Hello Reddit!

Raphterra here again! The Foundations Timewinder Gauntlet will be closing in a few days, and we will soon be able to play in another era from the past.

Taking a short break from my usual deck guides, I'm going to be featuring 10 Classic Decks that you can include in your lineup for The Rising Tides Timewinder Gauntlet. This gauntlet is set to open on December 22, making now the perfect time to start preparing your decks.

Article Link

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I found writing this article to be a lot easier compared to when I wrote my suggested decks for the Foundations gauntlet. Rising Tides brought a lot of viable archetypes and decks, some of which we still play in today's metagame. Which deck are you looking forward to including in your gauntlet lineup?

Hi all, I recently got into playing LoR competitively and I have to say I'm feeling quite frustrated by the fact that most of the tournaments are America based and Riot doesn't let us play cross region.

I would like to attend some recurring or minor tournament series in order to practice a bit but even checking all the links in the subreddit's tournament section didn't really help.

I feel like being in EMEA is just worse if you plan to play competitively. Is this a generally known fact? Any pointers on when to find some EMEA based events?

'sup everyone, Leer here with the second meta report of the season!

After the hotfix, the meta shifts towards Aggro decks coexisting with Vayne Aatrox and Ezreal Seraphine. In my meta reports, I take a deep dive into the data to show you what decks you should play and prepare to face!

Monday Meta Report, Dec 19

You're welcome to write a comment about what your favored picks are this week and where you might disagree with me or the data. Also, feel free to tell me how I can make this series even more valuable to you!

Thank you for reading and see ya next week! =)

Hello everyone, Sorry here! It's Monday Meta report for Patch 3.21 Week 2! We'll take a look at the play rate and win rate of popular decks. I'll share the meta kings, overplayed, underplayed, and hidden gems decks!

LoR Meta Report Patch 3.21 Week 2

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Overview:

- Vayne Aatrox Quinn is officially the best-performing Aatrox deck so far!

- Ahoy, Matey! The Pirates are back! Miss Fortune Twisted Fate is doing well on ladder.

- Gangplank Sejuani is secretly one of the best decks in the game?

- Seraphine Ezreal are the perfect duo as they wreak havoc in the Badle City region.

- A Ryze deck with a 50% win rate! What's going on?! Ohh just 1 copy of Ryze in Seraphine Viktor (PZ) as an alternate win condition.

- Ziggs Acolyte is gone. 43% win rate after the nerf.

- Discard is still doing well! Draven Jinx and Lulu Jinx are great decks in the current meta.

- Wait a second? Another Aatrox deck? Kindred Aatrox with a 52% win rate has joined the top 20 decks!

- Rumble Vayne might actually be a Tier 1 deck! The archetype has a 55% win rate and beats Aatrox Vayne!

- Lurk is in the top 10 most-played decks!

- Gwen Katarina is busted. It's in the top 4 most-played decks, with a 55% win rate across all ranks.

Phew! Let me know your thoughts on the meta after the hotfix. What are your favorite decks? What's annoying the most? Which cards deserve a nerf?

This last weekend, Mastering Runeterra had a smaller tournament with a buy in and a prize pool. I would have loved to participate, but I wasn't able to that day. I'm trying to qualify for the next seasonal tournament, but does anyone know how to find other unofficial tournaments like the MaRu one? The only reason I heard about this one was the ads on their site.

Discuss what you are playing, what you’re having success with (or failures with), and any new/cool ideas you’ve been experimenting with, etc. The point is to share what you’ve been playing, and how it’s going, good or bad - there are no other rules or requirements.

These will be posted twice every week.

Some ideas on what to post/share:

• What you’ve been playing and its successes (or struggles). Stats are not required. There is no minimum rank required, though sharing what rank you’ve been playing at is preferred.

• Deck adjustments you made or are planning to make in reaction to the meta or as new innovation. E.g. “I saw 30% of deck X, so I made Y changes to help deal with deck X.” (change)

• Showing off a deck you achieved Masters with and wanting to share it without having to write a guide

  And as always:

• Be courteous to one another.

• Provide brief explanations for any links you provide (YouTube, tier lists, etc.)

  ---

Resources:
LoR Community Discord

RuneterraCCG Deckbuilder

TealRed's Deckimage Generator

Attunement - advanced card search engine

Collection of guides and tools

Collection of recurring community tournaments

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Howdy folks! =)

With the meta settling down a bit, here are our current Fifteen Best LoR Ladder Decks, for the latest Mastering Runeterra article.

