1. drop the bomb - insane removal hyper leveler for zigs and xerath. Like lowkey this card is terrifying I would even run in transform or the old bilgewater bandle burn, just guaranteed value into a rockbear on 4 while ensuring that the opponent doesn't build up aggro steam.
2. rite of passage - kinda fun for midrange landmark but I don't see this as a staple or anything
3. riptide sermon, definitely a jayce or lux tool where you run spawn as a value pkg good to see
They finally did it they printed a landmark that not only draws Yassao but also provides free stuns on attack, this was the missing piece you finally don't need to run Targon to tutor anymore.
2 Lord Eldred
- Thralls have shown us how powerful a tough nexus can be so I really like this card in Demacia encouraging you to run Lux decks
3. Training Pits
- Yetis, frostbite, reputation they all suffer on the attack, so now they have acess to free uninteractable rallies, is it op maybe but it's warranted.
4. Wildclaw ferocity obviously the dream is you turn a token into a alpha wildclaw at focus speed so fun card.
5. Void seeker, is this as good as ravenous flock? No it can't target champions but I'll play it for sure.
6. Void pkg, impossible to evaluate. We know pantheon and Viktor are good cards but they work independently, meanwhile Kaisa is dependent on them to go off.
7. Captive yeti yes please, the biggest problem with yetis beside the no rally thing, is not enough yetis to turbo out the 8 drop sometimes.
8. Crackling ice , frozen in fear - omg Ash support yes please yummy yum yum.
9. Scavenging camocloaker they felt bad for turbo nerfing ambush and gave it a suitable replacement goof stuff.
10. Kinkou student, insane obviously for shen.
11. Moral support honestly even lulu should play this, it's good shit.
12. Royal decree - combining cards is good in this case sharp sight and challenger, and it's never dead with thr creature summon
13. Gwen pkg impossible to evaluate.
Overall great cards for established decks that have underperformed, and thr new decks will be so weird and different from what we've seen before that unlike Anny and bard it won't just be brain dead auto builds.
Two bard decks, two aphelios decks, 3 Annie decks.
And then a healthy handful of diverse and interesting archetypes sprinkled throughout the tiers most of which have been around a while.
The real question is how do you nerf these archetypes in a healthy way:
1. Ravebloom shouldn't buff creatures, being able to house spider into housespider into draw creature into draw creature and represent something like 16 dmg is dumb.
2. Bard needs to place chimes after turn 1, having sick turn 1 bard draws is what makes these decks so high rolly, and generally also dumb.
3. Aphelios, don't nerf these decks they are literally just card piles and aphelios has undergone too many changes as is
There ya go there's my meta analysis, and overall the game is far more enjoyable and balanced then pre patch good job Riot.
Those who knows me, know that I meme a lot and I never play meta decks and only my lists.
But my God is deep just a frigging house right now.
Does really well into Aphelio, Annie, and Bard card piles which is essentially 90% of the meta or feels like it.
Just the fact that combo oriented lethals have been scaled back, such as thralls being a big predator for the deck.
Means u can just turbo deep everytime, eat their Champs, mill their decks, dominate the board etc.
I said that undergrowth being a 3 off made this deck insane, but I even run the full set of tenticle smash, and vile feast.
It makes it very hard for the opponent to start picking up tempo, and make optimal plays meanwhile every death, every card drawn, every creature played, or piece of removal used just fuels your winncon.
Give it a shot if u want to be the hard-core type.
The game has slowed down to the point that just card advantage plus playing scary stuff is more important then turbo leveling, or high synergy decks.
Option 2 just control things out.
Like for me I'll start believing Lor is heading in a good direction again when Swim starts playing and he hasn't touched the game since sundisc the last fun shakeup.
Because playing decks that do things quickly is more fun then playing decks that do things slowly. Kinda obvious when you put it that way.
Its why MTG always had things like mono blue tempo, as an alternative to mono red aggro, and 3 color control. Sometimes I don't want every match to be 15 minuite slug fest, sometimes I just want to flip and swing.
But I'm in the minority burst spells have been nerfed across the board, removal buffed, slow plays prioritized, and there's nothing that can be done about it.
