Legends of Runeterra

So let's get this out of the way, yes this can be seen as a 3 deck meta:

Aggro: Annie jhin

Midrange: elites

Control: heimer jayce

all 3 decks are tier 1 in there respective categories.

But as soon as you start to move away from the obvious choices the rest of the deck selection is incredible even.

To the point that you can basically play whatever you want. 

Me personally I run brews from all across the deck spectrum and go on incredible winstreaks.

Just today I burned out 10 players with shromes, the meta can be adapted to and re-adapted once players make adjustments.

Are they value hungry kill them outside of board presence by loading their deck with lethal.

Is there deck nothing but burst spells?

Just ramp over there head there's nothing they can do about it.

Are they too spell heavy, well ephemerals and hallowed always exist.

My point is that as soon as you move away from the I kill you with Annie, create a big board with elites, or destroy all your stuff with jayce, outside of that the game is beautiful right now.

Me personally when the new set arrives I'm still going to play classic Runeterra I don't think rotation is something I'm going to enjoy when the game has only gotten better with time.

Yeah 3 deck meta yatta yatta thats not enough to prevent me from enjoying the game, like if I didn't have 20 life and Jhin Annie wasn't easy mode then I would be unstoppable so gotta give players something to hold on to.

Although I do imagine playing the same deck over and over again would probably get boring for most players not to mention the fact that they googled it so they don't even have anything to be proud of?

Hahhahaha caught ya you're even playing my decks you'll never live it down!!!

You guys keep using my decks that's soooo cool like I've become the defacto runeterra meme king. Thanks for the crown.

See there's this little deck called elites 

it curves out better then every other deck.

So unless your garbage pile of curve followers and compete with theirs.

Your deck shouldn't exist 

K thanks bye

Hey look brain dead curve decks sure you guys can handle the math there?

Wow we are even turning lissandra into curve yetis now?

Are you shameless playing this hearthstone garbage I would say so.

Why do anything? 

Like I'm an mtg player my decks are interesting and high synergy.

But like yeah you can take every single deck in the entire game of LOR and boil it down to I put numbers down while drool runs out of my mouth.

So good job I guess you killed the game. Go play marvel snap now plz.

Yep the games basically done just turbo your wincon, don't try to do anything dont try to be anything. Just vroom vroom vroom cool stuff.

Like never have I had to ask what's in his deck because it's literally 3 cards.

I likes that control deck you were playing with literally one card in hand because you curved out so hard? I had fun cool deck.

Hemier is in there somewhere right? Maybe some draw, some level up wincon you know like the whole game was in there somewhere? Let me know when you find it.

You know this whole experience has been the strongest argument for rotation in LOR I have yet to find. When every single deck in the entire game just boils down to play your threats on curve kill their threats, and replace your threats when they die there isn't really a game at all.

It's just solitaire.

It's very easy to jam a follower curve into every single deck in LOR.

Oh I'm gonna build a dragon deck let's include laurent protégé, goat, and the 2 mana dragon challenger.

But ask your self before you auto pilot every single deck you've ever built.

Can you do better?

Can you take your meme and elevate it.

Can it go beyond what it should.

Can it be flexible, durable, and capable?

Can it come back from losing situations and respond to lost causes?

Thats why LOR had spells!

They're great little things that are designed to help you respond to all kinds of situations.

So before you auto jam your follower curve into every single board spam deck you build.

Maybe ask the question Can I do better?

Memes are great, I love memes 

You know what I dont like, decks that auto concede certain matchups

No deck that you only play once and then insta que something else is worth its weight in crap 

Sorry and thats all I'm seeing garbage memes.

Come on do something anything at all amaze me ;)

Yep that's what I thought you're a unit spamming little waste of space

Thats right daddy added quietus for the no skills sorrrrrrry not sorry eh

Oh God so much unit spam make it stop

Taking an awesome game and turning it into who can go six wide first.

Well sorry but I'm never going to win by that metric I think too much

Only went 4 wide to win that maybe play better on Yassao?

Oh wow only 5 wide that time maybe I'm toxic too now...Damm I'm good and with yordles?

Almost like the units you spam don't actually matter eh?

Oh no I went wider faster with yodles then you did with Jinx lulu?

Clearly I'm the better masters player total skill diff

Oh no you googled plunder just like your Jinx deck another skill diff

You see I'm literally playing and winning with trash on masters ladder with decks that actually do things and you guys want to grief me? Get good first build something worth playing and play masters ladder with it. Then maybe we can talk.

Muuuuuuch better whoever put together zillian zigs well done. It has a game plan, it actually does something, and it's highly synergistic. I just got lucky on the burn.

