Eternal Monday Meta Report - May 29th

‘sup everyone.

*inhales deeply*

Sigh. 

Doesn’t it feel nice to breathe fresh Eternal air? 

Almost every deck this week is a banger that feels novel, despite each of them being prevalent in prior metas years ago. Let’s cut right to the chase!

Legends of Runeterra Eternal Decks

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

Of all the new-old meta decks, Annie Jhin (Jhinnie), a Standard brew, is the most popular!

With the revert of the self-absorbed man, Draven Sion (Discard Midrange) finds itself at the epicenter of people's attention as well.

As it appears, Aggro is finally favored by the meta gods again after a dry season in Standard.

Sett Trundle is allowed to run nine ramp spells, turning into the new Feel The Old Timer. (As a reference to the prior Freljord Ionia ramp deck lovingly nicknamed Feel The Minah)

Annie Katarina is a pre-rotation staple, controlling the board with Noxus removal like Ravenous Flock and unleashing Tybaulk.

Three LoR decks with a polarizing fanbase struggle to find footing in the new meta – Azir Irelia (Azirelia), Ryze Ionia, and Azir Xerath (Mono Shurima).

My personal favorite is finally unleashed, gaining back their machine gun – Ezreal Seraphine (Bandle Bar)!

Jinx is searching for a maniac of her caliber, and ditched Samira for Draven in the blink of an eye. Draven Jinx (Discard Aggro) is a fast reimagination of Draven Sion and is finding similar success.

Finally, the fossil Nasus Thresh has been dug up! It's finding overwhelming success and will have to prove itself in the next weeks that it's worth not burying again!

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

Poppy Ziggs (Bandle Aggro) is yet another Aggro brew popping up. The partial Poppy revert was all the LoR Eternal deck needed to return to its prior glory.

The reverts to the Slay deck's early game are doing wonders as Nasus Thresh is at the top… but where are Azir Irelia and Trundle Lissandra control?! 

With Annie Katarina, we have three different archetypes at the pinnacle of the meta – Aggro, Combo, and Control!

This balance is swiftly weighted to one side when looking further down the line – Jhinnie and Discard Midrange are also finding outstanding success …unless you want to count Discard Midrange as Midrange? Crazy thought!

Feel The Old Timer is not only superb in theory but also pulls numbers in reality.

Discard Aggro is pushing the meta yet again further into the Aggro spectrum.

Poppy was a menace on her release and is in a nerfed state from her original design. Yet she is pushing two more blends into the LoR Eternal meta – Poppy Zed (Rally Elusives) and Poppy Taric. 

The latter one is a bit of a surprise, as Relentless Pursuit no longer targets a unit, so you can't double Rally with Taric and need to rely on the more expensive Golden Aegis.

Bandle Bar rounds out the meta, showing how rich and versatile the Legends of Runeterra Eternal meta is despite its tendency towards Aggro archetypes.

Factors Shaping the LoR Eternal Meta

There’re so many sick decks to talk about, I don’t even know where to begin! 

Let’s start at the top.

Bandle Aggro is overwhelmingly leading the winrate chart. Take into account that Aggro decks’ winrates are usually inflated though, as they are easier to pilot from the get-go compared to more complicated brews like Nasus Thresh.

Slow control blends are a quickie for Bandle Aggro. Sett Trundle takes too long to get going before it can deal with the Bandle swarm and lacks Shadow Isles tools like Vile Feast. Annie Kat is just too inefficient at removing units, needing two cards to deal with units that have more than one health.

Annie Jhin, who relies on stuns to remove enemy blockers, gets swarmed by Bandle units, negating Jhinnie’s game plan.

Ryze doesn’t play units, how are they supposed to beat anything board-based?!

For the bad matchups, we see a pattern – to beat Bandle Aggro, you need a strong early game splashed with removal.

Discard Aggro and Midrange achieve this by going wide early. Sion is an Overwhelm chunker Poppy Ziggs can’t deal with, while Jinx is a great board-control tool to outvalue other Aggro brews.

Nasus Thresh has an excellent early game with followers like Ravenous Butcher and Blighted Caretaker, as well as removal like Vile Feast and Hate Spike, making this matchup a living hell for Bandle Aggro.

Aggro historically tends to do well in the early stages of a meta, but usually not with those numbers. It is safe to assume that Poppy Ziggs is a ladder menace going forward and the deck to play or beat in the coming week.

Speaking of Bandle Aggro’s bane – Nasus Thresh is back!

Similar to Bandle Aggro, Nasus Thresh has incredibly favored matchups well above a 60% winrate, and only few bad matchups that go below 45%.

As we saw above, Aggro brews are the name of the game and Thresh Nasus is exceptional at beating them. With early unit, removal spells, and even Rite of Negation, there is no room for interpretation of what this monster does to Aggro decks.

It’s especially nasty that Nasus can outgrow Sion to safely block it. 

As for solutions against this menace, they are on the more control side. Feel The Old Timer and Ryze are great at disrupting Nasus and Thresh with Ionia Stuns/Recalls. The reason these matchups are not horrible for Nasus is that it can aggro down these decks with some degree of consistency.

