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 the Legends of Runeterra meta!
As explained in the Technical Note at the end of this article, we'll first take a glance at a snapshot of our LoR Meta Decks Tier List, which sorts 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.
The recent Fate’s Voyage: Onward expansion has rocked the boat quite hard, so let's find out what are the best decks in Runeterra right now!
Best LoR Decks for the Standard Ladder
Overall LoR Ladder Trends – Standard
Volibear
and Janna
have turned the LoR meta upside down – it's been a very long time since two new champs caused such a stir, with both of them becoming the overnight Juggernauts of the Runeterra ladder.
Still…
… the Old Dogs from last patch are not out of the race, by any means: Teemo and Lurkers are also showing stellar performance, and when you dig into the matchups, they may still have the upper hand.
Juggernauts – Best Legends of Runeterra Decks for the Standard Ladder
These are the current heavy-hitters of the Standard LoR meta: decks with at least 2100 games played since patch 4.9 landed.
As with any new patch, it's still early to tell how each deck, and the overall meta, will shift, but if you want to start climbing early, these are the best picks!
Galio Volibear
Yesterday's strongest deck has just grown stronger, so by now it looks like it's not a fluke but very much the real-deal. Two of the most expensive LoR Champions join forces in what is right now the undisputed ladder Juggernaut: the best Galio
Volibear deck punches above the 60% win rate mark and has accrued more than 6000 games since the patch landed.
This Juggernaut beats the other two strong new decks, namely Janna Samira and Janna Volibear – but the jury is still out on whether or not Galio Volibear will keep its awesome performance, as it has truly awful matchups against the three Old Dogs that reigned until two days ago: Lurkers, Heimer Jayce, and above all Teemo Elusives.
29 cards
11 cards
30 500
Janna Samira
In a very similar trend, yesterday's second strongest deck remains in the exact same position: Janna Samira
, now with 3600 games played (up from just 600 yesterday) is the second most-played deck and again one of the best performers, smacking foes at a 60%+ win rate.
Janna Samira's matchup spread is quite interesting: it loses to two of Volibear's decks (when the big bear pairs with either Galio or Illaoi), but steamrolls the Janna Volibear version. And, unlike Galio Volibear, seems to have a small edge on the three Old Dogs that ruled last patch's meta: Lurkers, Heimer Jayce, and Teemo Elusives.
8 cards
32 cards
29 500
Janna Volibear
Same warning as yesterday: the mostly-Freljord version is awful. The Janna Volibear version running Rhond, the Magma Serpent
and She Who Wanders
looks really, really bad. I'm talking below-40% bad. Really bad. Some master brewer may solve it in the future, but as it exists nowadays, just don't.
But!
When leaning more towards the Piltover & Zaun side of things, as seen below, Janna Volibear seems like an okay deck – 52% win rate, which is really tame compared to other decks today, but still with its head above the water.
Matchup spread looks pretty awful right now (basically losing against every strong deck out there), but that's probably because the bad version is a lot more popular (and matchup data aggregates both versions) – we'll see how things look if/when pilots catch the right drift and sail to the better version!
17 cards
23 cards
33 900
Heavyweights – Strong LoR Decks for the Standard Ladder
These decks have between 1000 and 2100 games since the pach landed – thus far, they look like the real deal!
Illaoi Volibear
Merely a blip in the radar yesterday, Illaoi
Volibear has surged in play and win rate, with 1400+ games played and a juicy 56% win rate.
It looks a bit like a bully, in the sense that tends to crush weak brews while folding to strong ones (like Galio Voli, Heimer Jayce, or Teemo), but it does have a very good matchup against Janna Samira.
19 cards
21 cards
30 000
Teemo Elusives
By the last week of the previous patch, Teemo
Elusive s was far and away the best LoR deck in Standard, and it was not even close – and it seems very eager to retake its crown. It's steamrolling other decks at a 59% winrate with about 1300 games played, and this is one deck that doesn't need to prove that it's the real deal.
What's more: it seems capable of utterly wrecking all Volibear decks, and we know from the previous patch cycle that it can steamroll Lurkers and Heimer Jayce. Its only current predator seems to be Janna Samira.