Ah see you were doing so well and then you went back to highroll memes and I got bored sorry.

Yep meme tastic I get to sit there and play the game of have vile feast plus vengence or insta die, but then you insta lose, high skill expression on both ends.

God you can't be this terrible are you?

More memes?

Jeeeesus yeah you guys are awful

Sorry my attrox deck is better than Google qq

You see it really makes no difference to me.if you want to highroll every game in casual que.

If you can duplicate those results go hit masters.

Be my guest, I did it by like playing my decks out and strategizing.

But blind luck is good too.

Channel that energy lol

Yep see the reason why I can consistently beat elites one of the best meta decks with trash is because I level, play for wincons, actually engage with my deck.

Not just huh how can I hit the board as op as possible by mana 3. Like sure go for it but it will only get you so far.

Yep I wasn't sure if it was just me but the minute I got out of casual que and back on master ladder it was like my opponent wasn't even playing the same game as me. 

Memes are fun, I love memes, but as soon as it's just me and you on ladder you're not even breathing

Yep I thought so you're useless into burn one of the top decks played right now. Try building around something other than board spam and you might win into aggro.

Like you can counter brew me thats fine I'm primarily a midrange player but what happens when the top meta deck does 10 dmg burn to face? You just say gg go next? Good luck with that.

What is happening I literally can't lose right now.

I play two mystic shots and opponents concede

I turbo out a board full of thralls and they concede

I hit all my landmarks for Ryze they concede

Did I transcend r and g to become a LOR God?

Have I memed so hard that I have become a meme, some card game equivalent of one punch man?

Or maybe after being so heavily greefed for so long they finally realized I'm just better?

Ah well bound to happen eventually I guess I'll just keep winning non stop why not

Although it is funny when you run mono Darius to delibrity lose and opponents think they've accomplished something

Sorry only had a couple throws in me hope you guys enjoyed its back to winning non stop, mono Darius ain't it who knew ;)

[Snap Card (CardID or Name) Not Found]If you're jamming elites or Annie don't gg people in casual que.

Like I literally got to masters with elites it's the most brain dead and straight forward powerful **** in the game.

If someone else is running turbo thralls don't flex show some sportsmanship for gods sakes.

Youre not good you're just playing optimally.

Jesus do people not know how to level Champs anymore? Is it just board spam with timeliness, and Nora?

Play for your champions yeeesh they are the best part of the game. I flip every game I win

Also whoever is the smart alec that literally ran nothing but howling abyss and strikes, you're still not leveling Champs you're just board spamming another way.

Yep hate to say I told you so but it's getting real tiresome having to 10 times out play every single opponent I face...like obviously I do it constantly but the amount of mental fortitude it takes vs slapping cards down is staggering

You guys know there are decks outside of hallowed and elites right? Like how long have you been playing to get this boring?

I'm gonna que into 10 games tonight and let's see if I can find one person with a single original brain cell to share between them...if not I'll just hop to the next person.

Like I already got to masters, and I got to diamond off meta I have nothing to prove so at least try to entertain me

Yeah you picked shadow tristana still a meta deck but at least it was all of 1 month old so I was happy to mop the floor with you.

The following is a real story:

So I go like 20 cards deep in a match.

I'm playing Turbo Thralls basically a meme deck into Swain Nora, a very competitive tournament pick.

Now of course opponent has turned 2 Nora, and does normal Nora bs things basically cycle cycle cycle flock cycle flock.

Create a board full of garbage.

Meanwhile I'm doing my turbo thralls thing doing math setting up a fat stack making sure I can have otk lethal and blow up their whole deck and ideally not die.

Now while the opponent is going through his optimal rotations, I'm actually creating a win condition.

No surprise endgame rolls around and I get the otk, and the deck dissolve meanwhile the opponents board full of garbage nonsense nonplays gets owned by a meme.

Wincons matter, decks matter, Champs that do things matter. Surely me just by being in masters a total deck brewing mess I prove that by myself.

There are other play patterns other than optimal play patterns, try it you might just win.

First round neither opponent is running the same decks, probably a 1st in LOR tournament history.

We see:

1. Swain Nora

2. Pirate aggro

3. Darkness

4. Lee Sin

5. Ramp

6.jax orn

In other words all opponents are just playing decks, not the meta so it truly will be that the best or luckiest player wins. 

God knows that's all I do and it's why I piss so many players off right now. Cuz there are no best decks just good players.

We are seeing healthy movement across tiers and winrate adjustments.

Decks like jayce lux which used to be an absolute terror have dropped below 53% winrate for now.

But elites are doing fine.

Evelyn Kaisa falling off hard, but Ryze and Jax are seeing a resurgence.