Gotta say comming off two of the best patches in Lor history that had massive gameplay ramifications to the extent of creating a new viable archetype - sundisc.
The most recent patch essentially does nothing...vaporize is still the most cost effective piece of removal in the game by a factor of 3 fast speed mana.
And the majority of cards that have been changed have a net 0 impact on the game with Shen being the only successfully tweaked champ for the better.
Gotta say Riot sure is scared of making the pro players sad these days but surely spinning your wheels with 40 plus card changes with a net 0 impact is essentially a giant waste of your staffs talented time and effort.
Find your balls again Riot take risks shake up the meta you did it before do it again.
‐-----------side note--------
1. Most of the changes are unintentional buffs for meta decks. Sunlight blade nerfs hits Targon when buff dragon decks were already in decline.
2. Rock drake lost challenger so now the only decent counter to Annie got deleted, lolz
3. They successfully nerffed Thralls and Legion deserter recent cancers essentially created as a result of this horrible expansion
4. They tried buffing Azir Irelia and midrange freijord but it won't be enough.
5. There's still no reason not to run Annie card piles, she essentially gives any control deck the ability to set your opponent to 14-16 draw you a creature that 2 for ones, and increase your removal by 1 point, and gives you an overwhelm creature.
Like I've literally been saying this meta is hot streamer bate garbage since the expansion came out.
So the likelihood that I read a tweet that didn't come out yet to base that assessment is trolly at best and insane at worst.
But yes 40+ card changes to fix all the broken stuff streamers/pro players whispered in Riots ear while they were advising for this expansion sounds like the perfect remedy to me.
Having every deck with the highest play rates of 10% and lower have 53% winrates down to 50% and below.
Has never been the case for as long as I've been playing LOR and recording these statistics.
Thats what I'm referring to.
Which could only possible happen in a highly oppressive meta where nothing is "very good."
Like literally the best deck with the highest playrate is spiders and youre correct its a pre-expansion deck that had an astounding 53% winrate because everything more interesting has been grounded into the statistical dirt.
Its not that every archetype is succeeding, it's that every archetype isn't succeeding.
Therefore the only sucessful decks are non-archetypal.
Which in a game that is supposed to encourage synergistic deck building topped off by specific champions, means that the current meta is antithetical to its core design principals.
There isn't a single list being played right now above 53% because "decks" are bad right now.
Card piles are great, lists that don't try to do anything or have any sort of win con are excelling.
Now why is this problematic that every single deck that tries to do anything only wins 53% or less in a card game about synergies and deck building?
Probably don't have to explain it to you but nobody will want to brew anymore or play specific archetypes or role play as specific Champs.
Its sad really that we went from patches that had the highest deck diversity in LOR with healthy winrates across the board
To everything essentially being bad because they cancel each other out, or are too wincon specific to be flexible enough to win in a meta where trying to win a specific way is bad.
Would of said I told you so but these numbers by play rate quantifiable prove I was right.
Just going to list a number of dead archetypes that could return and signal a possitive direction for the game
1. Fiora Shen - Archetypal midrange pkg that plays for value and challenges and board interaction that no longer has a place in the game.
2. Swain TF - A healthy and balanced control deck that only goes off on turn 8 and no longer has a place in the meta.
3. YOI - Love it or hate it Tristana is a card that needs to exist in some form and be playable.
4. Viktor Riven - The buffs to Viktor were an amazing possitive development that got killed this expansion
5. Darkness - One for one spell and creature trading control that no longer has a place in this meta (very saj)
6. Vlad Braum - Landmark creep is a thing and a 3 mana landmark granting your units tough and a minor stat buff just ain't it anymore
7. Tahm Kench Soraka - these Champs are so dead they are zombified but it was a unique deck while it lasted.
8. Banerman/Elites - Mono anything just isn't doing well right now unfortunately, and I do crave the simpler times when allegiance was a valid archetype.
