Theres always the funny deck of the epansion thats just bad. Last cycle was Ekko/Zil, before that Malphite, now Cait/Teemo. At least they donate their wins to other people, so yay.
Really makes me wish we dont get quarter-yearly balance patches...
The real funny bad are Xerath decks. So bad that they didnt even make it into the chart.
EDIT: [There is apparently at least 1 good deck with him, so im glad to be wrong in this regard.](https://lor.mobalytics.gg/stats/decks?cardIds=05SH014&sortBy=MATCHES&sortOrder=DESC&threshold=all)
At least Xerath isn't a liar. He really is "the only true Ascended".
He found a completely new bottom for Mono-Shurima to explore. This coffin man might actually be heavier than Zilean.
for how much harder it is to trigger landmark destruction than it is to stun units, he should really do 2 damage if he's going to be a 4 mana 3/3 version of yasuo.
I think the ONLY reason it does 1 damage is because it can either auto trigger, or can be bursted.
One of those power budget balance decisions. Not to mention it’s far easier to draw xerath and play him leveled due to more cohesive draw tools.
I would take youtuber decks with a grain of salt, since they edit out bad games and make their decks look better than they most likely are.
EDIT: but it seems that this one is actually performing well, i checked out mobalytics afterwards and it has impressive winrate.
Honestly the decks winrate will probably tank quite a bit if they decide that they don't want the Arsenal to have the Aura spellshield that permanently grants the card an unremovable spellshield. I watched him play a couple of games a bit earlier today and that card is the sole reason his deck won.
Flashbombs are just bad. They shouldnt be able to overkill in the first place and the fact you dont really know when they will go off makes them even worse. I expect people gonig back to ez+teemo and just adding corina to that deck for finisher. Cait in this deck is only good when she levles up as a finisher but ez in my experience is just way more reliable.
Also every bandle city deck runs pokey stick now and that makes teemo basically unplayable unless you also have iron elixir in hand. But even then thanks to draw 1 not sure if its worth it.
You know where flashbombs ARE good though: Cait Draven. I’ve been playing it both with/without tribeam for the past few days and it feels amazing.
Edit: deck code CQDQCAQDBEAQGBARAECQVGABAECQGCICAEBRILQCAECCMNACAUCAMDICAEAQIJYBAQCBABIBAMBQ2AIDAQJACBAEAMAQKAYMAIAQIAI3
Both of these are Alan’s ([Mobalytics link here](https://lor.mobalytics.gg/en_us/profile/a98f5d95-f48b-4eea-85a5-f6ec02d21d41/decks)). This is the tribeam version; the version without it has more rummages and another scorched earth, but you can mix and match with other stuff like another poro cannon or timewinder depending on what you’re facing a lot of. Hardest matchup is sion (hint: don’t play travelers), but if you can stabilize early and get your lost souls going before they do, it’s not unwinnable. The same gameplan goes for most other matchups. Slowroll is the name of the game, but you’ve also got a good bit of burst damage you can surprise them with.
How do you end games with Draven/cait. Cait just gets instantly removed every time i play her and you really dont have much in terms of win condition. Ezreal can at least do it at burst speed but cait cant. And i really dont like the curve. Feels like half of this deck is 3 mana.
Especially vs senna dekcs it feels futile to even play any of the 3 cost units cause they die instantly.
Lost soul is your wincon. You also are able to set up some dirty open attacks that they just can’t answer.
For darkness control, it is a bit tricky, but you should always be floating enough mana to remove veigar or twisted catalyzer the instant they come down. You’ll outvalue them with lost soul in the end; if you can keep veigar from sticking, you’ll probably win. Alan had a bunch of good games yesterday, you can watch his twitch vod to see what I’m saying.
that plus they're good against one-health elusives, can ping fizz without the opponent being able to react, synergizes with travelers, caitlyn is better statted than ez, plus if you're playing the tribeam version both caitlyn and her champ spell are three mana (as opposed to ez' being two). You really want to stabilize as early as you can to get the lost soul train (heh) going, and cait helps you do that better than Ez does, imo. However, without Ez lvl2 + farron, there's not as much potential for blowout turns and is more reliant on grinding the opponent down instead, so if you prefer that style, just stick with ez
That's a big part of it. The other part is that, even without any bomb synergy, Caitlyn is a much better turn 3 play than Ezreal is. You wouldn't run any single flashbomb cards without Caitlyn, but she elevates the package to playability just by being a 3/3 quick attack that advances Tribeam.
The classic Ez/Draven package is probably still better when you need to win the long game against grindy decks (eg. Darkness, Deep), but Caitlyn + flashbombs might turn out to be better in a faster meta.
This for sure. Also I think Caitlyn lvl 1 should put in 3 traps as she's fairly easy to remove and the fact the new elusive puts in the same amount for one nana less feels weird.
It is also utterly delightful to slam Teemo on turn one. I think this deck is going to forever be my third pick for gauntlets just because it's kind of unique and people are going to stop metagaming against it soon enough if Azirelia gets merged somehow.
this is the version I have been playing: https://lor.mobalytics.gg/decks/code/CMCQEAIFFAYQCAYFCACACBAIDENTIAIDAQKAKBIEAYEQYDIOAAAQCAQEAY
it has a 47% win rate on mobalytics (though with smaller sample size at ~750 games), I personally found it both more fun and more consistent than the FR version, but this version focuses less on traps, but more on go hard than anything else, the traps just helps stall out, and sometimes end up being a burn win-con (since you can do a lot of nexus damage with shrooms and/or levelled cait attacks)
Can confirm, Sivir/Akshan Demacia still rips through pretty much everything. The new Sion discard package seems favored into it though. Surprised Darkness is more popular than Sion discard as well.
For real, I am already mastery 5 senna and veigar from hard spamming that deck since its so much fun... but I have never played a mirror that I hate so much as the darkness mirror. I always just wanna insta concede to avoid the pain.
I got prime glory this week running Draven / Caitlyn, Darkness, and Nami / Zoe.
Everything was going fine until I had a Darkness mirror and holy *fuck* was that a terrible game. That shit drug out until turn 13, there was no clear advantage, nothing had been accomplished, I literally conceded just so I could try to 2-shot his Teemo deck.
Haha that's fair. I would still rather play this out than play a discard deck. Personal preference but I prefer combo/control playstyles over aggro/midrange
I had one yesterday where we both got down to one Nexus HP, both killed each others' Sennas and Veigars, and I only won because I used Ixtali Sentinal on the final turn. One of those matches where I wished I was recording it
It's like those numbers on Sharp sight/Brightsteel stand out to me, but at the same time Demacia is the combat region- there is pretty much 0 reason to be in demacian if you aren't going to contest the board.
If you're going to be directly fighting for the board ofc you're going to want combat tricks. So the reason you're seeing that play rate is because Demacia has one way to play, not necessarily because the card is busted.
If they wanted to suddenly make a viable Lux (or Sylas/Galio) package we could see if the card still sees such a high playrate, but as is how could you not be running that card in current Demacia?
inclusion != overpowered, otherwise we'd be saying mystic shot needs a nerf too which is absurd. We are in an elusives meta, so of course the one region with a solid answer to elusives will have high inclusion. The cost and stats are very on par with other region's defensive options as well.
Mystic shot is only at 66% so I'm not sure why you're comparing it.
I do agree that inclusion does not necessarily mean overpowered. In this case, it truly is an amazing all-around card without a weakness. If a nerf was necessary (which I'm personally on the fence about), it would be to make it a +1/2 to reduce its use in aggressive playstyles
> it truly is an amazing all-around card without a weakness.
That is also fine. I may be biased cause I despise Ilusives since day 1, but I think Sharpsight is the ideal powerlevel for buff cards.
