Note: This is an older article.
For the most recent data, check the latest LoR Best Decks article, or our Meta Tier List!
Howdy, and welcome to our weekly selection of the best decks in Runeterra!
As explained in detail in the Technical Note at the end of this article, we'll first take a glance at a snapshot of our Tier Lists for Eternal and Standard, which list LoR archetypes (that's to say, the aggregate of all decks with the exact same Champions) by popularity, and then we'll dive into the data to check how individual decks perform to showcase the best LoR decks.
Best LoR Decks for the Eternal Ladder
These are the 7 most popular Eternal LoR decks according to Legna the Mastering Runeterra Meta Tier List:
Sources: MaRu's data.
Overall Trends of the LoR Eternal Ladder
Fulfilling its last week's promises, Jax
Ornn
is one of the hot new trends this week, while Samira Seraphine, in a couple of different flavors, is Runeterra's most popular archetype (although not the most popular specific deck, as we'll see in a bit).
On the other hand, last week's hotfix definitely hit Champless Timeliness hard, and this former powerhouse is now just an average deck in the Eternal LoR meta.
LoR Eternal Juggernauts – Best Legends of Runeterra Decks for the Eternal Ladder
Here we showcase Eternal LoR decks with more than 2100 games in the last three days, and good-to-great win rate – the best tried-and-true tools to be found in our LoR Eternal Meta Tier List!
Jax Ornn
Sticking to Master Brewer Scathus' build (who wrote an amazing guide for it on reddit), Jax Ornn is the most popular specific decklist in the Eternal LoR ladder (with about 5000 games played in the last three days) and also one of the strongest, hammering at a superb 56% win rate.
Today's lone Juggernaut is excellent against Annie Jhin, Nasus Thresh, and Pirates (and also what remains of Champless Timelines), while being even against Samira Seraphine – but it does come with a couple of red flags: Jax Ornn's odds against Ryze, Teemo Zoe (which is on the rise) and above all Sett Trundle are horrendous.
Further reading: Sorry's Jax Ornn Deck Guide
21 cards
19 cards
24 000
About the Rune Mage…
Ryze took part in the lineup that won the Eternal Open last weekend. Still, thus far it is not performing too well on the Eternal LoR ladder despite its great popularity. If you have the next Open in mind you may want to check Yang's Ryze Deck Guide hot off the presses, but if you go strictly by ladder stats, it's not an ideal deck for climbing, so we won't recommend it today.
LoR Eternal Heavyweights – Strong Eternal Decks
These Eternal decks have between 1000 and 2100 games in the last three days – solid picks for climbing the Legends of Runeterra ladder!
🔥🔥Blazing Hot – Pirates, aka Miss Fortune Twisted Fate
Yet again this week (making it three weeks in a row, folks!) Pirates showcases one of the highest win rates among all decks showcased today. And pilots seems to have caught the scent of blood in the water, because playrate has soared – simply put, if you want to climb fast, Miss Fortune TF is the deck to bring right now, even if Samira Seraphine is arguably the best LoR deck overall (given that, as we'll see in a bit, it seems to have no weak spots).
Fortune's merry bunch of misfits does have a massive problem with Jax Ornn, but can go toe-to-toe with Samira Seraphine, farms Ryze like it's ripe berries, and shows a massive edge against Annie Jhin, Sett Trundle, and the remainings of Champless Timelines.
20 cards
20 cards
29 200
Champless Timelines
Heavily hit by the Concurrent Timelines
nerf, Champless Timelines is now a middling archetype with several different builds – most of them perform below 50%, but the most popular version does manage to scrape a solid 52% winrate across 1800 games.
18 cards
22 cards
15 800
Aphelios Viktor
Two weeks ago, Aphelios and Viktor teamed up with Ezreal and Seraphine in Targon's version of Back Alley Bar
... which turned out to be a fairly bad idea.