9. Kenin - What an awesome card but unfortunately Ionia is massively under represented right now along with bandle city
10. Zigs Landmark - what a fun card with a fun play pattern, and a fun level up, and fun unique deck building
11. Nami Fizz - Another example of a very high synergy and interesting play pattern deck just dead in the water.
12. Shivana Fury - pretty interesting short lived archetype where you just make her as big as possible with double Fury triggers till she takes off to the sky
13. Day break - Another high synergy midrange deck that just doesn't cut it anymore because it's too "fair" and "balanced"
14. Kindred control - The idea of running a champ that has conditional removal as opposed to disintegrates guaranteed removal is a joke and thats the problem
15. Renekton Overwhelm - the sands will be stained with their blood, need I say more?
16. Gangplank Sejunai - yeah midrange plunder overstayed it's welcome but it was a unique deck that prioritized leveled Champs and it gets the win in my book
17 . Discard aggro - I don't care if it's Jinx, Draven, or Sion or Rumble it's a sad day when the 30 discard cards that exist can't be played
18. Nasus Slay - can you imagine going for atrocity lethals in a world where vaporize exists? Yeah me neither.
19. Asol Ramp - ramp decks that don't aim to put 20 stats in board with feel the rush are essentially useless, so why would you ever try to level Asol?
20. TF Cassino - there is an entire collection of cards dedicated to leveling TF and playing slot bot or riptide junior that can not be played in this meta.
There we go 20 decks that are awesome, high synergy, and interesting in LOR
That will never see play again because they are too fair and balanced.
So when I say that the current meta is not great, I'm referring to the fact that the card pool for brewing is limited to about 5% right now and that's the lowest it's ever been.
Patches that balance every aspect of the entire champion and deck archetype roster are good
We got 2 of those.
Expansions that result in the meta boiling down to 3 Annie decks, 3 Bard decks, 3 Illoi decks and Viego card piles are bad.
Meanwhile established archetypes drop 3-5% winrate which are largely more interesting
So pretty sure this is as calculated and accurate as a meta oppinion can get.
Like the fact that Illoi has Tahm Kench stats while being an Elise is dumb she puts up 56% winrates in every deck.
Bard and Annie are problematic for different reasons for restricting deck building. One guarantees you outscale your opponent and the other has guaranteed lethal in certain situations.
None of this is good and healthy for the game, and I wouldn't be surprised to see players taking a solid break till this stuff gets tweaked.
yeah 'or' as you gotta pick one.
Also just realized rite is a Zillian card.
rather then draw 2 bombs and this never happens if you've played zil, you now play one and have the guaranteed tutor.
That's pretty darn good.
Other new editions
1. drop the bomb - insane removal hyper leveler for zigs and xerath. Like lowkey this card is terrifying I would even run in transform or the old bilgewater bandle burn, just guaranteed value into a rockbear on 4 while ensuring that the opponent doesn't build up aggro steam.
2. rite of passage - kinda fun for midrange landmark but I don't see this as a staple or anything
3. riptide sermon, definitely a jayce or lux tool where you run spawn as a value pkg good to see
1. Yassao boat
They finally did it they printed a landmark that not only draws Yassao but also provides free stuns on attack, this was the missing piece you finally don't need to run Targon to tutor anymore.
2 Lord Eldred
- Thralls have shown us how powerful a tough nexus can be so I really like this card in Demacia encouraging you to run Lux decks
3. Training Pits
- Yetis, frostbite, reputation they all suffer on the attack, so now they have acess to free uninteractable rallies, is it op maybe but it's warranted.
4. Wildclaw ferocity obviously the dream is you turn a token into a alpha wildclaw at focus speed so fun card.
5. Void seeker, is this as good as ravenous flock? No it can't target champions but I'll play it for sure.
6. Void pkg, impossible to evaluate. We know pantheon and Viktor are good cards but they work independently, meanwhile Kaisa is dependent on them to go off.
7. Captive yeti yes please, the biggest problem with yetis beside the no rally thing, is not enough yetis to turbo out the 8 drop sometimes.
8. Crackling ice , frozen in fear - omg Ash support yes please yummy yum yum.
9. Scavenging camocloaker they felt bad for turbo nerfing ambush and gave it a suitable replacement goof stuff.
10. Kinkou student, insane obviously for shen.
11. Moral support honestly even lulu should play this, it's good shit.
12. Royal decree - combining cards is good in this case sharp sight and challenger, and it's never dead with thr creature summon
13. Gwen pkg impossible to evaluate.
Overall great cards for established decks that have underperformed, and thr new decks will be so weird and different from what we've seen before that unlike Anny and bard it won't just be brain dead auto builds.
