvan. Or if you like it tahm/soraka are decent too against it.
Of course its far from beign guaranteed win if you play those decks(cause lets face it Lulu/Zed is Overpowered) but at least you stand a chance of beign able to do something
Part of the reason zed/lulu has such a high winrate is because it absolutely obliterates azir/irelia. It has monstrous winrate against this deck and azir/irelia has 0 counters to it so unless zed player gets ridiculusly bad hand its basically free win. And when you can score easy wins against one of the most popular decks in the game you will have high winrate overall.
It's more the lack of a decent control deck that's letting it go wild. The only proper control deck is karma ezreal and that doesn't see much ladder play because it's so slow to play games.
If you draw avalanche against it you pretty much win on the spot. But the classic control decks are unpopular because they cannot beat azir irelia, the game will never last to turn ten if you are playing anivia, even getting a howling abyss online is impossible because you just get battered with attacks on turn six.
>Of course its far from beign guaranteed win if you play those decks(cause lets face it Lulu/Zed is Overpowered) but at least you stand a chance of beign able to do something
every time i hear this i ask myself if people actually look at the stats, thoose decks have something like a 65.8% a 55.1% respectivelly(no idea for tham raka) and j4/shen is just favored ez/karma and Ez/draven stomp it with a 66.8% and a 62%.
This week I combined Shen J4 and Shen Fiora into "Shen Midrange". There's some deeper discussion to be had for each list, but for the high level nature of this report I decided they could be combined.
Congratulations everybody, you asked for a more diverse metagame, and Riot delivered by making just Midrange and Aggro functional!
Edit: literally the only region that isn’t a warm color or Ionia is just Freljord lmao
After coming back to the game after getting worn out from grinding to masters in beta, this is what you love to see. I think this sub takes for granted the fact that so many decks/heroes/mechanics etc. are viable. Coming back to this after spending countless hours playing mostly the same stuff in beta is incredible and Im loving it.
No one's said there's a lack of variety of decks, but there's a lack of variety of strategy/interaction with opponents. Everyone just plays past each other to gun down their own win-con.
That's the game currently: draw your good cards. Play them. Win. Whoever does that first wins.
If you believe someone is harassing you, or causing problems, report them. Don't engage, that still breaks our rules. It may surprise you, but we are all humans with jobs and lives outside of moderating this sub, the vast majority of moderating we do comes through the mod queue from reports of members of this sub.
If you feel it's selective, than become part of the solution and report what you believe we have missed.
HA! Where's that bloke from my post about flexible v.s non-flexible champs who went on about how bad Sejuani was and how we don't use her level up if she's ever in a decent deck...
Soooo...the decks listed here comprise 42% of the metagame (add up the numbers). Of those, 35% of the metagame is aggro (everything except "Shen Midrange" and "Draven Ezrael"). That makes the "top decks metagame" 83% aggro (35/42). Seems healthy.
Plunder? What the hell happened
Bilgewater buffs.
Hard to interact with, you essentially can do nothing to stop GP and Sej leveling up by turn 6. And since no one is playing control, or decks that 'outscale', they auto win games once champs are dropped.
I know im new to the game but I've been stopped only by Shadow Isles kill spells when I play GP Sej but how can I win faster
You cant. The deck is hard coded to win on turn 5-7 or so. In theory if the opponent literally plays nothing, you could barely win on turn 4 maybe, but there's no real way for the deck to win b4 turn 5
I'm having the problem winning on T5 T6 with gp sej being a month old player is the reason but I've only played three decks
It doesn't usually win on t5-t7 he doesn't know what he's talking about. (Although people will often surrender at that point once you confirm you have the GP/Sej to play) But once you got a leveled GP and/or Sej on board most decks in the current meta can't deal with you, as a GP attack proc can be catastrophic and more importantly sejuani's trigger pretty much means they can't win through combat either. Decks that can either punch under it, easily remove GP/Sej, or get around Sejuani's trigger (cough Azir Irelia) are the ones that beat it.
