Legends of Runeterra

A new Rare Piltover & Zaun Landmark, The Forge Of Tomorrow, has been revealed!

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Learn more about Beyond the Bandlewood

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

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

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Learn more about Beyond the Bandlewood

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

A new Champion Piltover & Zaun Unit, Jayce, has been revealed!

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Learn more about Beyond the Bandlewood

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

A new Rare Piltover & Zaun Spell, Shock Blast, has been revealed!

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Learn more about Beyond the Bandlewood

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

A new Epic Piltover & Zaun Unit, Albus Ferros, has been revealed!

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Learn more about Beyond the Bandlewood

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

A new Common Piltover & Zaun Spell, Assembly Line, has been revealed!

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Learn more about Beyond the Bandlewood

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

Yeah, so pretty much every game is a 20 minuite drag out value war.

Bandlewood is popular you can run it with Heimer or Swian or Poppy or anything else.

The only thing that matters is that you maintain infinite card advantage until you hit your finisher, or maybe you don't and it doesn't matter.

Targon does this pretty well also, and so does shadow. Not a lot else to say, like even overwhelm decks and aggro decks rely heavily on cycling now.

Using cards like lecturing yordle or the 7 mana shurima card, so how does everyone feel is this fun?

Like now that I understand what the game is I can patience my way through a handful of games a day by running rebel lists but thats about it.

It all feels exceptionally slow...and rather redundant, like what deck are you running? Who cares as long as it's 50 - 80% cycling...woo good times.

Then there's obviously the rally Zed decks which are the only lists fast enough to contend with what people are playing.

I really hope the next expansion includes less cycling and more cheap aoe or box style affected, or something like cyndervines from magic that punishes opponents from playing too greedy.

Riot is currently asking for player feedback for the next balance patch so if you guys have some buff/nerf suggestion this might be a good opportunity to share them here :

https://www.reddit.com/r/LegendsOfRuneterra/comments/qmtfdg/i_want_your_thoughts_on_changes_for_the_next/

Lol that was fast, just a lot of turbo strategies, I can't even tell the last time I saw someone like actually try to play a game out, do synergies, or level Champs.

Oh well this ain't mtg that's for sure...thing like mana banking the excessive cost of removal, and rallies pretty much negate any strategy that doesn't win in 5 turns.

Really is mind numbing...

Its like 3/4 of your deck does not matter at all, you're just pushing soooo hard for the one straight line of linear play

Wake me up for the next balance patch, expansion, or when Swim starts giving a damn again...zzzzzzz

So post patch as the meta begins to settle its become fairly obvious that bandle city is just good...and  there's very little mystery as to why.

Having every card in your archetype just cycle, while also allowing you to buff those little dudes with midrange threats like poppy/tristana while also having the best control tools in the game...is maybe a little much.

I've seen bandle VI, I've seen Bandle Lux, I've seen Bandle Poppy, I've seen burn Bandle, Combo bandle tree, I've literally seen every archetype and every deck with just add bandle city.

Are all these decks amazing...actually for the most part they get people to masters and are good for climbing, but let's say they aren't for argument...they are still good enough to fill in the gaps of every archetype and deck.

I have a few suggestions for bandle nerfs that would be healthy:

1. Take away attune on otter, it already cycles and gives you hand disruption

2. Turn all bandle 2/2 cycles into 2/1 to put them on par with telescope or 1/2

3  Put minimorph to 7 mana to put in on par with vengeance

4. Put stress test to 4 mana and buff the dmg to put in on par with fury of the north

5. Put poppy to a 4/2 so it's basically ekko and you can attack make it a 5/3 and protect with burst like usual

This would essentially fix the just add bandle city to every deck problem. Now maybe this doesn't happen till the next expansion to make sure there are new tools for the region and it isn't just deleted but right now it's too good and too universal.

It is the region to beat right now absolutely, and while you can do it, it shouldn't always feel like an uphill battle where you're 10 times better than the opponent just to win the game.

So last time we went over the top dogs of the new meta, which exist with much debate. So how about the under dogs the decks people don't see coming and can win just as much?

Here we go!

Not listed number 1 because it's the best it's simple the fastest and easiest to play. Only really looses to hard bandlewood control, minimorph, stress test, even like pokey stick into that 3 mana P and Z 3 dmg removal

But I guarantee you will pretty much win queuing into everything else and that's a good thing as Martha Stewart would say.