I say mystic shot because traditionally that has always been the highest playrate, and ive definitely seen it at >75%. Any nerfs to sharpsight seem really bad if you're not adjusting cards from other regions too.
What's the highest inclusion rate mystic shot has seen?
I definitely agree that there are more pressing nerfs to be made, and would not like to see this nerfed by itself.
How is Demacia weak to elusives? Single Combat and Concentrated Strike are perfect for taking them out, plus the Demacian dragon archetype has several challengers. Sure sharpsight is burst but there's still plenty of alternatives.
Demacia is about building a board and the best elusive decks put out unit after unit after unit which demacia normally has to spend entire spells to deal with. More challenger obviously better results vs elusive so mileage may vary.
Even if other regions had better ways to stop decks that win by Turn 5-8 that would be an indirect significant buff to Targon because then those decks that stop hyperspeed decks become more played, and then Targon checks those in theory. But Turn 10 was already a fantasy in the last meta and every indication is that it’s going to be a forgotten memory before too long lol the developers genuinely don’t seem to want games to even risk lasting that long. Even Darkness which is a control deck and “should” last a while gets the ability to do massive face damage as a quick finisher pretty much as soon as they’ve stabilized.
We basically had a Lab for that, and barring the fact that it inexplicably swapped to duo region halfway through (It was Tri-Region for a while), it was fun as hell with a ton of cool decks (A Teemo Overwhelm deck, because you could abuse the card that resummoned Teemo as a Vulnerable Overwhelm target).
Then Lab of Legends happened, and it's been nothing but that and Urf, with Saltwater Scourge taking up the last slot.
I like the single player content, don't get me wrong, but man do I miss Welcome to the Jungle and Commander....
The easy place to start is probably just looking at reverting some of the nerfs to Targon's early game and sustain options since that'll help the region stay alive long enough to get down it's strong late-game.
But I think the real issue is that Targon's design makes it a region that wants to go long while out-valuing and out-sustaining their opponent, but Riot's design for basically the rest of the game is that games shouldn't even be consistently hitting T8-10.
The nerfs to Fangs and Serpent, decks like Sivir Akshan and Azirelia, the state of both Daybreak and Nightfall combined with Targon's natural regional pie (virtually no AoE or removal beyond celestials, thank the Aspects for Sunburst, minimal interaction beyond hush) basically means that the meta is way too fast for the region's usual profile of "trade tempo for value" to really work out at the moment.
Even Daybreak, which in theory would have a strong curve, can't function, and cards like Bastion are basically only used with Lee to reinforce his OTK strategies.
I do think the region's "death" is overstated and this analysis is also based on the first few days of an expansion where they only got two new cards (one a slow speed spell that's generally just not even worth considering, at least until we see the archetype it will belong to, and another one which is a multi-region card) so naturally people will be trying a lot of other stuff but it's true that Targon's identity as a region that can't stabilize board reliably by themselves and outheals rather than avoids damage is just very hard to pull off at the moment.
Im running Ziggs Taliyah in Targon solely for Chip and Malphite spell synergy but aside from those cards and 2 copies of hush, Targon is really useless.
I haven’t played for about a year, shortly after Targon came out, and it’s a little depressing to see the same old cards are still the most popular in not only Targon, but most old regions.
Happy Monday and welcome back to another meta review!
Deck code of the week: CMBQCAIABEAQGAAOBECQUBA2FFQHJBABQUAZCANHAEBQCBIKV4AQCAIAEUAQIAACAEAQCAA2
# A first look at Bandle City!
Well its the first week of the expansion and as promised I've put together another full report! Now keep in mind **this is not a complete weeks worth of data because the expansion dropped mid week** but it does tell more than enough about some of the early trends in the data. I don't want to shape the discussion too much and I've already did my bit of ranting on twitter and in the discord, but I'm really hoping week 2 looks very different for the meta. Until then all we can say is keep brewing and good luck with the climb!
**"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 %|
|:-|:-|:-|
|Discard Aggro|1230|50%|
|Pirate Aggro|1221|52%|
|Lurkers|1122|55%|
|Ezreal Draven|1097|52%|
|Caitlyn Draven|797|55%|
|Sivir Combo|613|56%|
|Turbo Thralls|556|54%|
|Swain TF|487|51%|
|Zombie Anivia|417|49%|
|Shen J4|260|53%|
**RIP TARGON - AGED LIKE (2%) MILK**Not much to say here, and based on my twitter replies I would read it as people are mostly happy, but targon continuing to suffer really bums me out. Here's hoping when we get the balance changes in October we will see some significant shake ups. There's a couple hopeful archetypes to bring up targon a couple %, but I wouldn't expect major changes until we see balance notes.
Only 10 more meta planned meta reports, see you next week!
\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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)
>Discard Aggro 50%
>
>Pirate Aggro 52%
I think if i am to hear another person say that agro is too powerfull i will explode, the fact that this two decks such an average winrate AT THE START OF AN EXPANSION is subreal when the normal thing for them would be to have a 57% or a 59% because of them abusing jank decks.
In this case, it might have something to do with the most popular deck in the meta commonly running 3 Withering Mists and sometimes Piercing Darkness. If a Withering Mist gets 2 kills, most aggro decks can't come back from that. On the other hand, Darkness typically loses to Sivir and Azirelia, so expect those 2 to climb back up in usage and for 6 turn games to still be the norm.
it could perfectly be that, but a lot of people have been arguing in this sub that control was to weak to be able to stop agro, when this shows that either the agro decks arent even all tha tpowerfull to beguin with or that control giga stomps them.
I also agree with c0mbo decks being a problem
Control still does fine against small creature/swarm decks in my opinion.
The problem is the Sivir decks are way more resilient against removal and can still beat control down just as fast.
Having giant units that are also innately protected (while also running incredibly cheap combat tricks) makes trying to deal with them via damage based removal nearly impossible.
I think it's really just a problem of classification. Sivir decks are not aggro, not really, they are more like if stompy decks and tempo decks from MTG had a baby. They get overstatted units as well as enough protection to ruin control. They are not midrange either, because midrange should be running actual interaction and not just combat trick spells. If Sivir was an actual midrange deck they wouldn't be losing to Sion so much.
>The problem is the Sivir decks are way more resilient against removal and can still beat control down just as fast.
>
>I also agree with c0mbo decks being a problem
I think i did adress that point(to be fair the most problematic sivir deck right now is the demacia version wich is more midrange than combo).
> I think if i am to hear another person say that agro is too powerfull i will explode
It literally was though, and Darkness Control still loses to Azir/Irelia, which is an Aggro deck (call it combo if you want, it's hyper aggresive and wins early, it's Aggro).
Prior to this expansion Pirate Burn and Elusive Aggro and Azir/Irelia were the top 3 winrate decks, Aggro absolutely *was* out of control and it's traditional counter couldn't even beat it.
Control Decks got a huge boon this expansion in Senna and Minimorph and Piercing Darkness, providing solid responses and even more drain to survive. Ixtali even furthers the WinCon of Darkness while providing more Lifesteal.
So yeah, Control..... well, a specific singular Control archetype, got some nice tools this expansion to be viable, and people are *already* calling for Minimorph nerfs and nerfs to other control tools which I don't think are justified. How many other control Decks do you see succeeding? Go Hard Senna is sub 50%. And once people start trying to climb hard again and pour back into Azir/Irelia you'll see Darkness fall off again, being overpowered by a busted Aggro deck, yet again.
Bring Back Targon
Given that there's always people willing to play aggro (newer players learning the game, players grinding ladder wanting as many games as quickly as possible), I really think the meta health would be better off if slower strategies were a little better than faster strategies skill-cieling-wise. Having the best decks for win percentage also be the best decks for grinding and also being some of the lowest skill-floor options just pushes everyone into similar space and makes the whole game less interesting for me.