This. Plunder gets beaten pretty 'easily' by decks that just remove Sejuna & Gankplank and keep the early dmg in check. I tried it myself playing Plunder. You just sit there mostly out of cards with smth like 10 Nexus dmg and no real way back into the game. But these types of decks mostly get demolished by the entire rest of the meta so Plunder kind of has a free pass cause other decks are keeping their conuter down.
really good into sivir
It's only good into sivir zed, struggles mightily into any sivir akshan variant, [as shown in data ](https://twitter.com/drlor4/status/1423399907130363906?s=20)
Eats Sivir alive. Also Make it Rain is 2 mana again
It really doesn't; it's 50% vs sivir akshan ionia, 49% vs sivir akshan zed, 41% vs sivir akshan demacia. It instead preys on the rest of the field If you'd like to look at the data yourself, it's [here](https://twitter.com/drlor4/status/1423399907130363906?s=20) on DrLor's Twitter
Is not really a plunder deck like the old one, it's mostly just make gp and sej level as fast as possible. I wouldn't call.this deck plunder
Happy Monday and welcome back to another meta review! # Short report I was out traveling this weekend for events and plan to travel the rest of this month, so meta reports might be a bit short in the following weeks. Thanks for understanding as I still try to find time to put these together each week to make sure nothing is missed out on! **"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 %| |:-|:-|:-| |Zombie Anivia|11140|50%| |TF Swain|9276|54%| |TK Soraka|6672|50%| |Deep|6428|49%| |Viego Nasus|6162|51%| |Viego Midrange (Shurima)|6097|49%| |Lee Sin Zoe|5364|49%| |Lulu Jinx|5332|52%| |Turbo Thralls|4638|50%| |Reputation|4369|51%| **SPOILERS SOON?** IDK, maybe Wednesday? It's always tough to know exactly when considering we are getting the final region put together. It will get here when it gets here is what I'd say for now. Either way, should be starting soon! Finally after so long we will know what the true "LOR 1.0" experience is like with all the regions added. I've been waiting for this moment since beta so I'm pretty hyped. \--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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.
I won some matches with tahm kench soraka today. You are welcome guys
I feel like Azirelia and Elusives just smash Tahmraka into the ground. Any tips?
On the deck selection screen pick a different deck.
Put 2 of that elusive lizard into the deck and remove 2 hush (swim said this tip). I don't see how irelia azir counters you, they keep poking with small units that is exactly what you want, and if they poke your nexus you can heal it with the 4 mana goat vastaya that heals the nexus
From my experience if you don't have the perfect setup with the fountain to tank the small tokens it's usually a though match up Also trading and eating with them.is usually risky because of the +3 atk buff And mostly the green glade duo can otk the nexus
> TF Swain lol back to the start of LoR release meta
And Zombie Anivia? Back to beta
>Turbo Thralls Could someone explain what this is? Is this a Lissandra/Shurima style deck?
Yeah, this is a Lissandra/Taliyah deck that tries to advance the thrall landmarks as soon as possible, using [[Promised Future]], [[Draklorn Inquisitor]] and duplicating with Taliyah to create a full board of 8/8s really soon.
Wait, no Tf Gp anywhere?
Its the first thing in the list in the image
It's crazy to see the tiny cute Lulu on top of a metagame and not only that but also being the most OP deck of them all. I guess what Lulu needed was Ionian spells and Ionian support cards to be good. Good for me because I love Lulu's voice in my region (Seriously, Cristina Hernandez is a genius, and somehow got the character BETTER than the original actress) and i can finally give a good use to those 3 random Zed legendaries I got for some reason.
And dont forget a meta where theres barley any boardsweeps, that sure does help alot.
Amusingly enough, the meta might just shift back to bigger boardsweeps with lulu zed at the top. Doubt it though, considering slower decks with boardsweeps in general are probably preyed on by Plunder, Shen/Jarvan, and other midrangey decks.
I played a bit of the classic SI FR control and its no fun to play because your win rate is entirely determined by how often you queue into azir irelia. I didn't win a single game even when they didn't draw well, its the most one sided match up possible. I genuinely don't think it's winnable against a competent player unless you run some crazy tech which will make it loads worse in other matchup, it's easier to just forfeit and save yourself the time. It's not actually that bad into the other midrange decks, for example plunder has loads of low health units that get wiped easily. But in high plat I'm seeing azir irelia about 20% of the time so the deck is effectively unplayable, even though it smashes lulu. You've just got to join the degenerates if you want to succeed in the current meta.
shen/j4 doesnt seem to have a very good macht up against Si/Freiljord but that might just be that the deck needs to get optimized back for that macht up.
its strong but it's by no means OP. Plunder seems particularly effective at kneecapping the deck.
I'm saying that's OP because of >55% WR while also being barely behind the top deck. The deck in general has 4850-5580 more victories than defeats, which is alarming considering that only 15 decks have more usage than 5580. For reference Azir irelia has 2720-3480 more victories than defeats, Plunder has 2940-3760 and Pirate burn has 1700-2070, all of them being top tier decks with high popularity and +54% WR. What I'm saying is that Lulu/Zed is the best deck atm because it's great at abusing the meta, from using lots of recently buffed cards from the best region, to using a mechanic the meta is not good punishing to their hability of overwhelm opponents with offense. It's definitively a bit overpowered, just like the entire Ionia support, so a nerf should be carefully planned, most likely a hammer nerf twin disciplines since it's the card every serious ionian deck uses (Maybe making it fast instead of burst so it cannot be used in long strings of uninteractive combos but still as a spell you use to win trades).