As for Annie Katarina, Disintegrate is an evil mechanic to dispose of Nasus. Annie Kat also runs enough early game to weather the storm against Thresh Nasus’ cheap units.

Honorable Mentions

Pirate Aggro

Regions

Noxus
20 cards

Bilgewater
20 cards

Rarities

29 200

6

6

6

22

eternal

Mana cost

0

0

12

1

10

2

6

3

6

4

3

5

3

6

0

7+

Champions

6

3

Miss Fortune

3

4

Twisted Fate

3

Followers

23

1

Crimson Pigeon

3

1

Jagged Butcher

3

1

Legion Rearguard

3

1

Legion Saboteur

3

2

Imperial Demolitionist

2

2

Legion Grenadier

3

2

Marai Warden

3

4

Zap Sprayfin

3

Spells

11

2

Make it Rain

2

3

Noxian Fervor

3

5

Eye of Nagakabouros

3

6

Decimate

3

Not yet fed up with Aggro? Pirates is the Aggro blend that counters most other Aggro decks thanks to Twisted Fate’s Red Card (and an unholy number of 1-drops).

On ladder, Pirate Aggro is punching a 60.8% WR over 2.8k games in the past three days. 

It’s the perfect choice for data crunchers that want to play Aggro but also beat what’s on top of the meta.

We even have a Pirate Aggro deck guide! =)

Karma Sett Shadow Isles

Regions

Ionia
24 cards

Shadow Isles
16 cards

Rarities

34 100

6

9

14

11

eternal

Mana cost

0

0

5

1

12

2

3

3

5

4

14

5

1

6

0

7+

Champions

6

5

Karma

3

5

Sett

3

Landmarks

1

3

Opulent Foyer

1

Followers

10

1

Vastayan Disciple

2

2

Ceaseless Sentry

2

2

Eye of the Dragon

3

5

Scattered Pod

3

Spells

23

1

Go Hard

3

2

Soul Harvest

2

2

Tag Out!

2

2

Vile Feast

3

3

Undergrowth

2

4

Concussive Palm

2

4

Deny

1

4

The Box

2

5

Deep Meditation

2

5

Place Your Bets

3

6

Vengeance

1

Karma Sett is a proven concept in Standard as all of us know well. And even splashing Shadow Isles into the mix is not unheard of if you did some soul data searching. 

But with the return of old staples like Vile Feast, the Shadow Isles remix of Karma Sett just got infinitely better!

The deck comfortably sits at a 58.9% WR over 1.2k games in the past three days.

If you want to play a Standard brew in Eternal but be less obvious about it, Karma Sett is your deck! =)

Trundle Timelines

Regions

Piltover & Zaun
13 cards

Freljord
27 cards

Rarities

28 800

6

6

4

24

eternal

Mana cost

2

0

5

1

15

2

3

3

6

4

6

5

0

6

3

7+

Champions

6

5

Trundle

3

7

Ornn

3

Followers

20

1

Weaponsmith's Apprentice

3

2

Favored Artisan

3

2

Vulpine Wanderer

2

3

Piltovan Castaway

3

4

Augmented Clockling

3

4

Combat Cook

3

5

Hearthblood Mender

3

Spells

14

0

Thermogenic Beam

2

1

Three Sisters

2

2

Concurrent Timelines

3

2

Inner Beast

2

2

Mystic Shot

2

2

Troll Chant

3

Concurrent Timelines got reverted, did you really think I wouldn’t feature it the first time I got the chance? Well, think again!

On stats, Ornn Trundle is the best combination of champions for Timelines. It sports a 58.7% WR over 2.5k games in the past three days

…but what do we mortals know about matters of passing gods?

The goat of Timeline decks, Robomaster, has spent most of his LoR lifetime contemplating and refining Concurrent Timelines decks. And as soon as Eternal came, he jammed a hundred games, ending on the following list:

Regions

Piltover & Zaun
22 cards

Freljord
18 cards

Rarities

30 000

5

9

8

18

eternal

Mana cost

2

0

5

1

9

2

9

3

6

4

5

5

1

6

3

7+

Champions

5

5

Trundle

3

5

Vi

2

Followers

22

1

Zaunite Urchin

3

2

Ferros Financier

3

2

Icevale Archer

1

2

Vulpine Wanderer

1

3

Innovative Blacksmith

3

3

Kindly Tavernkeeper

1

3

Piltovan Castaway

2

4

Augmented Clockling

3

4

Combat Cook

3

6

Revna, the Lorekeeper

1

8

It That Stares

1

Spells

13

0

Thermogenic Beam

2

1

Three Sisters

2

2

Concurrent Timelines

3

2

Mystic Shot

1

3

Aftershock

3

9

Buried in Ice

2

If Robomaster could reach top 4 in the latest Open without Concurrent Timelines, imagine what he’ll do in the next one!

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 and matchup tables have been due to MaRu’s Meta Tier List and meta stats. They are doing an insane job at collecting all this data and presenting it to us in an approachable manner.

The talented Hazy has been converting the metadata into these 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!