Yeah by all means nerf the absolute stuffing out of Annie.
She's literally one of the most problematic things that lead me to hate this expansion.
Make her a 1/2 that levels to a 2/3 that does 1 dmg on attack. 1 mana card that is unblockable until turn 4 if they have the token is dumb.
But hey this is why I was saying this was a streamer expansion that will take two rounds of patches to become functional.
Two bard decks, two aphelios decks, 3 Annie decks.
And then a healthy handful of diverse and interesting archetypes sprinkled throughout the tiers most of which have been around a while.
The real question is how do you nerf these archetypes in a healthy way:
1. Ravebloom shouldn't buff creatures, being able to house spider into housespider into draw creature into draw creature and represent something like 16 dmg is dumb.
2. Bard needs to place chimes after turn 1, having sick turn 1 bard draws is what makes these decks so high rolly, and generally also dumb.
3. Aphelios, don't nerf these decks they are literally just card piles and aphelios has undergone too many changes as is
There ya go there's my meta analysis, and overall the game is far more enjoyable and balanced then pre patch good job Riot.
Those who knows me, know that I meme a lot and I never play meta decks and only my lists.
But my God is deep just a frigging house right now.
Does really well into Aphelio, Annie, and Bard card piles which is essentially 90% of the meta or feels like it.
Just the fact that combo oriented lethals have been scaled back, such as thralls being a big predator for the deck.
Means u can just turbo deep everytime, eat their Champs, mill their decks, dominate the board etc.
I said that undergrowth being a 3 off made this deck insane, but I even run the full set of tenticle smash, and vile feast.
It makes it very hard for the opponent to start picking up tempo, and make optimal plays meanwhile every death, every card drawn, every creature played, or piece of removal used just fuels your winncon.
Give it a shot if u want to be the hard-core type.
Favorite nerf of all and it's a sneaky one.
Scout cant' land on Viktor, Pantheon, or Aresnal anymore.
So it guarantees two turn lethal with these cards even if u high roll elusive spell shield.
Jesus it's like Christmas
I'm sorry for everything I said bad about u Riot over this expansion
Let this brewers meta roll on.
I stand by my argument that the buffs are exceptionally low impact.
But the nerfs that occurred essentially made the game playable again.
1. Disintegrate is now a 2 of
2. Barrier bro is lower impact.
3. Challenger rock bird is a formidable card
4. Buff drakes can't get overwhelm
5. Legion whatever was a dumb card
This means that while burst tricks still suck, you literally run 0 right now, unless you really need them for synergy
You can build decks fairly easily that follow the play scary things, removal, card advantage template and not get punished.
Or play aggro, or high synergy, or control, or midrange or whatever you want.
Brewing is viable again, vanilla stuff playable, and overall you can have fun.
Thank God.
Here's 3 decks for you to try that perform well:
Well there's only 4 champ changes.
Heckarim, Irelia, Kalista, shen
None of the vanilla card changes are impactful.
Like out of the bunch heckarim is the scariest.
The game has slowed down to the point that just card advantage plus playing scary stuff is more important then turbo leveling, or high synergy decks.
Option 2 just control things out.
Like for me I'll start believing Lor is heading in a good direction again when Swim starts playing and he hasn't touched the game since sundisc the last fun shakeup.
Because playing decks that do things quickly is more fun then playing decks that do things slowly. Kinda obvious when you put it that way.
Its why MTG always had things like mono blue tempo, as an alternative to mono red aggro, and 3 color control. Sometimes I don't want every match to be 15 minuite slug fest, sometimes I just want to flip and swing.
But I'm in the minority burst spells have been nerfed across the board, removal buffed, slow plays prioritized, and there's nothing that can be done about it.
Gotta say comming off two of the best patches in Lor history that had massive gameplay ramifications to the extent of creating a new viable archetype - sundisc.
The most recent patch essentially does nothing...vaporize is still the most cost effective piece of removal in the game by a factor of 3 fast speed mana.
And the majority of cards that have been changed have a net 0 impact on the game with Shen being the only successfully tweaked champ for the better.