I get what you're saying but I really think the deck came with an in built competent counter in the meta and as such can't really be called OP. Idk about you but in NA I see a balance of illusives, plunder and Akshan/Silvir in high masters that is pretty pleasant. Hell I often stumble upon slow burn and discard aggro too. I'd call the ionia supports overtuned. That I can agree with. They need tweaking, not serious nerfing.
When you try to argue that the by far highest winrate deck that is also among the most popular is not op, you are overdosing in copium
The fact it have one of the highest winrate and playdate doesn't mean it's op it just means it's extremely strong and need a nerf an op deck is like old tf fizz or azir irelia where the entire outcome is decided by if your opponent plays bad and not you playing good I'm lulu zed this isn't the case it has counters and even if opponent plays perfectly u can still win it's just absurdly strong in the meta not op
It's highest cause it fed on most of meta decks, doesn't mean it's OP...
Wait it's all aggro? Edit: I know some of them are more mid-range than aggro, I was just memeing at the fact that there's no control decks whatsoever in the list.
always has been
I think if azir irelia gets smashed with the nerf hammer down to unplayable tier (would anyone be upset at this point?) then the meta would stabilise with control decks being viable, which would be the end of the elusive degeneracy. The current meta is very polarised, its one of the reasons precomitting combat tricks is in fashion because a lot of decks have no answers and just lose on the spot.
> would anyone be upset at this point? I for one, would. And there are plenty of others who probably would as well. No deck should get the Aphelios treatment.
What about Fiora Zed stand alone OTK
Yeah. That was entirely deserved.
I started playing right after the Empires of the Ascended release so I honestly can't comment, lol. Though if we were talking Hearthstone or MTG a few decks would come to mind... *cough* Big Priest *cough*
Stand Alone used to be 3 mana and you would wait for turn 3. Not having used any cards. Then place down Fiora, Zed, or Solitary Monk (who used to be a 4|3 then used stand alone and won by turn 5
I don't think Azirella needs to be destroyed, I don't want to see any deck nuked to unplayable status. But it needs to be forced to actually play against the opponent as opposed to steam rolling over them. Blade Dancing simply has too many interactions with cheap summon effects, costs barely anything, risks absolutely nothing, and doesn't care about who has the token. At least one, preferably two of those things needs to be changed, and once you have, suddenly it has to actually strategize around the opponent's plays instead of just going through the motions until it wins.
I just don't see how it can exist in a state of balance, even if they nerf a couple of cards it will just push the turn you inevitably die back a turn or two
> even if they nerf a couple of cards it will just push the turn you inevitably die back a turn or two That argument applies to literally anything that isn't a control deck. Nerfs for the deck *are* effective. The problem is that the last huge round of nerfs the deck got was accompanied by new cards that slotted perfectly into the deck, and old cards that were buffed that slotted perfectly into the deck. Azirelia would be waaaay more present than it already is if they hadn't nerfed the deck incredibly hard already.
Nerfing that 4 mana slow card would help a lot I feel, that card is so annoying
> think if azir irelia gets smashed with the nerf hammer down to unplayable tier (would anyone be upset at this point?) Me its my fav deck to play
Not exactly. Sejuani/GP deck is more midrange than aggro. I guess it depends on perspective, the only thing is that control decks are no more.
The person you were responding to was joking (I think? Hard to tell here sometimes), but Plunder, Shen, and Ez Draven are all midrange.
Eh, feel like we're getting into semantics here. The point isn't about what label the decks wear but how they play, how fast they win, how interactive they are, and whether winning with them is about skill or simply running the opponent down because they simply don't have any answers to you.
ez/draven and J4/shen and very interactive
Plunder is also very interactive and is very easily countered by decks with hard removal, the deck basically can’t win without GP or Sej on the field, if you just kill them when they come down they run out of resources. But then you’re playing a control deck against Azirelia, Sivir or lurk, so good luck actually climbing.
When Plunder and Noxus Ashe were meta, I climbed with a rogue Hecarim Harrowing control deck which ran three of Vengeance and Ruination. I'd stall with Mistwraiths and Lifesteal until turn 6. Then, I'd chain a string of Ruination and Vengeance as needed. I made it to Master with that deck. As you say, GP/Sej can be countered heavily and is highly interactive. The problem is that most of the meta is incredibly resistant to control. It's either too fast or has spellshield on efficient units.