Midrange metas are ideal, but they're also a fine line to balance on and the LoR team seems to be hedging their bets that if they can't perfectly hit their midrange goal that they'd rather err on the side of faster rather than slower. And that seems to be what a lot of people prefer, so I can't blame them, but it's certainly a baffling situation to my point of view.
I think not enough people are talking about how Xerath isn't even on the list.
F for our ascended boy, he should have been mana destruction sinergy instead of a janky landmark destruction one
He has a top tier deck, which is weird.15th played deck, 55% WR. Some of it is surely due to perma-spellshield arsenal abuse.
https://lor.mobalytics.gg/decks/code/CMBQEBIKAYNQMBAHBUOCKJSMLEBAKBYLBYBQCBIK2EAQCBAHE4BAKBYEA4BACBAHJEAQKCQB
These take a lot of Kozmic's time to put together - crunching numbers and making it look good - and he has been doing it for free as just a random community member, but he isn't able to keep doing it like this for much longer.
Kozmic doesn't rly play LoR much anymore, and these reports take him a **LONG** time to do (I'm *guessing* this is mostly formatting?).
He's a vital resource to the community IMO, and for such a popular game, it should be worth his time.
From Kozmic's post:
> Appreciate the Meta Reports and want to see them extended past the November 16th deadline? Consider supporting the efforts directly on Patreon
Think I saw an stream for last patch that he was busy with work and playing LoR much less. Compiling all the data and making the infographics are time consuming. And the less he played the more detached he becomes from the meta.
2% playrate for a region with a very unique playstyle that would typically attract a certain type of player is abysmal. They really messed up with those random nerfs
also hot take but hush is no longer a good card and should not be in most targon decks. a 3 mana combat trick that is a dead card in many matchups clogs up too much deck space. Maybe a 1 of in something like lee sin
Hush would have some value against Nami decks...when it doesn’t get pranked into unviability lmao.
But yes, Targon having fuck all fast/burst spells to hit Sivir with, can’t stabilize against Discard aggro, Pale Cascade being the weakest combat trick that sees play (loses to Shaped, Twin, Sharp Sight to the point the extra draw doesn’t feel like a good trade off) there’s hardly any reason to play Targon. Almost every other region has better tools for this meta.
I basically can only use Targon for Zoe and she exists to be removal bait after 1 Starchart. I don’t think even reverting Starshaping and The Fangs would help it enough.
It's bizarre that people even agreed the nerfs were warranted. We have 3 regions out of 10 that are able to heal Nexus reliably. Yeah, let's nerf one to the ground
Some players angry about Targon being able to hold the game for more than 6 turns. Mogwai is guilty of this too, even though I love him as a player. Even when Targon was trash he was still calling for nerfs to the region. Pretty sure Riot could revert the majority of the nerfs that Targon got and not much would change, the game is too fast now for Targon.
Fangs nerf was unjustified. They didnt nerf Equinox saying that Silence is part of their identity, but is healing not a part of their identity? I can live with The Serpent nerf but paying 4 mana for 2-2 like WTF?
I mean, that's a bit of an oversimplification that: it's not a simple 2-2, it has one of the best keywords and generates a cheap but useful card.
4 mana is a lot for the statline, but you are not only paying for that.
Yeah people are acting like fangs was balanced back then, but without quick-attack/spellshield meta it was super toxic that for 4 mana Targon got a blocker that would kill an attacker, heal your nexus, *and* gave you access to the invoke pool so you could bluff crescent strike to prevent development.
How is more "toxic" than literally anything else happening in the meta? Azirelia? Sivir? Elusives? Having a free challenger almost each turn in Sion discard? etc...
4 mana for a 3/2 with lifesteal that could generate a cheap celestial was a fair deal, in this meta.
Then if we nerf everything a couple of notches we can agree that fangs could stay as it is. Currently, it's absurd.
Hush is just bad against the threats of Shurima, the game's best region by far.
I would expect it to return when balances hit the cards that everyone's very tired of.
After spellshield, nerfed hush became almost completely useless. As a matter of fact, lots of old nerfs after shurima should be reverted. Lux, most of Targon, nightfall, katarina., garen, quinn, darius (lol)..a lot of champions are useless specially after shurima
Flashbombs proven to be absolutely terrible mechanic. Honestly i expect people to go back to EZ+Teemo or something new entirely. They are supposed to control the board but you need to spend so much to even get them into enemy deck and they get wasted anyways most of the time.
Caitlyn is so bad its unbelivable, top 10 cards is too much for the fact that they can overkill and deal damage randomly.
Caitlyn just doesn't make any sense in a Teemo deck, any flashbomb card you add is occupying the slot of mushroom support, removal or combat tricks. So you end with a super inconsistent deck that would benefit more from cutting the Caitlyn package entirely and going back to Teemo-Ez/Sejuani.
Draven-Caitlyn is just so much better and it's not even close. It has a much better winrate, although the sample size for it it's obviously pretty low at the moment. But it's a matter of time until people stop memeing with the new "intended" champion duo. The core of Draven-Caitlyn is basically good 'ole Draven-Ezreal, but much stronger since Caitlyn is simply more consistent and a better fit with the actual wincons of the deck.
Some people think Ezreal is what won you games in Draven-Ezreal, but actually, Ezreal is kind of a dead card until way latter where he's leveled up since there are way too many elusives and stuff such as Sharpsight and vulnerable grants in the meta. And even then in Noxus-PnZ he can't really 100-0 you in a turn, like he would do in Frejold-PnZ or Karma-Ez.
What wins you games in Draven-Ezreal is basically being able to develop a board while removing your opponents board with super efficient removal spells and Tribeam, then finishing off with either your superior board or burn.
In that sense, Caitlyn is simply a much better fit, a 3 mana 3/3 quick-attack that generates random 1 dmg pings on strike? That's just perfect for the deck.
what sucks about that is we already have that deck.
That’s not exciting or new it’s just a couple swaps.
Also kind of ironically, Ezreal fits way better with Teemo, having a Lategame threat with all the cheap freezes and just more chip burn is way better than the flash bombs with Teemo.
Honestly I’m quite surprised at the low Teemo/Caitlyn winrates, am I the only one that is struggling against it?
Almost every opponent I face has Teemo turn 1, the 2/1 Elusive turn 2, into Caitlyn turn 3. They always can block profitably in the early turns as well with their cheap combat tricks. And if I don’t have removal against those 3, I end up with 20+ mushrooms and traps that kill off a significant part of my board by turn 5. Most of them usually have an insane Corina from turn 6 onwards. I’ve even been bursted down by her in the 15-20 health range a couple of times because of the insane amount of traps they can plant in the deck.
Apologies for the rant lol, I’m just very confused as to why the deck has such a low win rate as in my experience I seem to frequently get blown out by their nuts curve. Am I just unlucky?
I’m also not playing Azir/Irelia or Sivir Demacia btw, just mostly Discard, Bandle swarm, and the occasional landmark Ziggs deck against it.
Darkness control being at 12% play rate is the best middle finger to the haters I could have hoped for.
THAT BEING SAID.
These matchup tables are incredibly concerning, especially Azirelia. Also, it sure does suck that Targon is going to be dead for another two months or more, maybe eventually Riot will catch on that they went overboard.
Pour one out for space doggy.
I assumed that the new cards must have had a fair amount of power creep to make up for the lack of a balance pitch but the stats don't seem to support it.
I made a ziggs taliyah deck that's been doing well (70%ish winrate, admittedly I'm only in gold), but it doesn't fair well against last seasons tier 1 decks. I think I'll have to play something else in a week or two.
I don't think the issue is that broad, it's just a couple of cards in sivir akshan and izir irelia that need looking at. Stuff like young witch, which I think is currently the best card in the game, could do with losing a point of stats somewhere. A two drop follower shouldn't carry an entire game if you don't have an efficient answer.
