Legends of Runeterra

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

We see pretty major tier list adjustments this month.

Basically every single control or combo deck has dropped down to the lowest tier.

Thralls, darkness, Lee Sin, Jayce etc.

While aggro still sits at the top, and plunder is there for some variety. The truth is that it should probably be replaced by pirate aggro if we are going strictly by winrates.

So is aggro a problem? It hasn't changed or gotten any better as of late, the lists are the same, the cards are the same, there could be an argument that control decks are being squeezed out but I don't see that as the case.

The way control is being built lately is that it typically just cycles and delays the game instead of teching in actual answers in the form of spells. Darkness being a perfect example where you can't play the box, or a withering wail or a vile fest, you have to play 2/2 into 3 mana darkness that right there might be too slow, and veigar on 4 is a death sentence.

I think this more than anything is why aggro and tempo decks are winning, because control decks are't really control decks with answers, they are cycling or combo decks with high synergy.

Just play good control cards and I bet the winrates for this archetype improve.

I know Majin Bae a pretty all right player is running a full 3 control/combo deck line up to the next tournament so it will be interesting to see how he does.

I would say better than the tier list would suggest that's for sure.

https://mobalytics.gg/blog/lor-7-seasonal-tournament-decks-between-worlds/

Nothing exciting or interesting going on here, not seeing any control decks period because they are harder to pilot.

Not seeing deep or ledros control or any the other "tournament" deck options availible, no dragons either yeeesh, very little pure midrange.

Honestly, if everyone sticks with decks from this exceptionally safe list this tournament is gonna be about as boring as worlds was.

Gotta say one thing for the days of mtg professional play, but those guys had definite decks and styles of decks they preffered and were pretty easily distinguishable from one another because of it.

How else would of the hall of fame system worked if they were all essentially the same person?

For me I'm gonna scan the stream to look for the single bright spark that decided to pilot something interesting, hell I would take lisandra Thralls as a breath of fresh air at this point.

I thought this would be an interesting question:

What are cards in the game that you deem worthy of being champions? My example would be Atakahn, Bringer of Ruin. He is such a fun, strong end-game card. There are a lot of cards that counter him, but he is really fun to play around with.

What would be your choice of cards that deserve a promotion? 

Seems to be a lot of confusion around this concept so I thought I'd help out.

First of all you need to go to the archetype stats this will aggregate all the winrates of a certain deck category. This is helpful do get a proper view of how certain champ combinations are actually perform outside of tech choices like oh I added two rite of negation and shifted my winrate by 2% its like okay but you could do that in any deck so who cares...always look at the aggregate for the archetype.

https://lor.mobalytics.gg/stats/archetypes

The second thing is aggro performs on average 5% percent better in LOR due to punishing greedy decks which they will ocassionaly que into and auto win against. Free wins are massive when we are calculating overall stats.

So for example Zed Poppy might have an aggregate winrate of 59% making it the best deck in the game, but in a tournament setting where every deck is built properly to deal with aggro you can expect it to win closer to 54% and on par with control/midrange

The second thing is a control or midrange deck that wins 54% of the time is fully optimized, so Lux Jayce, Darkness, Dragon, Discard, Lurk they all share this magic number.

The third thing is if a deck is listed on mobalytics and is winning 50% of the time its essentially a tournament deck that is built poorly for ladder, I would make heavy adjustments before taking it online for a spin

Thats Lor meta stats in a nutshell, 59% for aggro is good, 54% for everything else, and 50% means adjust before taking online.

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

So all the top decks are aggro or burn, and some would say that Gangplank Sejuani is midrange but they are still damaging you every turn so it sure feel agressive. So thats S tier.

A tier includes Jace Lux, Dragons, Thralls, Shadow as potential counters that play a little slower. Now is this actually representative of the games current balance or a response to all the greedy Heimer bs people were playing and instead got effectively  💩 on.

I would say likely more the second thing, like its not hard to tech in tavern keeper, and all different forms of healing that exist in the game to greatly improve your performance.

Even something like deny to crowd out burn plays are high effective. Personally I love when I see aggro decks because you literally know every play they are making before they do so any loss is a failure of deck building creativity vs a failure of play. So overall good meta, F you Heimer and learn to build decks that beat aggro? 

So I wanted to see real quick if the archetype is as bad as all the complaints make it seem.

The answer is no its still great it's not the aggro monster it used to be and that's good because it's a combo deck.

So I just teched in shifting sands this is removal, and levels Azir, and provides aggro/blockers to devalue counter swings. 

