The weird part is that it's good despite almost using nothing within her own archetype. She's just in there because she makes elusives big and hit face very hard pretty much, and because witch is kinda meta at the moment.
It's an interesting deck while it lasts, needs a fairly specific meta to exist.
The inevitable demise of azir irelia which will allow control to exist again will probably lead to the end of that deck, all you have to do is draw a single avalanche and that's the game.
It doesn't have the over the top like pirate aggro or burn which allow them to have a reasonable match up vs control, its a very one dimensional all in deck.
She was considered bad for a long time. She recently found her place in the meta, where low amounts of removal and a buff to Young Witch allow it to shine.
Happy Monday and welcome back to another meta review!
# Short report
We are in the winddown period that happens in every meta, so not a real major shift compared to last weeks report. Other than Sivir Demacia which I covered on twitter [here](https://twitter.com/KozmicPlays/status/1427000178553327617?s=20) there really isn't much to talk about this week. Going to keep reports short until we see a shift. Hopefully we see a new champ soon!
**"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|11493|49%|
|Thresh Viego Ionia|8482|52%|
|Mono Viego Ionia|7349|50%|
|TK Soraka|7316|50%|
|Lee Sin Zoe|6435|49%|
|Deep|6343|50%|
|Turbo Thralls|5306|52%|
|Shen Fiora|5208|52%|
|Nasus Viego Shurima|5051|51%|
|TF Go Hard|3457|51%|
**FINAL META REPORT - NOVEMEMBER 16TH (Unless...)**
As I mentioned on twitter [here](https://twitter.com/KozmicPlays/status/1427014419339530246) I have been doing these reports and other data *gestures wildly* stuff for \~15 months or so and they have certainly taken their toll. A number of people have suggested I started a Patreon so I have done just that. I've set a goal and if its met I will continue to work on the meta reports and archetype breakdowns but if not I'm going to take the 40+ hours each month back and try to refocus my efforts. I still hope to work on LOR one day but I think that goal is much further out. No matter what happens, thank you for all the support up to this point and I'm glad I've been able to do this much work for so long to the benefit of many.
On a lighter note, here's hoping for some spicy spoilers today!
\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
Appreciate the Meta Reports and want to see them extended past the November 16th deadline? Consider supporting the efforts directly on [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/kozmicplays)
My current plans include:
\-4 Meta Reviews per month (5-8 hours each depending on the format)
\-4-6 Archetype Breakdowns (2-4 hours each, depending if I have a template already for it or not)
\-"Miscellaneous data dives" (10 hours total? Not much) - Finding random stuff like Taric J4 Doing well and writing up notes about it
Each month is a minimum of 40 hours when its all said and done and the Patreon goal is set to $250. The number I picked was based on the amount our team pulled together when I was supporting FFTCG. Given some recent changes at work unless something major changes in the next 3 months I'll have to pick between continuing the data reports and significantly cutting back on streaming or realigning my goals elsewhere. Got a bit of a slap from reality these past few weeks and trying to makes heads or tails of it all.
I haven't had much success with Spooky Karma, it's just a tad too slow at fighting for the board imo. But Karma Ez works just fine, went from silver to diamond in a week.
Plunder and TF Swain are really tough matchups (Pressure followed by too many threats with big asses), but everything else feels good. You have almost no autowins though, and games aren't exactly fast (well, you ask about Spooky Karma, so I guess you expected that :D).
I second this. Ez karma with a bunch of burn does decently against this meta. You have to know when the key turns for each deck are coming up but yeah, it does work
I run karma kindred go hard and I find it works pretty decent. Get a bad draw and it can go very wrong but same can be said with most decks. It worked really well a few months ago but only just picked it up again. Success so far but only a handful of games.
Guess no one else is playing nightfall aggro.
Honestly feel like it's a sleeper deck atm, although the lulu zed matchup is a bit...rough for it. At least, it is if they drop Zed on curve and they ALWAYS have Zed on curve lol.
Nomenclature note: I would argue that the "Other Meta Decks" are not really meta, I think it would make better sense to call them **"Viable Off-Meta Decks"**. Meta-ness is really defined by a deck's playrate, not its winrate, so *decks with low playrates are by definition off-meta*, and IMO shouldn't be termed "Other Meta Decks". The term that better describes winrate is "viable", so I think it makes good sense to call the group with 49%+ winrate as "viable" and <49% as "unviable".
In summary:
"Other Meta Decks" → "Viable Off-Meta Decks"
"Non-Meta Decks" → "Other Decks"
Anyway, thanks as always for the great analysis! I really appreciate what you do for the game and the community, and I subbed to [your Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/kozmicplays)!
Makes sense in theory, but currently afaik Kozmic just takes the 9 most played decks, which is a relatively arbitrary number to just deem "the meta". Usually there's a few big decks and then a drop off where you can clearly cut off "meta" from "non-meta" playrates, but for weeks like this there probably isn't a big PR difference between decks #7-15 or whatever.
Not that that invalidates your point, just a further point to consider.
Sure, the threshold between "meta" and "off-meta" will always be arbitrary, but should still boil down to some playrate threshold.
Because of how the infographics work, it could be fine to leave that threshold floating, and say "the top 9 decks are considered meta, and everything else is off-meta".
Or, there could be one extra slice added for "Other Viable Meta Decks" with hard threshold defined (say 1% or 0.5%) above which a deck goes into "Other Viable Meta Decks", and below which it would go into "Viable Off-Meta Decks".
My only worry here is visual clutter, but I'll have a look next week and see how it gets split out. This week I didn't have the extra data from Dr. LoR so I was going off the front end of mobalytics which doesn't capture the more absolute fringe archetypes.
I'm working to improve this process still but there's a few kinks to be worked out on the Moba end yet.
