Nidalee
, Neeko
and The Poro King
have just arrived at Legends of Runeterra! With 24 hours of data since LoR's latest expansion launched, this is how things look like in the Standard ladder according to Mastering Runeterra Meta Tier List:
With the usual caveat of "It's day one, therefore waaay too early to tell," thus far the new LoR Champs are very popular but haven't made too much of a splash when we look at their win rate.
Let's check the specific decks and see what we can find!
Fluffy New Puppies: New LoR Decks
Here are the four decks with new cards that have had a good head-start: two with new champs (Neeko and Nidalee), and two with existing Champs that are putting new cards to good use!
Garen Jarvan Neeko
In a very smart move, Neeko joins one of the strongest Champion pairs in Standard (which, as we'll see in a bit, still remains a powerhouse), and Garen Jarvan Neeko is today, by a landslide, the most popular specific decklist, with nearly 2000 games played since the Heart of the Huntress patch landed.
With a 52% win rate, it's the best Neeko deck right now, and the only one punching above the 50% mark. It seems the underdog to all the still-reigning Old Top Dogs, though, so we'll see how Neeko fairs in the LoR jungle in the coming days.
By the way: for those returning to Standard after a long Eternal break, this is a very different deck from Garen Jarvan Kai'Sa – it's not just a quick swap of champions, but an entirely different shell, even switching the 
Demacia units quite a bit.
30 cards
10 cards
31 600
Age of Dragons: Aurelion Sol
And the second most popular new deck with a positive win rate is…
… yes, you read that right: good ol' Space Dragon himself, Aurelion Sol
, heralding the Age of Dragons
!!
Don't get your hopes up, though, because he seems to lose against every deck that was strong pre-patch… but, as of right now, nearly 500 games with a solid 53% make this the best Aurelion Sol deck in ages.
26 cards
14 cards
29 300
Ekko Nidalee
You have to dig quite deep to find a well-performing Nidalee deck (and, in particular, dig through a thick layer of Nidalee Gnar decks that don't seem to work), but here's a promising build: the usual Ekko Predict shell but with Ambush mind-games on top, courtesy of Nidalee and the two followers she brings along.
A great 55% performance thus far, with close to 300 games played since the patch landed (a sample that is on the low end, but fairly big considering we're looking at just 24hs, and not our usual three-day window).
And, in a minuscule sample, Ekko Nidalee seems to have an edge against two of the biggest Old Dogs, namely Elites and Annie Jhin.
31 cards
9 cards
26 500
Siren Song: Evelynn Kayle
Evelynn
is having a blast with her new Siren Song
card, and she went to Targon to round up her Husk crew. There are several builds (including one with Eve as the lone Champ), but they are all thus far fairly similar and they are all punching hard right now. In particular, Kuako piloted this archetype to become the second AM Masters (right behind MaykaS, who was on good ol' Jinx Samira).
19 cards
21 cards
30 600
Almost There: His Fluffy Highness, Generous Donor of LPs, The Poro King!
While immensely popular, The Poro King has yet to find a deck that punches above a 50% win rate.
Here are two builds that are fairly close to that feat – the first, taking His Fluffy Majesty to Freljord, is the most popular when looking at specific decklists…
33 cards
7 cards
23 700
… while the one taking our King to 
Bilgewater is the most popular when looking at whole archetypes (and is, in fact, the most-played archetype in LoR):
33 cards
7 cards
13 900
As noted, neither makes the "good deck" cut right now, but they are for sure the fluffiest decks in LoRtown!
NOTE: thanks to Jielhar for catching a typo -- the FR deck was shown twice.
Mean Old Dogs: Strongest LoR Decks
The first day of LoR data suggests that Heart of the Huntress is on the low end of the power scale: neither of its three champs is hitting too hard, while strong decks from last patch are having a bloodbath.