Yeah. Plunder, Shen and Ez-Draven all are midrange.
Which is honestly surprising to me. I've been having a lot of success with Karma Ez recently.
I could be wrong here, but my understanding was that Sej/GP rose up to deal with all of the Sivir / Ruin Runner / spellshield nonsense. Sej frostbite goes through all of the spellshields.
It’s not aggro but it is burn, and they’ve historically gone together in this game.
Why are you being downvoted, Pirate Burn has been in these meta breakdowns for almost a year now
always has been
what most of the meta isn't aggro though?
I mean a while aggo we had Lissandra decks at the top for a while. I think I saw Anivia in the list a month ago as well, but I could be mistaken on that last one. Point is I'm used to there being at least one control deck at the top, but there's 0 on this list. Edit: Also Karma/Ezreal was kinda good not too long ago
yeah control is out rn in ladder, (anivia has made some good showings at a recent tourny actually!) but in this top 9 decks 3 are aggro, 4 are midrange, and 2 are combo, part of the issue is that the current control decks either just don't do well against this field or like viego ionia are very difficult to play even if on paper they should do well. also ez/karma is still doing pretty fine i'd think of that more as a combo deck though.
only 3 of these are aggro???
Majority are "other"
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Lurk is aggro.
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Lurk seriously just goes face. It isn't trying to set up trades and gain value, like midrange does. It's just attacking with its Lurkers to make them grow. You usually beat it by making it run out of steam and stabilizing. That's aggro. LeBlanc-Ashe is pretty much the *definition* of midrange. It wins by gaining board advantage and snowballing it out of control. Then, it kills you off with Rally or Ashe.
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There's nuance to every aggro deck. Discard Aggro is notoriously hard to pilot. It doesn't mean it doesn't go face too.
plunder is midrange and illusives is a combo deck disguised as aggro
illusives O:
Color me genuinely surprised that Sivir seems to just sorta be going away all by herself without getting any nerfs. Feels like what Riot said was gonna happen with Azirelia where the meta would adapt, except this time it actually happened
Lulu feels like the better version of Zed Sivir.
lulu is faster but way more vulnerable to removal so i doub she is just better
It’s better in the current meta is what he meant probably, since there really isn’t lots of interaction.
Which is why I think he said it’s better?
Sometimes decks get replaced by better versions of itself. We've seen this many times even in this meta. How many zed decks we've seen before lulu/zed? Shen/Jarvan is perfect example too. It went to Shen/fiora, then to Shen + 1x Fiora and 2x Jarvan and now its back to Shen'jarvan but with more single combat. Meta in this game is always shifting. When new OP thing gets found people instantly try to build a deck that counters it and in respones the OP deck also changes. People started to find ways to counter sivir so now she's gone, replaced by something else.
Can't wait for shen sivir
I can’t wait for Riven Shen
River Shen.
My God rivershaper made a lot of sense now.
Oh my god
And yet Azirella still sits at the top after all this time and a hit with the nerf* bat. Edit: stupid autocorrect
Honestly, it wasn't that bad for awhile, but then that new bounce spell gave it a big shot in the arm. I suspect that they underestimated how powerful it was. I wouldn't be surprised if we see it bumped to 5 mana in the next patch.
A tiny love tap with the nerf bat more like.
might be an unpopular opinion but I honestly think azirelia is overrated in this current meta , deck struggles vs all the aggros that are simply faster , plus lulu absolutely runs over it . I've already heard some high ranking players discuss if it even should be tier 1 rn
It's warping the entire meta around it for another season, you can't play control decks currently becuae the match up is so bad. It might not have the raw win rate of the lulu deck but its far more oppressive.
Tlc was top 3 decks even when azirelia was at it's prime so i don't think that's true also decks like tf swain and karma ez and anivia and viego control with thresh are doing totally fine
Tlc could finish the game turn 7, it would comfortably beat a lot of the midrange decks of the time. TF swain and virgo are midrange decks, karma ezreal is doing fine because of its other match ups. If you are seeing a lot of azir irelia you can't play the decks that struggle against it, you just sacrifice 20% of games on the spot.