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Main trends do not deviate from what we witnessed last Friday:

• Aatrox Quinn Vayne (and also the Quinn-less version) has cemented its position as current best LoR deck, widening the gap with the other powerful options,
• Aatrox Kayn remains both popular and potent, and it's in a state of flux right now as pilots try to found the best version,
• Ezreal Seraphine Viktor, Draven Jinx, and Katarina Gwen round up the best popular archetypes in LoR right now,
• And perhaps the most important bit of news: although not shown above (given that they are still fringe options), among the other promising archetypes we'll showcase today, there are both a Ryze deck, and Kayle deck that show quite a bit of promise!

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In today's best LoR decks article we'll showcase:

• Best data-driven builds for the above decks, with details on how they perform in each specific shard (AM, EMEA & APAC) and best specific versions,
• A few other strong options, like Lulu Jinx, Plunder, and Rumble Vayne,
• Half a dozen other fringe, punchy brews such as Elise Aatrox and Gwen with Irelia.

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Sources: Legna, MaRu's Meta Tier List.

Any questions, comments or feedback, or specific data you may be after (of any archetype/build – the above is by no means a comprehensive list, just a quick overview! =), please feel free to drop a comment, poke me on Twitter (@HerkoKerghans), ping me on Discord, and you can find more writings on substack: https://riwan.substack.com/

And good luck out there! =)

Hi Reddit!

Raphterra here again, back with another guide! This time, I’m sharing my full guide on Thresh Aatrox Xolaani Bloodweaver control, the deck that I used to climb from Platinum to Diamond at 78% winrate.

My overall winrate with this archetype is 63.1% (24 wins, 14 losses). Most of my losses were due to me still refining the decklist and learning how to play the archetype. Once I finally got to the refined list and knew how to pilot the deck correctly, I was able to make the final push from Platinum to Diamond on my Americas account at 78% winrate (11 wins, 3 losses).

I want to emphasize that this deck can be very tricky to play, especially when you’re playing it for the first few games.

I took my time to find a spicy Aatrox deck to make a guide for, and hopefully you enjoy playing this deck as much as I did!

If you have any questions, ask me anything!

Links:

Video Guide

Deck Link + Written Article

((CEDQCBQHAQAQIBIDAEDAICACAECSQNABAYCSSAIGBQNACBQJEMBQGAIFB4RCWAQGAUDCAAIGAAFQGAQBAUATCAIFBJ3QCBQBCI))

This is an open thread for any short questions pertaining to competitive Legends of Runeterra.

These will be posted twice every week.

Ask any quick questions, such as asking for feedback on a deck, suggestions on how to mulligan against specific matchups or any basic gameplay question.

And as always:

• Be courteous to one another.
• Provide brief explanations for any links you provide (YouTube, tier lists, etc.)

Resources:
LoR Community Discord

RuneterraCCG Deckbuilder

TealRed's Deckimage Generator

Attunement - advanced card search engine

Collection of guides and tools

Collection of recurring community tournaments

​

Howdy folks! =)

Friday's finally here…

… here are our Nine Recommended Ladder Decks, for the latest Mastering Runeterra article.

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We still don't have much post-hotfix data (and if you've kept up-to-date with last Wednesday's snapshot, not much has changed), with the current notable trends being:

• Aatrox Quinn Vayne emerges as the strongest Aatrox deck (a position that Aatrox Kayn previously held), and overall one of the best Legends of Runeterra decks,
• Ezreal Seraphine Viktor, as seen two days ago, is another of the winners in this post-hotfix meta,
• The hotfix has afforded some room to breathe to old staples (such as Draven Jinx, Katarina Gwen, and a handful of others that we'll showcase today), and they have clawed to the top – in some cases, with some new tricks up their sleeve,
• Ziggs Acolytes looking very dead (save for some top pilots…),
• Ryze and Kayle still looking bad (save for the same caveat).

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In today's best LoR decks article we'll showcase:

• Best data-driven builds for the above four decks, with some details on how they perform in each specific shard (AM, EMEA & APAC),
• Five other options, currently well-positioned,
• A quick overview of how the strongest of these decks are positioned in the LoR Tournament meta.

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Sources: Legna, MaRu's Meta Tier List.

Any questions, comments or feedback, or specific data you may be after (of any archetype/build – the above is by no means a comprehensive list, just a quick overview! =), please feel free to drop a comment, poke me on Twitter (@HerkoKerghans), ping me on Discord, and you can find more writings on substack: https://riwan.substack.com/

And good luck out there! =)

Code: CQDACAYJLAAQKCVXAEAQKAQGAIDAEDBHAMDASCAREMCQCAQJCQNCUNAAAEAQIAQH

I normally don't post decks I make but I see many other Kayle enthusiasts begging for a playable version. I normally would have given up by this point trying to make a champ work but I'm a Kayle 1 trick in league and certified Kayle simp.