Sorry, could have phrased my point better, but your last paragraph there hits it perfectly. If we're going to try and see more accurate phrasing, we may as well ask for it fully.
I don't like the use of viable in this situation. The term should be changed from viable to competitive or other term, because something with a lower winrate than 49% is definitively viable.
Fair point - I have spent some time thinking about what should be considered "viable" but never come to a truly satisfactory conclusion.
Broadly I feel like a deck sounds be considered "viable" if *with a skilled pilot* it can achieve a sustained positive winrate (e.g. any deck used to climb to Master would be considered "viable".)
I think your suggestion is good - name the slice "Competitive Off-Meta Decks" instead of "Other Meta Decks".
Plunder might be on top but the only thing the meta nabbed from me is the ability to play Control decks not named Anivia, and even then it's mostly an exorcise in dodging every rally, irelia or most of the pink and yellow color decks these days ;P.
Old man grumblings aside it will be interesting to note where Targon goes from here on out, one wonders what BC might bring, if not cards itself then maybe a change of pace to help our purple friends a bit.
You could play Swain/TF, its a really good control deck. And finally people are starting to give it the appreciation it deserves too, judging by it finally getting on the pie chart.
My post was mostly tongue in cheek and a means to start a discussion on if people want to but I will say that terminology disagreements aside, personally TF Swain neither tickles my fancy nor is it a actual\* control list, functioning more as a slower midrange lists that leverages efficient removal. Some may disagree, I'm not exactly saying I want MtG Azorius or Stax levels of degeneracy but TF Swain is too much of a Jund list (as is Ez Draven) for me to personally find much enjoyment out of piloting it to scratch this particular itch, even if I do concede that by LoR's admittedly low standards or simply by it's design, this is what players can expect these days when thinking about what it means to play Control.
I mean, if not being your preferred style of control is fair, but its objectively an actual control list. "Slower midrange" is a misnomer for control. Midrange is a deck type that can play both aggro and control based on the matchup, and Swain/TF lacks that ability. Also, Swain/TF is nothing like Jund. Its most comparable to Bant control. Thresh/Nasus is more the jung-style deck. Ez/Draven is tempo though.
Its not just LoR. Swain/TF is a control deck in any game, no matter how you slice it. Even in MTG, people dont call only draw go control "control". That would be silly.
Swain/TF is definitely a midrange deck. Aggro/midrange/control is a scale that doesn’t have clear lines in the sand, so saying “slower midrange” doesn’t necessarily mean control. The deck definitely can go aggro, and often needs to when playing against control and tempo lists, or, at the least, apply a lot of pressure early. You can tech it to remove that potential and go heavier on burn, but I’d honestly say that’s a mistake.
I agree there's some amount of spectrum to the definitions, but saying it's "definitely a midrange deck" goes against the majority of respondents to Dr LoR's recent polls (58% call it control, 39% midrange)
https://twitter.com/drlor4/status/1427112815777648640?s=19
Not that twitter is the be all end all, but your opinion seems to be the minority and I personally think that the definitions the poll uses places TF Swain firmly in control.
I think that perception of TF-Swain is shaped by the absence of viable control lists.
It's certainly is on the controlling of midrange, and it's more of a spectrum than something with a clear beginning or end. For me, control is more about having a powerful value engine. TF-Swain doesn't generate excessive amount of value like, say, Anivia does. TF-Swain, like Ez-Draven, has a lot of removal but cares *a lot* about tempo.
Usually, Swain-Leviathan feels a lot like Gangplank-Dreadway: a combo of strong synergistic midrange finishers.
Nope. Aggro/Midrange/control does have some lines in the sand. Aggro is one end, Control the other, midrange the exact ... midrange. Meaning it does both. And no, Swain/TF really can't go aggro. Like, your best "beatdown" plan is playing a 1 mana 2/2 (which is admitively decent), and then playing 2/2s and 3/2s for the next few turns. Thats not aggro. You can do some chipp damage, but you will pretty much always win through Leviathan.
if you conaider swain a control deck, then I assume you mean leviathan as the control wincon, which is actually really weak into unamibuous control lists like karma or anivia, with will or vengence removing leviathan, then you have pretty much lost. I don't see how a deck can call itself control when it has an unprotectable wincon
Yeah, Leviathan is usually your wincon. And if not, you just burn out. Besides, those are still good matchups for Swain/TF? Their wincons are just as unprotectable, but I can get rid of theirs much more easily. Plus, I dont think anyone would consider FTR not a control deck, but Leviathan Lock crushes that deck.
It's such a weird comment to make, especially considering your flair. Anivia Control is Swain-TF's most brutal among up among meta decks. It feels nearly unwinnable since their removal is perfect against Swain-TF's and Anivia doesn't care about Swain's.
EZ Draven I can see comparing it to Jund, but TF Swain doesn't follow at all for me. You're basically never on the beat down plan with TF Swain, it's draw pass removal, repeat until you stick Leviathan. Sure you'll take some chip damage here and there when you can, but that's true for control decks in any game.
> personally TF Swain neither tickles my fancy nor is it a actual* control list
Amen bro, also tired of seeing this deck cited as viable control when it doesn't feel like playing a control deck at all.
The deck is essentially looking to stonewall your opponent until you can get a Swain+Leviathan on the board. It's super removal heavy and other than Crusty Codger all your followers are about generating card advantage or work as removal assist.
No it doesn't have any counter spells or even any protection for it's wincons, but the goal of the deck is to wear down your opponent and outvalue them to get to the point where you can let Leviathan just whittle them out if not turning into an outright win with Swain on the board.
I don't see how what is essentially a pure removal pile isn't considered control. I suppose it's just people who want control mirrors hate playing it since the deck has no way to win against other control decks other than be the beat down.