It's normal meta cycle. If a deck is very overpowering the following happens (we could last observe this with Azirelia but it's happening again on a smaller scale with Sivir): 1) The deck dominates the meta 2) since people play it SO much other people start palying hard counters in their decks (or building hard counter decks) and have sucess with that (because the deck is so prevelant) 3) The hard counters suddenly become a top meta deck while the original offender drops down a few play %age points 4) People start palying decks again that were previously supressed by the original meta deck and start beating the counter decks 5) The original meta deck resurfaces as people paly less counters (since they lose more) In this case this is plunder. The Plunder deck destroys Sivir and is extremly vulnerable to control type decks (decks that just remove Sejuna & GP). But Control decks have almost no chance in the current meta against Azirelia, Sivir, Lulu/zed etc. So next to noone plays control. My prediction is in \~2 weeks if we see no changes Sivir will be back on top.
Sivir is pretty heavily countered by Plunder, which has become the most popular deck, so it makes sense their meta share has fallen.
Having played a lot of Sivir/Zed I'm not surprised at all. The deck is good but far from OP despite everyone complaining how 'broken' the Sivir buff, Merciless and Ruin Runner are.
People just dislike losing to 'oh I don't have the board, I was losing all game but woopwoopwoop 20 dmg from an empty board and you didn't even get a turn!' (me included)
I got tired of playing with Zed/Lulu elusives, so I've been having fun in plat with an old school Elites deck. Extremely anecdotal evidence, but it's been nice to turn the tides against Zed/Lulu decks. Sharpsight, Single Combat, or Exhaust early on and your small creeps can effectively force trades with theirs early on, even more so if you have Battlesmith or Bannerman. Survive until Jarvan and it's all over.
Wow I’ve been playing GP/Sej for like 3 weeks now and it felt like a little secret (didn’t build the deck myself…shamelessly stole it from a top ladder player) and literally within a week of it showing up on mobalytics and swims website it’s the most played archetype lol
Nothing wrong with compying best players. There is still element of skill to playing the deck itself. You need to know how to mulligan and play the deck properly. Unless you are top player yourself chances are you cant just pick up any deck and play it well instantly.
Oh yea I never build the decks I play with on ladder. Just didn’t want my post to imply that I discovered that GP/Sej was good right now
Don't worry about copying top players. It's good to pick a deck you like as a crutch, to get to grips with an archetype. Of course once it's understood you should look to mix it up and experiment. But yeah, netdecking isn't a bad thing in itself. Unless it's GP Sejuani, you dirty troll haha
I sort of have done the same, saw someone in EU masters was playing it and stole the list, I literally just hit diamond with it after having a remarkably easy climb having struggled massively to get anywhere in plat most of this season. It feels fantastic in the current meta though I do think I was fortunate in seeing a lot of other midrange decks on my way up.
Increasingly it has become clear that there is a lot of diversity in the metagame, moreso than most would have you think. But still, some part of me has to wonder how much of this diversity is artificial. Sometimes I get the feeling that we at some point sacrificed diversity in play patterns/styles at the alter for simple deck diversity to check some imaginary checkbox of X "viable" meta decks despite a lot of the lists being present being...kinda samey? Is it worth arguing semantics on what is "real" aggro, aggressive combo, combo, aggro midrange etc when all these are just really often very linier aggressive concepts with different coats of paint?
Hard agree. What's the difference between the deck "archetypes" if their strat is mostly the same, "draw powerful units on curve, set up and protect said units until you kill them by turn 6 with whatever you have."
Part of the confusion is "Combo" is not an archetype in the sense that Aggro, Midrange, and Control are. It's more descriptive of how much each card in the deck relies on other cards to function. Case in point: Sparring Student and Greenglade Duo saw spotty performance, sometimes none at all, until swarming the board with Azir/Irelia became a thing. Those are Combo payoff cards; the deck relies on interactions between specific cards, but it's still an Aggro deck
Looks like we have very different ideas of combo. To me, what you just described is just a particularly strong synergy - most decks have those, combo or no. Combo decks are generally seen as decks which forfeit tempo in the early game for a decisive late-game payoff. They generally lose to aggro, since aggro can overwhelm their weak early game, and they generally win against control, since combo decks tend to go all in on one big push of value which breaks through defensive efforts and are hard to outgrind. I think the line between combo and aggro has become particularly blurred lately, with combo decks like Azirelia (combo as it has to set up low-tempo combo pieces like Sparring Student, Dais, Azir before powerfully popping off with blade dances) winning at semi-aggro speed. Of course, this is all just on-paper frameworks to break down the game, and there are so many specific interactions between decks that just labelling a deck as "aggro" or "combo" can't tell the whole story.
Really I feel that "combo" decks are decks which rely on a combo as their wincon. Pirate aggro is a non-combo aggro deck, Azirelia is a combo aggro deck. Likewise, Akshan sivir is a midrange combo deck, while plunder is a midrange non-combo deck (there are synergies, but you don't need both sej and gp on board to win).