I would say that this "two deck" meta in practice is actually quite diverse.

I know I've been having a great time with my champ focused brews but then others are seeing mainstream success with the likes of vault of helium ;)

20 spots down the tierlist you even have the likes of sundisc doing its thing, a low winrate, but a polarizing matchup table into certain decks.

Personally I'm gonna a enjoy this till the final days until rotation hits and it's back to...yes this is the number 1 deck play it climb with it zzzz

I forgot to mention that fiora shen is seeing an underground resurgence of all things so you know this meta is balanced.

Also people are winning an ungodly amount with Annie Jhin, but that's not a new deck at all its sucess is directly related to your ratioing in healing, pings, and aoe.

So basically this deck is in of itself a balance check ^ hey did you brew "too competively" well guess what you're not actually as competitive as meee and then you die.

https://twitter.com/LoRreport/status/1633898461736124442?s=20

They confirmed vile feast is being rotated ^

So before when I talked about rotation I said two things one don't rotate Champs that see a lot of play and 2 don't rotate region staples.

Turns out that's exactly what they are doing and why?

Like I get its a decent control card has been for a long time, but now spider tribal is worse, icefrost legacy is worse, all of SI control is worse.

Its decisions like this where I'm like...I just dont get it.

Maybe they feel that overall power levels of all decks are too damn high?

So just kill the staples that have over performed since vanilla?

Better get rid of vengence too then I guess?

Riot has no clue what they are doing honestly we've had two back to back amazing metas and they are caving to the "pro player" whining.

Also this is what happened to Gwent by the way ^ they started listening to their "pro" players and made it so gold cards were worse then bronze cards and nobody wanted to play anymore.

Don't listen to pros, pros or dumb. They do one thing and one thing well grind meta decks to high ranks, hell I hit masters and if I had no life I could grind to the leader boards.

It's not hard to win when you have the best deck doesn't mean you understand card design and balance trust me they are dumb.

https://runeterra.ar/meta

1. jayce lux - no surprise here the ability to draw cards and generate a lazer while keeping a 6 mana card active took this deck to the top

2. Elites - Badger bear countering elusives made it far harder to go under elites for lethal

3. Evelyn - yes this is accurate she's good I've played against a ton of Evelyn Kaisa lately and it's not an easy deck to counter.

4. Jax - this one was my call that simple going bigger then elites would make this deck do well also hard for p&z to kill things

5. Heimer/Jayce - whatever it's the same deck skipppppp

6. Ryze - still very relavent as a deck to punish players who do nothing it has its place

7. Lurk - lurk kinda scary right now not gonna lie good Lurk players don't highroll sometimes they are consistent

8. Ziggs/thaliyah - I like this midrange deck a lot strong on board with a surprising amount of burn potential

9. Azir/Irelia - kind of the best "rally" deck right now because rallies were nerfed also goes wide with tokens and tempo

10. elites 2.0 - don't care

11. Annie burn - insanely good right now just in terms of its winrate

12. Evelyn 2.0 - still don't care

13. Angel aggro - man this deck fell off hard after the patch

14. Nasus - lots of nasus decks floating around you can go turbo or control

15. Plunder - the midrange deck that never dies and is always good

16. Pirate aggro - I'm adding this myself just because nobody is playing it doesn't change how strong it is.

So yeah overall this tierlist is better then all the others in my eyes. Very accurate except for number 16 which is my inclusion.

For those struggling with the meta right now there ya go lots of amazing decks to play

Sometimes you're just not going to win games.

Card games are R and G based so if an opponent spends 7 mana to generate 3 random spells and find the exact 3 spells they need to win the game it happens. What can you do.

Mogwai used to complain about it, it's in all card games, no point getting worked up about it.

So everyone told me this is a bad deck for this meta. So you know nifty always one to ryse to the challenge.

Let's take the worst meta deck and make it the best meta deck.

Because I can't stop winning at 20 life.

How do you beat tripple stacked stuns and bounces.

It's like spellshield or bust basically, or rite of negation.

Here is the list, again I'm not a genius because I remembered palm existed.

But I will say sometimes the simplest answer is often the right one and the foolish never find them.

So you look at one of my decks and you think ho ho! I'm gonna counter that guy so hard and teach him a lesson.

Then I switch archetypes and your nexus explodes where is the sense there?

Where is the logic?

Where is the skill?

I have said it before and I will say it again don't brew against me brew against the meta.

This is why your decks are one hit wonders that literally don't draw breath while my stuff last forever.

It just goes in the back pocket tillI I re tweek and whup your butt again.

You cant counter brew me in a meta this diverse you just can't stop trying.