Auto leveled champ decks are a blast to play and the sheer amount of card advantage tools here means you won't even pay the usual price associated with that. This deck is basically designed to eat Bandlewood. We don't care about pokey or getting getting our swings minid or stressed because we just have so muuuiuch stuff.

Oh you want to win with big swings well here ya go, all in on overwhelm, and elusive and a burn finisher. Not even the easiest thing to control out because our initial dmg is all burst and can't be chumped.

An oldy that is well positioned to clean house again, you have midrange plays, and you have shromes, with an alt wincon of permanent freeze.

I got all you Lux fans out there, usually remembence into like two 6/6's and a leveled lux is all you need to win games. Tf and the generated lock away card stops your opponent from running you over with anything too spooky. You even have a better version of dragons two mana challenger and we know how good he is.

There we go 5 midrange lists nobody will expect and will do very well right now, and has been play tested extensively...don't like the decks thats cool they arent bad you're bad and I have tons more you might like better.

https://mobalytics.gg/blog/lor-top-dogs-post-bandlewood-balance-patch-meta/

Just gonna go over this article pretty quickly, and present my.own thoughts.

Dragons, plunder, Lurk, Sivir, and Sion are solid midrange decks and for that reason they are good right now, are they exceptional, hard to say but solid 9/10 decks for sure.

Lee Sin Zoe...no just no this deck has never been worse right now. Enjoy getting minimorphed, getting your eye of the dragons removed etc.

I would add quite a few more to the list, I belive landmark aggro with Renekton post buff and Ziggs can do some scary stuff, kind of a low ramp midrange list honestly.

Top end wise, turbo ramp into like a auto leveled Asol is scary as hell. Probably a lot worse with counters, but as something you run into once in a blue moon you'll get run over.

The buff to nightfall is actually relavent where playing multiple Champs still gives you his play effect, turns out thats huge. You can run better decks but you can climb with this.

A high rolled Ekko can be absolutely disgusting, I've seen some r and g nightmares where they pull crystal and duplicate it and play ekko leveled on curve into a automatic time wind, like really unbeatable situations.

Swain, Viktor, these niche Champs are also seeing some really strong winrates again due to their midrange identities, Lux can do work, and yes even in very small instances Braum.

So yeah play midrange or aggro-midrange and win games...that's the real lesson from the post patch meta.

I was planing on writing a more in depth discussion on the subject but due to busy scheduled I am gonna have to be brief and go straight to the point.

I think that mana cheat cards are becoming more and more problematic. Right now They are still at reasonable level but they are getting better with each expansion. 

Cards like Wiggly Burblefish and Bandle City Mayor always you to play more cards than your opponent and still have a bigger hand. Fount of Power enable some infinite shenanigans were we either wait 20 minutes for opponent to finish their turn or just surrender. 

I think that any card that offer mana discount should be caped at 1.

So do guys also think that this will become a major issue or am I just overreacting?

Title pretty much says it all.

If you're still a mobalytics slave you might think that bandle tree is the best deck in the game post nerfs.

But honestly I haven't seen a single person play it, people were running bandle aggro for a while post nerfs but it seems people have learned it doesn't work. Zed poppy who cares.

We get lots of dragons, and for good reason it s a strong deck, lots of Veigar Senna, it's a strong control list

But the real surprise here is that midrange is just freaking good again. Any sort of deck that is flexible, can deal with early threats, play scary midrange stuff, and yes maybe even go over the top with an Asol or other crazy win con.

Those decks are the best to climb with right now...it's not sexy, it's not gonna show up all over mobalytics, but honestly I would feel more confident playing a dumb Braun deck right now, then anything in the tier 1 recommendations.

Thats just where we are at, like Mogwai was playing pursuit of perfection for christ sake, literally dumbest win con there is, and that's because midrange lists with late game payoffs are that strong.

Grappler was playing a discard deck with Viktor, because...midrange. honestly, I love it, it's fantastic, everyone can play they want and win how they want.

Its no secret I found the vanilla release of bandlewood to be basically unplayable once the meta settled.

Gangppank burn, scion Draven, Nami, and shadow creating this really poor play space where it was impossible to tech against everything.

But fortunately this balance patch did two major things.

It hit all the major decks and nerfed them, but secondly it made a lot of my favorite decks and play styles viable again.

Yes Ekko is great now, like actually great if you build him right, same with Lux. TF is playable again, just by merit of bringing down the overall power curve.

Asol absolutely Targon is playable again, while we are still seeing a lot of just add vandlewood decks, the truth is it feels way easier to beat deal with.