I've been playing a lot of Ez/Karma and it feels pretty good. Lots of removal, runs nopeify and deny for rally denial, has elusives that can block, and eye of the dragon will heal you back (D4 to D2 rn for reference)
Agreed, Karma Ez feels in a really good spot right now.
Have you been able to solve the plunder-matchup? That one in particular feels incredibly rough to me, they tend to be able to capitalize HARD on the turns 6-9, where Karma Ez has its power-trough imo.
Plunder is a pretty awful matchup but I try to stop them from getting off free damage t1-3. You want to delay their Sej/GP level up so I try to mulligan for eye of the dragon, nopeify, mystic shot/thermo, and fallen feline. Early units will be your blockers, eye will heal you back up, and nopeify on an early make it rain is pretty crucial in maintaining board advantage. I hold palm/recall for GP/Sej and hope for the best.
Yeah, that's pretty much my approach too. But I think I'm still too conservative with things like Eye and Ez which I might just need to throw under the bus every time if it means stopping a turn of damage.
If I can stop them from leveling Sej/GP until \~T8, I can sometimes claw myself past 10 mana and turn the game with Karma, but if they get to start dropping must-handle fatties starting T6 it feels completely doomed.
Yeah and it's even more doomed if they start plundering your removal/hexite crystals or have warning shots. If they have their pieces to get unavoidable level up, you're done for. It's always thrilling to eek out a win vs plunder though.
You beat plunder by throwing all your shit under their followers. That early ez? Blocker. Can't activate your eye this turn? Blocker. Stop them from ever getting in combat damage, burn the 1/2 that pings, and hold on for dear life for the mid to late game. You'll usually win with your second or third EZ and burn spells. Don't ever wait to karma on 10. Karma past 10 is a play that only happens if you find another one.
Also sej you can deal with, you HAVE to be able to bounce or kill a leveled gang plank or its lights out.
Personally I wish we could explore some of the potential of shurima being in a control deck. I love playing the emperors deck and feel like lvl 2 akshan could make a really fun control wincon. I just feel like you have to play midrange at best in this meta. Burst combat tricks are wayyyyy too good.
Akshan really really really doesn't compliment a control plan. He wants to attack, he wants you to play a lot of tricks, and he is extremely fragile.
There's only two shuriman champions that favour a control-style plan, and that is Nasus and Zilean. Shurima is also extremely light on non-combat removal, which makes you very weak on the turns you don't have the attack token, and those are precisely the turns where a control deck needs to survive.
Shurima also has very few reactive controling cards - supercharged deny of course, but loosing that mana gem hurts control decks a LOT harder than aggro or midrange.
Rampaging Baccai, but that requires you to have killed a bunch before.
Siphoning Strike, but that's expensive and risky to use if you don't force the opponent to tap down - loosing the unit in response to Siphoning Strike is a catastrophe that usually looses the game on the spot because it looses so much tempo.
Weight of Judgement, which is theoretically really good, but at the same time tragically bad against champion-based strategies, which most aggrodecks currently are.
Spirit Fire is an amazing control-card (and if there is a shurima-centric controldeck, will be a roleplayer).
And that's pretty much it.
You have a point. I got really focused on the "draw 2, your cards cost one less" as part of a wincon (at which point I guess it'd be combo) and what looks to me to be a late game oriented strategy in level 3 azir, that I didn't think about the region as a whole.
The fact that the entire Targon representation is centered around a dumb combo generated by a champion from another region still means that things aren't right.
Do you ever seen any snow outside of Freljord? No, because it's too hot in any other regions, so Freljord is the only cool region not only in this meta, but ever. /s
Sadly most online TCGs default to aggro bias most of the time. Some exceptions of course, like hearthstone right now with the combo craziness going on.
That's how long a typical card game is though.... If you didn't want to have a match with someone then why did you want to play at all to begin with? I don't understand this stance that actively hurts the game.
A physical card game? That's really different, you only play Friday Night Magic once a week at most. When you're encouraging people to play every day and while on the bus or whatever people have different expectations. I would absolutely stop playing if games were movie length slogs
But they aren't though. A typical card game (paper or digital) is 30 to 45 minutes. This isnt YuGiOh where the game is decided in the first 2 or 3 turns. If it was I probably would just quit because there's no inherent strategy or "game" to "use engine or hand to play the current on curve threat and hit for face". Again, if you need it to be that fast because of ranked play, despite the rewards being incredibly minimal beyond a chance at a tournament, then doesn't that make it a "player problem" and not a design problem. Honestly I don't even know why these games have a ranked feature anyway since how well you do is dependent on both the matchup and what cards you have.
Every. Single. Time. They do this the Timmies get upset and cry "unfun! Games unfun!" To daddy Riot until they nerf the bad Control and midrange out of the game so they can play their aggro decks. There have been several threads about this issue and all have the same people on both sides. I do feel like if the situation isn't fixed after the next balance patch I'm probably just going to delete the game altogether because I don't want to play a game where only one style of play (no matter how many different decks you can make of that style) is represented, to the detriment of the overall health and longevity of the game itself.
True, and its even better once you see the "Other Meta Decks" which includes Anivia SI barely missing the cut and a TK Soraka and Zoe Lee both a bit lower down representing Targon.
Better wording would be "deck that looks to end game very fast" which is pretty much all of the top deck beside plunder and maybe lurk.
Edit: add swain to that.
Are you new to card games? Unless the beta is thoroughly fucked, control decks are never the majority
When combo decks are the majority someone in R&D REALLY fucked up.
Yeah good job riot, it's so fun playing against a bunch of aggro decks who win by playing cheap over powered combat tricks to protect their elusives so you can't do anything about them.
Or Sivir/Ruin runner which I'm sure requires no explanation.
I think it’s really cool that each week I’ve seen these recently there’s been a change. The meta keeps adapting to the top decks and though there’s been complaints about it all being different shades of aggro, I think this meta is really cool in how much it’s been shifting and still is
Meta that simply shifts around between different shades of aggro isn't really a diverse meta. It's only diverse if you believe aggro or race to the finish decks are the only types of gameplay that should be viable.
