Legends of Runeterra

Just hit diamond with an old staple the deck list is pretty much the same as I always run the archetype.

Heavy on the pings, heavy on the turbo leveling, and then with a full set of tentacle draw to A devalue open attacks, B provide card advantage, and C go deep faster.

I believe landmark is a staple for the archetype not running it is usually wrong, because again you can guarantee flips to devalue open attacks, or guarantee deep at end of turn, or just play something that is proactive but cant be removed by opponent.

Overall meta seems fine, I still don't love the dice roll decks that are fairly prevalent but a good player will always win 70% more then he losses at low plat ranks so it doesn't really matter you'll climb easily.

So I have thoughts about the latest tier list and let's go through the decks one by one.

1. Pirates - like yeah great aggro deck but also has essentially been the same since rising tides give or take a few new tools. If you lose to this its your fault.

2. Timeliness - also a bad deck, but it can highroll so hard that you don't even get to play the game with your good deck and for that reason hits number 1 on my nerf list (equipment timeliness interaction)

3. Ezreal Kenin - lol what? Like don't get me wrong infinite card advantage Ionia is always a valid deck because it is only 1 deck but that being said I find the champ pkg here lacking as a win condition and more often you just let them die so you can draw more cards.

4. Kindred Nasus - new equipment sac cards are scary who doesn't want infinite 7/7's in a undying deck, and for one mana? Probably not nerfable unless you make the 7/7 cost 8 or something. 

5. Kaisa - yeah honestly I like her she's easy to beat and is champ focused midrange eith only 1 decent win condition. Very balanced since her spell got put to slow speed.

A tier is mostly more infinite card advantage shenanigans,  we have a Gwen deck which is cool, Evelyn Viego still doing their thing, Annie, Darkness, Scouts.

All good stuff, so basically I only see 1 nerf that's needed (time lines equipment) because it's less of a deck and more I get to roll 2 dice each turn and hope they combine into something broken.

Oh also deep, azir irelia, Lurk, with ekko and Kaine being solid B tier options.

One thing you can say about awakening is that it successfully shook up the play patterns and deck building requirements to such an extent I basically didn't know how to play or recognize LOR anymore.

And while I stand by the statement that some of the new additions are pretty strong as a dedicated control player, as in play and respond not just jam put card advantage till you win.

I didnt know what to do and I felt the new set was to blame, so let me share my findings on what works great if you don't want to play Ionia or Shurima, cuz I really don't:

1. 3 minimorphs feel pretty much required, Lee Sin, machine gun Aussie, Viego, all backed by 4 mana denys, so guess what burst removal can't be denied so run 3.

2. 1 mana equipment removal, I feel like silence and surpess and quietus are low key necessary as a 3 of no mater what.

3. Now you get to build the rest of your deck including pings, vengences/concerted strikes, draw, cycling creatures etc.

4. Synergy and turbo level pkg

5. Play slow play smart, generally speaking meta decks are just insane at tempo and infinite value, and turboing and just all sorts of crazy **** but once you recognize the new patters you're good here's a few examples

- snap kill monkey!

- only remove equipment that is providing additional value to the opponent appropriately judging this action takes a lot of games

- gently devalue open attack spam, this is huge for how I play control where you incentive a linear play style in the opponent that luls them into a false security that they are winning 3 dmg here or there, meanwhile they are essentially doing nothing while you for example burst level Lux or double darkness, or set up overwhelm swings etc.

- finally big take away in a 6 deny meta don't play ramp, don't play deep, these were strong picks last meta I really would not recommend right now, but lurk seems good.

So yeah back to big winstreaks in Plat one week after the expansion, my brews are doing well, but a lot of my old decks are unplayable now Awakening was a huge shift but overall a fun one, so good job Riot maybe hahaha.

Honestly, equipment cards need to go on the stack period full stop. 

It essentially 100% fixes the control into equipment matchup which is currently impossible.

Fisher girl goes down on 2, her equipment goes on the stack, you vile feast, her equipment now goes into hand.