Going back to the drawing board, our Champs decided to bring back a build that, roughly one year ago, they saw plenty of success with – and, what do you know, it's doing the Eternal trick quite well!
Aphelios Viktor does lose to Samira Seraphine and Jax Ornn, the two most popular archetypes in the Eternal LoR meta – but they nevertheless manage a nice 54% winrate, having a large edge against Ryze, Annie Jhin, Thresh Nasus and Champless Timelines.
23 cards
17 cards
27 100
Seraphine Samira (sometimes ft. Ezreal)
Seraphine
got tired of tending the Back Alley Bar, and is printing Eternal LPs with just the help of Samira
and Plaza Guardian
– and Ezreal
in some cases, but the Ez-less versions (there are several, with small differences in the Spell list) are currently both more popular and more potent.
(The existence of several slightly different lists is why Seraphine Samira is not the most popular specific decklist in the Eternal LoR ladder, although it's by far the most popular archetype in Runeterra).
It's amazing against Ryze, Champless Timelines, Nasus Thresh and Aphelios Viktor, and roughly even against Jax Ornn and Sett Trundle – notably, the deck doesn't seem to have weak spots among the popular Eternal decks.
26 cards
14 cards
28 000
Thresh Nasus
Thresh Nasus remains, like in past weeks, one very solid option for the Eternal ladder, but both winrate and play rate have deflated a bit (falling to 54% and 1300 games respectively) – it has a really rough time against Seraphine Samira, and an uphill struggle against Jax Ornn, making the current LoR meta not the ideal for the Big Dog and his lantern sidekick.
30 cards
10 cards
28 900
Ravenbloom Annie Katarina
Like Thresh Nasus, Annie Katarina remains a very solid deck for the Eternal LoR ladder, but both play rate and win rate have deflated from excellent to just very good – definitely a deck you can climb efficiently with, but not the powerhouse it was a couple of weeks ago.
17 cards
23 cards
25 800
Poppy Ziggs
Unlike Thresh Nasus and Annie Kat, though, Poppy Ziggs is on a tear as of late, with a jaw-dropping winrate of nearly 60% (and it's been one of the hardest-hitting decks during all of this patch cycle) – it looks weak against Jax Ornn, Aphelios Viktor and Thresh Nasus, but it farms weaker decks with no mercy.
Further Reading: Poppy Ziggs Deck Guide.
22 cards
18 cards
29 000
Punching Up – Eternal Decks Doing Great
Runeterra decks with between 600 and 1000 games in the last three days in the Eternal ladder – we're sailing into small data samples, yet all decks here have quite a few games under their belts.
⭐Rising Star – Teemo Zoe
Teemo and Zoe have caught wind that, if you had a great deck at some point in Runeterra's history, it's worth a shot trying it in Eternal – and the trick is working for the Trickster and the shroom-hugging Scout: although with a somewhat different build than the one they packed a punch with last year, Teemo Zoe is back in business, abusing pesky elusives with The Darkin Lodestone
on top.
12 cards
28 cards
30 100
⭐Rising Star – Jayce Lux
Exact same deal here: old Champ pair that used to rock hard some LoR metas ago rejoins forces in Eternal to find out they still pack a punch. Quite a big punch in this case, actually: win rate over 57% in about 900 games!
27 cards
13 cards
25 600
The Eternal Annie Jhin
No news is good news for Annie Jhin: while its play rate has deflated a bit, it's probably due to player boredom rather than performance, because blazing brat and bullet buff still punch above 57%.
Not great against Jax Ornn (and by "not great" we mean "kinda awful") but amazing if you want to ruin Ryze's day.
27 cards
13 cards
22 000
Norra Swain
Grand General and Portal Yordle may be getting ready to cause quite the mayhem: it's one of the very few decks that increased its win rate this week (and they were already among the hardest-hitting LoR decks), with performance similar to Pirates'.
Not great against Samira Seraphine, though.
