Sanns - So we agree nocturne sucks, and needs a buff and Taric is possible fine being just okay

Wulf - Leonna is fine, but I guess I wan't her to be better than just a fine do nothing play

Like let's talk about stun synergy that's Yasao, and ravenous flock, both things that aren't part of her kit

and we agree Elise is better than Dianna and she's free

Sol is not a bad card, I just think he's redundant in a region that can pull infinite amazing expensive plays from thin air.

At the end of the day I think the rankings and streamers general unwillingness to run this region supports this opinion.

Like if we break things down, it should be possible to build great midrange, great aggro, and great control instead these Targon archetypes are just okay

phaseshifter- matron is pretty consistent with Targon because it also hits sisters. So you get an 8/8 fearsome a 4/3 ephemeral with lifelink and a 4/3 elusive non ephemeral that's a 3 body play. But you should mul it at the start.

General - Taric is well designed, he might need a point of health like Shen, even a small tweak like that would make him far better.

Additional Notes- Dianna needs to be a 2/3 or 3/2 otherwise as a 2/2 challenger she's literally just a bird and she's worse than Elise and Lucian

Nocturne is kind of just a skitterer so the best decks just run skitterer instead and use stalking shadows to grab a bunch, make his ability -2/2 and only be able to go off once a turn

Leona I suggest becomes a 4/4 leveling to a 5/5 so she is basically Yasao levels of good because she functions in a similar stun and swing fashion.

Not saying this will fix Targon but it would be an okay start.

So mobalytics has finally gotten solid meta rankings for the call of the mountain meta.

What we are seeing is that bilgewater is pretty much dominating in all it's forms

With targon only being represented in B tier.

https://lor.mobalytics.gg/meta-tier-list

The reason for this is pretty straightforward

As I had mentioned before Targon champs aren't good.

They don't present win conditions.

In fact non champ plays like jamming a spectral matron at 8 onto the scourge and buffing your whole board is better then Sol

So is just buffing everything in your board, deck, and hand by 2

Or one sided board wipes

Or double vengence

etc. etc.

The other big issue is the 3 slot, bilge water has a 3/2 that summons a 2/1 on average

Targon has a 1/2 or 2/1 that doesn't do anything

In fact grabbing a 0 mana snake is often the right play and people don't do it

Anyway I digress what do you guys think of the meta

Yeah spiders with like the new fearsome 4/1 onlooker will absolutely wreck. You can just finish the opponent with noxious burn at the end. Pretty hard to play around. It's considered high tier 2 and the deck is old and cheap as nails.

Aurelion Sol should really be seen as two cards. 

His first form he's a big dumb Karma

and his level up form where he's Nautelus gone super saiyan.

If you flip Sol you don't need inspiration, and probably don't want to be in allegiance either

You actually want ramp like 3 copies of catalyst

It's just a different deck all together

Feel free to jam more healing if you want that's meta dependent

So I had the opportunity to craft a lot of the core Targon invoke cards and figure out how the archetype is supposed to win, and the answer is easy.

cosmic inspiration buffs every one of your under-stated invoke creatures in deck and hand so they are grossly over-stated

You then get to absolutely crush the opponent

your 3/5 is a 5/7 your 1/2 is a 3/4 etc. etc.

If you are playing invoke allegience and you aren't playing inspiration you are basically just playing wrong unfortunately.

That's my hot take, let me know what you guys think

Oh I agree entirely the reason daybreak decks get run over by aggro is because they simple dont curve out efficiently and their only removal costs 6 mana.

Thats why we play good cards that aren't understated and cheap removal.

That way we actually survive long enough past turn 5.

Think of Katarina, we play her we get a dagger this can kill something small, or be combined with flock to kill something big. 

We have 1 drops that trade

We play house spider and get two bodies so aggro doesn't kill us.

We play sentry on trurn 3 for a stun and leona on 4 for a stun.

I say that puts us at 14 life probably, thats great against a pure aggro deck

https://lor.mobalytics.gg/decks/bt6sk4hla4s85hb32np0

Look at this list it runs 12 1 drops, is it because the cards are amazing? No it's  because curving out wins games when it matters.