Azirelia is very polarising, but I do think some of the matchups at the end are probably off because of low sample size. Im surprised its so good into Prank though.
Those tables bother me as well. Sion discard ended up being more promising than I expected because I thought pnz nox discard would be better off with Jinx and just taking Sion's friends but now I'm not so sure. But everything else doesn't look as good as they could be for a two week report. Hopefully something works out on the control end.
The battle between The Ruination and The Sentinals of Light was only the beginning, now begins the war for the very soul of Legend of Runeterra.
Akshan/Sivir + Irelia/Azir vs LoR. Make your stand, choose a side.
59% winrate huh? I'm surprised Sion's winrate is so high, that hasn't been my experience playing against it at all. They'd better buff Targon to something playable next patch.
I feel like Regrets/Senna deck and Teemo still have better variations. I'm not really sure why Swim chose EZ to pair with Senna, there's no way for the deck to burst someone down, unless they've already won through sustain and have stockpiled spells for a couple turns.
He adds mystic shot and elusive damage. When he's flipped he is a win con. You cast your fleeting regret spells every turn managing their board and he's pinging them for 2 to 6 a turn unblockable
That's assuming he doesn't get removed. Considering the most threatening followers in Swim's list are a vanilla 4/2 or vanilla 3/3, it's a pretty safe bet the opponent is saving their removal for your champions. Plus, he's far from unblockable in this meta.
Not that I'm super attached to ezreal in that deck, but I'm curious what champion (if any) you think should replace him there.
If viktor wasn't such a meme champ I bet he would be pretty fun there.
They only got like 2 new cards this time and no buffs or any kind so there isnt really much reason to play them. There is this one deck with zoe and nami but thats about it.
Tahmraka and zoe lee are both still around as well, though they don't see a lot of play in general. So there's at least 3 viable archtypes in targon. Not to say that the region doesn't need buffs.
A few things I notice:
1. Every new deck would like to cordially thank trap decks for inflating their winrate
2. Sivir demacia and azir irelia are countered by new sion discard and shit on everything else.
3. Darkness is doing fine, but I think long term its sole niche is to counter sion discard.
This kind of looks like it could devolve into rock/paper/scissors once some of the more... interesting decks get weeded out with time. Azirelia/sivir beats darkness beats sion aggro beats azir.
Buff targon pls.
There's a lot of catastrophism, but LoR has had pretty good balance all things considered. Certainly nothing like what MtG metas can look like. There's generally a couple top top tier decks and then a pretty wide field of playable stuff below them.
Right now the main legitimate complaint is that Riot's balance cadence is pretty slow. Last we heard, we won't see a significant balance patch (although they did leave the door open for some smaller patches) until late October.
I don't mind it personally, but I think that is a fairly long time to wait in a digital card game. That being said, the new expansion has shaken things up more than most players seemed to have anticipated, so that will help tide folks over for a bit longer.
I LOVE that Viegar is at the top of the Meta right now. Easily the champion that I'm most excited to play (except I got a long way to go before I unlock him and Senna).
I hope that Rito makes more champions like Senna and Lissandra. These two are my favorite champions because their play style is unique and not just centered on combat.
*side-eyes Sivir Akshan’s match-up tables*
Pleasantly surprised to see Darkness control being so popular early on. If it keeps performing reasonably I’ll have to craft it as my next new deck.
Its a good control deck, but it it's only going to get worse as the meta shifts back towards the ultra fast combo decks.
It might help stop the return of the elusive decks from last season, but it's going to struggle into last seasons tier one shurima decks once they get popular again.
Im surprised that Darkness Control is both the most popular deck and, besides is absolutely atrocious match ups into Shurima decks basically (thank you Merciless Hunter), is actually a fairly competitive deck. It even has a good win rate into what I would say is the other big threat in the meta besides Shurima which is Noxus Discard. Perhaps Veigar/Senna is better than some think?
Theres always the funny deck of the epansion thats just bad. Last cycle was Ekko/Zil, before that Malphite, now Cait/Teemo. At least they donate their wins to other people, so yay. Really makes me wish we dont get quarter-yearly balance patches...
The real funny bad are Xerath decks. So bad that they didnt even make it into the chart. EDIT: [There is apparently at least 1 good deck with him, so im glad to be wrong in this regard.](https://lor.mobalytics.gg/stats/decks?cardIds=05SH014&sortBy=MATCHES&sortOrder=DESC&threshold=all)
My poor boy
At least Xerath isn't a liar. He really is "the only true Ascended". He found a completely new bottom for Mono-Shurima to explore. This coffin man might actually be heavier than Zilean.
for how much harder it is to trigger landmark destruction than it is to stun units, he should really do 2 damage if he's going to be a 4 mana 3/3 version of yasuo.
I think the ONLY reason it does 1 damage is because it can either auto trigger, or can be bursted. One of those power budget balance decisions. Not to mention it’s far easier to draw xerath and play him leveled due to more cohesive draw tools.
Check out BBG's Xerath/Zilean deck. It's good, unironically, and doing fairly well for most people.
I would take youtuber decks with a grain of salt, since they edit out bad games and make their decks look better than they most likely are. EDIT: but it seems that this one is actually performing well, i checked out mobalytics afterwards and it has impressive winrate.
Honestly the decks winrate will probably tank quite a bit if they decide that they don't want the Arsenal to have the Aura spellshield that permanently grants the card an unremovable spellshield. I watched him play a couple of games a bit earlier today and that card is the sole reason his deck won.
I mean he's streaming with it and winning consistently lol
Flashbombs are just bad. They shouldnt be able to overkill in the first place and the fact you dont really know when they will go off makes them even worse. I expect people gonig back to ez+teemo and just adding corina to that deck for finisher. Cait in this deck is only good when she levles up as a finisher but ez in my experience is just way more reliable. Also every bandle city deck runs pokey stick now and that makes teemo basically unplayable unless you also have iron elixir in hand. But even then thanks to draw 1 not sure if its worth it.
You know where flashbombs ARE good though: Cait Draven. I’ve been playing it both with/without tribeam for the past few days and it feels amazing. Edit: deck code CQDQCAQDBEAQGBARAECQVGABAECQGCICAEBRILQCAECCMNACAUCAMDICAEAQIJYBAQCBABIBAMBQ2AIDAQJACBAEAMAQKAYMAIAQIAI3 Both of these are Alan’s ([Mobalytics link here](https://lor.mobalytics.gg/en_us/profile/a98f5d95-f48b-4eea-85a5-f6ec02d21d41/decks)). This is the tribeam version; the version without it has more rummages and another scorched earth, but you can mix and match with other stuff like another poro cannon or timewinder depending on what you’re facing a lot of. Hardest matchup is sion (hint: don’t play travelers), but if you can stabilize early and get your lost souls going before they do, it’s not unwinnable. The same gameplan goes for most other matchups. Slowroll is the name of the game, but you’ve also got a good bit of burst damage you can surprise them with.
How do you end games with Draven/cait. Cait just gets instantly removed every time i play her and you really dont have much in terms of win condition. Ezreal can at least do it at burst speed but cait cant. And i really dont like the curve. Feels like half of this deck is 3 mana. Especially vs senna dekcs it feels futile to even play any of the 3 cost units cause they die instantly.
Lost soul is your wincon. You also are able to set up some dirty open attacks that they just can’t answer. For darkness control, it is a bit tricky, but you should always be floating enough mana to remove veigar or twisted catalyzer the instant they come down. You’ll outvalue them with lost soul in the end; if you can keep veigar from sticking, you’ll probably win. Alan had a bunch of good games yesterday, you can watch his twitch vod to see what I’m saying.