On curve creature, equivalent on curve answer.

You play treasure of the sands on akshan, you respond with mystic he is not equipped yet so 1 mana burst only provides 1 life, so you can potentially ping again.

This is 100% the most likely fix for the mechanic to increase interactivity for re-active players without demanding everyone play Ionia.

So yes stackable equipment at slow speed but not counterable, this is how it should have been designed at the onset in a game about passing turn priority.

Its like if Undirs buffs literally just didn't show up on the stack, and were the equivalent of burst, he'd be the best champion in the game 

So Riot beyond the normal range of balance fixes this patch demands please make equipment intractable by treating it like a slow speed uncounterable spell.

https://youtu.be/QcoRqLCSXhA

Says it in the first sentence, new Champs bad (aka) the fun and central mechanic of your game.

New cards however are so strong they now cary entire archetypes, aka broken.

Majin Bae may not be as vocal as me about why this is problematic but even a blind man can see the light, even if he doesn't recognize where it comming from.

Aka why this is ******* awful for the game.

So this should really surprise no one but the highest winrate card post expansion isn't a champion like bard or Annie.

Its a 1 mana follower.

Simon wind is a 2 mana cycle on paper this balanced.

Zoe cycles at 2 mana right? 

Wrong she cycles at 4 because dog costs 2

So monkey is a better Zoe.

This is really bad, like really really bad.

Like we've seen cards like shadow assassin break the format and she costs 3 freaking mana.

Because when card advantage costs too little tempo, like say 1 mana, then 2 mana at burst over and over you essentially negate tempo loss with Dragonling and can just bounce and stun everything else.

Idk it's a head scratcher it's like if the 1 mana cycle in bilgewater could go infinite by design.

Like its not a question of if nerfed to 2 mana plus 2 mana to put under par with Zoe (buffed to a 2/1 to compensate) but when.

But like I just dont get it Riot like ask any card game player hey should we print an Infinite cycle at 1 mana at the equivalent of a common card, you would say plz God God plz God no.

You would say 2 mana plus 2 mana with the spell proc is fair plz maths oh God I'm having an aneurysm. So to sum up Riot less stupids more card counting plz go ask a blackjack player.

So similar to world waker when it first came out ladder is basically a complete mess.

Not sure if internal testing basically doesn't exist at Riot anymore.

But its getting a little tiring having to wait 3 months for a new set to get balanced just so I can climb to diamond.

Things like concurrent timelines, the infinite amount of Ionia running around, equipment decks everywhere, basically makes the game unplayable.

So here we go wake me up for the next major game fixing patch and I'll see you guys in diamond.

Zzzzzzz

Why all the feels bad to play aggainst cards are from this region?

Forge is very good, again scaling without a great number of adequate answers is scary.

And much like attach you get your buffed piece of equipment back.

I feel bad for darkness you had 1 month again in the spotlight buddy oh well.

Grandma bunny was my first craft because memes, and truthfully her kit is kinda bad but she's kinda good. So feels like a runeterra champ minus the inflexible deck building restriction.

My first deck is a simple yordal tribal build with her and it seems good but not broken compared to how many forge and equipment decks well see day 1 and in the meta overall.

Typically in these new sets I go card by card and try to weigh in on what's competitive for existing archetypes.

But the genius of Awakening is now every region gets to play like Hearthstone warrior if it wants to, or Flesh and Blood a more recent card game released that seems to cough cough provide a little inspiration.

Honestly all 3 new Champs Master Ip, Forge Master, and Weapon Master all look exceptionally viable.

So let's weigh in on portal girl, I think she is strong if you have enough viable ways to slow down the game. So it'll be up to you if you want Freijord, Shadow or Ionia.

5 drop scythe dude looks like the worst of the bunch only because we are playing a game where 5 drops come down as 6/6's with quick attack, and endless keywords that machine gun your board. He looks like thresh which is hard to play these days.

Overall Awakening is positioned to hard shuffle the tier list because non of the released cards belong in existing archetypes and thats a good thing we don't want another bard situation.

