Legends of Runeterra

I'm not gonna sit here and say ramp good, Gwen good, attrox good, plunder good.

Because I have a high confidence in everyone that plays LOR will have a decent understanding that "archetypes" > "card piles" right now and that the deck stats are quite even.

Also midrange good, when everything else is balanced...duh.

Instead I'm gonna talks about the sneaky decks nobody knows about and why they are significant and possitive indicator of the overall balance of LOR right now.

1. Ekko - somebody once said that if Ekko was ever a good card LOR would be unplayable. Turns out that's stupid because when a high synergy, champ dependent deck is swinging a 53% winrate when he used to be F tier that is very good for the overall health of your game.

2. Elites - often viewed as the absolute worst deck in the game but if you can climb and win with Garen granted at 51% that's a healthy meta. You can take the absolute worst champion in the game right now to masters if you grind enough...that's amazing!

3. The unknown - when you see every single deck in the game performing at 54% and lower with key powerhouses like pirate aggro only hitting 51% that means pro players have no idea what the hell they should be playing.

Graplr - my man

Majin - no Ionia sir

Mogwai - abandoned

Sunny - his lists are just for fun

The point is that if you can build your own list that performs up to a 51% winrate standard according to mastering runeterra you are essentially as good as pirate aggro.

I can do that **** in my sleep and so can you. Death to card piles, long live archetypes.

Just posting the link for Leer's weekly meta report. 

https://masteringruneterra.com/monday-lor-meta-report-jan-23/

Very interesting breakdown of the current LoR meta here.

Hi all,

This is a self plugin for my channel ^^.

TouTTo NaRouTTo

I m doing a for fun decks and my biggest playlist is on "one champ per deck" matches.

I put the deck in the description if you like to try it.

I'm open to any suggestion for both the channel and decks.

I will love if you dislike something to be frank and say it.

I'm still growing as a content creator so Newer videos will have a "slight" improvement and off course

subscibe and like and comment all the good stuff.

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

Okay so now that the hot fix has landed and we can safely say we've moved past the stupid card pile phase, which happens every now and then, and pro players are like man this 3 champion split deck is 100% the best deck in the game, we can talk about what people are actually playing.

S tier:

1. Lulu Jinx - that right now the game is more or less balanced you can just play sneezy bigger dust and win fun deck that has stood the test of time in S tier

2. Pirate aggro - nerfed into the ground and still S tier its never going anywhere

A tier:

1  hallowed - yep another deck that has stood the test of time with the competitive use of the "recently" reworked Katarina showing that any low tier can become top tier.

2.hemier shadow - there's always some version of heimer control that is playable this does not change its universal

3. Ramp - ramp is probably the strongest its been in a long time in the latest expansion, I would call it almost unfair and all the best decks are.

4. Attrox decks - I'm just gonna lump these together cheap value equipment plus a big boy, sometimes you play for value and you go Kayne sometimes you play for thr extra attacks with Vayne, good flexible champ.

5. Swain Tf - one of the oldest viable control decks in LOR revitalized by the buffs to Swain and boat. Once again any low tier deck can be A tier.

6.plunder - even the nerf to gangplank can't keep this powerhouse midrange deck down.

7. Annie Jhin - kinda the worse version of aggro right now mainly because Jhins champ spell is the worst in the game. Change that and this aggro deck might hit S tier one day.

8. Seraphine Ezreal - still a good combo deck due to the spell priority change where spell procs happen instantly and you can just stack 10 spells for lethal, the nerd to barkeep didn't change a ton

9. Rumble - kinda just a scary card and obviously vayne let's him attack extra but I don't think she's necessary

Personal addition:

10. Shurima - I don't care if it's mono shurima or ziggs thaliyah landmarks this deck did not go from S tier to D tier with a 1 mana nerf.

B tier: 

Lurk & deep - I'm gonna lump these together as the good bilgewater tribal decks I think they are both very playable

Yassao - yep if you're not brain deck this deck can put in the work

Zed Heckarim - got a very strong tribal card eith the latest expansion which makes it quite playable but not without weakness

So there you have it, actual archetypes and actual decks. I wouldn't be surprised if there's eay more thats viable that people just aren't playing.

The card pool is massive at this point and I kinda like that.

I'm gonna hate rotation, and I kinda hate these one hit wonder Champs Lor keeps releasing when Swain and Sejuani have been A tier for like the entirety of the lifespan of the game.

