Eternal Monday Meta Report – June 12th

‘sup everyone. Concurrent Timelines needed to be fixed in an emergency, obliterating any and every deck in its way. The first Eternal Runeterra Open has been played out, with surprising twists like nerfed Timelines winning the EMEA tourney!

On ladder, power relations are thrown upside down. As Samira Seraphine tries to repeat what Timeline decks did, yet another monster is unleashed on the meta.

Legends of Runeterra Eternal Decks

Sorting MaRu’s LoR Eternal Meta Tier List and meta stats by playrate (PR), we see the following:

We had a crazy week. Concurrent Timelines climbed to the top overnight and needed to get hotfixed. Despite the nerfs, Bandle City Timelines is still influencing the meta significantly.

Nasus Thresh is seeing less play, with more and more meta decks countering the archetype.

Ryze Ionia is one of those counters, that is seeing more playrate despite its mediocre performance.

Ezreal Samira Seraphine is the latest Seraphine iteration – no Back Alley Bar to be seen!

Viktor Aphelios climbed to popularity after its success a week ago in the Mastering Runeterra Open and Always Be Games.

Some archetypes have to make way for new ones – Annie Katarina and Annie Jhin (Jhinnie) are such sacrifices. 

Jax Ornn is the latest newcomer this week, although we saw two “older” newcomers this week already.

Samira Seraphine is just like Samira Seraphine Ezreal but without the one-of Ezreal.

Finally, Sett Trundle is getting less popular!

Turning to winrates (WR), we get this result:

Samira Seraphine is the clear winner of this week, closely followed by Jax Ornn. Both newcomers earn their popularity, taking the Eternal LoR meta into their grasp. 

Poppy Ziggs is getting countered by new meta decks like Jax Ornn and Bandle City Timelines, bumping their winrate down by a significant notch.

Sett Trundle is an answer to Jax Ornn, seeing a rise in performance as a result of Jax Ornn’s newfound popularity.

Jhinnie is the least affected Aggro deck by the meta shift. While it loses horribly to Jax Ornn, it beats archetypes like Samira Seraphine the hardest.

Ezreal Samira Seraphine is the factual worse Samira Seraphine deck. Ezreal has to step it up to earn back his spot!

Swain Norra is a different spin on Bandle City Noxus control, relying on Swain and The Leviathan rather than Tybaulk and Condense like Annie Katarina.

Bandle City Timelines got gutted quite a bit by the nerf, and winrate numbers are influenced by the pre-nerf version of the deck. Current winrate numbers after the balance change are around 50%.

The same can be said about Jax Vi Timelines.

Annie Kat is on paper the worse Bandle City Noxus control iteration compared to Norra Swain!

Factors Shaping the LoR Eternal Meta

A lot has happened over the week, starting with the domination of Concurrent Timelines. A triple Timelines lineup won the Mastering Runeterra Open, and highlighted the absence of counters to Bandle City Timelines and Jax Timelines. 

With the nerf, numbers look awful. While many still believe in the deck, ladder winrates over the past few days tell a different picture.

Samira Seraphine is the #1 deck on ladder right now and for a good reason. Few decks can deal with four or more Plaza Guardians on round six. 

Especially the combo with Samira is horrifying, as she quickly flips and rallies with Seraphine (level 2) on board double-casting spells.

What makes Samira Seraphine so powerful is its consistency. A low roll consists of two to three Plaza Guardians by round seven. And a high roll of five Plaza Guardians or four and a Rallying Samira.

As we can see, “bad” matchups for the archetype look not bad at all. If a deck’s worst matchups are 45%, you know you found gold!

On the other hand, Samira Seraphine is well adapted to the meta. It beats the rising Aphelios Viktor and ever-present Ryze enjoyers. It also beats post-nerf Timelines and their imposter sibling with Ezreal.

Ezreal is too slow in this deck, considering that Samira flips much faster with Seraphine (level 2) on the board. Ezreal also wants you to target enemy units in the late game, while the archetype’s goal is to copy its Plaza Guardians with Iterative Improvement and Blood for Blood. 

