Just (Monika) Ionia

Am i the only one noticing the amount of people playing some mix of Ionia (mostly Ionia/Demacia and sometimes Ionia/PiltZaun)? Feels like they only play the game on my turn unless they're playing zed and garen, but even then, they mostly just play big buffs on them when i try to block. Is there any way to counter this with a Bilgewater deck? or is this just a true counter, or do i just have to play only Deep monsters?  I just wish i could make my Bilgewater plunder allegiance deck work but they only decks I'm seeing are boring hard counter play decks :/

oh i think i found a fix, i stopped playing ranked and I ended my 6 game Ionia streak. Guess Ionia is best for try-harding and ladder climbing

At this point I'm something of a broken record on this point here on OutOf.Cards, but there is a real balance issue with Shadow Isles and Ionia. Through the beta and into release, they have proven to be the two most powerful regions because they have so many good tools for managing the board. Neither region is unbeatable, but both show up far more in top tier decks than seems healthy for a metagame.

The only Bilgewater plunder deck that works is the TF/GP one... and it isn''t that good. 

Really?  Granted, I've been playing mostly unranked games, but I'm seeing almost constant Noxus+P&Z burn and Demacia Bannerman--very few control decks in sight.

Quote From OldManSanns

Really?  Granted, I've been playing mostly unranked games, but I'm seeing almost constant Noxus+P&Z burn and Demacia Bannerman--very few control decks in sight.

Same in ranked.

While Noxus+P&Z is the deck i face the most and banner in second, meisterz39 is right about Ionia/SI being a bit stronger then others. With the exception of exactly those 2, all other top 10 meta decks run either Ionia or SI.

wait 4 days for balance patch.

Quote From DoubleSummon

wait 4 days for balance patch.

Eh, maybe. As the first balance patch since the full release, it will certainly be interesting. But I'm very cautiously optimistic about the impact it will have.

Back in patch 0.9.2 they talked about Elise, Frenzied Skitterer, Glimpse Beyond, and Shadow Assassin on the watch list. Of those cards, the only one to see any changes in 0.9.4 was Frenzied Skitterer, and the change was fairly minor. Mind you, that drop in health it got was non-trivial, and I think it coincided with a significant increase in P&Z prevalence in the metagame. But if Shadow Isles and Ionia are the consistent "S Tier" regions in the game, P&Z has never been any lower than "A Tier." This change meant an increased valuation for P&Z, bringing it up to "S Tier," but it still left a lot of the weaker regions out in the cold.

Meanwhile, Shadow Assassin remains a 3-of in any deck that runs Ionia, Glimpse Beyond is a 2-of or 3-of in just about every Shadow Isles deck (with exceptions for Maokai decks, which toss so much they don't want the additional card draw), and Elise is such a powerful early game card that she warps a lot of the meta game around her. It's no coincidence that right now on Mobalytics, the S Tier decks all feature P&Z* - it's the region capable of consistently dealing with Elise (and really any early game snowball champ) before she becomes a problem.

*Technically Bannerman + Vi is one of those S-Tier decks, and they run basically no P&Z cards, but get by with strong early game curve into buffs to answer Elise.

How do you discover what the best decks are? Is it analytics in the ranked mode

Quote From BingoNoEyes

How do you discover what the best decks are? Is it analytics in the ranked mode

Today, I think the best source of this information is https://lor.mobalytics.gg/meta-tier-list

The decks there are ranked by a couple of LoR streamers, and their rankings are informed by data, but there aren't a ton of publicly available analytics today like there are for Hearthstone.

I look data from different sites and cross examinate with my ranked games.

I disagree with Corina being the TOP S tier. Its S tier for sure, but i barely see it at all at high level games.
The 4 decks i face the most, in order, are: 
1- Burn Agro;
2- Banner;
3- Ez/Karma;
4- Lee/Vi (it is a S tier deck btw, don't trust everything other people say, even me. Its at least MUCH BETTER then Deep Monsters).

Ionia is control deck centered so it has a lot of options for controlling the board which helps in literally any deck. Only way to actually balance that is to give every faction some more control friendly options. But then you run the risk of making it so the only decks that can climb are control decks.