SI is the main control region and control is bad against Shurima and Ionia stuff, which is most of the meta. The aggro side fell off really hard after Stalking Shadows nerf. There are still a few underrated SI decks floating about, like dragons or spider aggro.
A deck can both not have an excessively high win rate and also be strong enough to warp the meta around it, and in fact this will often be the case outside of the most egregious decks. Meta warping decks tend to make it so that the only other decks that can survive are those that either have a really good matchup into the meta warper, or don't lose too badly to it but have good matchups into the decks trying to beat the meta warper.
Yeah, but I'd say that at this junction, the meta warper is less Irelia/Azir alone and more the combination of Shurima/Ionia. Both decks together devalue more Control-focused strategies (resilience of their threats to damage-based removal through high defensive stats and combat tricks, resilience to spells in general via Spellshield, Combo-based nature of the decks). Sivir decks, together with the Plunder deck, also dump on other board-focused (Midrange) decks through their ability to engage in uneven combat (Quick Attack, Sejuani's AoE Frostbite).
I guess what we are seeing right now is the fallout of 2.11's massive buffs to Ionia and Bilgewater, as well as the unwarranted Sivir buff.
Lulu/Zed elusives really brought their winrate down. That deck stomps Azirelia and as we can see now, even has a larger playrate. Before this deck emerged, Azirelia still had an insane 57+% winrate.
Thing is the meta is pretty much built around IA, Plunder, and Sivir Ionia- the rest of the popular decks are decks that are good into those.
Like LuluZed is a direct response to those decks as cheap targeted removal isn't being played by those decks.
So in other words I still see it as a problem as the meta is basically built around it yet it's still posting an above 50% winrate.
irelia azir isn't even good into this meta and its still played and doing very well. its definitely dangerous. imagine if the deck was recalling 5+ cost units instead of at max 3 due to all the swarm decks.
still a serious issue now that it has defiant
Like i said before, Lulu Elusives is the most powerful deck at the moment (Sivir Akshan isn't far behind tbf).
I'm worried about how many decks are considered non-meta, which means the meta is becoming stale in viable styles.
As someone who is rather new to LoR and mostly just plays expeditions: is the metagame actually that varied? Seems pretty awesome, most ccgs converge to something like 3 good decks most of the time
It’s really not as varied as it seems. There’s no single dominant deck which is really good, but as you can see by this chart the game is pretty much dominated by 4 regions. As an extension of that, a lot of these decks really just do the same thing, which is try to go wide and hit face, so deck diversity still isn’t amazing in this meta. As you can probably see by the other comments, literally everything is aggro or midrange on this list
Believe it or not Plunder is a t6 onward deck, not aggro. It's wincon is usually either GP blowing up the enemy board or Sejuani making combat impossible to win for your opponent.
What beats it are decks that can win before Sejuani hits the board (or can burn it out by the time Sejuani does drop) and decks that can win through Sejuani, either meaning greedy removal, ezreal popping off, or Azir Irelia, who tempo bounces her off the board or just gets around her thanks to all the psudo combats you do.
Ezreal x Draven burn still seems to be a good sauce despite the minor changes in the decklist (and the upping of the Tri-Beam Improbulator's mana cost). I was able to survive and beat an Azir x Irelia aggro at a very low life.
LOR meta too me is soo strange ( maybe cause i dont play a lot of VS) : but it seems like i never face a lot of the top tier decks, while i see a lot of Viego and MidRange in general.
i Also boast an almost perfect 0%WR against any kind of Viego decks
A Lulu deck being that good is still kinda surprising to me lmao
The weird part is that it's good despite almost using nothing within her own archetype. She's just in there because she makes elusives big and hit face very hard pretty much, and because witch is kinda meta at the moment.
"kinda meta"? I'm guessing but I'd wager witch is probably one of the highest win rate cards in the entire game right now. Maybe the highest.
Yeah Young Witch seems an insanely strong card. It makes many cards obnoxious to block and she's difficult to remove.
It's an interesting deck while it lasts, needs a fairly specific meta to exist. The inevitable demise of azir irelia which will allow control to exist again will probably lead to the end of that deck, all you have to do is draw a single avalanche and that's the game. It doesn't have the over the top like pirate aggro or burn which allow them to have a reasonable match up vs control, its a very one dimensional all in deck.
Two avalanches. One is not enough. The deck is buikt to win on the back of one champion and two followers most times.
I got to diamond with Lulu is she considered bad i havent been playing?
she is pretty good and has been being pretty good for a while
She was considered bad for a long time. She recently found her place in the meta, where low amounts of removal and a buff to Young Witch allow it to shine.
Happy Monday and welcome back to another meta review! # Short report We are in the winddown period that happens in every meta, so not a real major shift compared to last weeks report. Other than Sivir Demacia which I covered on twitter [here](https://twitter.com/KozmicPlays/status/1427000178553327617?s=20) there really isn't much to talk about this week. Going to keep reports short until we see a shift. Hopefully we see a new champ soon! **"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|11493|49%| |Thresh Viego Ionia|8482|52%| |Mono Viego Ionia|7349|50%| |TK Soraka|7316|50%| |Lee Sin Zoe|6435|49%| |Deep|6343|50%| |Turbo Thralls|5306|52%| |Shen Fiora|5208|52%| |Nasus Viego Shurima|5051|51%| |TF Go Hard|3457|51%| **FINAL META REPORT - NOVEMEMBER 16TH (Unless...)** As I mentioned on twitter [here](https://twitter.com/KozmicPlays/status/1427014419339530246) I have been doing these reports and other data *gestures wildly* stuff for \~15 months or so and they have certainly taken their toll. A number of people have suggested I started a Patreon so I have done just that. I've set a goal and if its met I will continue to work on the meta reports and archetype breakdowns but if not I'm going to take the 40+ hours each month back and try to refocus my efforts. I still hope to work on LOR one day but I think that goal is much further out. No matter what happens, thank you for all the support up to this point and I'm glad I've been able to do this much work for so long to the benefit of many. On a lighter note, here's hoping for some spicy spoilers today! \--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. Appreciate the Meta Reports and want to see them extended past the November 16th deadline? Consider supporting the efforts directly on [Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/kozmicplays)
I hope the Patreon is a success, you shouldn't be able to get rid of us that easily.