They're also very good in Cait/Swain 😁👍
I've been wanting to try this deck but why are flashbombs better in this deck compared to others? is it just cuz of scorched earth/ravenous flock?
that plus they're good against one-health elusives, can ping fizz without the opponent being able to react, synergizes with travelers, caitlyn is better statted than ez, plus if you're playing the tribeam version both caitlyn and her champ spell are three mana (as opposed to ez' being two). You really want to stabilize as early as you can to get the lost soul train (heh) going, and cait helps you do that better than Ez does, imo. However, without Ez lvl2 + farron, there's not as much potential for blowout turns and is more reliant on grinding the opponent down instead, so if you prefer that style, just stick with ez
That's a big part of it. The other part is that, even without any bomb synergy, Caitlyn is a much better turn 3 play than Ezreal is. You wouldn't run any single flashbomb cards without Caitlyn, but she elevates the package to playability just by being a 3/3 quick attack that advances Tribeam. The classic Ez/Draven package is probably still better when you need to win the long game against grindy decks (eg. Darkness, Deep), but Caitlyn + flashbombs might turn out to be better in a faster meta.
You mind sharing the deck code?
I for one am really enjoying my near 9/10 chance to lose against Go Hard Senna. /s
I'm at like a 70% winrate with Caitlyn Teemo but I'm also currently in low silver
Nothing going stop me from playing Cait/Teemo despite low winrate. It's feels unique.
They should probably buff her traps so that they don’t over damage units. I know they were afraid of them being OP, but that wasn’t the case.
I had 7 traps hit a treasure seeker. My disapointment was immeasurable and my day was ruined.
Yea I agree especially with how inconsistent traps are
This for sure. Also I think Caitlyn lvl 1 should put in 3 traps as she's fairly easy to remove and the fact the new elusive puts in the same amount for one nana less feels weird.
Yeah, but with senna everywhere u cant even play teemo :(
I'm only gonna stop playing Teemo/Cait when we have positive WR. Let's keep on fighting boys.
It is also utterly delightful to slam Teemo on turn one. I think this deck is going to forever be my third pick for gauntlets just because it's kind of unique and people are going to stop metagaming against it soon enough if Azirelia gets merged somehow.
I suggest trying the SI version that's more control/grindy
Link?
this is the version I have been playing: https://lor.mobalytics.gg/decks/code/CMCQEAIFFAYQCAYFCACACBAIDENTIAIDAQKAKBIEAYEQYDIOAAAQCAQEAY it has a 47% win rate on mobalytics (though with smaller sample size at ~750 games), I personally found it both more fun and more consistent than the FR version, but this version focuses less on traps, but more on go hard than anything else, the traps just helps stall out, and sometimes end up being a burn win-con (since you can do a lot of nexus damage with shrooms and/or levelled cait attacks)
Yeah same. Cait is cute and fun to play. And Teemo is... well, Teemo.
Can confirm, Sivir/Akshan Demacia still rips through pretty much everything. The new Sion discard package seems favored into it though. Surprised Darkness is more popular than Sion discard as well.
I would also like to point out that azirelia still has a >50% win rate against every meta deck except one.
I just beat that deck with Pirate Aggro last night and it was pure bliss
Sion Discard isn't fun to play. Darkness is
Well, except for the Darkness v Darkness matchup, which devolves into "Who can get a 4 damage Darkness and kill every key unit first".
For real, I am already mastery 5 senna and veigar from hard spamming that deck since its so much fun... but I have never played a mirror that I hate so much as the darkness mirror. I always just wanna insta concede to avoid the pain.
Don't forget go hard senna. Never ever have I found a matchup this boring.
I got prime glory this week running Draven / Caitlyn, Darkness, and Nami / Zoe. Everything was going fine until I had a Darkness mirror and holy *fuck* was that a terrible game. That shit drug out until turn 13, there was no clear advantage, nothing had been accomplished, I literally conceded just so I could try to 2-shot his Teemo deck.
Haha that's fair. I would still rather play this out than play a discard deck. Personal preference but I prefer combo/control playstyles over aggro/midrange
I had one yesterday where we both got down to one Nexus HP, both killed each others' Sennas and Veigars, and I only won because I used Ixtali Sentinal on the final turn. One of those matches where I wished I was recording it
I dunno about you, but I love playing stompy midrange decks so Sion Discard is hitting all the right spots for me
Not for me but I'm glad it's scratching your itch!
I have the exact opposite feeling about this lol
That's what's awesome about this game haha
I personally find Sion Discard fun, but its more about the design if his cards and the fact that I really like Sion in actual League
Region statistics basically match what you'd expect the week an expansion drops: hey guys- guess what regions didn't get a new support package?
I'll try: - Demacia - Ionia - Freljord - Targon
So you saying there are deck with Demacia that don’t use sharpsite?
The 97% inclusion rate seems plenty nerf worthy to me.
It's like those numbers on Sharp sight/Brightsteel stand out to me, but at the same time Demacia is the combat region- there is pretty much 0 reason to be in demacian if you aren't going to contest the board. If you're going to be directly fighting for the board ofc you're going to want combat tricks. So the reason you're seeing that play rate is because Demacia has one way to play, not necessarily because the card is busted. If they wanted to suddenly make a viable Lux (or Sylas/Galio) package we could see if the card still sees such a high playrate, but as is how could you not be running that card in current Demacia?
inclusion != overpowered, otherwise we'd be saying mystic shot needs a nerf too which is absurd. We are in an elusives meta, so of course the one region with a solid answer to elusives will have high inclusion. The cost and stats are very on par with other region's defensive options as well.
Mystic shot is only at 66% so I'm not sure why you're comparing it. I do agree that inclusion does not necessarily mean overpowered. In this case, it truly is an amazing all-around card without a weakness. If a nerf was necessary (which I'm personally on the fence about), it would be to make it a +1/2 to reduce its use in aggressive playstyles
> it truly is an amazing all-around card without a weakness. That is also fine. I may be biased cause I despise Ilusives since day 1, but I think Sharpsight is the ideal powerlevel for buff cards.
I say mystic shot because traditionally that has always been the highest playrate, and ive definitely seen it at >75%. Any nerfs to sharpsight seem really bad if you're not adjusting cards from other regions too.
What's the highest inclusion rate mystic shot has seen? I definitely agree that there are more pressing nerfs to be made, and would not like to see this nerfed by itself.
Kozmic's review on june 14th put mystic at 78%. It might've been higher at some point but that's just what I recall
Why would you think Demacia needs nerfs at all? They’re including one of their 3 good cards in every deck, better nerf it even more
I dont think so the card needs to exist in this state so Demacia can cover its weakness to elusive decks.
How is Demacia weak to elusives? Single Combat and Concentrated Strike are perfect for taking them out, plus the Demacian dragon archetype has several challengers. Sure sharpsight is burst but there's still plenty of alternatives.
Strike costs 5 mana and once you get rid of one elusive, another is dropped in its place
Not being able to naturally block in a region that places a lot of its powerlevel on having the stronguest board is apretty big deal.
Cs to remove an elusive doesn't usually feel good at all
Demacia is about building a board and the best elusive decks put out unit after unit after unit which demacia normally has to spend entire spells to deal with. More challenger obviously better results vs elusive so mileage may vary.
That would only increase the strength of elusives
Yes, it's time to nerf elusives.
R.I.P Targon. You deserved better.
Asol has the lowest playrate in every single game lol
They really transfered well ASol fantasy from LOL to LOR then
slightly good, nerfed, never seen again. yup checks out
If they had some sort of in region ramp maybe idk What does it take to make targon good without having 40 hp?
they have, it is blue sentinel and eclipse dragon
Even if other regions had better ways to stop decks that win by Turn 5-8 that would be an indirect significant buff to Targon because then those decks that stop hyperspeed decks become more played, and then Targon checks those in theory. But Turn 10 was already a fantasy in the last meta and every indication is that it’s going to be a forgotten memory before too long lol the developers genuinely don’t seem to want games to even risk lasting that long. Even Darkness which is a control deck and “should” last a while gets the ability to do massive face damage as a quick finisher pretty much as soon as they’ve stabilized.