Just play your game your way and maybe just maybe you'll actually beat me.

https://observablehq.com/@drisoth/4-2

So instead of discussing the meat of the complaints listed in this post which is fairly mundane I want to go one level deeper.

Why are many pro LOR players frustrated right now and why inversely is a casual like me playing better then I ever have before.

Quite frankly and I've spoken a bit about this before it comes down to two things card diversity and deck diversity.

As much as I joke about LOR being a two deck meta I actually don't play a single list strictly from the tiers I always make adjustments because I find that the online decks are teched too hard in certain directions and actually don't ladder terrible well in certain cases.

That would explain some frustration right there, wait why is this deck that on paper based on my years of playing this game underpeforming to my expectations.

The example given in Ryze, Ryze is a deck that does one thing and one thing only and thats stun spam.

As soon as the aggro decks started to catch up Ryze dropped from a 10% playrate to a 4% playrate.

Now did these pro players adapt and re-adjust the deck? Maybe add more followers or try different colors...not really no.

They had already satisfied themselves with creating the "best" version of the deck and just assumed their losses were the result of the game and not their ridged thought processes.

I'll say it before and I'll say it again the card pool in LOR is the largest it had ever been in the history of the game.

Those who utilize this to their advantage will succeed and those who can't will get frustrated. Right now Majin Bae the best LOR player and I share the same rank.

We are bottom of masters, not because I'm as good as him but because I neutralized our skill difference with deck diversity and card diversity.

Now when rotation hits I'm ****** but right now for this next month I'm pro and the pros are noobs.

So remember earlier when I was saying that there was a big statistical discrepancy on the performance of Jax across websites?

Well turns out in this instance I was right cuz that deck performs literally just fine thanks in large part to the decline of Ryze in the face of the overperforming Demacia.

As always I take these meta lists and I basically boil them down to simpler ratios because I trust in my muliganing skills to avoid duplicates.

CUDACAYBAIAQIAIKAEDAEHABAYGAQAQGAADBCBYGAECAQCILBQMCEAABAEDACFY

Again here's my version of the list I prioritize more on board presence with the likes of the 3 drop because being on board is everything right now.

So yeah mastering runeterra has updated it to a 55% winrate in the last 3 days making it a strong anti meta pick as I suggested that it probably was.

I did it with a meta deck like a "serious good" player.

Am I just like Majin now?

Can I join the cool kids club because I piloted a broken meta deck with a possitive winrate to beat all the other broken decks?

I even won the mirror or into Jayce Lux.

Long and short of it I got sweaty and tried hard for the first time ever since I started LOR

And I did it from gold in 2 - 4 hour play sessions.

That means I won what 70% of games?

But with elites that ain't hard so who cares.

But at the end of the day I guess the haters were wrong this meme king can also meta king.

Sorry just built different.

Yep doesn't matter how much time passes now everyone will know a dirty casual hit masters like it was nothing at all...or maybe I'm secretly decent who knows. Maybe it's both I'm simultaneously the worst and also the best?

I can live with that the worst top 10,000 player that ever memed in lor.

-----edit----

I was wrong on average each server has 5,000 masters players making me one of the top 5,000 LOR players in North America.

God don't tell Redit they'll have an aneurysm, they hate my care free, casual but competitive attitude.  They thought I couldn't do it, nah you gotta try hard and use a deck tracker, and spend money on the game.

Nope top 5,000 free to play, full on casual.

Elites are very good right now they are the best aggro deck.

And Jayce is the best control deck.

All right were done let's go home guys.

Lor has the largest cardpool in its history accessible only for the next 30 days.

But lets see if we can make immortal kegs work.

Instead of you know actually making decks that actually do things.

I guess this is what it means to be spoiled for choice and choosing nothing.

But I'll tell you guys I don't forget a single deck and I can tell you they all have their merits.

Did bandle die because elites got 1 card?

No

Did noxious die because P and Z got draw?

No

Did every single pre-built archetype die for no reason?

No

The reality is I'm seeing an unprecedented amount of brewing laziness while everyone just waits for rotation to tell them what to play.

You know what's better then immortal kegs and was actual a real deck at one point?

Shadow isles bilgewater ping control or kegs thresh gangplank.

Why not try building a non dumb deck with them?

I dont know when everyone got so bad at the game honestly, where's mogwai and swim when you need them.

I love Lor probably more than most people.

So if I see someone googling a list to counter mine I don't get salty I feel over joyed.

Like I bothered them so much winning with my memes that they were like...God better counter this pile of trash fast!

Thank you LOR community for the amount of respect and faith you put in me.

Cuz I don't get salty, but I wonder can you say the same ;)