So if anyone knows me I'm basically a 100% meme player.

My own lists all the time, refusing to play anything established or popular, or even listed on a deck building website.

But typically I get hard capped at diamond. Going from long winstreaks to getting countered by established archetypes by players willing to rotate through darkness, ramp, aggro, kaisa etc as their means of playing the game.

So my question is has anyone made it to masters with a deck or decks that aren't listed on established sites like mobalytics or mastering runeterra?

ADD ME: 3XN BREACHER #3XN
Testing my line up for Sunnys and the 30k celeb.

https://app.mobalytics.gg/lor/sets/awakening

Ton of reveals here so let's talk about them.

1. Mecha Pulvarizer - Hey it's more discard synergy in Bandle that immediately makes this card good. Would really like to see the archetype have more flexibility outside of P and Z and Noxious

2. Lode stone - hey it's a LuLu turbo leveler, counting most likely as two support triggers when placed on a support unit, or at the very least you target non supporter for additional triggers.

3. Hard to level big pay off for a 3 mana champ - encourages all in on protection and burst similar to fiora, but with better stats it leads me to believe Yi will be a more competitive wincon for that style of deck

4. Yi pkg hard to evaluate flow without seeing in action, but my assumption is strong, and down right scary.

5. Catalyst 1.0 so you essentially get 4 mana follower that buffs spell dmg but it can go on any body, and costs 1 less, this is by definition higher risk due to the 2 for 1 but is more competitive at cost and flexible.

6. loaded vessle, it's a monkeys card, where each monkey represents a free instance of dmg, but again that deck mostly just wants to kill you not draw so gonna go on a limb and say bad like loaded dice.

7. hexbliterator extra flexibility for Jayce allowing him not to 100% depend on shadow isles to be competitive and might allow him to join lux again.

8. Silence and surpress is better then purify across the board and is nice tech.

9. Kayne - very cool design and look very playable

Over all thoughts they should of called this expansion unload the armory or something because it will be 90% focused around the equipment archetype. More then ever there will be an incentive to protect your followers and champs and slap powerful weapons on them, fiora with a treasure of the sands just casually giver her 4/4 and watch your opponent cry.

Like there will be broken stuff, hair will go gray, but if it shakes the open attack every round I have the token of aggro, vs the pass every round of control playstyle of LOR I think that a good thing.

So sitting around tier 1 in Plat right now with minimal time and effort.

So we can talk a little bit about the decks that can help you climb in this new post patch meta, and more generally "what's good" without resorting to a mastering runeterra approach.

Keep in mind these aren't the "optimal" versions of these decks these are brews that I use to climb and are very different from how others play the game...typically open attack spam.

Deep was the underdog pre patch now it's just a dog, very flexible in terms of tech mine is anti aggro but you can go vengence and strike and that will give you the advantage in the value mirror.

While Pantheon is kinda dead right now, leaning into midrange with the newly buffed burst speed battle bonds makes fated cards very scary, and post sunlight blade nerf you go crystal Ibex to grant overwhelm.

Ramps very strong and similarly can be built a handful of ways, class shadow ramp, targon ramp, and my preference for fun demacia ramp. Has the added benefit of the 8 drop putting you put of range of burn and single combat is always a card.

-------------meta-----------

So thats my jank that works for me as a meme star, let's talk about whats actually good.

1. Pirate aggro is doing better then Annie Jhin in the numbers right now for the simple reason it goes wide better, so if you don't have a way to deal with go wide strategies right now you will get blown up.

2. Scissors pkg is one of the best grind you down value decks right now. Going less all in on the girl and her level up attack and more so just hey every attack phase I represent 10 dmg with garbage while you waste resources. I HATE it so it must be good.

3. Kaisa - similarly doesn't really care about the champ as the wincon anymore and is more interested in jamming the 6/6 overwhelm plus going wide plus rallies and only then once you have delt with every other card in their hand do they play Kaisa for those final tics of life. Ironically this play style is harder to deal with then the old turbo Kaisa.