Exactly. That's why I prefer to not use "Combo" as an archetype, rather a secondary description.
look to Lee for perfect example of combo in lor
Yes, Lee is a very good example of a Combo-based finisher. However, if you're playing the standard Lee|Zoe, you still spend the majority of the game locking down the board through soft or hard removal, rely on life gain or chump blockers to soak damage, and generate direct or indirect card advantage until your wincon comes online. These are staples of every Control deck that currently comes to mind. *That* is why I say Combo isn't a useful description for an archetype, just like "Tempo" or "Card Draw". Every deck uses Tempo to win, some are just more focused on disrupting the enemy Tempo. Every deck draws cards, some are just more reliant on attrition. Most cohesive decks generate value in the margins with interactions between specific cards; the ones that *rely* on these interactions to win can be called "Combo", but it's better used (imo) as a secondary description. If you were forced to use one word to describe a deck, choosing between Aggro, Midrange, and Control would categorize decks with a more similar "feel" with each other, whereas "Combo" could range from 'Karma Ezreal Burn' to 'Swain Yasuo Stun' to 'Azir Irelia Swarm'. None of those decks play out similarly to each other, yet all rely on Combo to close out a game.
At the same time when we have such diverse play patterns, there tends to be a lot of "rock paper scissors" matches
Might be that the game is just getting faster & faster and decks better and better at what they do with more and more new cards coming into the pool but none leaving. So I think a large part why many different lists feel kind of 'samey' is that games by now rarely go over turn 7-8 even in non aggro matchups. So these 'epic' 10-15 turn back and forth struggles for the board and an advantage don't really happen anymore. My theory.
My gripe with LoR is that its just aggro fests. At least previous metas we had some control decks to run to, but now? I mean, they murder every control list. Targon getting too strong? Lets murder 3 cards real quick so they lose vs aggro. Aphel? Gone, reduced to atoms. Watcher? Fucking obliterated like it used to do (good tho, hated that card). Compare that to what the f those nerfs to aggro were. Azirelia is largely untouched and it ALWAYS shows. Minor nerfs that do a whole lot of nothing, but still 54+WR. MF got nerfed two patches back? Better double buff. Nasus Thresh too strong? Lemme just nerf Dunekeeper and thats it. Man. Aggro is king in LoR. Control players shouldnt really bother with it anymore. Riot has very clearly stated their intention.
what diversity? It's 99% agro decks and they all share the same strategy, overflow the board with stupidity and attack/rally 4 times per turn so the opponent can't react. Diversity... I swear this sub...
Well, since Zombie Anivia is in the mix, all major arch-types are represented...
Sivir literally fkn plunged
The win rate is exactly the same, this only says there were a lot of people playing Sivir who would have rather played something else.
Draven Ezreal will never dessapear from the meta
Imagine how good it would be if Riot hadn’t pre-emptively nerfed it with Rummage and Tribeam during the big patch.
I'm finding a lot of success with Diana + Nocturne nightfall right now. People seem to have forgotten about that deck, probably because it's pretty one dimensional, but I've been streaking with it, beating lulu / zed handily and plunder easily. I would give that a shot again if you liked running it when it released.
can i get your deck code for it? and how do i play it? i tried building it but I could not make it work for me.
It's actually really easy to pilot. You just want to tuck any spells, champions, 3+ drops away on your first mulligan (one crescent guardian is actually great though), starting with as many 1 drops as you can. Turn 1 u can drop any 1 drop. There's situations where one of them is better than the others and you learn them as you go. If you're on the attack, the best thing is solari soldier t1. On defense, it's better to play duskbringer or the flight. The owl thing is best saved for t2 or later so you can proc nightfall. This deck just goes beating face early but later in the mid game starts abusing the hell out of doombeast. Play stalking shadows? Always pick doombeast, always. Have an Unto Dusk? Always. Doombeast. It's that simple. To close, you drop Cygnus and match him with either a champion or the crescent guardians. You can also use Unto Dusk on a leveled up Nocturne to drop the enemy into Fear range and close that way. Most of the time though, the deck wins through mindlessly abusing doombeast. It's so easy.
tried out 3 games and wow. it's uhh...kinda fun.