Gotta say Riot sure is scared of making the pro players sad these days but surely spinning your wheels with 40 plus card changes with a net 0 impact is essentially a giant waste of your staffs talented time and effort.
Find your balls again Riot take risks shake up the meta you did it before do it again.
‐-----------side note--------
1. Most of the changes are unintentional buffs for meta decks. Sunlight blade nerfs hits Targon when buff dragon decks were already in decline.
2. Rock drake lost challenger so now the only decent counter to Annie got deleted, lolz
3. They successfully nerffed Thralls and Legion deserter recent cancers essentially created as a result of this horrible expansion
4. They tried buffing Azir Irelia and midrange freijord but it won't be enough.
5. There's still no reason not to run Annie card piles, she essentially gives any control deck the ability to set your opponent to 14-16 draw you a creature that 2 for ones, and increase your removal by 1 point, and gives you an overwhelm creature.
Talk about missing the point Riot
Actually I didn't know that.
But thanks for confirming my correctness.
What a pal :)
Like I've literally been saying this meta is hot streamer bate garbage since the expansion came out.
So the likelihood that I read a tweet that didn't come out yet to base that assessment is trolly at best and insane at worst.
But yes 40+ card changes to fix all the broken stuff streamers/pro players whispered in Riots ear while they were advising for this expansion sounds like the perfect remedy to me.
Very happy.
Ultimately, we will see what Riot does when they get off their summer hiatus.
If we see a round of balance patches similar to the ones we got pre-expansion we'll know I was right.
If we see no radical changes to the meta for the next 6 months I'll be wrong and that's just how this game is now.
No skin off my nose either way.
Also here's sunny mirroring my sentiments that this meta is oppressive:
https://youtu.be/Eq3CS7q98Vs
Having every deck with the highest play rates of 10% and lower have 53% winrates down to 50% and below.
Has never been the case for as long as I've been playing LOR and recording these statistics.
Thats what I'm referring to.
Which could only possible happen in a highly oppressive meta where nothing is "very good."
Like literally the best deck with the highest playrate is spiders and youre correct its a pre-expansion deck that had an astounding 53% winrate because everything more interesting has been grounded into the statistical dirt.
You dont see a problem with that?
Its not that every archetype is succeeding, it's that every archetype isn't succeeding.
Therefore the only sucessful decks are non-archetypal.
Which in a game that is supposed to encourage synergistic deck building topped off by specific champions, means that the current meta is antithetical to its core design principals.
Aka...that's bad.
https://app.mobalytics.gg/lor/stats/regions
Final meta stats for the expansion by play rate.
There isn't a single list being played right now above 53% because "decks" are bad right now.
Card piles are great, lists that don't try to do anything or have any sort of win con are excelling.
Now why is this problematic that every single deck that tries to do anything only wins 53% or less in a card game about synergies and deck building?
Probably don't have to explain it to you but nobody will want to brew anymore or play specific archetypes or role play as specific Champs.
Its sad really that we went from patches that had the highest deck diversity in LOR with healthy winrates across the board
To everything essentially being bad because they cancel each other out, or are too wincon specific to be flexible enough to win in a meta where trying to win a specific way is bad.
Would of said I told you so but these numbers by play rate quantifiable prove I was right.
Typically when I see a single champ occupying 3 different decks diversity comes into question.
Viego is over represented
Bard is over represented
Annie is over represented
Illoi is over represented
What I'm not seeing is every other champ actually leveling on play in decks designed to do so.
Because leveling doesn't matter in a meta with such over performing control staples, and just the ability to put insane numbers on board.
Why would you ever want to invest 30 cards into leveling 1 card ever again.
Too bad that's kind of the only reason to play this game over any other ccg.
Just going to list a number of dead archetypes that could return and signal a possitive direction for the game
1. Fiora Shen - Archetypal midrange pkg that plays for value and challenges and board interaction that no longer has a place in the game.