16 cards
24 cards
27 700
Taliyah Ziggs
Joining the trend of "Let's do that thing we used to do some time ago… but in Eternal!" Taliyah Ziggs showcases a very good 55% win rate in about 900 games. A bit of an uphill struggle against Samira Seraphine and Jax Ornn (although neither is unwinnable), and a fairly solid edge against Thresh Nasus, Ryze and Aphelios Viktor.
24 cards
16 cards
26 000
Sett Trundle
Boss and Troll King's play rate has stabilized at around 800 games, and their performance remains excellent – and, as noted when discussing previous decks, Sett Trundle is very well positioned against other Top Dogs of the Eternal LoR meta: it has a huge edge against Jax Ornn, a slight edge against Samira Seraphine decks, and consistently beats Aphelios Viktor and Champless Timelines.
Sett Trundle's nightmare is Annie Jhin, though – one of the most lopsided confrontations among popular decks.
19 cards
21 cards
36 100
Other Strong Eternal Considerations
If none of the above float your boat on the Eternal LoR ladder, here are a handful of options that are doing very well.
- Draven Sion Samira, keeping the Discard banner high in the Eternal ladder,
- Lulu Poppy, another deck from Team "Let's Do That Old Thing" – hey, if it works, don't fix it!
- Elise Jayce Kindred, yet another fairly old Champion team that has rejoined, with good success, in Eternal,
- Elise Teemo – steering away from Spiders but packing a lot of burn,
- Malphite Zoe, a fairly fresh take for a change!
Best LoR Decks for the Standard Ladder
These are the 7 most popular Standard LoR decks according to Legna the Mastering Runeterra Meta Tier List:
Sources: MaRu's data
Overall Trends of the LoR Standard Ladder
All in all, the Standard LoR ladder is pretty stable: Garen Jarvan Kai'Sa and Karma Sett keep pushing each other as the most popular archetype, with Samira Fizz in a comfortable third place.
LoR Standard Juggernauts – Best Legends of Runeterra Decks for the Standard Ladder
Here we showcase Standard LoR decks with more than 2100 games in the last three days, and good-to-great win rate – the best tried-and-true tools the LoR meta has to offer!
Garen Jarvan Kai'Sa
When looking at whole archetypes, Karma Sett and Elites have been fighting for the "Most Popular" title for the last couple of weeks – when looking at specific decklists, though, it's not even close, and Garen Jarvan Kai'Sa is again the sole Standard Juggernaut.
Not much new to say here: a very good 54% win rate across 3800 games, great odds against Karma Sett while a bit weak against Vault Nasus and Lurkers
22 cards
18 cards
27 100
LoR Standard Heavyweights – Strong Standard Decks
These Standard decks have between 1000 and 2100 games in the last three days – solid picks for climbing the Legends of Runeterra ladder!
⭐Rising Star – Annie Jhin
Reinforcing last week's trend (which suggests it may be the best Standard LoR deck), Annie Jhin nearly doubled its play rate while maintaining a sky-high win rate. Bullet buff and blazing brat beat Nasus decks, crush Puffcaps into a bloody pulp, eat Lurkers raw, and demolish Shen Jarvan, while also having an edge against Samira Fizz – the only deck that clearly dominates Annie Jhin is Jinx Samira.
25 cards
15 cards
27 500
Nasus Vaults of Helia
Similar story to two weeks ago: the most popular Nasus
Vaults of Helia
deck is the Lonesome Nasus version:
23 cards
17 cards
22 900
… but the Azir
Nasus version showcases a much better performance:
23 cards
17 cards
25 300
Both the Big Lone Dog and the Bird 'n' Dog versions have good odds against the reigning Elites, but tend to lose against other Top Dogs – above all, Karma Sett and Samira Fizz are disastrous matchups.