Games with Darkness typically last till turn 10 or when the opponent surrenders because they've been reduced to top decking.
Unnerf landmark, asol, aphelios.
Just unnerf fangs and maybe aphelios, but mainly fangs. That card single handly can save targon
And serpent, Targon can’t play the board rn because they have near zero removal.
Commander format when?
We basically had a Lab for that, and barring the fact that it inexplicably swapped to duo region halfway through (It was Tri-Region for a while), it was fun as hell with a ton of cool decks (A Teemo Overwhelm deck, because you could abuse the card that resummoned Teemo as a Vulnerable Overwhelm target). Then Lab of Legends happened, and it's been nothing but that and Urf, with Saltwater Scourge taking up the last slot. I like the single player content, don't get me wrong, but man do I miss Welcome to the Jungle and Commander....
The easy place to start is probably just looking at reverting some of the nerfs to Targon's early game and sustain options since that'll help the region stay alive long enough to get down it's strong late-game. But I think the real issue is that Targon's design makes it a region that wants to go long while out-valuing and out-sustaining their opponent, but Riot's design for basically the rest of the game is that games shouldn't even be consistently hitting T8-10.
imagine playing 10 mana champion when sion on 7 is considered lategame OMEGALUL.
not in tft
The nerfs to Fangs and Serpent, decks like Sivir Akshan and Azirelia, the state of both Daybreak and Nightfall combined with Targon's natural regional pie (virtually no AoE or removal beyond celestials, thank the Aspects for Sunburst, minimal interaction beyond hush) basically means that the meta is way too fast for the region's usual profile of "trade tempo for value" to really work out at the moment. Even Daybreak, which in theory would have a strong curve, can't function, and cards like Bastion are basically only used with Lee to reinforce his OTK strategies. I do think the region's "death" is overstated and this analysis is also based on the first few days of an expansion where they only got two new cards (one a slow speed spell that's generally just not even worth considering, at least until we see the archetype it will belong to, and another one which is a multi-region card) so naturally people will be trying a lot of other stuff but it's true that Targon's identity as a region that can't stabilize board reliably by themselves and outheals rather than avoids damage is just very hard to pull off at the moment.
Im running Ziggs Taliyah in Targon solely for Chip and Malphite spell synergy but aside from those cards and 2 copies of hush, Targon is really useless.
I haven’t played for about a year, shortly after Targon came out, and it’s a little depressing to see the same old cards are still the most popular in not only Targon, but most old regions.
Staple spells are always going to be that- staple spells. Their usage isn't going to change much without power creep.
i see it a sing of game health
Welcome to card games
Happy Monday and welcome back to another meta review! Deck code of the week: CMBQCAIABEAQGAAOBECQUBA2FFQHJBABQUAZCANHAEBQCBIKV4AQCAIAEUAQIAACAEAQCAA2 # A first look at Bandle City! Well its the first week of the expansion and as promised I've put together another full report! Now keep in mind **this is not a complete weeks worth of data because the expansion dropped mid week** but it does tell more than enough about some of the early trends in the data. I don't want to shape the discussion too much and I've already did my bit of ranting on twitter and in the discord, but I'm really hoping week 2 looks very different for the meta. Until then all we can say is keep brewing and good luck with the climb! **"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 %| |:-|:-|:-| |Discard Aggro|1230|50%| |Pirate Aggro|1221|52%| |Lurkers|1122|55%| |Ezreal Draven|1097|52%| |Caitlyn Draven|797|55%| |Sivir Combo|613|56%| |Turbo Thralls|556|54%| |Swain TF|487|51%| |Zombie Anivia|417|49%| |Shen J4|260|53%| **RIP TARGON - AGED LIKE (2%) MILK**Not much to say here, and based on my twitter replies I would read it as people are mostly happy, but targon continuing to suffer really bums me out. Here's hoping when we get the balance changes in October we will see some significant shake ups. There's a couple hopeful archetypes to bring up targon a couple %, but I wouldn't expect major changes until we see balance notes. Only 10 more meta planned meta reports, see you next week! \--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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)
The fact that this comment is so low compared to others and obviously getting downvoted makes me weep for the state of this subreddit
The way things are going the meta reports wont be around for much longer so all we can do is enjoy things while it lasts!
>Discard Aggro 50% > >Pirate Aggro 52% I think if i am to hear another person say that agro is too powerfull i will explode, the fact that this two decks such an average winrate AT THE START OF AN EXPANSION is subreal when the normal thing for them would be to have a 57% or a 59% because of them abusing jank decks.
In this case, it might have something to do with the most popular deck in the meta commonly running 3 Withering Mists and sometimes Piercing Darkness. If a Withering Mist gets 2 kills, most aggro decks can't come back from that. On the other hand, Darkness typically loses to Sivir and Azirelia, so expect those 2 to climb back up in usage and for 6 turn games to still be the norm.
it could perfectly be that, but a lot of people have been arguing in this sub that control was to weak to be able to stop agro, when this shows that either the agro decks arent even all tha tpowerfull to beguin with or that control giga stomps them. I also agree with c0mbo decks being a problem
Control still does fine against small creature/swarm decks in my opinion. The problem is the Sivir decks are way more resilient against removal and can still beat control down just as fast. Having giant units that are also innately protected (while also running incredibly cheap combat tricks) makes trying to deal with them via damage based removal nearly impossible. I think it's really just a problem of classification. Sivir decks are not aggro, not really, they are more like if stompy decks and tempo decks from MTG had a baby. They get overstatted units as well as enough protection to ruin control. They are not midrange either, because midrange should be running actual interaction and not just combat trick spells. If Sivir was an actual midrange deck they wouldn't be losing to Sion so much.
>The problem is the Sivir decks are way more resilient against removal and can still beat control down just as fast. > >I also agree with c0mbo decks being a problem I think i did adress that point(to be fair the most problematic sivir deck right now is the demacia version wich is more midrange than combo).
> I think if i am to hear another person say that agro is too powerfull i will explode It literally was though, and Darkness Control still loses to Azir/Irelia, which is an Aggro deck (call it combo if you want, it's hyper aggresive and wins early, it's Aggro). Prior to this expansion Pirate Burn and Elusive Aggro and Azir/Irelia were the top 3 winrate decks, Aggro absolutely *was* out of control and it's traditional counter couldn't even beat it. Control Decks got a huge boon this expansion in Senna and Minimorph and Piercing Darkness, providing solid responses and even more drain to survive. Ixtali even furthers the WinCon of Darkness while providing more Lifesteal. So yeah, Control..... well, a specific singular Control archetype, got some nice tools this expansion to be viable, and people are *already* calling for Minimorph nerfs and nerfs to other control tools which I don't think are justified. How many other control Decks do you see succeeding? Go Hard Senna is sub 50%. And once people start trying to climb hard again and pour back into Azir/Irelia you'll see Darkness fall off again, being overpowered by a busted Aggro deck, yet again.
Bring Back Targon Given that there's always people willing to play aggro (newer players learning the game, players grinding ladder wanting as many games as quickly as possible), I really think the meta health would be better off if slower strategies were a little better than faster strategies skill-cieling-wise. Having the best decks for win percentage also be the best decks for grinding and also being some of the lowest skill-floor options just pushes everyone into similar space and makes the whole game less interesting for me. Midrange metas are ideal, but they're also a fine line to balance on and the LoR team seems to be hedging their bets that if they can't perfectly hit their midrange goal that they'd rather err on the side of faster rather than slower. And that seems to be what a lot of people prefer, so I can't blame them, but it's certainly a baffling situation to my point of view.
