Legends of Runeterra

A new Common Noxus Unit, Noxian Defector, has been revealed!

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A new Rare Ionia Landmark, Mistfall, has been revealed!

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A new Common Ionia Unit, Shadowblade Fanatic, has been revealed!

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A new Rare Noxus Spell, Furious Wielder, has been revealed!

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A new Epic Noxus Equipment, The Darkin Ballista, has been revealed!

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A new Rare Ionia Spell, Momentous Choice, has been revealed!

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A new Common Demacia Spell, Tempting Prospect, has been revealed!

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A new Rare Demacia Unit, Ranger-Knight Defector, has been revealed!

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A new Common Shurima Unit, Forsaken Baccai, has been revealed!

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A new Epic Shurima Spell, Heedless Resurrection, has been revealed!

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A new Common Targon Equipment, Draconic Bands, has been revealed!

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A new Common Shurima Landmark, Buried Armory, has been revealed!

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A new Common Noxus Equipment, Great Hammers, has been revealed!

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A new Common Bilgewater Equipment, Jagged Cutlass, has been revealed!

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A new Champion Runeterra Unit, Kayn, has been revealed!

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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.