Fizz Samira
Fizz Samira has overtaken Jinx Samira as the most popular Samira deck, although Jinx Samira (as we'll see right next) showcases the highest performance. In Fizz Samira's case, it punches nearly at 54% with about 1400 games played.
Further reading: Samira Fizz Deck Guide
25 cards
15 cards
31 500
Jinx Samira
As noted, Jinx Samira is the best-performing Samira deck in the Standard LoR ladder, punching above the 55% win rate mark.
The pew-pew-BOOM pair bloody murders Annie Jhin (being in fact Annie Jhin's only strong counter), is also great against Samira Fizz and Lurkers, and gives Vault Nasus a bloody nose.
Further reading: Samira Jinx Deck Guide.
15 cards
25 cards
28 600
Pyke Rek'Sai, aka Lurkers
Lurkers seem to have found their optimal build, with most pilots flocking to the triple Blood in the Water
version that today sees a 55% winrate across 1200 games.
While not great against Annie Jhin, and fairly awful against Shen Jarvan, Lurkers have the upper hand against the two most popular archetypes, namely Elites and Karma Sett.
15 cards
25 cards
26 400
Jarvan Shen
Prince and Protector keep punching up!
Another of the few decks that managed to improve its win rate this week, Jarvan Shen today punches above 57% with about 1200 games played in the last three days.
They have good to great odds against several of the current Top Dogs in Runeterra, with only Annie Jhin, Deep and Vault Nasus decks being a problem.
22 cards
18 cards
27 000
Punching Up – Standard Decks Doing Great
Runeterra decks with between 600 and 1000 games in the last three days in the Standard ladder – smallish data samples, yet all decks here have quite a few games under their belts.
Karma Sett
The LoR Mint remains one of the most popular archetypes, but it's a very "scattered" one, with a multitude of slightly different decks. Here's the second most popular, which showcases the best performance (win rate above 58%, play rate of about 700 games played in the last three days):
22 cards
18 cards
29 800
Nautilus Maokai, aka Deep
Like Karma Sett, Nautilus Maokai is both very popular and quite "scattered" – although it's one of the most played archetypes, its most popular specific decklist only has around 600 games played, but with an excellent 57% win rate.
17 cards
23 cards
29 400
The Fringe Stuff
With Standard being less played than Eternal (we have roughly 2x Eternal games on record when compared to Standard), a lot of tried-and-true Standard decks currently show a playrate that we'd normally consider "fringe" – any of these two decks should work very well, though, given that they currently show excellent win rates, and we know them to be solid brews.
- Illaoi Swain, which pilots don't seem to like too much in spite of its excellent win rate,
- Ekko Jinx, showcasing a similar story as Priestess and Grand General: a deflating play rate in spite of excellent performance.
Wrapping Up
With still two weeks to go this patch cycle, we're just two days away from its climax: the second Runeterra Open will take place this weekend, and very likely the next expansions' reveals will arrive next week.
There's still quite a bit of time left in the season, though, so let's see if the LoR metas remain stable, or if we have some surprises in the coming days.
Hope you've found a deck to your liking for any of the ladders or upcoming tournaments, and good luck out there!
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) and articles like Leer's Legends of Runeterra Meta Decks Report 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).
And, since in each archetype some decks fare better than others (and sometimes the difference is quite noticeable), we'll broadly group the best LoR decks in arbitrary categories by the number of games played in the data samples we check:
- Juggernauts: LoR decks with more than 2100 games – these are the best tried-and-true, top meta decks in Legends of Runeterra at the time of writing.
- Heavyweights: LoR decks with between 2100 and 900 games played – other excellent choices, with large enough samples to confidently say, "Yeah, this works."
- Punching Up: LoR decks with between 900 and 400 games played – we're entering the Land of Small Sample Sizes here, but as far as numbers go, these decks can put up one hell of a fight into the current LoR meta.
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.
Sources: Legna's LoR data website, Mastering Runeterra Meta Tier List, and our LoR meta stats page.
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.