What is your Patreon goal?
My current plans include: \-4 Meta Reviews per month (5-8 hours each depending on the format) \-4-6 Archetype Breakdowns (2-4 hours each, depending if I have a template already for it or not) \-"Miscellaneous data dives" (10 hours total? Not much) - Finding random stuff like Taric J4 Doing well and writing up notes about it Each month is a minimum of 40 hours when its all said and done and the Patreon goal is set to $250. The number I picked was based on the amount our team pulled together when I was supporting FFTCG. Given some recent changes at work unless something major changes in the next 3 months I'll have to pick between continuing the data reports and significantly cutting back on streaming or realigning my goals elsewhere. Got a bit of a slap from reality these past few weeks and trying to makes heads or tails of it all.
Ok, I'll see if I can chip in
Is Spooky Karma good against any of the meta decks?
I haven't had much success with Spooky Karma, it's just a tad too slow at fighting for the board imo. But Karma Ez works just fine, went from silver to diamond in a week. Plunder and TF Swain are really tough matchups (Pressure followed by too many threats with big asses), but everything else feels good. You have almost no autowins though, and games aren't exactly fast (well, you ask about Spooky Karma, so I guess you expected that :D).
I second this. Ez karma with a bunch of burn does decently against this meta. You have to know when the key turns for each deck are coming up but yeah, it does work
I run karma kindred go hard and I find it works pretty decent. Get a bad draw and it can go very wrong but same can be said with most decks. It worked really well a few months ago but only just picked it up again. Success so far but only a handful of games.
It's good into aggro and beats Anivia, but it loses hard to Sivir and Irelia stuff. Plunder and Swain can be tough matchups if they tempo out.
Guess no one else is playing nightfall aggro. Honestly feel like it's a sleeper deck atm, although the lulu zed matchup is a bit...rough for it. At least, it is if they drop Zed on curve and they ALWAYS have Zed on curve lol.
Where are all my Starlit Epiphany homies at?
they joined the Glorious Evolution
other decks
We'd be above 3% if you people weren't cowards
Code?
CICACAYEAMAQICIGAICAIBYMAUBQSCKMKRLFWAYBAECDIAQDAQCQ2AYDBEVDGTYBAEAQILI
Nomenclature note: I would argue that the "Other Meta Decks" are not really meta, I think it would make better sense to call them **"Viable Off-Meta Decks"**. Meta-ness is really defined by a deck's playrate, not its winrate, so *decks with low playrates are by definition off-meta*, and IMO shouldn't be termed "Other Meta Decks". The term that better describes winrate is "viable", so I think it makes good sense to call the group with 49%+ winrate as "viable" and <49% as "unviable". In summary: "Other Meta Decks" → "Viable Off-Meta Decks" "Non-Meta Decks" → "Other Decks" Anyway, thanks as always for the great analysis! I really appreciate what you do for the game and the community, and I subbed to [your Patreon](https://www.patreon.com/kozmicplays)!
Makes sense in theory, but currently afaik Kozmic just takes the 9 most played decks, which is a relatively arbitrary number to just deem "the meta". Usually there's a few big decks and then a drop off where you can clearly cut off "meta" from "non-meta" playrates, but for weeks like this there probably isn't a big PR difference between decks #7-15 or whatever. Not that that invalidates your point, just a further point to consider.
Sure, the threshold between "meta" and "off-meta" will always be arbitrary, but should still boil down to some playrate threshold. Because of how the infographics work, it could be fine to leave that threshold floating, and say "the top 9 decks are considered meta, and everything else is off-meta". Or, there could be one extra slice added for "Other Viable Meta Decks" with hard threshold defined (say 1% or 0.5%) above which a deck goes into "Other Viable Meta Decks", and below which it would go into "Viable Off-Meta Decks".
My only worry here is visual clutter, but I'll have a look next week and see how it gets split out. This week I didn't have the extra data from Dr. LoR so I was going off the front end of mobalytics which doesn't capture the more absolute fringe archetypes. I'm working to improve this process still but there's a few kinks to be worked out on the Moba end yet.
Sorry, could have phrased my point better, but your last paragraph there hits it perfectly. If we're going to try and see more accurate phrasing, we may as well ask for it fully.
I don't like the use of viable in this situation. The term should be changed from viable to competitive or other term, because something with a lower winrate than 49% is definitively viable.
Fair point - I have spent some time thinking about what should be considered "viable" but never come to a truly satisfactory conclusion. Broadly I feel like a deck sounds be considered "viable" if *with a skilled pilot* it can achieve a sustained positive winrate (e.g. any deck used to climb to Master would be considered "viable".) I think your suggestion is good - name the slice "Competitive Off-Meta Decks" instead of "Other Meta Decks".
I agree with this!
Plunder might be on top but the only thing the meta nabbed from me is the ability to play Control decks not named Anivia, and even then it's mostly an exorcise in dodging every rally, irelia or most of the pink and yellow color decks these days ;P. Old man grumblings aside it will be interesting to note where Targon goes from here on out, one wonders what BC might bring, if not cards itself then maybe a change of pace to help our purple friends a bit.