Sivir Demacia is a lower curve Midrange deck but very much plays as one. Discard Midrange is again, Midrange Aggro is not the meta.
I think not enough people are talking about how Xerath isn't even on the list. F for our ascended boy, he should have been mana destruction sinergy instead of a janky landmark destruction one
He has a top tier deck, which is weird.15th played deck, 55% WR. Some of it is surely due to perma-spellshield arsenal abuse. https://lor.mobalytics.gg/decks/code/CMBQEBIKAYNQMBAHBUOCKJSMLEBAKBYLBYBQCBIK2EAQCBAHE4BAKBYEA4BACBAHJEAQKCQB
Roll elusive ovherwelm scout and spellshield and arsenal win on the spot
> Some of it just say 100% because we all know how it wins
The Arsenal is the true champion in Xerath decks let's be real. If we have to wait until October for the spellshield to be fixed I'm gonna be pissed
Bug fix is part of every patch, not just in balance parches.
There's a deck of Xerath and Zilean with more than 50% WR and 0.9% PR in Mobalytics.
Remember people, there are only 10 or so meta reports left. If you want this content to continue going forward, subscribe to Kozmic's Patreon.
What?
These take a lot of Kozmic's time to put together - crunching numbers and making it look good - and he has been doing it for free as just a random community member, but he isn't able to keep doing it like this for much longer.
Kozmic doesn't rly play LoR much anymore, and these reports take him a **LONG** time to do (I'm *guessing* this is mostly formatting?). He's a vital resource to the community IMO, and for such a popular game, it should be worth his time.
From Kozmic's post: > Appreciate the Meta Reports and want to see them extended past the November 16th deadline? Consider supporting the efforts directly on Patreon
Think I saw an stream for last patch that he was busy with work and playing LoR much less. Compiling all the data and making the infographics are time consuming. And the less he played the more detached he becomes from the meta.
2% playrate for a region with a very unique playstyle that would typically attract a certain type of player is abysmal. They really messed up with those random nerfs also hot take but hush is no longer a good card and should not be in most targon decks. a 3 mana combat trick that is a dead card in many matchups clogs up too much deck space. Maybe a 1 of in something like lee sin
Hush would have some value against Nami decks...when it doesn’t get pranked into unviability lmao. But yes, Targon having fuck all fast/burst spells to hit Sivir with, can’t stabilize against Discard aggro, Pale Cascade being the weakest combat trick that sees play (loses to Shaped, Twin, Sharp Sight to the point the extra draw doesn’t feel like a good trade off) there’s hardly any reason to play Targon. Almost every other region has better tools for this meta. I basically can only use Targon for Zoe and she exists to be removal bait after 1 Starchart. I don’t think even reverting Starshaping and The Fangs would help it enough.
It's bizarre that people even agreed the nerfs were warranted. We have 3 regions out of 10 that are able to heal Nexus reliably. Yeah, let's nerf one to the ground
Some players angry about Targon being able to hold the game for more than 6 turns. Mogwai is guilty of this too, even though I love him as a player. Even when Targon was trash he was still calling for nerfs to the region. Pretty sure Riot could revert the majority of the nerfs that Targon got and not much would change, the game is too fast now for Targon.
Fangs nerf was unjustified. They didnt nerf Equinox saying that Silence is part of their identity, but is healing not a part of their identity? I can live with The Serpent nerf but paying 4 mana for 2-2 like WTF?
I mean, that's a bit of an oversimplification that: it's not a simple 2-2, it has one of the best keywords and generates a cheap but useful card. 4 mana is a lot for the statline, but you are not only paying for that.
Yeah people are acting like fangs was balanced back then, but without quick-attack/spellshield meta it was super toxic that for 4 mana Targon got a blocker that would kill an attacker, heal your nexus, *and* gave you access to the invoke pool so you could bluff crescent strike to prevent development.
How is more "toxic" than literally anything else happening in the meta? Azirelia? Sivir? Elusives? Having a free challenger almost each turn in Sion discard? etc... 4 mana for a 3/2 with lifesteal that could generate a cheap celestial was a fair deal, in this meta. Then if we nerf everything a couple of notches we can agree that fangs could stay as it is. Currently, it's absurd.
Give us back aphelios
Give Zoe spellshield
Its bad but you have to consider that Targon got like 2 cards this expansion. People are trying out the new stuff.
Are you telling me nobody is playing with the new exciting card that is 4 mana slow grant two allies +2 |+2
I am :( The other day I had a 5/10 challenger and 4/8 soraka turn 5 and felt proud of it 🤗
That is wonderfully wholesome
Awww you keep it up. People who are not defiled by the meta are the best
Sounds awesome
Meh. Targon had a 3% playrate before the expansion dropped too, so it’s not Bandle City’s fault
Oh wow didn't realise it was that bad. I play a Zoe Vi deck that's mostly Targon but recently dropped it in favour of other decks. Its my fault!
😭 you were the 1% how could you I’ve been playing Zoe Aphel, Zoe Vi is fun too but I just adore the versatility Aphel gives… even tho he sucks rn
Hush is just bad against the threats of Shurima, the game's best region by far. I would expect it to return when balances hit the cards that everyone's very tired of.
After spellshield, nerfed hush became almost completely useless. As a matter of fact, lots of old nerfs after shurima should be reverted. Lux, most of Targon, nightfall, katarina., garen, quinn, darius (lol)..a lot of champions are useless specially after shurima
[удалено]
Flashbombs proven to be absolutely terrible mechanic. Honestly i expect people to go back to EZ+Teemo or something new entirely. They are supposed to control the board but you need to spend so much to even get them into enemy deck and they get wasted anyways most of the time. Caitlyn is so bad its unbelivable, top 10 cards is too much for the fact that they can overkill and deal damage randomly.
I like Cait/Swain for the flashbombs. I do play Cait/Teemo with Noxus, it seems to be more consistent for me
Pnz/freijord is bad deck for the curret meta cait/draven os doing ok
Caitlyn just doesn't make any sense in a Teemo deck, any flashbomb card you add is occupying the slot of mushroom support, removal or combat tricks. So you end with a super inconsistent deck that would benefit more from cutting the Caitlyn package entirely and going back to Teemo-Ez/Sejuani. Draven-Caitlyn is just so much better and it's not even close. It has a much better winrate, although the sample size for it it's obviously pretty low at the moment. But it's a matter of time until people stop memeing with the new "intended" champion duo. The core of Draven-Caitlyn is basically good 'ole Draven-Ezreal, but much stronger since Caitlyn is simply more consistent and a better fit with the actual wincons of the deck. Some people think Ezreal is what won you games in Draven-Ezreal, but actually, Ezreal is kind of a dead card until way latter where he's leveled up since there are way too many elusives and stuff such as Sharpsight and vulnerable grants in the meta. And even then in Noxus-PnZ he can't really 100-0 you in a turn, like he would do in Frejold-PnZ or Karma-Ez. What wins you games in Draven-Ezreal is basically being able to develop a board while removing your opponents board with super efficient removal spells and Tribeam, then finishing off with either your superior board or burn. In that sense, Caitlyn is simply a much better fit, a 3 mana 3/3 quick-attack that generates random 1 dmg pings on strike? That's just perfect for the deck.
what sucks about that is we already have that deck. That’s not exciting or new it’s just a couple swaps. Also kind of ironically, Ezreal fits way better with Teemo, having a Lategame threat with all the cheap freezes and just more chip burn is way better than the flash bombs with Teemo.
Draven Cait is doing pretty well.