Jax Ornn is the other hot news of this week. As the latest newcomer, it could be interpreted as an answer to Samira Seraphine but that would do the deck injustice. Jax Ornn beats most meta decks, only losing to select Ionia brews.

Jax Ornn is also well-built to bully Aphelios Viktor and Bandle City Timelines. It out-stats transformed Timelines units and can beatdown Aphelios Viktor thanks to Overwhelm units, as well as big units being less prone to Piltover & Zaun removal.

That’s also the reason it beats Samira Seraphine – Samira Sera is good at dealing one or two damage to units but has to invest at least two spells to deal with higher-health bodies. 

Jax Ornn also beats Thresh Nasus, thanks to Forge allowing units to grow bigger than Nasus, especially if Ornn is found.

Jax Ornn is a little easier to target than Samira Seraphine, as it is prone to Stuns and Recalls. Jax Ornn relies on big units to rule the board, but an Ornn can never connect with the Nexus in the face of Steel Tempest or Concussive Palm.

Stuns are also the reason Swain Norra are well-equipped to deal with Jax Ornn.

Zoe Fizz Elusives is dodging Jax Ornn’s blockers and can race Jax Ornn before it can build up a big Overwhelm unit or outlast with heals from Innovative Blacksmith and Hearthblood Mender.

Overall, Jax Ornn has majorly benefitted from the return of Hearthblood Mender thanks to the Eternal format. It gives the archetype enough heal to flip Aggro matchups, and helps get a unit over the eighth-attack threshold to level Ornn.

Honorable Mentions

Zoe Elusives

You already saw it when discussing Jax Ornn – Zoe Elusives is back!

While Fizz Zoe Bilgewater is a notable version of the deck, Teemo Zoe Piltover & Zaun is the better iteration.

The Piltover & Zaun version has more access to one-mana Elusives thanks to Acorn, the Hextechnician, as well as burn with Mystic Shot. 

The Elusives archetype cashes in on the recent Blessing of Targon buff, running it six times with Targonian Tellstones.

Generally speaking, you want to full mull for Zoe and Purifying Flames. If you find the latter, wait until round three or four (depending on your Attack Token) until you develop a buffed Elusive unit. It is extremely difficult for most decks to deal with Elusives, let alone Elusives with more than two HP!

The archetype sports a 60% winrate over 1.5k games in the last three days.

Rumble Vayne

Rumble Vayne was invented by Kapi when Legionary Charge was released and died when rotation removed it from us. 

In Eternal, the deck has silently performed well on ladder since the introduction of the format. Now, it performs well over a considerable sample size to be featured in the report.

More concretely, it holds a 57.6% winrate over 800 games in the past three days. There is a Rumble Vayne guide by Seasonal Winner Card Gamer available on Mastering Runeterra!

Taliyah Ziggs

Taliyah Ziggs has returned! A recurring theme of the past weeks, old archetypes that vanquished in the face of rotation come back to life in the Eternal format and Taliyah Ziggs is no exception.

The most successful version featured Waste Walker, coming (somewhat) close to a big Overwhelm Weaponmaster of Jax Ornn.

With popular Legends of Runeterra meta decks like Samira Seraphine and Viktor Aphelios having access to control tools, midrange brews are in high demand. 

On ladder, Taliyah Ziggs sits at a 56.9% winrate over 2.1k games in the last three days. 

There is a beginner-friendly Taliyah Ziggs guide by yours truly available on Mastering Runeterra! =)

Conclusion

Thank you for reading this week's meta-report and making it this far. If you’re still here and read this, leave a “Hi” in the Reddit thread comments, and I will “Hi” you back! =)

The data has been due to MaRu’s Eternal Meta Tier List while the matchup tables have been from Legna’s brilliant homepage. They are doing an insane job at collecting all this data and presenting it to us in an approachable manner. They deserve all the praise in the world!

The talented Hazy has been converting the metadata into stunning graphs for the Monday Legends of Runeterra Meta Report, I can't express my gratitude enough to him!

Thanks to Herko Kerghans for his ever-lasting influence on this series and my writing as a whole.

You can reach me on Twitter (@Leer97) or Discord (Leer#2026).

Thanks for reading this Monday's LoR Meta Report and see ya next week!