Since data samples are fairly small right now, for this section we'll just look at decks with at least 300 games and a win rate above 55% – but with how dominant the Old Dogs are, it's a safe bet that any deck that worked for you last patch (like Jinx Samira, which became the first AM Masters, or Vault Nasus) will still work very well on the LoR ladder this weekend.
Garen Jarvan Kai'Sa
Exact same build as last week, and even better results – not too surprising, considering the number of unrefined brews to be found on the LoR ladder right now, including Garen Neeko decks, that Garen Jarvan Kai'Sa just steamrolls.
With 800 games and a sky-high 60% win rate, Garen Jarvan Kai'Sa looks this patch, like the previous, one of the best decks in Runeterra… although it would appear (in a minuscule sample) that Ekko Nidalee may have the upper hand in this matchup.
22 cards
18 cards
27 100
Annie Jhin
Blazing brat and bullet buff didn't wait for a single heartbeat before breathing down Elites' neck, and resume their last patch's struggle for the Best LoR Deck title, and as such they were ABG Kyzen's weapon of choice to become the first Master in their shard in a 14-hour climb.
Like Elites, Annie Jhin crushes most new Champs and decks underfoot – with perhaps the exception of Ekko Nidalee.
25 cards
15 cards
27 500
Illaoi Swain
Pilots remembered, by the tail-end of last patch, that Priestess and Grand General are an excellent pair, and they surged like thrashing tentacles from the deep – and looks like these two Champs were not forgotten amidst the new-cards hype: Illaoi Swain is another Old Dog chewing cute new brews for brunch while putting up a scary 62% win rate.
26 cards
14 cards
30 200
Pyke Rek'Sai, aka Lurkers
Pyke's crew is also having a blast in these turbulent seas – they were already doing very well by the end of last patch, and as such continue the trend of Old Dogs steamrolling the new, fluffy puppies.
15 cards
25 cards
26 400
Aatrox Quinn Vayne
Aatrox Quinn Vayne breaks the above-mentioned trend, in the sense that it wasn't among the best of the best decks last patch (even though it was always playable) – it sure looks like one of the scariest things out there right now, though.
28 cards
12 cards
34 400
Wrapping Up
As of right now, The Poro King is arguably the most influential Champ on the LoR ladder…
… but that's because of how generous it is with LPs, inflating everybody else's win rates!
Overall, most decks that did well last patch are still doing well – we'll see how things pan out in the next few days, though, what brewers come up with, and whether or not up-and-comers like Ekko Nidalee or Evelynn Targon have what it takes!
If you have any questions or comments, or more data you may need, feel free to:
Poke me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HerkoKerghans,
Or find more writings on substack: https://riwan.substack.com/
Technical Note – About overall archetypes and specific decks, and what we mean by "LoR best decks"
Most data sites (including our LoR Meta Tier List, and our meta stats page) sort LoR meta decks by archetype ("Archetype" being the aggregate of all decks in LoR with a specific champion combination) – that's also how matchup tables are shown in pretty much all data sites.
In this article, we'll sort these decks by the best specific decklist for each archetype. And, whenever we talk about LoR decks in general, or best Legends of Runeterra decks in particular, we'll always be referring to specific lists (while reserving "archetype" to denominate the aggregate of all decks with a particular champion pair).
As a rule of thumb, LoR decks with a win rate (WR) above 52% catch our eye; above 53% are eye-widening, and anything with a WR over 55% is exceptional -- bear in mind, though, that early on in a patch cycle the best decks tend to have much higher winrates than that, given that there are lots of bad/unrefined brews that inflate everybody else's performance.
Where does this data come from?
Directly from Riot (via Riot's API) – in other words, all the numbers in this article are "from the horse's mouth," so to speak.
Liver, our wonderful coder and unsung MaRu 🐐 (also in charge of designing the website) makes Riot's data automagically appear in our meta tier list and meta stats page, and all-around LoR 🐐 Legna shares his data (from the same source, although following a different set of players) with us too.