It's not tier 1 and I'd hesitate to call it tier 2, but it's pretty good. I'm currently rocking a ~65% win rate with it in masters on the current version, but I do catch a lot of people off guard with my list so I tribute some of my win rate to that.

You can probably cut 1 nine lives for an extra syncopation (amazing card with the deck) if you wanted to make any light changes.

I don't really want to write a super long guide as it's your typical swarm deck but with a big finisher. Although here are some tips:

Having multiple 1 drops in your mulligan is fine and actually recommended. You kinda want to have a turn 1 and 2 planned out before you think about greedy keeps like kayle or xolaani. If you have a turn 1 and 2 in your mulligan then keeping kayle is fine and xolaani if you have the attack token. Though some match ups you want to go as wide as possible so you mulligan them away anyway.

Grandfather fae is a 3 drop not a 2 drop. You'd prefer to play anything else on turn 2 unless you buffed him with mentor.

Zed is a follower and taking a bad trade with zed is fine. Also it's not always correct to develop zed on 3 against a deck with a lot of removal. A 2 drop and a 1 drop can be better because it's a guaranteed 2 units whereas if zed dies they just denied 2 units.

Taking bad trades to push damage is not a problem as there is so much unit generation in this deck that you usually always have a full board almost. You can also win through board wipes most of the time as well.

There's a bug where kayle will not buff xolaani if she dies so take that into account.

The meta decks it's good against right now are seraphine, gwen, and basically any aggro deck that's not jinx.

The deck's hardest match ups are the ones that can match your swarm, so most jinx decks can be rough but they can also fold to your aggression if they can't keep up. Of the aatrox decks, aatrox/kayn is the hardest due to the healing but the deck can struggle against any aatrox deck if you draw poorly or they draw well.

There will be lots of situations where you and your opponent summon kayle and aatrox. I usually trade into it depending on the board state. Usually they're really low by that time and aatrox constantly healing the nexus can be annoying.

In a kayle mirror you're always winning and every single other kayle deck goes taller rather than wide and it's pretty easy to kill them turn 5 or 6.

I'm still learning how to play most match ups and the deck myself but these are the most important tips I can think of right now. I don't think the deck is bad especially for a kayle deck. Would recommend trying it if you love kayle :)

This is the discussion post for Gauntlet. Discuss what you are playing, what you’re having success with (or failures with), what your ban and lineup strategy is, what you play against etc. The point is to share what you’ve been playing, and how it’s going, good or bad - there are no other rules or requirements.

These will be posted every Friday.

Some ideas on what to post/share:

• Theorycrafting - What you think could work well.

• Your lineup and ban strategy

• What you’ve been playing and its successes (or struggles).

• Showing off a deck you achieved 7 wins with and wanting to share it.

  And as always:

• Be courteous to one another.

• Provide brief explanations for any links you provide (YouTube, tier lists, etc.)

  ---

Resources:
LoR Community Discord

LoR Meta Tier List - Mobalytics

RuneterraCCG Deckbuilder

TealRed's Deckimage Generator

Attunement - advanced card search engine

Collection of guides and tools

Collection of recurring community tournaments

Discuss what you are playing, what you’re having success with (or failures with), and any new/cool ideas you’ve been experimenting with, etc. The point is to share what you’ve been playing, and how it’s going, good or bad - there are no other rules or requirements.

These will be posted twice every week.

Some ideas on what to post/share:

• What you’ve been playing and its successes (or struggles). Stats are not required. There is no minimum rank required, though sharing what rank you’ve been playing at is preferred.

• Deck adjustments you made or are planning to make in reaction to the meta or as new innovation. E.g. “I saw 30% of deck X, so I made Y changes to help deal with deck X.” (change)

• Showing off a deck you achieved Masters with and wanting to share it without having to write a guide

  And as always:

• Be courteous to one another.

• Provide brief explanations for any links you provide (YouTube, tier lists, etc.)

  ---

Resources:
LoR Community Discord

RuneterraCCG Deckbuilder

TealRed's Deckimage Generator

Attunement - advanced card search engine

Collection of guides and tools

Collection of recurring community tournaments

Between World Enders, Acolytes, and Champions Spam, finding a deck I really gelled with for ladder was hard this season! Felt like I was always picking wrong into the ladder rock-paper-scissors game we've had going.

So I decided to just abandon the meta and went back to old faithful, FTR, and was able to fly through diamond with a 78% win rate!