Great card not using it for this archetype is wrong, and the second thing is chimera it devalues counter swings and prevents you from getting raced down.

So yeah Azir Irelia still a great combo deck as long as you aren't a meta slave and push it a bit into the sustained midrange space.

So quick run down, cycling referring to every time a card draws back into itself, whether it is a creature or spell.

Tutoring is when a card gives you a specific card you are looking for.

With that let's take a look at Ferros Financier and how tutoring itself is the problem more so than bandlewood specifically. Like you can run Lux Heimer instead of Heimer Jayce and you dont even miss bandle.

1. It can grab ruination (board clear)

2. It can grab reckoning (board clear)

3. It can grab "mega avalanche" (board clear)

4. It can grab progress day (oh my 2 mana tutor just drew me 3 how fun and balanced

5.  It can grab shock blast (board clear/burn)

6. It can grab glorious revolution (luuuulz this one's for you guys because tutoring for it is 100 times better than main decking because it's a free card) and you get the blocker

7. It can grab summon two 3/3s and summon two 3/2s that buff on attack, and summon two 4/4 s (hey my two mana card gave me massive free board presence)

8. It can grab single target removal like harpoon, it can basically do anything

 All of this for two mana, now how is this different from targon, A you have to spend 3 mana, and invoke cards are actually kinda bad now without Asol to make them free. 

Also having a free blocker on 2 is game changing against aggro trust me, it's why people hate love on telescope on conchologist and Shadow dude, it's like yes you get a free card, aaaaand you answer your opponents aggro play aaaaand you get to tutor what you want.

All of this leads to the fact that tutors aren't rng so much as they are a consistently game winning nuisance that is spreading across the game region by region and I think it's not stopping anytime soon.

The best decks right now pivot from early game to end game effectively without being to dependent on individual game plans.

Lurk can be agressive but it has big overwhelmers.

Jayce acts like a spell control deck but has insane late game swings.

Bandle tree plays a bunch of agressive dudes and then otk's you out of nowhere.

Following that trend is my new landmark aggro - syke slay control deck.

Plays very scary big dudes in the midrange lots of 5/3 and 5/4 and 3/4 3/3 type of stat lines.

But all of that is a ruse for you to trade your cycle creatures into them and spend spells to finish them off.

Now rampaging baccai is active he kills heimer for free, we have rite of arcane to kill him, and minimorph if things get out of hand. After all that plays out then - then we play a big Nasus good luck out valuing that every game.

And honestly sometimes you just win with the landmark stuff, it happens you burn em down with zigs, or your instant 3 body play for 4 mana can be too much for some decks to deal with.

Baccai sandspinner is a tech choice I value it slightly higher than gifts for Renekton ;) if you aren't just playing it for the Sivir value.

https://youtu.be/_TWFZuq3UCQ

Basically just says all the things I was saying months ago.

How infinite cycling limits deck variety, and how having decks filled with independent value generators limits decks identity

Gives the example that one of the best Jayce decks was obviously gonna be in bandle, I knew that we all knew that.

However, with the release of Jayce I've actually become hopeful that Riot will release Champs and cards that are on par value wise.

Shurima needs more landmark value, cards like the 3/1 that gives you dirt is sooooo bad into cycles as to essentially be -1 card in practice.

Ionia and Freijord need more control tools to remain viable.

Shadow is probably fine , just due to the event love they've gotten they have a lot of spell variety, I also think targon is fine, and so is Demacia and Noxious for what they do.

So again it's not that Bandle city is objectively op and better than everyone else, it's that they are as good if not better in every single style of deck ever imagined.

TLDR: It's good Jayce fixed spell control and now there is finally a solid tier 2 answer to all the hyper agressive decks

Legends of Runterra used to be a game defined by just playing your hard to remove Champs and swinging.

Zed into poppy, gangplak into Sejuani, midrange stuff into an Asol or a Sion.

But finally it does feel like the blindly develop recipe has been flipped on its head a bit. Like in terms of winrates aggro will always be top of the tier lists because it easier to grind ladder and for streamers to win consecutively to hit masters...but when decks are viewed on a optimal play scale it gets a lot more complicated.

For example a case study: 

Opponent plays Zed after banking mana followed by a poppy, I play my factory into a shock blast, they counter with twin to save 1 thing, but I can still potentially mystic or Thermo or whatever thanks to factory.

It used to be no matter what you did you would loose this play scenario 75% of the time and its why Zed Poppy was the number 1 deck.

