Standard Meta Report – The Last Chance Qualifier Meta

'sup everyone, Leer here. As the season comes to a close, we have one final tournament left. One last shot at qualifying for the LoR World Championship!

Let's look at the last meta of the season and how it will define the Last Chance Qualifier!

Legends of Runeterra Decks

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

Pyke Rek’Sai (Urgh) is unfortunately the most popular Legends of Runeterra meta deck again. This happened last time we diverted our eyes to Eternal as well, and will change over the week… surely!

Shen Jarvan IV wasn’t hit by the latest balance patch, thus continuing its dominating presence on the ladder.

The Poro King Yuumi has been chilling in the suburbs for a while now. With some main residents in the downtown getting evicted, there’s new room for the cute king and his followers!

This season, Ashe LeBlanc has been on a rollercoaster ride but somehow ended up unscathed.

Volibear Aurelion Sol is a meme-tier ramp deck, don’t play this if your LP is dear to you.

Gwen Zed has been a tier 2 deck at best in past metas. After the leave of Nilah Janna, though, it saw its once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and is making a run for the top.

Volibear Tryndamere Shadow Isles is the counterpart of Volibear Trundle Shadow Isles in Eternal and the much more sane Freljord ramp deck compared to Voli Asol.

Nautilus Maokai (Deep) got love in the last balance patch, luring it back into the meta… or dragging the meta down into its abyss?!

Miss Fortune Quinn (Scouts) came out relatively unscathed despite the nerfs to Champions' Strength, still seeing a relevant amount of play.

Finally, Teemo Yuumi (Elusives) is rising in popularity.

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

What a revelation – Gwen Zed stands on top of the meta! Previously thought of as a mediocre Ephemeral deck, it is now proving itself as the best Legends of Runeterra meta deck!

Shen J4 is also up here, to no one's surprise. Janna Nilah was its worst matchup by far, and with its absence, there is no brew stopping this archetype.

Elusives Has secretly been one of the best decks in the game, and the ladder is now catching up.

Despite the nerfs, Scouts not only remains popular, but also successful, showing that the Demacia blend is much more than a Champions' Strength deck!

Darius Gnar is still seeing success, despite its biggest target in Nilah Janna being gone.

Urgh is also able too keep pace with the meta, despite its RNG-heavy nature.

As previously mentioned, Ashe LeBlanc has gone from top to flop over the course of this season, but surprisingly ended up just fine after the last meta adjustment.

Galio Garen Jarvan IV has been a powerhouse before, beating both meta menaces meaningfully. After the disappearance of Nilah Janna, its hits less targets on ladder but remains a solid choice!

Annie Jhin (Jhinnie) will always be a considerable Aggro deck, just like it has been for many seasons now.

Finally, The Poro King Targon is not only cute and popular with the ladies ladderistas but is also successful in the winrate department!

Factors Shaping the LoR Meta

As we’ve hinted during the meta graphs analysis, big parts of the meta shift is due to the Nilah Janna rupture. Nilah Janna held the meta in its dominant grasp and only now we see how devastating its influence was.

A deck like Gwen Zed, that’s prone to removal, could have never existed under Janna Nilahs presence. Today, it’s one of the most successful archetypes on ladder!

As we can see, Gwen Zed is proficient at disposing of the Urgh plague – a big upside for a deck if you ask me!

Beating Freljord ramp is also easy for this brew, thanks to its go-wide tendency, and buffs to protect Zed from Avalanche.

Ashe Leblance doesn’t pose a threat either. The deck is too set on going tall and thus can not deal with wide board states.

On the downside, Gwen Zed is prone to quite a few meta decks. After all, Shen J4 can just block Zed Gwen’s Quick Attack champs with Barrier.

Scouts is one of the toughest matchups for the deck. They can go wide just as quickly – and more efficiently, due to their units not being Ephemeral.

Heimerdinger Norra (LoR’s granparents) is another nasty foe. They go wide indefinitely long and Zed Gwen lacks removal for Heimerdinger, other than Gwen's Thread the Needle.

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Tl;dr: Zed gwen is powerful, but far from oppressive. It has a lot of counters, that could show this deck its place should they become more popular. For now, though, it’s a powerful pick to climb on ladder!

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Teemo Yuumi has secretly been one of the best LoR meta decks. Since pilots are catching up on it, let’s see what is beats and what it loses to.

At first glance, the biggest selling points for this brew are its matchups versus The Poro King and Deep. It beats both over 60% of the time, due to their lack of Elusive removal.

When looking closer, though, the true nature of the Elusive archetype become clear – most of its matchups are close to 50%! Urgh, Ashe LeBlanc, Shen J4, Gwen Zed, Trynda Voli, and Scouts all are no exception to this rule and fall in a 5% margin of this rule.

This makes Elusives and extremely safe choice both on ladder and in tournaments, as it will never be your weak link.

Honorable Mentions

Jinx Bandle City

Jinx Bandle City has been a powerful meta deck before but vanished with the adjustments to Return-o Wrench. 

After some time in the black box, players have found that the wrench was not necessary at all, and more Mecha-Yordles are the way to go now!

On ladder, Jinx Bandle City sports a 59% winrate over 1.3k games in the past three days. 

If you miss Kennen, here is a version just as successful with your favorite electric mouse!

Akshan Varus

Akshan Varus is back! Combo blends like this have been gone for far too long, especially due to their weakness to removal.

That being said, don’t get excited too quickly, as this deck definitely falls under the spice category. With only 150 games on ladder, there is not much confidence in the data. But it holds a 57.7% winrate in the past three days, so… try at your own risk! =)

Kayle Teemo

Kayle Teemo has been on my mind for quite some time now. It came up shortly before the balance patch as an answer to Nilah Janna. 

its gameplan is to go wide with Yordles and buff their attack. If its foes are somehow able to deal with this strategy – boom – a 16|16 Overwhelm unit appears that transform all allies into itself. 

This pattern is similar to They Who Endure and Nasus Thresh in Eternal, two archetypes that’ve been very dominant in their game mode.

On ladder, Teemo Kayle achieves a 57% winrate over 800 games in the past three days. Yordle decks have been dead for a long time, and Paparo the Great has yet to see the light of the day – give him a chance!

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 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 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 year!