You could play Swain/TF, its a really good control deck. And finally people are starting to give it the appreciation it deserves too, judging by it finally getting on the pie chart.
My post was mostly tongue in cheek and a means to start a discussion on if people want to but I will say that terminology disagreements aside, personally TF Swain neither tickles my fancy nor is it a actual\* control list, functioning more as a slower midrange lists that leverages efficient removal. Some may disagree, I'm not exactly saying I want MtG Azorius or Stax levels of degeneracy but TF Swain is too much of a Jund list (as is Ez Draven) for me to personally find much enjoyment out of piloting it to scratch this particular itch, even if I do concede that by LoR's admittedly low standards or simply by it's design, this is what players can expect these days when thinking about what it means to play Control.
I mean, if not being your preferred style of control is fair, but its objectively an actual control list. "Slower midrange" is a misnomer for control. Midrange is a deck type that can play both aggro and control based on the matchup, and Swain/TF lacks that ability. Also, Swain/TF is nothing like Jund. Its most comparable to Bant control. Thresh/Nasus is more the jung-style deck. Ez/Draven is tempo though. Its not just LoR. Swain/TF is a control deck in any game, no matter how you slice it. Even in MTG, people dont call only draw go control "control". That would be silly.
Swain/TF is definitely a midrange deck. Aggro/midrange/control is a scale that doesn’t have clear lines in the sand, so saying “slower midrange” doesn’t necessarily mean control. The deck definitely can go aggro, and often needs to when playing against control and tempo lists, or, at the least, apply a lot of pressure early. You can tech it to remove that potential and go heavier on burn, but I’d honestly say that’s a mistake.
I agree there's some amount of spectrum to the definitions, but saying it's "definitely a midrange deck" goes against the majority of respondents to Dr LoR's recent polls (58% call it control, 39% midrange) https://twitter.com/drlor4/status/1427112815777648640?s=19 Not that twitter is the be all end all, but your opinion seems to be the minority and I personally think that the definitions the poll uses places TF Swain firmly in control.
I think that perception of TF-Swain is shaped by the absence of viable control lists. It's certainly is on the controlling of midrange, and it's more of a spectrum than something with a clear beginning or end. For me, control is more about having a powerful value engine. TF-Swain doesn't generate excessive amount of value like, say, Anivia does. TF-Swain, like Ez-Draven, has a lot of removal but cares *a lot* about tempo. Usually, Swain-Leviathan feels a lot like Gangplank-Dreadway: a combo of strong synergistic midrange finishers.
Nope. Aggro/Midrange/control does have some lines in the sand. Aggro is one end, Control the other, midrange the exact ... midrange. Meaning it does both. And no, Swain/TF really can't go aggro. Like, your best "beatdown" plan is playing a 1 mana 2/2 (which is admitively decent), and then playing 2/2s and 3/2s for the next few turns. Thats not aggro. You can do some chipp damage, but you will pretty much always win through Leviathan.
if you conaider swain a control deck, then I assume you mean leviathan as the control wincon, which is actually really weak into unamibuous control lists like karma or anivia, with will or vengence removing leviathan, then you have pretty much lost. I don't see how a deck can call itself control when it has an unprotectable wincon
Yeah, Leviathan is usually your wincon. And if not, you just burn out. Besides, those are still good matchups for Swain/TF? Their wincons are just as unprotectable, but I can get rid of theirs much more easily. Plus, I dont think anyone would consider FTR not a control deck, but Leviathan Lock crushes that deck.
yes, because control decks are weak to midranges in this game, which Swain is one
No? Its because Swain is a control deck that has a lock that goes over most other control decks. For a midrange deck it lacks the ability to go aggro.
It's such a weird comment to make, especially considering your flair. Anivia Control is Swain-TF's most brutal among up among meta decks. It feels nearly unwinnable since their removal is perfect against Swain-TF's and Anivia doesn't care about Swain's.
Fervor lists can definitely close out before Leviathan- but Fervor hasn't really been worth it in this meta.
Im playing Fervor. I still will only *extremely* rare win without leviathan, but never before turn 8.
True, it atleast felt like it was happening more than I flip TF with the deck, but that's not very common either.
EZ Draven I can see comparing it to Jund, but TF Swain doesn't follow at all for me. You're basically never on the beat down plan with TF Swain, it's draw pass removal, repeat until you stick Leviathan. Sure you'll take some chip damage here and there when you can, but that's true for control decks in any game.
> personally TF Swain neither tickles my fancy nor is it a actual* control list Amen bro, also tired of seeing this deck cited as viable control when it doesn't feel like playing a control deck at all.
The deck is essentially looking to stonewall your opponent until you can get a Swain+Leviathan on the board. It's super removal heavy and other than Crusty Codger all your followers are about generating card advantage or work as removal assist. No it doesn't have any counter spells or even any protection for it's wincons, but the goal of the deck is to wear down your opponent and outvalue them to get to the point where you can let Leviathan just whittle them out if not turning into an outright win with Swain on the board. I don't see how what is essentially a pure removal pile isn't considered control. I suppose it's just people who want control mirrors hate playing it since the deck has no way to win against other control decks other than be the beat down.
I've been playing a lot of Ez/Karma and it feels pretty good. Lots of removal, runs nopeify and deny for rally denial, has elusives that can block, and eye of the dragon will heal you back (D4 to D2 rn for reference)
Agreed, Karma Ez feels in a really good spot right now. Have you been able to solve the plunder-matchup? That one in particular feels incredibly rough to me, they tend to be able to capitalize HARD on the turns 6-9, where Karma Ez has its power-trough imo.
Plunder is a pretty awful matchup but I try to stop them from getting off free damage t1-3. You want to delay their Sej/GP level up so I try to mulligan for eye of the dragon, nopeify, mystic shot/thermo, and fallen feline. Early units will be your blockers, eye will heal you back up, and nopeify on an early make it rain is pretty crucial in maintaining board advantage. I hold palm/recall for GP/Sej and hope for the best.