Same thing with Poppy Zed etc. Because now you only need to tech against aggro, instead of like 5 different things.

I love it I'm actually enjoying the game again for the first time since Bandlewood released great patch, fixed a lot of the games problems.

Keep it up

Almost a week has passed since the patch and I still cannot login into my account, anyone else has the same problem here?

Did the workaround on reddit worked for you? Idk I don't even feel like using a workaround anyway cause it's not my fault the game is unplayable for so long..

So its no secret that Legends of Runterra only received 15,000 views on its worlds tournament on twitch.

By Riot standards this is an exceptionally low viewer count.

And it has a lot to do with the way Legends plays as a spectator game as of right now.

It prioritizes efficiency, go wide strategies, infinite value engines, all of which aren't particularly interesting to watch.

Meanwhile the "cool" cards ie mono shurima, champions with interesting level up mechanics/quests are generally relegated to meme territory.

This is the one area where hearthstone and and magic when at its best is infinitely more interesting to watch.

Whether it be old school quest warrior, or a magic player going off with some insane combo these things were actually viable competitively.

It wasn't just play a thing that tutors for another thing, do it again, play poppy swing. Or play a thing, tutor for darkness do it again, play Senna.

It really is just watching paint dry in most respects.

So the big advice for the devs make the cool stuff playable, and competitive, this will up the presentation value of your tournaments and make them more exciting to watch. 

So I recently found this card again, and have been trying to make a deck maximizing on his strength. 

Atakhan, Bringer of DoomBADCARDNAME

So far I have experimented with pure Noxus, and blends with both Freljord and Targon. 

I’m curious what are some other deck ideas I can use him in, and what are ones you’ve used for fun?

Now that people have stopped deck building and having fun, the stats are locked in for most popular decks to encounter when playing ladder. Which I'll go over here.

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

Zoe Nami and Draven War are 20% of the meta.

You can expect to run into one of these decks one out of 5 games.

Darkness control and Temo traps are about 15% of the meta. You can expect to run into one of these decks on average 6.5 games.

Shurima landmarks, and TF Gangplank burn are 10% of the meta. You'll find then one out of 10 games.

Everything else we see a pretty big drop of in play rate of 4% or less.

So what do we think, how are we enjoying the meta now that you can realistically know what decks you'll run into 50% of the time?

Now that enough time has passed, we finally have a good idea on the real power level of the new cards, so what cards would you want to see in the next balance patch that will be released on October 20?  Here are my personal ones.

Nami: Do you guys remember the +1/+1 that The Veiled Temple used to give? The one that was considered too strong and had to be nerfed. Imagine a better version of that effect on a champions that has one of the easiest level up requirement in the game. Nami always level by round 4 and when she do. You only need to spam burst speed spells to turn your board of tiny elusives into game ending terrors. Since these burst spells also offer protection to your units. Trying to use removal on them ends up being a lost cause. Speaking of elusive...

Sparklefly: During the beta one of the most powerful elusive cards was Kinkou Lifeblade a 4 mana 2/3 with lifesteal. That was deemed to strong and was eventual nerfed to 2/2. So you can imagine the community's surprise when an even better version of that card was released. This card can be tutored with Crescendum and is very hard to get ride off due to all the protection and buffs available for Targon. 

Aloof Travelers: This card allow you to discard your opponent win condition, draws you a card and give a decent body for a cheap price, The effect being on summon means there is nothing you can do to stop it. Definitely overturned.

Hidden Pathways: Bandle City has so much card generation that it's pretty much impossible not to fulfill this card condition and contrary to Deep Meditation the discount you get is permanent.

Otterpus: Pranks are for most part manageable except for the grant your +2 cost which can cripple your opponent hand and this little fellow allow you to do that for free.

Lost Soul: An infinite value engine, discard lost soul play a Twinblade Revenant, trade into one your opponent key unit's rinse and repeat, I have won many matches just by out grinding my opponent with this card. It doesn't help that, with 4 power twinblade can kill 90% of meta relevant unit's.

Sharpsight: I really didn't wan't to include this one because it's a the best elusive counter in the game, but if we are being honest this card is too good, protect your unit's, trade efficiently, push for damage all for a cheap price. Most people who use this card tend to forget about the the block elusive part. If you play a Demacia deck, any Demacia deck you run 3 Sharpsight no question asked.

So this it for now. Which one do you agree or disagree with?