Now it's not as cut and dry, and reactive players can finally "play the game" on an even scale without having to rely on cycling tools and a parade of chump blockers...I don't like playing that way because it's no different than blindly developing as aggro.

In summary they didn't kill any of the brain dead auto win stuff, but shook things up enough so mtg players can actually enjoy the game  and do a little bit of that "no you" play style if they want to.

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I already suspect there are gonna be some players that are salty that aggro advantage has gone from auto win, to just winning more and thats too damn bad. This expansion was absolutely necessary for the long term health and viability of the game on a competitive scale and it should make future tournaments a lot more fun and unpredictable to watch.

I've been trying to build an actually good Kindred deck since his release and have probably failed a dozen or so times.

But man I gotta say this deck is spicey, combining the strengths of veigar Senna, with undying vulnerable decks to create something will actually see Kindred getting to a 9/9 guaranteed.

So hard mull for like undying and veigard usually, pirate girl is nice on 2 a defensive counter swing play and ship Kind of works similarly on turn 4 but you drag with undying.

Really good, I think MOG would get a kick out of this one.

So the biggest thing holding back Karma Ezreal was how combo dependent the deck was and reliant on lining up all the pieces to win.

But with Jayce he can win games on his own, and Ezreal can win games on his own, and together they super win games.

Pretty solid control package that also allows you to deny other jayce decks While removing their cycling pieces essentially for free with eye and ezreal.

The only change I'm making is Karma Jayce instead of Ezreal Jayce

Plays better into the bandlewood mirror where it's just like hey take all the time you need, my deck has infinite spell value to kill you, and you just have infinite board value which we don't really care about.

i loving path of champions so far but does anyone know how to unlock more adventures ? i played with every piltover champion but no unlocks yet .

Just gonna repurpose this topic to discuss the meta stats for the new Jayce decks, and do a little sidebar for Swims entries.

Basically Jayce Heimer which I view to be an absolutely cracked op deck has an abysmal 50% winrate a lot of that probably has to do with the inclusion of the win more tech tribal card, when you could literally just run stress test and win more against open attacks.

Jayce Lux does better let's call it 53-55% it's basically the version Mogwai showed off...only changes I make personally to my list is I looooove progress day on Jayce Lux. Getting the burst beam plus the 3 mana discount and the draw and future discounts is big I find for mirrors, and every other matchup.

But the real interesting thing, is that swim will not run this decks at all and basically prefers solo Lux or solo Jayce with just a cycling package all the way down to shell girl on 6 and the obvious 4 mana champ inclusion I will not mention because we are all sick of her.

Finally the only Jayce list to put up real competitive numbers is this card pile here:

https://youtu.be/P0MaI51qDm4

I'm 90% certain that this deck wins in the same way go hard used to win.

Elise generates a bunch of pain in the butt bodies, and then you can just go for your slow win con, Jayce into double beam, and sure ledros too why not it basically stops heimer from ever winning.

They just spam emotes the whole freaking fight and its really annoying. You can mute them, but you have to mute them every single match. Oh and God forbid they win. Then they will spam like 3+ emotes to be an extra dick about it.

Most people on the comp ladder aren't even that bad.

Gonna keep it real short, good news we get more Lux support, bad news they added more cycling at 2 mana.

We are basically in a situation where every single competitive archetype will need to have 2 and 3 mana cycling solutions or be soooo fast and agressive as to not care.

So it doesn't really matter if your 2/2 steals a card from your opponent, generated a 6 mana spell, creates more creatures, or invokes as long as you're trading on board and not loosing cards.

I kinda hate this from a long term growth perspective...like is Ionia gonna start getting 2/2's that generate cheap spells for Lee Sin oh wait they have Zoe and that still isn't good enough because they need like 10 more cards that do the same thing.

If I sound salty it's because I love this game, I love the Champs, I love the turn passing, I love the game flow...and infinite cycling destroys all of that.

It gets to the point where leveling Champs as part of a "quest" doesn't matter only wincons matter and infinite card advantage.

A new Rare Piltover & Zaun Unit, Hextech Handler, has been revealed!

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A new Common Piltover & Zaun Unit, Ferros Skycruiser, has been revealed!

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A new Rare Piltover & Zaun Spell, Hextech Anomaly, has been revealed!

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A new Common Piltover & Zaun Unit, Forge Chief, has been revealed!

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Learn more about Beyond the Bandlewood

Head on over to our dedicated guide for Beyond the Bandlewood!