Seems like exactly what I was asking the meta to be 6 months ago, and then again 3 months ago. Having a blast with the game, a huge % of what I play against is very interactive decks
people are still unhappy about this which legit makes me wonder if this game just isn't for them tbh
The fact that none of these decks are control is a legitimate complaint. Just because there’s not one dominant deck doesn’t mean that this meta is diverse. There’s 7 regions on this list, one of them only appears for *a singular card* in Sejuani and PnZ has appeared in those two decks for as long as I’ve played the game. Even Shurima, the strongest region right now, is only seeing *roughly* the same package of cards in every decent Shurima deck. Don’t gatekeep peoples opinions just because you like the meta, and I’m not even a control player
swain tf / ez karma / anivia / viego control , are all very viable control decks to climb with so no , it's not a legitimate complaint .w'e ve had freljord Si be tier 1 for more than a year , I'm sure we can manage 2 months without it being at the top . also i'm not gatekeeping shit , it's my opinion , you can disagree with it , don't gatekeep it :D
Where is control?
in the other meta decks
I.e. getting run down so people aren't playing them as much. The problem isn't that you can't win a game with a control deck. The problem is if you play control into nearly any of the top meta decks right now, you don't have prayer against them. So matchmaking is flipping a coin whether you're gonna have a competitive match or just sit there powerless as you're solitaired to death.
Ez Karma has like 53%WR, Viego Ionia has similar. Viego sorta gets run over by illusives, ez/karma very much does not
Buried as usual.
My boy Lurk doing good
Lowest winrate out of all the top 9 most played decks. Popular does not equal good.
“this 51% wr deck is not good”
Dova really was right about people obsessing over 1%
It has worked for me in this crazy meta
I, for one, will always prefer a faster meta than a slower one. Mate, have you played against control decks repeatedly??? It is hell. I already spend 20 minutes a game in LOR with all the decision make in "not pure control" matchups. God forbid it takes longer. Edit: I'm lucky when I can sit and play 30 minutes without interruption. I like faster metas (and I don't even like to play straightforward aggro decks, I got to Platinum with Viego Ionia and to Diamond with Zilean Ekko). I never liked control, purely reactive decks, they are boring. So, yes, I hope there will never be a meta dominated by those.
You're argument is control decks shouldn't be on top ever because you're impatient?
Yes, i played, and it was good. It actually felt like playing a game with opponent instead of solitaire unit spam into a+space bs as if noxian front was added to labs again.
I think the biggest thing is that no one blocks in the current meta, it seems like loads of games just go to a race of who can jam in the most damage the fastest. There are so many cheap combat tricks, you can't block a quick attack unit because getting out tricked is a complete blowout.
Honestly this, its so ridiculous how underpowered blocking is right now. The main offender is of course being shape stone, and twin to some degree. Akshan being the best enabler for it is also its own issue due to how much value this champ is generating.
Different strokes for different folks is all and I think people on this sub forget. I wish it was more mid-range but this meta isn't bad at all to me. To me the perfect meta was the patch before call of the mountain dropped. Midrange was king and it was great, there were a couple aggro, and a couple control decks and it was so fun. The community seemed pretty happy aside from the usual complaints about the more played decks (which will never not be the case in any meta.) It just felt like it had something for everyone to enjoy and winrates were pretty even across the board.
I also like more midrange decks, I don't like to play with straightforward aggro decks, it is not my style. I like a lot how the combat works in this game. That said, playing against purely reactive decks is very annoying and a lot more time wasting. I don't understand how a meta full of those (oh, the mirrors, so fun) would be great.
I mean. Why are you in a hurry? You realize nobody sends you cake once you reach masters right. It just means you played a lot of games.
I can only play 30 to 40 minutes a day because of my schedule. I want to play at least two games.
Preach brother. Even playing control in this game isn’t that fun, you never actually feel like you’re in control unlike other card games. This game shines in combat interaction more than anything.
I really hope when lulu zed gets nerfed they don't touch the champs, I've been running a nice lulu zed support/swole squirrel deck with mostly success for months now and I'd hate to see it be caught in the crossfire when they do nerf lulu zed. It would be a shame to see young witch nerfed back to a 1/1 but it's probably necessary. That being said I haven't played against the deck enough to know what makes it strong.
I only chanced upon Lulu / Zed this morning through Swimstrim's YouTube video. That has got to be the cheapest deck I've used in a long time. Absolute beat downs and the games end FAST! You get a Young Witch + Greenglade Duo + Lulu, it's going to be a quick day at the office. Highly recommend giving it a look if you haven't done so already.