Conclusion: There's a pretty healthy balance between aggro, control, Combo and midrange right now but some of the more popular play patterns do drag you down on the fun scale.

Go wide, open attack, demand answer, play champ, demand answer, grind out the value game, and then and only then win or lose.

Probably with the new expansion and the new 6 champions we might see a mix up in play patterns which should be fun. But the balance right now like I said is very strong.

Honestly, I almost feel bad for all the meta players that got taken out behind the tool shed and shot.

Well not that bad, but allllll the broken stuff is gone, time to find your new broken.

Deep is still hela strong, ramp is very strong, and I'll let you guys know what else is great to climb with day one.

Also I have a full time job and I only play seriously during strong metas.

So don't be like ooooh end of season climb wooow.

I once said that my two favorite patches in Lor history was 1 the massive champ re-work (Katarina still viable to this day) and sundisc rework (still viable too)

But this patch beats both of them.

It hit Kaisa hard the number 1 offender of this expansion, but it hit Bard, Annie and Illoi my 3 picks for over powered Champs from the streamer expansion.

But thats not all it basically hit every other potentially problematic archetype too, thralls, aphelios P and Z, Xerath (hourglass spam) and buffed Ash and Anivia if that's your thing.

Beyond that we see some nice tweaks to followers and spells for under represented archetypes.

Like dont get me wrong I thought fixing thr dmg done by the last two expansions was in possible but they got it in 1 goof stuff guys, even aggro 4/4 got hit and like I didn't even think about that.

What a good time to be a Lor player, because outside of these 4 Champs the game was perfectly balanced and diverse 

Goodbye, Annie, Bard, Illoi, and Kaisa nobody is going to miss you.

Here's the list

1. Bard chimes proc at end of round instead of on draw so you can't play your buffed units till next turn so its not immediate tempo value in what's supposed to be a slow deck.

2. Kaisa evolve plus 1 or 2 keywords, she isn't Evelyn or Gnar she's not designed to level on curve given her current power rating.

We could stop the list there but now we can get into personal preference territory.

1. I'm still of the oppinion that Annie TF is one of the best decks in the game and will explode in winrate once these two changes land ^

2. Illoi similarly might be a bit too consistent, and may become the new Bard after changes.

But thats it from me while there are two champion cards that are busted bonkers broken, and two other champions introduced that are a little over the power curve I can't say that the game is fundamentally unbalanced overall it's pretty good.

its no secret that Kaisa and Bard are essentially tied for both best champions

So which do you hate the most, big board and high tempo followers, or small followers and big tempo champion?

Honestly i still think this is the most fun you can have in LoR right now, beyond these two big perpetrators ^ the win rates are exceptionally balanced

And I can run my brews and hit 6 wins in row with decks like Lurk, Deep, and Ramp.

But these matchups remain problematic and you just have to accept that sometimes when you que in you will get blown up.

If you accept that you're at a disadvantage being off meta you'll have a great time

and it's better then last season where I just saw the same 3 decks over and over again, here we have a great deal of diversity outside of Bard.

Mogwai already mentioned this in his last video but sharpsight isn't a keyword granter and shouldn't level Kaisa at burst speed.

90% of the broken evolve mechanic can be tracked to this interaction.

So Evelyn is an amazing card with an amazing champ spell. Like legit in the right deck your opponent has no chance, really digging shen right now because devluating blocks really help you get the maximum value from Evelyn.

But with all that said there are literally only 3 cards worth playing in her kit. Domination and vora and Evelyn herslef, playing more husks does nothing when all you need to do is curve into her.

And everything else is too understated to be playable. Sulfur is a 1/3 that doesn't cycle gross, hate spike is so much worse then vile feast or mystic shot it's not even funny, allure is a meme, solitude and Steme don't really help Evelyn do what she's trying to do.

So in summary amazing champ my favorite from the new set, but just a frickin awful kit, that needs stat buffs on her followers or post release support.