LOR is a card game that is increasingly not only having superficial similarities with magic the gathering, but is also running into similar problems.

Namely, there are too many "set mechanics" being introduced into the game.

Culminating into perhaps what has been one of the biggest failures of an expansion to date, housing the first instance of dead champions.

Both Exodia (Rhyze) and empower (Kayle) don't really work or make sense in LOR as a game.

Like you could say we'll Bard exists and he can hard hand buff all your empower cards. Deck buff exists in freijord and a worse version of handcuff exists in Ionia, and now Targon has buff cards too.

So you should say that Kayle is amazing, she has more cross region support then any other champion in the game, but there in lies the problem.

If none of the synergies are worth pursuing then none of them will be played.

Similarly Rhyze isn't the first exodia card introduced into lor, fiora exists, healing fountain, and bandle tree.

So many of the most exciting cards in the expansion aren't actually the new champions but the pre-existing archetype support.

More ramp, more hallow (eww but yes good), more elite, more spawn for Illois, more self dmg and yes the list goes on.

For the first time in LOR history I'm more interested in crafting epic cards then champions as a free to play player because honestly who cares about this new garbage when you can play better designed decks with more support?

So what is the fix here longterm for LOR? For the first time ever I want to see more in archetype champion support. I want a 3 mana vlad enabler, I want a scout, I want a elite, I want a deep champion, a lurk champion, a daybreak nightfall champion.

In short take that massive league of legends roster you want to feed down our throat and just slam them in as an additional option for an already good deck.

Boom now everyone is a consideration and nothing is dead. While LOR believes the solution to its longterm health is just to delete old champions, I belive the opposite supplement them and stop churning out these one hit wonders.

Just my 2 cents feel free to hit me up in the comments.

Here's my source for the hotfix info - https://www.reddit.com/r/LoRCompetitive/comments/104dtgp/hotfix_later_today/

Here are the changes:

Back Alley Bar: c6 > c7

Darkin Aegis: 1|1 > 0|1

World Ender: c13 > c16

Fallen Reckoner: 4|3 > 3|2

Risen Reckoner: 6|3 > 5|2

Vayne: 3|4 > 3|3

Vayne (Level 2): 4|5 > 4|4

This is a weekly article that puts up the current winrates and playrates of the top decks in LoR.

Feel free to argue with the commentary if you like, but the winrates and playrates are not open to debate.

Hot off the presses, here's the current 23 best decks in LoR.

Aatrox is all over the place, but there are still a variety of good options out there.

Edit - I'm personally trying out a Bandle City Poro brew. So far, it's feeling quite a bit stronger than I expected.

So they printed two new self dmg cards in the most recent expansion.

Here to help, and blood Pigeon.

Both are very strong in Vlad

But guess who's number one on the rotation chopping block?

Thats right the self dmg champion

Forget about rotation Riot you'll ruin your amazing game.

Oh and this deck is actually pretty good now BTW.

Is it a meme yes, but it's a strong meme and isn't that what card games are all about?

I waxed poetic quite a bit before about how wild mysticism is the single best Freijord card since lisandra and three sisters.

Single handedly elevating the region to the likes of druid from hearthstone which was always the intention (midrange freij still saj)

But another card came out that no seems to be talking about and boy is it a doozy.

Back in the day of shurimas release people used to talk about the uber deny, and how toxic it was deleting a chain of spells for a mana crystal.

But nobody is saying anything about the cycle deny in bandlecity. You see the thing about deny is that its kind of a "bad card" ie. It's verrrry high value the turn you play it and kinda gets worse with subsequent uses.

So having deny simultaneously thin your deck and get you to your wincon is insane.

It's good too because the region needed another pillar card like pokey stick so they got pokey deny and it makes bandle city a valid control region consideration once again.

Good job Riot I'l admit I thought Darkin saga pt 2 was kind of a mess and I criticized Part 3 for being low impact but you really take a closer look there are some game changers.

People are very quick to flock to strategies that are simple and effective in LOR.

Zoe elusive, hallowed card pile, bilgewater aggro, not realizing that with the release of part 3 of the darkin saga that a massive number of good cards hit the table.

We got elite support, we got ramp support, we got acess to the full playset of darkin weapons which are all broken.