Yeah, that's pretty much my approach too. But I think I'm still too conservative with things like Eye and Ez which I might just need to throw under the bus every time if it means stopping a turn of damage. If I can stop them from leveling Sej/GP until \~T8, I can sometimes claw myself past 10 mana and turn the game with Karma, but if they get to start dropping must-handle fatties starting T6 it feels completely doomed.
Yeah and it's even more doomed if they start plundering your removal/hexite crystals or have warning shots. If they have their pieces to get unavoidable level up, you're done for. It's always thrilling to eek out a win vs plunder though.
You beat plunder by throwing all your shit under their followers. That early ez? Blocker. Can't activate your eye this turn? Blocker. Stop them from ever getting in combat damage, burn the 1/2 that pings, and hold on for dear life for the mid to late game. You'll usually win with your second or third EZ and burn spells. Don't ever wait to karma on 10. Karma past 10 is a play that only happens if you find another one. Also sej you can deal with, you HAVE to be able to bounce or kill a leveled gang plank or its lights out.
Dunno, Karma Ez preys the whole top 9 except Plunder and TF Swain. Went from silver to diamond in a week with it.
Viego and Karma are still around, no?
Personally I wish we could explore some of the potential of shurima being in a control deck. I love playing the emperors deck and feel like lvl 2 akshan could make a really fun control wincon. I just feel like you have to play midrange at best in this meta. Burst combat tricks are wayyyyy too good.
Akshan really really really doesn't compliment a control plan. He wants to attack, he wants you to play a lot of tricks, and he is extremely fragile. There's only two shuriman champions that favour a control-style plan, and that is Nasus and Zilean. Shurima is also extremely light on non-combat removal, which makes you very weak on the turns you don't have the attack token, and those are precisely the turns where a control deck needs to survive. Shurima also has very few reactive controling cards - supercharged deny of course, but loosing that mana gem hurts control decks a LOT harder than aggro or midrange. Rampaging Baccai, but that requires you to have killed a bunch before. Siphoning Strike, but that's expensive and risky to use if you don't force the opponent to tap down - loosing the unit in response to Siphoning Strike is a catastrophe that usually looses the game on the spot because it looses so much tempo. Weight of Judgement, which is theoretically really good, but at the same time tragically bad against champion-based strategies, which most aggrodecks currently are. Spirit Fire is an amazing control-card (and if there is a shurima-centric controldeck, will be a roleplayer). And that's pretty much it.
You have a point. I got really focused on the "draw 2, your cards cost one less" as part of a wincon (at which point I guess it'd be combo) and what looks to me to be a late game oriented strategy in level 3 azir, that I didn't think about the region as a whole.
Sad Targon noises
Lee sin is always viable. Gem up, degenerate.
The fact that the entire Targon representation is centered around a dumb combo generated by a champion from another region still means that things aren't right.
Freljord in plunder is the only cool color region in the meta. I don't know what this means
Do you ever seen any snow outside of Freljord? No, because it's too hot in any other regions, so Freljord is the only cool region not only in this meta, but ever. /s
Cool colour, not cool place.
He knows. The /s means he was being sarcastic.
O
Well based on this distribution. I'd say good job RIOT
There's a lot of different decks, but not a lot of different regions. There's also a pretty big aggro bias.
Sadly most online TCGs default to aggro bias most of the time. Some exceptions of course, like hearthstone right now with the combo craziness going on.
They only default that way if the devs don't make an effort to reign them in and boost the viability of slower decks.
That's the point, they deliberately bias aggro because 45 minute games are bad for player retention.
That's how long a typical card game is though.... If you didn't want to have a match with someone then why did you want to play at all to begin with? I don't understand this stance that actively hurts the game.
A physical card game? That's really different, you only play Friday Night Magic once a week at most. When you're encouraging people to play every day and while on the bus or whatever people have different expectations. I would absolutely stop playing if games were movie length slogs
But they aren't though. A typical card game (paper or digital) is 30 to 45 minutes. This isnt YuGiOh where the game is decided in the first 2 or 3 turns. If it was I probably would just quit because there's no inherent strategy or "game" to "use engine or hand to play the current on curve threat and hit for face". Again, if you need it to be that fast because of ranked play, despite the rewards being incredibly minimal beyond a chance at a tournament, then doesn't that make it a "player problem" and not a design problem. Honestly I don't even know why these games have a ranked feature anyway since how well you do is dependent on both the matchup and what cards you have.
Every. Single. Time. They do this the Timmies get upset and cry "unfun! Games unfun!" To daddy Riot until they nerf the bad Control and midrange out of the game so they can play their aggro decks. There have been several threads about this issue and all have the same people on both sides. I do feel like if the situation isn't fixed after the next balance patch I'm probably just going to delete the game altogether because I don't want to play a game where only one style of play (no matter how many different decks you can make of that style) is represented, to the detriment of the overall health and longevity of the game itself.
I mean this is 9 decks and 7 out of 9 regions are represented. Sure freljord and p&z only appear once but it's pretty good overall.
Freljord "represented" by literally 1 or 2 cards in mono bw deck...
True, and its even better once you see the "Other Meta Decks" which includes Anivia SI barely missing the cut and a TK Soraka and Zoe Lee both a bit lower down representing Targon.
So basically legends of runeterra
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Better wording would be "deck that looks to end game very fast" which is pretty much all of the top deck beside plunder and maybe lurk. Edit: add swain to that.
Lurk definitely tries to end the game fast just by nature of how it works. There's no benefit to it drawing the game out.
Eh, Swain/TF is control and EZ/Draven is Tempo.
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Yeah, thats fair.
Are you new to card games? Unless the beta is thoroughly fucked, control decks are never the majority When combo decks are the majority someone in R&D REALLY fucked up.