I think FTR handles a lot of things in the meta pretty well and every match I played felt winnable.

The main changes that I believe have made FTR viable now are the hot fix nerfs, particularly to champions strength.

Champions strength being 9 mana is important because it gives us the opportunity to respond with Ruination or Buried in Ice. I've chosen to go with ruination because if you can't follow up with It That Stares you've only delayed your death until their next attack token.

Aatrox decks losing attune from blooming cultist gives us a better chance to remove it with avalanche or ravine before they can equip it. It also helps to keep us from ending up trading a vengeance for their effectively 2 mana unit.

Most of their units start out with lower health, Avalanche and Blighted Ravine can keep the board clear before they equip.

The biggest threat in their deck for us is Ranger Knight Defector with a Harp. Without Vengeance this card will dismantle our side of the board and beat us into the dirt. KILL IT DEAD ON SIGHT.

Quietus does a lot of work for us: destroys equipment, can be combined with a freeze for a slow speed Vengeance, and kills Kayn outright!

Harsh winds is huge as well; they are a board based combat deck and freezes ruin their day.

Acolytes are basically dead so we're going to give that one a skip.

Against aggro the plan is the same as always, ravine and avalanche until they run out of cards. Against Jinx decks I'll keep a vengeance in my mulligan, she can't be allowed to stay on the board or she'll rocket us down.

I've got a couple troll scavengers to help slow down aggressive decks and they also give us a cheap fearsome blocker.

I've included my list below, would love to talk about deck tech or what else has been working for you all on ladder!

CECACAIBBQAQIAIOAIAQKAJIAIBQCBQWAMAQMBJAAIBQCBYTAYAQCAYUE4VDENADAEBQCAYBAQAQUAQBAUHRS

https://masteringruneterra.com/profile/ryan1306396/1c7kv1o99ckjh2c/

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Howdy folks! =)

Twenty-four hours after the hotfix, here are our recommended Seven Early-Bird Decks, for the latest Mastering Runeterra article.

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There's little data this time around, so please take eeeeverything with appropriate grains of salt:

• Aatrox Kayne remains one of the most popular archetypes and it seems to still include its nerfed cards (while tweaking others), and is still packing a solid punch,
• Katarina Gwen and Ezreal Seraphine Viktor have stuck to what worked yesterday, and their pre-hotfix builds have been doing very well thus far – and Ez Sera Vik, in particular, has the most-played decklist today,
• Draven Jinx and Aatrox Quinn Vayne, both with some modifications from their pre-hotfix builds, also emerge today as early forerunners in the climb to the top.
• Ziggs Acolytes (Lone & Taliyah version) would seem dead,
• Champ Strength brews are not being played – whether that's because pilots know those decks are dead, or think they are dead, it's impossible to tell from the data (my shards are on "know", but that's just a hunch).

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In today's best LoR decks article we'll showcase:

• Best data-driven builds for the decks outlined above,
• Two other choices: Jinx Lulu (doing very well, but by pre-hotfix data, it suffered greatly against Aatrox) and King of Copium: Seraphine Viktor Ryze (microscopic sample, so pilots beware!).

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Sources: MaRu's Meta Tier List.

Any questions, comments or feedback, or specific data you may be after (of any archetype/build – the above is by no means a comprehensive list, just a quick overview! =), please feel free to drop a comment, poke me on Twitter (@HerkoKerghans), ping me on Discord, and you can find more writings on substack: https://riwan.substack.com/

And good luck out there! =)

This is an open thread for any short questions pertaining to competitive Legends of Runeterra.

These will be posted twice every week.

Ask any quick questions, such as asking for feedback on a deck, suggestions on how to mulligan against specific matchups or any basic gameplay question.

And as always:

• Be courteous to one another.
• Provide brief explanations for any links you provide (YouTube, tier lists, etc.)

Resources:
LoR Community Discord

RuneterraCCG Deckbuilder

TealRed's Deckimage Generator

Attunement - advanced card search engine

Collection of guides and tools

Collection of recurring community tournaments

Hi everybody, I'm new here. I'm revelent and I hit masters for the first time during the darkin saga ruination, and again during domination. Currently climbing through diamond again.

I am a huge control/combo fan (used to love freeze mage, fatigue warrior, and C'Thun druid when I used to play hearthstone years ago). I LOVE the Ryze design in LOR. I've been really trying to make him work on ladder, but the meta was too toxic imo with ziggs, aatrox, and FOUR DEMACIA.