We got new spells, new followers, we got poros, and the list goes on.

Yet everyone is just like durrrr hallowed 1 drop, hallowed 2 drop win game plz durrrr?

Meanwhile I'm like boom quadruple ramp 8 drop what chu do now do nothing deck?

Play actual archetypes, play actual decks with actual wincons, actual champion level ups, and actual reason to play and win.

Don't just play the 54% winrate card pile vs the 52% winrate archetype.

Because you will ironically lose against anyone who isn't hedging their bets against mediocrity as hard as you are.

The good is that there is a massive number of unique decks and archetypes that achieve unique goals.

The bad, there's 100ds of non unique decks that essentially just jam easy agressive high value cards that don't actually do anything.

Why is hallowed one of the highest played archetypes in the history of LOR?

It's idiot proof and it goes in everything.

Why is Freijord the least played region?

It requires you to do the most bs to be playable and win games. (Although wild mysticism is a great buff)

So why did people leave?

Well the cool decks are generally worse then the dumb decks.

Ryse releases and requires a ton of bs to play well thats 40% instantly

Ionia gets a nerf and stops being a powerhouse? Well nobody is gonna play it.

Meanwhile hallowed decks will exist in the game forever as a ubiquitous and easy form of high value aggro.

So while I will always enjoy the core LOR experience of smart deck vs smart deck playing for unique wincons.

I'll also hate the game for its lingering hearthstone elements, who curves the hardest while denying easy value for the opponent.

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

So out of the final third of the Darkin expansion we've seen an unprecedented amount of bulk carda released.

For the first time ever this extends to actual champions.

The like of ryze and angel girl are unplayable, and of course they are its written on the cards.

Do a bunch of unnecessary counter intuitive crap maybe win the game.

So what's to stop a LOR player from running Plunder a three decades old archetype still sitting in A tier?

What's to stop them from running ramp the only good freijord archetype since the pop dancers mini event?

What's to stop you from running Annie a meta defining control and aggro card that released with bard?

The reality is these decks are good, they may not be the best but they balance payoffs, synergies, and deckbuilding requirements in a satisfactory manner.

Thats something we are seeing less and less of in LOR moving forward. So maybe LOR can take a page from Snaps book smaller expansions with more meaningful cards.

Because at the end of the day unlocking 1 card like the human torch who compliments a pre-established archetype is 10 times better than unlocking 100 cards that do absolutely nothing.

Playing non comital decks that say simple cycle with every card but don't present valid wincons are bad

Not only because they can be countered by a single card, but because playing them actually degrades your ability to be a good player

I see this mistake a lot with taylor swift, why not just play prank cards with her and fill up the board with cycle garbage?

Well because your deck isn't doing anything, it is in fact exceptional in it's ability to do nothing.

It presents zero wincons, it has zero answers, it has zero alternate approaches to play, it is in fact a gaping hole an absence of play.

The same thing can be said about playing an elusive good stuff deck.

Its like yep here we go how many avalanche effects do you have in hand?

Are we going to take advantage of the fact that you may be bricked or that lodestone exists so it doesn't really matter if you get board cleared

Yes that is one approach, but what happens when youre forced to actually play the game

Play in a meta where decks that actually do something are good?

Well you might very well be garbage?

We saw this in the post Ionia patch, people who were just like well shiiiit wtf do I do now that I can bounce everything?

Idk engage with the games mechanics, think, exercise pass priority, not suck?

Long story short try to brew decks that actually accomplish a set objective, it will make you a better player.

So the best deck in the game elusive good stuff is only pulling a 53% winrate.

So realistically you can play whatever you want and win 47% of the time.

Thats less of a meta, and more of a wide open play arena.

Want to play Ecko Zillian time bomb printer go for, all those pings would actually be pretty gold right now.

Ionia is strong but not toxic so that means nobody is playing it.

Obvious overperforming cycle Champs have been tuned down, Tailor Swift is still nuts but you actually have to build around her which nobody will do but me.

Idk, it's pretty much perfect play what you want, when you want, don't suck, win games.

I can't wait for the 3rd part of the Darken saga to break things all over again so streamers know what to play again.

Okay so it's no secret I took a bit of an LOR break to play Overwatch 2 but I'm back and man have people been asleep.

Time to delve into what is actually worth playing post Ionia and Akshan nerfs.