20 cards
20 cards
25 000
Pyke Rek'Sai, aka Lurkers
Whaddaya know, Lurkers are very much still in the race: I don't remember seeing their most popular version ever crush it past 60%, but that's exactly what's going on right now.
They were an excellent choice last patch, and seem willing to repeat their outstanding performance – in particular, they appear to have a huge edge against most Volibear decks (the exception being Illaoi Voli, which seems a 50/50 matchup).
Further reading: Pyke Rek'Sai Deck Guide
15 cards
25 cards
26 400
Heimer Jayce Shadows
The third of the Old Dogs that still bites, although not as fiercely as Lurkers or Teemo Elusives, Heimerdinger
Jayce
shows up with a solid 54% winrate in a bit more than 1000 games played.
Heimer Jayce has an awful time against Janna Samira, and remains the underdog against Lurkers and Teemo, but seems capable of slapping most of the new Young Guns that have shown up this expansion.
9 cards
31 cards
28 000
Not Working Too Well: Aurelion Sol Volibear, Janna Nilah, Nilah Samira, and Bard Janna
These are all very popular brews, with at least one deck with 1000+ games, and they all have several different versions – but none of them have managed to get past the 50% win rate barrier.
ASol Volibear and Janna Nilah are close, so a few tweaks and/or shifts in the meta may push them above the water; Bard Janna and Nilah Samira look, at least right now, pretty terrible.
Punching Up – Standard LoR Decks Doing Great
Standard LoR decks with between 500 and 1000 games since Fate's Voyage arrived at Runeterra – we're sailing into small data samples here, so pilots beware!
Kennen Samira
Going from not-even-a-blip yesterday to a very solid showing, Kennen
Samira hops into the race with a very nice 56% win rate in about 900 games, for one of the most board-focused LoR decks right now: just six spells, the rest is all Champions and Followers.
19 cards
21 cards
26 700
Gnar Nidalee
Gnar Nidalee never quite managed to make a big splash during Heart of the Huntress, so one would suspect its current performance is a fluke fueled by an abundance of weak, unrefined brews – but suppositions aside, the numbers are excellent: an amazing 60%+ winrate in almost 800 games.
31 cards
9 cards
24 000
Jinx Nilah
Everybody's favorite rocket-launching Zaunite grrrl is giving Nilah a hand in finding a good deck: while a lot less popular than her pairings with Janna or Samira, Jinx
Nilah
is as of now the only good Nilah deck.
And it does seem quite good, mind you, putting up a 55% win rate with about 700 games played.
12 cards
28 cards
32 500
Jinx Samira
With quite a bit of success at some points during last season, Jinx Samira had faded during the last patch cycle, but here they are again, waving the Discard banner high!
16 cards
24 cards
27 000
Your Mileage May Vary
If none of the above floats your boat, here are a handful of fringe options that are doing well on the Standard LoR ladder – sample sizes are small, though, so tread carefully!
Gnar Jarvan
Shen Jarvan has been a low-key success in several of the previous LoR metas, but thus far pilots haven't been too eager to test that brew against the current field…
but this Gnar Jarvan version is doing very, very well on the fringes.
19 cards
21 cards
27 900
Ekko Jinx
Ekko
Jinx was gaining a lot of traction by the end of last patch, and here it is again – one of LoR's staples by now, if you like the Predict minigame, this is the deck for you!
22 cards
18 cards
31 400
Annie Samira Ionia
A similar concept to Kennen Samira, packing mostly units with just a few spells.
20 cards
20 cards
23 400
Jagged Fizz Samira
To close today's selection, yet another of the aggressive decks which last patch were doing great, and that are happy to sail into the turbulent waters of a new meta.
25 cards
15 cards
32 000
Wrapping Up
Whereas Heart of the Huntress was a low-power expansion, Fate's Voyage seems to have hit the opposite end of the rock-the-boat spectrum: it's been quite a while since two new champions made such big waves!
Still, we'll see what the Old Dogs have to say about this – as we saw when looking at matchups, these new Juggernauts may have sky-high win rates right now, but they still have a hard time when facing the recent rulers of the LoR meta.
Fun times ahead!
I hope you've enjoyed today's selection of the best decks in Runeterra, 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.