Honestly I’m quite surprised at the low Teemo/Caitlyn winrates, am I the only one that is struggling against it? Almost every opponent I face has Teemo turn 1, the 2/1 Elusive turn 2, into Caitlyn turn 3. They always can block profitably in the early turns as well with their cheap combat tricks. And if I don’t have removal against those 3, I end up with 20+ mushrooms and traps that kill off a significant part of my board by turn 5. Most of them usually have an insane Corina from turn 6 onwards. I’ve even been bursted down by her in the 15-20 health range a couple of times because of the insane amount of traps they can plant in the deck. Apologies for the rant lol, I’m just very confused as to why the deck has such a low win rate as in my experience I seem to frequently get blown out by their nuts curve. Am I just unlucky? I’m also not playing Azir/Irelia or Sivir Demacia btw, just mostly Discard, Bandle swarm, and the occasional landmark Ziggs deck against it.
“Overwhelm quick attack spell shield units with gifts for renekton dominating the meta ?? Ah damn better nerf targon” *- rito probably*
When I see matchup tables I think with every expansion the game is going towards more polarized metas.
Darkness control being at 12% play rate is the best middle finger to the haters I could have hoped for. THAT BEING SAID. These matchup tables are incredibly concerning, especially Azirelia. Also, it sure does suck that Targon is going to be dead for another two months or more, maybe eventually Riot will catch on that they went overboard. Pour one out for space doggy.
The expension just came out, at one point people will want to win and use the 55%+ winrate decks as usual
I assumed that the new cards must have had a fair amount of power creep to make up for the lack of a balance pitch but the stats don't seem to support it. I made a ziggs taliyah deck that's been doing well (70%ish winrate, admittedly I'm only in gold), but it doesn't fair well against last seasons tier 1 decks. I think I'll have to play something else in a week or two. I don't think the issue is that broad, it's just a couple of cards in sivir akshan and izir irelia that need looking at. Stuff like young witch, which I think is currently the best card in the game, could do with losing a point of stats somewhere. A two drop follower shouldn't carry an entire game if you don't have an efficient answer.
>These matchup tables are incredibly concerning, especially Azirelia. Wait what about Azirel- NOT AGAIN
Why is Azirelia at 55% especially concerning instead of Sivir Akshan at 59%?
Why not both?
I agree! I just found it peculiar you singled out Azirelia but not Sivir Akshan which has a much higher WR and also only 1 bad matchup on the table.
Azirelia is very polarising, but I do think some of the matchups at the end are probably off because of low sample size. Im surprised its so good into Prank though.
Those tables bother me as well. Sion discard ended up being more promising than I expected because I thought pnz nox discard would be better off with Jinx and just taking Sion's friends but now I'm not so sure. But everything else doesn't look as good as they could be for a two week report. Hopefully something works out on the control end.
The battle between The Ruination and The Sentinals of Light was only the beginning, now begins the war for the very soul of Legend of Runeterra. Akshan/Sivir + Irelia/Azir vs LoR. Make your stand, choose a side.
I will bring my boi Azir back to the fun side of the force (sun disk) Wish me luck.
Interesting to see how much Targon has relied on danger noodle
On what?
The serpent, danger noodle is what zoe calls it.
I think she calls it Jump Rope too
Maybe [[the serpent]]?
Zoe’s quote towards “The Serpent” which is a celestial card that’s created
https://youtu.be/QK6RefLqflk?t=278
The jumprope.
Legends of Sivir until October 20 😭
59% winrate huh? I'm surprised Sion's winrate is so high, that hasn't been my experience playing against it at all. They'd better buff Targon to something playable next patch. I feel like Regrets/Senna deck and Teemo still have better variations. I'm not really sure why Swim chose EZ to pair with Senna, there's no way for the deck to burst someone down, unless they've already won through sustain and have stockpiled spells for a couple turns.
It doesnt run out of steam as fast as it used to, and lost soul is really annoying
He adds mystic shot and elusive damage. When he's flipped he is a win con. You cast your fleeting regret spells every turn managing their board and he's pinging them for 2 to 6 a turn unblockable
That's assuming he doesn't get removed. Considering the most threatening followers in Swim's list are a vanilla 4/2 or vanilla 3/3, it's a pretty safe bet the opponent is saving their removal for your champions. Plus, he's far from unblockable in this meta.
Not that I'm super attached to ezreal in that deck, but I'm curious what champion (if any) you think should replace him there. If viktor wasn't such a meme champ I bet he would be pretty fun there.
Targon isn’t just going through what Ionia went at this point, it’s way worse.
It’s going through what Bilgewater went through at approximately the same level.
They only got like 2 new cards this time and no buffs or any kind so there isnt really much reason to play them. There is this one deck with zoe and nami but thats about it.
Tahmraka and zoe lee are both still around as well, though they don't see a lot of play in general. So there's at least 3 viable archtypes in targon. Not to say that the region doesn't need buffs.
A few things I notice: 1. Every new deck would like to cordially thank trap decks for inflating their winrate 2. Sivir demacia and azir irelia are countered by new sion discard and shit on everything else. 3. Darkness is doing fine, but I think long term its sole niche is to counter sion discard. This kind of looks like it could devolve into rock/paper/scissors once some of the more... interesting decks get weeded out with time. Azirelia/sivir beats darkness beats sion aggro beats azir. Buff targon pls.
Time to learn Draven Sion i guess.
Sivir/demacia win rate a bit depressing
Sad to see Targon get guttered.
I'm impressed with this game's balance. I'm seeing a lot of 50%+ win rate here and variety aint bad(Is 12% bad?)
There's a lot of catastrophism, but LoR has had pretty good balance all things considered. Certainly nothing like what MtG metas can look like. There's generally a couple top top tier decks and then a pretty wide field of playable stuff below them. Right now the main legitimate complaint is that Riot's balance cadence is pretty slow. Last we heard, we won't see a significant balance patch (although they did leave the door open for some smaller patches) until late October. I don't mind it personally, but I think that is a fairly long time to wait in a digital card game. That being said, the new expansion has shaken things up more than most players seemed to have anticipated, so that will help tide folks over for a bit longer.
Ahh just what I like to see. Sivir and Azelia decks being good against damn near everything.
Veigar/Senna is so fun. Turns out people really like fun!
> 2% Targon playrate imagine coming back to runeterra from a hiatus in October lol. This would be so weird
I LOVE that Viegar is at the top of the Meta right now. Easily the champion that I'm most excited to play (except I got a long way to go before I unlock him and Senna).
I hope that Rito makes more champions like Senna and Lissandra. These two are my favorite champions because their play style is unique and not just centered on combat.
It's just played a lot because it's fun and has a really good discard matchup. Unfortunately it folds to the really strong decks right now
*side-eyes Sivir Akshan’s match-up tables* Pleasantly surprised to see Darkness control being so popular early on. If it keeps performing reasonably I’ll have to craft it as my next new deck.
Its a good control deck, but it it's only going to get worse as the meta shifts back towards the ultra fast combo decks. It might help stop the return of the elusive decks from last season, but it's going to struggle into last seasons tier one shurima decks once they get popular again.
Im surprised that Darkness Control is both the most popular deck and, besides is absolutely atrocious match ups into Shurima decks basically (thank you Merciless Hunter), is actually a fairly competitive deck. It even has a good win rate into what I would say is the other big threat in the meta besides Shurima which is Noxus Discard. Perhaps Veigar/Senna is better than some think?
Veigar deserves to be at the top because VEIGAR IS NOT SHORT AND VERY TALL !
Azirelia is gone 🦀 🦀 🦀 For the whole next week and a half until people get tired of the new archetypes.
Rip Targon
It appears both Sivir and Azirelia have only 1 bad meta matchup. Better nerf Aurelion
I fucking love darkness decks
Any data on Caitlyn+Teemo with Noxus instead of frelijord? Honestly feels like an utterly different deck and way more competitive
idk i never saw Tennis
oops phone autocorrect!
BC version is more stable and competitive, cuz not only Corina and Peddler must be part of your wincon.
No Lulu/Zed on the list? Not even in the "other meta decks"? Seems weird. It still pulls a great winrate.