Theory - biggest change besides the removal of Ionias easy acess to the double bounce with added health potion benefit is the toning down of cycling Champs like akshan and Taylor Swift 

So what that actually means is board presence, honest to God numbers on a freaking board aka vanilla Runeterra is exponentially better again.

This is countered by the value of honest to God hard removal, because soft removal has been toned down.

Here are some examples:

Deep - been around for ages numbers on board plus mill condition and solid pings should auto win for you

Thralls - free 8/8s are really good when bounces are bad

Tribal - Elites, yordles, and any either tribal synergy you can think of to pit numbers on board

Ramp - feel the 10/10s the deck the recent addition of shatter ups the flexibility of Freijord and makes it less reliant on shadow isles

Jayce/Lux - when bounces are bad you're essentially forcing hard removal answers and ever since the play priority change where you get Lazer at instant speed should be easy dub

Heimer/Nora - nothing really happened to stop this board swarmed do nothing deck from being good so why did people stop playing it?

Fated- they literally just hit the 1 drop fated card by one point and you want to tell me this deck is bad now? Are you actually dumb?

Darkness - again solid control option that does better in a post combo Ionia meta

Pirate aggro/scouts - I just played scouts its nuts just run the 4 mana rally instead of the nerfed 5 mana rally, plus there's that cool 1 mana strike card to try

Midrange - Archetypal midrange like Swain (nerfed) and Ash (super buffed) is valuable when nobody knows what to play

Master yi - that's right I think master yi is very strong in a post Akshan world got a lot of synergistic cards in the last set

Plunder - gangplank sejuani is still nuts and only gets better when there are no bounces

Jax/Orn - super buffed to the point of being game winning actually low key insane

Sion/heckarim - big game winning Champs that have unique build around conditions and swing 4 value are actually good now

Landmarks - oh yeah you better believe I didn't forget zigs or thaliyah

Mono shurima - sundisc is always viable and probably my biggest losing matchup to date

Riven/Fizz- yes elusive combo is good there is always one best version to run, but generally speaking the burst combo version has been better then the good stuff versions

Ezreal/Catarina- nothing is stopping ezreal from being good right now, in the absence of Lee Sin and low commitment 2 mana cycling Champs hard removal gets better

Evelyn/Viego - now Viego did get nerfed a little bit but the absence of cheap answers for him should compensate and bring this deck back to light.

Honestly, I could do this all day listing decks that I can or could pilot to a plus 50% winrate in the current meta rather then use these garbage lists and I'm bad, so my biggest recommendation right now is steer clear till people remember how to play LOR pre-Ionia

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

Elusive good stuff and Viktor card pile are S tier?

Like I know I haven't played the game for a while and they nerfed all the broke stuff namely Ionia tellstones and mildly tweaked the overstated Swain but I guaranteee there's better decks to play then just elusive good stuff.

So let's talk about what good from a brewers perspective who never plays S tier stuff anyways and still does fine.

Discard - they buffed Jinx obviously in a big way but I might actually give Draven Sion another look just jamming that 7 drop when people aren't running 9 bounces and stuns makes a big difference.

Landmark - just good midrange junk man, now that you're not getting instantly fed on by every single Swain deck in the meta you can just do your landmark things and win

Bandlecity - with the pirate aggro nerf a while back and the tweaks to Nami go wide decks yordlea are looking like a far more serious deck option

Daybreak - the Leona buff wasn't that long ago and once again midrange decks that aren't Swain are playable again, even less rallies to worry about.

Jayce/Lux - P and Z control that isn't ezreal or Taylor swift is gonna work far better after the death of Lee Sin and combo decks in general

Raaaaaamp - yeah the troll buff actually matters, allows feel the rush to exist outside of shadow isles naturally 

Frostbite - wait is freijord good again  cuz now we got Ash playable again too, I know people forgot this region exists but it's there

Deep - deep didn't go anywhere it was always strong and in a bounce less world its even better

I could do this all day and list decks potentially under looked in LOR right now because it honestly looks like after the major Ionia nerfs people forgot how to play this game.

Aaaaaah I can't just jam Akshan and cycle champions in 20 of my decks anymore aaaaaah.

Recently started playing runeterra and it's been great and i see that there is a lot of fun stuff still to come. I do, however, have some stuff i need help with, which would be greatly appreciated.