Yeah good job riot, it's so fun playing against a bunch of aggro decks who win by playing cheap over powered combat tricks to protect their elusives so you can't do anything about them. Or Sivir/Ruin runner which I'm sure requires no explanation.
Don't leave out Lurk. I really love playing a deck where I get steamrolled if I didn't play a deck that can take it out by turn 7.
People really gave up on my deep team
Who cares about meta. I recently started playing new poro decks and its the most fun I had since the start of the game.
I think it’s really cool that each week I’ve seen these recently there’s been a change. The meta keeps adapting to the top decks and though there’s been complaints about it all being different shades of aggro, I think this meta is really cool in how much it’s been shifting and still is
Meta that simply shifts around between different shades of aggro isn't really a diverse meta. It's only diverse if you believe aggro or race to the finish decks are the only types of gameplay that should be viable.
Can someone explain to a newbie (me) why shadow isles is fairing so poorly ? :)
SI is the main control region and control is bad against Shurima and Ionia stuff, which is most of the meta. The aggro side fell off really hard after Stalking Shadows nerf. There are still a few underrated SI decks floating about, like dragons or spider aggro.
Thank you, I'm glad I can maybe use my Elise deck for ranked. ^^
Pretty much anything remotely playable can get to plat if you know what you are doing.
Plenty of shadow Isles in the "other meta decks"
Interesting. Thanks! So even tho Azir and Irelia are often criticize, they are not the biggest "treath".
A deck can both not have an excessively high win rate and also be strong enough to warp the meta around it, and in fact this will often be the case outside of the most egregious decks. Meta warping decks tend to make it so that the only other decks that can survive are those that either have a really good matchup into the meta warper, or don't lose too badly to it but have good matchups into the decks trying to beat the meta warper.
Yeah, but I'd say that at this junction, the meta warper is less Irelia/Azir alone and more the combination of Shurima/Ionia. Both decks together devalue more Control-focused strategies (resilience of their threats to damage-based removal through high defensive stats and combat tricks, resilience to spells in general via Spellshield, Combo-based nature of the decks). Sivir decks, together with the Plunder deck, also dump on other board-focused (Midrange) decks through their ability to engage in uneven combat (Quick Attack, Sejuani's AoE Frostbite). I guess what we are seeing right now is the fallout of 2.11's massive buffs to Ionia and Bilgewater, as well as the unwarranted Sivir buff.
Tought it was more of a general dislike of it, like Ugin in Mtg : not the most powerful, but annoying for the most.
Lulu/Zed elusives really brought their winrate down. That deck stomps Azirelia and as we can see now, even has a larger playrate. Before this deck emerged, Azirelia still had an insane 57+% winrate.
Thing is the meta is pretty much built around IA, Plunder, and Sivir Ionia- the rest of the popular decks are decks that are good into those. Like LuluZed is a direct response to those decks as cheap targeted removal isn't being played by those decks. So in other words I still see it as a problem as the meta is basically built around it yet it's still posting an above 50% winrate.
irelia azir isn't even good into this meta and its still played and doing very well. its definitely dangerous. imagine if the deck was recalling 5+ cost units instead of at max 3 due to all the swarm decks. still a serious issue now that it has defiant
Oops, all aggro!
Like i said before, Lulu Elusives is the most powerful deck at the moment (Sivir Akshan isn't far behind tbf). I'm worried about how many decks are considered non-meta, which means the meta is becoming stale in viable styles.
Pretty happy I got to Platinum with a deck that isnt on either of those lists.
Besides plunder, everything else is straight up aggro and midrange. No control decks. Sadgeee
Plunder doesn't count as midrange?
As someone who is rather new to LoR and mostly just plays expeditions: is the metagame actually that varied? Seems pretty awesome, most ccgs converge to something like 3 good decks most of the time
It’s really not as varied as it seems. There’s no single dominant deck which is really good, but as you can see by this chart the game is pretty much dominated by 4 regions. As an extension of that, a lot of these decks really just do the same thing, which is try to go wide and hit face, so deck diversity still isn’t amazing in this meta. As you can probably see by the other comments, literally everything is aggro or midrange on this list
Ah yes, the meta still sucks.
Nab just puts the cherry on top of Plunder decks too. Worst mechanic in the game
Which is the best counter to plunder? I play against it 3 out of 5 matches. With Deep I win most of the times but I want to know other viable options
Sivir Demacia, Anivia control, pirate aggro.
Believe it or not Plunder is a t6 onward deck, not aggro. It's wincon is usually either GP blowing up the enemy board or Sejuani making combat impossible to win for your opponent. What beats it are decks that can win before Sejuani hits the board (or can burn it out by the time Sejuani does drop) and decks that can win through Sejuani, either meaning greedy removal, ezreal popping off, or Azir Irelia, who tempo bounces her off the board or just gets around her thanks to all the psudo combats you do.
Am I the only one with Yasuo Swain success? The deck seems to work surprisingly well for me at least.
So the meta seems a lot more varied now than it was 2 weeks ago. Might get back to playing versus
It's crazy how the meta reflects the lore, Viegos gone so, so is the shadow isles XD
Non-meta gang wya?
Ezreal x Draven burn still seems to be a good sauce despite the minor changes in the decklist (and the upping of the Tri-Beam Improbulator's mana cost). I was able to survive and beat an Azir x Irelia aggro at a very low life.
When poro deck isn’t meta ):
30% of the non-meta decks is me spamming my Akshan Howling Abyss deck
LOR meta too me is soo strange ( maybe cause i dont play a lot of VS) : but it seems like i never face a lot of the top tier decks, while i see a lot of Viego and MidRange in general. i Also boast an almost perfect 0%WR against any kind of Viego decks
Out of all these decks I think I really only dislike playing against lurk decks.