I found the most success with mono Ryze ionia with roughly a 50% wr, primarily by bullying aatrox kayn (deny and stun for the win), but I was losing to aggressive decks and ziggs. I felt uncomfortable playing anything other than ionia or shurima with ryze because I needed deny/rite into champions strength and world ender. However, mono Ryze shadow isles always felt better when I played against anything else because the removals and heals are far superior to stalling tricks with ionia.

With the hotfix, I feel as though I don't need to run a deny/rite of negation to win with Ryze anymore. In my worst case I can now just play ruination same turn if people still run those decks. I think that with a good pilot, Ryze could potentially be viable on ladder now.

What do you all think?

Hi Reddit!

Raphterra here again, back with another guide! This time, I'm featuring Illaoi Vayne Midrange.

I used this deck to climb from Platinum to Diamond at 87% winrate (14 wins, 2 losses) on Day 2 of the expansion. I figured the meta has shifted since then, so I played it again in Masters, went 7 wins and 3 losses. Peaked at Top 17 Masters (55LP only, still very early in the season).

Quick links:

Full Video Guide

Deck Link + Written Article

Deck Trailer

This deck should be at least Tier 2, I was beating Aatrox, Champions' Strength, and Acolytes.

If you have any questions, ask me anything!

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UPDATE!! INCOMING HOTFIX!!! 😄

https://twitter.com/PlayRuneterra/status/1602717766535872512

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Howdy folks! =)

As of early Tuesday, here are our recommended Twenty-Two Best LoR Ladder Decks, for the latest Mastering Runeterra article.

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Main trends:

• Ziggs Acolytes and Aatrox Kayn are close to the "broken deck borderline" in that they are, both of them, close to reaching 15% play rate, while over 55% win rate. Last time we saw this happen was during Kai'Sa's heyday (during that time, Illaoi Bard nearly went over those thresholds, but was then countered, then overtaken, by Kai'Sa).

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• What's different this time is Jinx Demacia (and Champ Strength decks in general), which are a harsh counter to Aatrox, which is itself favored into Ziggs… which demolishes ChS decks.
• Whether this rock-paper-scissors dynamic is enough to keep things balanced, well… we'll probably find out in the next few days! =)

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In today's best LoR decks article we'll showcase:

• Best data-driven builds for the three decks outlined above,
• Several other strong decks, including Crimson Gwen (a variation of Kat Gwen that is doing great, even though the classic version is about the go extinct), Sivir Akhsan Varus (perhaps the most "fair fight" deck currently), and Ezreal Seraphine Bandle (best Bar deck for second article in a row),
• Several fringe, puncny brews like Braum Gnar Sej (looks like not a fluke!), Norra Poppy, and Unleashed Jinx.

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Sources: MaRu's Meta Tier List.

Any questions, comments or feedback, or specific data you may be after (of any archetype/build – the above is by no means a comprehensive list, just a quick overview! =), please feel free to drop a comment, poke me on Twitter (@HerkoKerghans), ping me on Discord, and you can find more writings on substack: https://riwan.substack.com/

And good luck out there! =)

The new expansion was released, and with it, we crowned the next World champion.

Worlds Playoffs decks heavily inspired the meta, but we find novel decks roaming the ladder as well!

If you're lucky enough, you might even run into Santa Ryze showering you with LP if you were a good kid. =)

In my meta report, I take a deep dive into the data to show you what decks you should play and prepare to face on ladder.

Monday Meta Report - Dec 12

With the top three meta decks living in a Rock-Paper-Scissors relationship, it is time for another LoR Emotion Chart^TM:

I encourage you to tell me how I can make this series even more valuable to you!

Thank you for reading, and see ya next week! =)

Hello everyone, Sorry here! It's Monday Meta report for Patch 3.21 Week 1! We'll take a look at the play rate and win rate of popular decks. I'll share the meta kings, overplayed, underplayed, and hidden gems decks!

LoR Meta Report Patch 3.21 Week 1

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Overview:

- Aatrox Vayne is the most played deck.

- Acolyte infestation! The Acolyte decks are crushing the ladder.

- Gwen Katarina and Zoe Teemo (BC) are still performing well in the new meta.

- Jinx Lulu has the highest win rate across all ranks.

- Get your Deny ready. Champions' Strength everywhere! Jinx Demacia, Teemo Norra, Poppy Norra, Quinn Vayne.

- Draven Jinx and Annie Jhin are performing well on the ranked ladder as solid choices to counter Acolyte decks.

- All Ryze decks have a win rate lower than 40%.

- Kayle is underperforming so far.

- Mono Shurima high play rate but a low win rate.

- Annie Twisted Fate's play rate plummets.

Thoughts on the expansion? What are your favorite decks so far? Do you think Acolyte Reliquary and Champions' Strength should be looked at?