Honestly the way people are running leonna right now is bad.

They play dude on 1, dude on 2, turn 3 invoke, turn 4 leonna, turn 5 dayman

Then they pray they dont get blown out so they can play their invoke and stun and swing.

The reality is however that these plays are easy to answer because they dont do anything.

Why play a bad card on 3 only to wait till turn 8 or 9 to play your big invoke.

When we can play a good card on 3 that activated our removal and a good card on 6.

Trust me this is far more cohesive

And pick whatever trick you prefer they serve the same function

I have to wonder, why play bad invoke cards like priestess in a stun deck.

The concepts have very little to do with one another and only leads to free losses

Instead lets use those stuns for tempo and absolutely wreck with rally's and battering ram finisher

We always win now right

Spirit's refuge is just a tech card that really stops me from getting raced down

And we are already beating Targon with our worst draws.

Last game I had 0 champs and drew all of my 1 drops and still won easily.

So it makes sense I'd only be worried about loosing against faster lists.

Zed lulu for instance with relentless pursuit is a thing I want to have a chance against

I'd rather share and care then come down hard on this.

Good old spider lux never let anyone down

mage seeker lux is good too

Finally you can run her with harsh winds and freijord and poros

If we are talking invoke cards they are all low impact plays.

This on turn 1 doesn't do anything

This on turn 2 doesn't do anything

dito here

etc. etc.

So how do you beat this, you just play 1, 2, 3 cards that aren't bad and you win

The situations are harder to deal with depending on what they are running with this.

Splashing shadow for pings, splashing bilge for pings could make it harder for this list to get out aggro'd

We've actually seen Targon on mass being evaluated lower by pro players a week after the sets release.

So I think it was possible to counter the region whether that is just play pattern knowledge or including different tech options in old lists.

That's why I tried to go through a few popular archetypes in the new set and lay out how to beat them

Dragons, lulu, and daylight in this instance

But I could literally go through every deck type of the new set and outline its weak points if you prefer

So I got 1 out of a weekly vault open last Thursday, one from the Ionia region rewards, and one for 3000 gems

You want to be thinking about you free to play grind that way.

Here's a deck I want to try, here's the best and fastest way to get there.

Trundle is next for me and it will probably take a week to get there depending on lucky upgrades

And yes 1 tiger was worth it

For another take,  a great player named control dropped the bad cards for ledros shadow isles shenanigans

https://lor.mobalytics.gg/decks/bt753r9h40qe6e4b11dg

This is what I was referring to when I said use the new stuff with the old, and you have a better list.

I'm not a ledros player but this deck looks very solid

Little meta update, there isn't a single Targon list that's in Tier 1 anymore and it's back to old lists again.

What an upset...nobody could have seen this coming

https://www.swimstrim.com/runeterra/decks-and-meta

That being said, I think there are good new lists that are out there and just not put together yet

But like I've said before Targon and the new set in general is essentially a support expansion

It helps make core set stuff better, and doesn't function well on it's own.

So we see that the new ramp Trundle lists that were ever so popular at the release of the new set dropping down a tier in as little as one week.

This is pretty straight forward because playing a 3 mana 0/4 is bad

It's always been bad, and the expansion hasn't changed that.

We have lot's of challengers that can eat this for free with lulu support, or miss fortune

and even if you get your big ice quake off, that's still just a temporary setback to a lot of aggressive lists

So forget ramp let's just play on curve

With lots of healing and tricks

Until we hit 8 mana naturally and get to go off.

Ice pillar into a swing in with tyndamere and trundle, pretty nutty

As a combo deck I'm fine with it. You need to be thinking more along the lines of pursuit of perfection, heimer, and Ezreal Karma. It takes some amount of effort to line up your combo pieces but then you go all in.

Are we not fans of thresh...some tutors like draven's biggest fan, and the dreadway don't even get run.

Better to cheat out darius on the attack in all of his 10/6 overwhelm glory.

So the first champion I grabbed as a 3 of out of the new set is Lu Lu, and I instantly set out to put her in a strong list.

She's pretty good as long as you run her balls to the wall aggro, along with cheap challengers, lots of barriers and buffs.