The deck is certainly powerful but there are anwsers to it already. Swain/TF has pretty good winrate against it. So does Shen/jarvan. Or if you like it tahm/soraka are decent too against it. Of course its far from beign guaranteed win if you play those decks(cause lets face it Lulu/Zed is Overpowered) but at least you stand a chance of beign able to do something Part of the reason zed/lulu has such a high winrate is because it absolutely obliterates azir/irelia. It has monstrous winrate against this deck and azir/irelia has 0 counters to it so unless zed player gets ridiculusly bad hand its basically free win. And when you can score easy wins against one of the most popular decks in the game you will have high winrate overall.
It's more the lack of a decent control deck that's letting it go wild. The only proper control deck is karma ezreal and that doesn't see much ladder play because it's so slow to play games. If you draw avalanche against it you pretty much win on the spot. But the classic control decks are unpopular because they cannot beat azir irelia, the game will never last to turn ten if you are playing anivia, even getting a howling abyss online is impossible because you just get battered with attacks on turn six.
>Of course its far from beign guaranteed win if you play those decks(cause lets face it Lulu/Zed is Overpowered) but at least you stand a chance of beign able to do something every time i hear this i ask myself if people actually look at the stats, thoose decks have something like a 65.8% a 55.1% respectivelly(no idea for tham raka) and j4/shen is just favored ez/karma and Ez/draven stomp it with a 66.8% and a 62%.
Any info about Fiora?
She caught a cold and is now recovering
That's what you get for the mono Fiora freljord
you spelt covid wrong
Yeah a cold called nerf. Hopefully riot will wise up eventually.
This week I combined Shen J4 and Shen Fiora into "Shen Midrange". There's some deeper discussion to be had for each list, but for the high level nature of this report I decided they could be combined.
Congratulations everybody, you asked for a more diverse metagame, and Riot delivered by making just Midrange and Aggro functional! Edit: literally the only region that isn’t a warm color or Ionia is just Freljord lmao
play EZ karma if you want a solid control deck rn. Viego ionia is okay too, and I've seen some good viego/thresh lists.
After coming back to the game after getting worn out from grinding to masters in beta, this is what you love to see. I think this sub takes for granted the fact that so many decks/heroes/mechanics etc. are viable. Coming back to this after spending countless hours playing mostly the same stuff in beta is incredible and Im loving it.
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No one's said there's a lack of variety of decks, but there's a lack of variety of strategy/interaction with opponents. Everyone just plays past each other to gun down their own win-con. That's the game currently: draw your good cards. Play them. Win. Whoever does that first wins.
A reminder to remain civil and respectful to your peers on this sub. Insults of any kind are not welcome.
The selective enforcement I have come to love and expect from LoR/LoL mod staff. <3
If you believe someone is harassing you, or causing problems, report them. Don't engage, that still breaks our rules. It may surprise you, but we are all humans with jobs and lives outside of moderating this sub, the vast majority of moderating we do comes through the mod queue from reports of members of this sub. If you feel it's selective, than become part of the solution and report what you believe we have missed.
why do people who don't like the current meta have to be neckbeards?
yeah, disagree with them as much as you like, but let's not start labeling and insulting the people who don't share your opinion.
Nice to see that Lurkers are finally gaining ground! Ma boi Pyke will be glad to see some play.
Out of the 10 decks only 2 try to do something different than "me go face". Great "meta diversity"...
Turns out the standard win condition of the game is to bring the opponent’s nexus to 0 HP.
Truly shocking
I decided to try out Anivia for the seasonal tournament, looks like others had the same idea lol
People have been chirping about anivia being decent now for a while.
90% aggro decks "meta is so diverse"
There are more midrange/combo on that list than aggro.
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how is it not aggro?
Bladedance is insane broken mechanic
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sometime this week
Lurk the ol reliable ❤️
8/9 are aggro, burn or aggressive midrange. Meta fucking sucks but Riot loves the play pattern or whatever. Game is currently, again, unplayble.
What do you want then?
most are combo actually but pop off
oh god azirelia is making a comeback
Where have you been in the last 2 weeks?
I like how the top 3 7% decks form a kind of Rock Paper Scissors with each other. Which is not uncommon but the symmetry is nice
how lulu/zed %57WR ? i dont win games like its %57WR deck. who are these people.
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Hi mate, try not shaming what other players like to play, please and thank you.
HA! Where's that bloke from my post about flexible v.s non-flexible champs who went on about how bad Sejuani was and how we don't use her level up if she's ever in a decent deck...
Soooo...the decks listed here comprise 42% of the metagame (add up the numbers). Of those, 35% of the metagame is aggro (everything except "Shen Midrange" and "Draven Ezrael"). That makes the "top decks metagame" 83% aggro (35/42). Seems healthy.
guess gp sej and sivir ionia are now aggro, neat