Legends of Runeterra

So streamers are starting to complain about the meta after the new set.

While generally on board with straight forward powerhouse decks like Annie and Bard they are drawing the line at the 3 new tempo oriented Champs introduced with the new set.

Now I understand the issue, if you're a streamer whose credibility depends on getting to masters you're gonna hate teching between control Annie, big follower Bard, and big Champs from the new set.

Infact the meta in un-techable there is no best climbing option, and honestly I'm kinda fine with it. 

We've talked in detail about how nobody wanted to nerf Annie and Bard so instead the devs just released a bunch of counters.

So its going to feel like queuing into a whirlwind but if you don't care about being the most hard-core try hard that ever was you can actually have a lot of fun with the new cards and opponents you'll run into.

Not everything needs a solution, not all problems need to be solved sometimes you just have to enjoy the journey the devs have laid out for you.

The real Hallowed champion is Eternal Dancers.

I mean, they found a way to make Thresh look even worse. I didn't think that was possible. And I'm not even sure why that card has Hallowed. It does everything, why do I need a bonus when it dies?

Its no secret that I generally despised the first part of Worldwaker as a standalone set.

Obviously good cards were printed that did obviously good things, and played for obviously good wincons.

But generally speaking I feel that the new cards have done a great job of answering certain intended problems.

Like sure Annie Tf will still put up great winrates, but it can be more easily countered now.

Bard puts out overstated followers but with two new high tempo Champs follower stats don't matter as much.

New archetypes were created that have unique play patterns that are interested and dynamic, demanding creative player responses.

With everything we've seen here I can confidently say that World Waker had been salvaged and any left that the expansion has to show us will only be further possitive developments.

So for those who have looked at the stats lately they will know that Annie and Bard are the two highest played Champs in the game in terms of the number of high tier lists they are present in.

I've already spoken about why ravembloom is a problematic and poorly designed card in its current iteration aka should buff spells not creatures, both is too powerful for a 1 mana landmark.

But Bard is a whole nother kettle of fish. Annie while being the A tier queen with 3 lists, Bard is the S tier king with two lists but can essentially be jammed anywhere and win as Mogwai often complains.

Why is this? Well high rolling in a word, boom two chimes okay that's a 4/4 for one mana, boom another 3 chimes k that's a 7/7 on turn 4 and you basically nothing to increase the chime level in your deck except run Bard as a champion.

Now you'll say that's astronomically low ods, and I would say yes but turns out free wins are free wins and in a game based around a 50-58% matchup table free wins are king.

The new cards and new expansion are looking to learn lessons from mistakes of the last but at the end of the day if bards free chime placement isn't nerfed 3 - 2 and ravenbloom doesn't stop globally buffing creatures even creatures spawned like tokens the metas not really going to change in a healthy way like it should.

Just my two cents, but a lot of players are getting sick of hearthstone Bard and I'm one of them and Annie I always hated soooo plz Riot just tweak them a bit.

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.

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.

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:

Which ally gives you the most value when you have two of them in play? Follower or champion?

why out of cards didnt post the patch notes for runeterra? is the staff that does it sick or something?

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

Hey hey :)

is there any way to sync my runeterra collection here as I do with HS via HSreplay?

As the title suggests the champion shard-system in path of champions needs a change.

The main issue is that you get shards from chest at random which gives you no control over what champions you progress (which is already not so fun) but it gets WORSE with the fact that you can get shards for champions you already have on 3 stars which means that all additional shards just vanish with no compensation and it get's INCREDIBLY BAD by the fact that progressing in the campaign requires you to play champions from certain regions to progress.

I my case: I made all quests, all champion challenges and I am completely stuck now. Why? Because in all the shards that went nowhere I didn't manage to hit 40 shards for eighter bard or jhin leaving me with 0 champions from runeterra and unable to progress in the campaign.

Riot is known for creating rather fair mechanics and do a good job at pve gamemodes. It's unbelievable how such a bad game mechanic (that in a way breaks the gamemode) got into path of champions and riot better fixes it or the gamemode is dead for me

Oh and as we are already on it REMOVE the chance on relicts that make no sense in multiples (such like lost chapter) to drop once you have them. Cause all that does is delaying progress a lot for no reason at all

Killing him, bouncing him, putting him in a stasis statue doesn't work.

Is there ANY way you can make him trigger more than once?

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.

Hello there, I'm having this strange problem, and I'm probably just missing something obvious - when I log into LoR now, I'm always in that PvE content, Pathway of Champions or something, and I can't seem to figure out how to get back to the regular version of the game. What am I missing? :P

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.

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.

Riot has essentially admitted that pvp is a mess and that additional focus needs to be brought to the table.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbE_O0rdlI4&t=44s

Only problem, it will be a month till we start seeing those amazing champion balance patches and card tweaks we were getting before.

We're entering into one of the most polarizing metas we've ever seen in LOR.

Winrates are down across the board and only very selective deck types are sucessful currently.

You have slow decks that go big, and slow decks that control.

You have aggro decks that go fast and burn decks that go burrr.

Midrange however, is arguable worse than its ever been and as a result is very unfriendly to brewing in general.

Oh you want to try playing Swain that's a 45% 

Ekko not even on the map

Sundisc dead

Every bard deck is 50%

Generally speaking LOR is a game that is more fun when synergy is strong last patch with a million archetypes being viable, and is less fun when I just want to play cool stuff equals I feel like I have cancer and want to die.

This ultimately feels like a streamer expansion, like they got them all in a room to provide ideas for what they thought was fun and would help them climb and kinda neglected the whole 90% of the player base kind of thing.

Just my two cents, high synergy equals fun, card piles equals zzzzz.

I'm not even sure I'm seeing Champs flip anymore that aren't free like Annie or Illoi. 

Like say what you want about movie time but players earned that sheeet. 

Aggro, control equals kill me.