I posted here, because this was the most popular runeterra forum i could find. Are there others that deserve a looksie?

Like forums i've had some difficulty find the best ones (and up to date ones) when it comes to guides, tips for new players, strategies to employ in the most broad sense, as how to most efficiently get new cards, decks and resources that help me get those things to what decks to develop and concepts to focus on as a beginner and how to do that. Match tactics is something i don't feel i need to focus a lot on now as i've played a lot of other card games and related types of games, but feel free to advice me on that as well as it's something i need to get deeper into eventually. Concerning all of the above, i would love some advice and/or point me in the right direction - sites, where i can find comprehensive guides, beginner guides, video guides, deckbuilding guides or guides that explains or informs me of things that i may need as a new player, other forums, official or third-party tools and crucial information for new players.

I'm feel especially in need of knowing how to most efficiently expand my collection playing single player (preferably for free) as i prepare to enter multiplayer after i've gotten more cards, knowledge and skill. There are several options, single matches against AI, Challenges, Path of Champions (not sure that's all. draw my attention to other ways that are good if you won't mind), but i'm not entirely clear on what to focus on, or playing a mix if that's better, focus on completing missions and what missions yield the most in that case.

I should say that what my main goal is atm is to build or tweak an existing pre-built deck i've earned for use in solo play, to facilitate ultimately building a competitive, good (or great! :D ) deck in PvP, Tournaments and the like, for the currrent meta as well as a base of cards to make it easier to build new decks as the meta changes.

Getting cards is the most important thing i guess, but i also need advice, perhaps some guides and tools or such on how to best build a deck, from getting the cards, to whether to use an in-game, official or third party deckbuilder, if and how i can import decks, constructed by others or myself, if i should first tweak decks that LoR has given me, as the cheapest option, or use a deck from builds people have posted (which i can import if possible) that are easy and cheap, but still very good.

It would be great to have lists of cards to look out for which are the best, most important and/or most popular. And if i can get them just by playing pretty much anything or have more specific ways to get like missions, particular solo play mode, or that i would mostly need to use wildcards for.

You may have noticed that i'm kind of a power-player, but playing like that is part of what makes games enjoyable for me. To become as powerful and dangerous and to dominate as much as possible. Not because i enjoy crushing my opponent whether AI of human, but because it feels personally rewarding and gives me a sense of achievement

(i actually often feel sympathy or a little guilty when beating another person. To express that to the one i've just beaten roundly is usually interpreted as patronizing, condescending or sarcastic tho, so i stay away from that, and instead try not to brag and be a good, modest winner)

Anyway, i mentioned that in order to summarize my post: How would you go about most efficiently getting from newly starting out to having a good base of cards, from which to expand one's collection, and having at least a few competitive deck.

Would appreciate anything helpful you have to say! :D

https://playruneterra.com/en-sg/news/dev/giving-feedback-like-a-game-dev/

Basically, an exceptionally condescending way of saying that we don't want to listen to player feedback because we believe you to be misinformed and inarticulate.

So I'm going to try my best to communicate as if I was writing LOR's design document:

LOR is a card game where you attempt to satisfy unique questing conditions in order to level up (flip) your preffered champions.

These "quests" should guide the player towards certain "archetypes" and deck building decisions in a organic and non intrusive manner.

The implications being that these quests are powerful while also remaining mutually distinct and worth pursuing (this is where the fun is.)

Deck break downs:

Actual constructions of decks are comprised of reactive plays (fast speed spells) pro active plays (burst speed spells) and creatures wrapped up in a compellingly unique turn based pkg.

The Problem:

When decks become too homogenous, when champion level up conditions don't feel game winning, when reactive plays like stuns and bounces out weigh the value of playing high cost followers (5 plus) the game starts to lose that fun factor.

The conclusion:

People including popular streamers start to migrate from your game, you start introducing low impact expansions and nobody plays those cards, you also dangle the threat of rotation so people can't even play the decks they want to play and your game loses popularity.

The solution:

The same thing it's always been heavy handed comprehensive balance patches that nerf what's reducing viability and buff what's not viable. It's unfortunate, but it's the only way you can commit to keeping LOR a compelling and fun experience and get those streamers playing again.

Rather then say write a massive blog post about how your players are inarticulate trolls who can't speak "designer" when it's your own choices and decission making drawing your game and community into question.