2. Swain TF - A healthy and balanced control deck that only goes off on turn 8 and no longer has a place in the meta.
3. YOI - Love it or hate it Tristana is a card that needs to exist in some form and be playable.
4. Viktor Riven - The buffs to Viktor were an amazing possitive development that got killed this expansion
5. Darkness - One for one spell and creature trading control that no longer has a place in this meta (very saj)
6. Vlad Braum - Landmark creep is a thing and a 3 mana landmark granting your units tough and a minor stat buff just ain't it anymore
7. Tahm Kench Soraka - these Champs are so dead they are zombified but it was a unique deck while it lasted.
8. Banerman/Elites - Mono anything just isn't doing well right now unfortunately, and I do crave the simpler times when allegiance was a valid archetype.
9. Kenin - What an awesome card but unfortunately Ionia is massively under represented right now along with bandle city
10. Zigs Landmark - what a fun card with a fun play pattern, and a fun level up, and fun unique deck building
11. Nami Fizz - Another example of a very high synergy and interesting play pattern deck just dead in the water.
12. Shivana Fury - pretty interesting short lived archetype where you just make her as big as possible with double Fury triggers till she takes off to the sky
13. Day break - Another high synergy midrange deck that just doesn't cut it anymore because it's too "fair" and "balanced"
14. Kindred control - The idea of running a champ that has conditional removal as opposed to disintegrates guaranteed removal is a joke and thats the problem
15. Renekton Overwhelm - the sands will be stained with their blood, need I say more?
16. Gangplank Sejunai - yeah midrange plunder overstayed it's welcome but it was a unique deck that prioritized leveled Champs and it gets the win in my book
17 . Discard aggro - I don't care if it's Jinx, Draven, or Sion or Rumble it's a sad day when the 30 discard cards that exist can't be played
18. Nasus Slay - can you imagine going for atrocity lethals in a world where vaporize exists? Yeah me neither.
19. Asol Ramp - ramp decks that don't aim to put 20 stats in board with feel the rush are essentially useless, so why would you ever try to level Asol?
20. TF Cassino - there is an entire collection of cards dedicated to leveling TF and playing slot bot or riptide junior that can not be played in this meta.
There we go 20 decks that are awesome, high synergy, and interesting in LOR
That will never see play again because they are too fair and balanced.
So when I say that the current meta is not great, I'm referring to the fact that the card pool for brewing is limited to about 5% right now and that's the lowest it's ever been.
I'm very rational.
Patches that balance every aspect of the entire champion and deck archetype roster are good
We got 2 of those.
Expansions that result in the meta boiling down to 3 Annie decks, 3 Bard decks, 3 Illoi decks and Viego card piles are bad.
Meanwhile established archetypes drop 3-5% winrate which are largely more interesting
So pretty sure this is as calculated and accurate as a meta oppinion can get.
Like the fact that Illoi has Tahm Kench stats while being an Elise is dumb she puts up 56% winrates in every deck.
Bard and Annie are problematic for different reasons for restricting deck building. One guarantees you outscale your opponent and the other has guaranteed lethal in certain situations.
None of this is good and healthy for the game, and I wouldn't be surprised to see players taking a solid break till this stuff gets tweaked.
Dude these numbers are way down.
I dont care how much copium you want to huff.
Riot knows too they are looking at things like concede rates.
Time spent in game
Winrates
Deck diversity
Pre-expansion post expansion.
They've announced they are re-focusing on pvp because this expansion didn't hit right
Like I really dont need to argue I just need to wait 30 days till they start doing what they were doing before.
Properly rebalancing Champs, cards, and deck archetypes.
Then we won't have to look at 3 Illoi decks and call it diversity.
Or viego piles, or targons Peak, or just general a-synergistic crap that nobody wants seeing play over valid champ archetypes with unique decks.
https://masteringruneterra.com/meta-tier-list/
Opting for the pro player stats this time to see if the declining winrate phenomenon and weird deck optimizations were holding true.
Here we see:
Aggro Annie sub 50%
Control Annie 51%
Thralls 53%
Bard Zed 50%
Deep 51%
Elise, Katarina, Viego - who cares
Lurk 50%
Ezreal, Catlyn 52%
Pantheon 53
And a bunch of new blah lists nobody cares about.
My point is when Majin Bae's website is saying things are sweaty butt, things are sweaty butt
All this off the recent announcement that Riot knows they need to refocus on pvp, and it's no surprise things are a mess.