By the Numbers – Current Best LoR Decks

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Note: This is an older article.
For the most recent data, check the latest LoR Best Decks article, or our Meta Tier List!

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The Legends of Runeterra Variety Patch 4.11 has shaken the Standard LoR ladder and re-opened the Eternal ladder – and with one official tournament for each format in the coming weeks (the LoR Eternal Open in just eight days, the Standard Last Chance Qualifier the week after), brewers and pilots are rushing to find the best decks.

With 40 hours of data since patch 4.11 landed, let's find out what's working best in each of the Runeterra ladders!

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Best LoR Decks - Eternal

These are the best-performing decks in the Eternal ladder when looking at the first 40 hours of data since patch 4.11 landed.

Please bear in mind: Small samples, fresh new meta, too early to say anything conclusive!

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Twisted Fate's Voyage

The most popular Eternal archetype overall (Azir Irelia being a close second), and with the most popular specific decklist (in this case beating Enduring Elise for just a few games), Twisted Fate Nilah is one of Eternal's best decks this early on.

Players did expect Nilah TF to be excellent, and the best build right now is the exact same that Sorry shared on Wednesday:

Nilah TF has more than 2200 games on record today with this version, (more than doubling what it showed yesterday), and with other slightly different versions also doing great…

… but with key words above being "slightly different" – the Nilah TF decks running three copies of Chemtech Drake and Loaded Dice are doing awful.

Nilah TF is murdering anything that is not strong or well-refined (read: the majority of Eternal decks right now), but there's a red flag when looking at its matchups against other strong decks: Azirelia, Enduring Elise, and above all Ezreal Janna Seraphine are all tough matchups.

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Enduring Elise

Leapfrogging other early forerunners, Enduring Elise shows up with 2100 games played since the patch landed and a sky-high, 60%+ win rate.

And, on top of a great overall performance, it crushes Nilah TF (with the caveat that, as noted above, some Nilah TF builds are atrocious), and steal Azirelia's lunch.

Too early to tell, of course, but by early numbers Elise and They Who Endure may be the strongest Eternal pairing.

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Bandle Ezreal Janna Seraphine

This one flew under my radar yesterday, but it's hard to miss it now: 1600 games on record (close to 10x of what it had 24hs ago!) and a stellar 58% win rate.

Mixing three champs and two landmarks, Ezreal Janna Seraphine also provides an Eternal home for Zaun's protector.

The early matchup spread looks very good for Ezreal Janna Seraphine: 50/50 odds when facing the Enduring Elise powerhouse, and favorable confrontations against Nilah TF and Azirelia.

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Azir Irelia

Azir Irelia has returned in top shape, and is punching above 58% in about 1400 games…

… but to those that despair about the second coming of the Dark Age of Azirelia: don't lose hope!

Azir Irelia is indeed bad news to every unrefined, weak, or meme brew out there, but the only strong deck that it seems to beat (and not by much) is Nilah TF.

Enduring Elise knocks the sun disk's lights out (as Elise Spiders did back in Azirelia's heyday), Ezreal Janna Seraphine has a favorable matchup against Azir's armies, and Annie Jhin can also stun them out of the game.

That said, if you are one of Azir's staunch followers, now's the time to strike!

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Gangplank Sejuani

Gangplank Sejuani has picked up a couple of buffs and new tricks for this Eternal season, and shows signs of renewed vigor.

While there's too little matchup data to say anything conclusive, it seems that the Plunder platoon has a bit of a rough time against Azirelia, but roughly 50/50 odds against Elise, Nilah TF, and Seraphine's entourage.

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Standard LoR Decks

Current numbers strongly suggest that Nilah Janna has been ruthlessly gutted – brewers may be able to find a workaround or a different version, but Nilah Janna as it existed pre-patch no longer works.

On the other hand, the vast majority of Standard decks that were strong last week remain so. We'll have to wait and see how the LoR meta shifts with Janna Nilah gone and what other decks surface, but as of right now pretty much everything that worked last week should work now on the Standard Runeterra ladder.

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Galio Garen Jarvan IV

Galio Garen Jarvan IV keeps its early lead and, with 1200+ games played, remains the most popular specific decklist today.

And its performance has not waned, showing an excellent 55%+ win rate.

It has a massive problem with Lurkers, though, which is close to an unwinnable matchup for the formidable crew. Both Ashe LeBlanc and The Poro King Yuumi also seem unfavorable matchups.

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Pyke Rek'Sai, aka Lurkers

Pyke Rek'Sai is back in full swing: the second most-popular deck, the most popular archetype overall, and a scarily high 57%+ win rate with its best version. 

And, as noted above, massively favored against the formidable crew, with also good odds against Ashe LeBlanc and Miss Fortune Quinn.

What's more: one of Lurker's problems is Nilah Janna – but that deck's overall performance is so low that it's a safe bet that it will disappear soon, making the current LoR meta even more favorable for Pyke's gang.

Further reading: Pyke Rek'Sai Deck Guide

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The Poro King Yuumi

His Fluffy Majesty has not relented, and with 1100 games played nearly matches Lurkers' win rate.

The Poro King Yuumi show thus far a fairly balanced matchup spread, with roughly 50/50 odds against Galio Garen Jarvan, Ashe LeBlanc, and Scouts, and being just slightly unfavored against Lurkers.

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Miss Fortune Quinn, aka Scouts

In spite of the nerf to Champions' Strength, Scouts have kept a solid 54% win rate. They get demolished by Galio's formidable crew and are not happy to face Lurkers, but have an edge against Ashe LeBlanc and The Poro King.

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Shen Jarvan

Shen Jarvan IV is one of this year's black horses: always low-key very good, yet always failing to get much traction…

… but today it has overtaken several other well-known brews both in play and win rate; has its time to shine finally come?

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Bandle Kayle Teemo

Winged Protector and puffcapy Scout were already making waves by the tail end of the previous patch cycle, and those waves are getting bigger. Kayle Teemo, with a wee bit of help from Xolaani the Bloodweaver, has one of the highest win rates in these early days, and with a good 600 games under their belt already.

And, judging by very early numbers, they may be one of the best showstoppers for the Lurkers tide.

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Ashe LeBlanc

Ashe LeBlanc has improved its performance compared with last week, and has returned among the most popular, punchiest decks in Runeterra.

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Teemo Yuumi

The puffcapy Scouts has more tricks under his sleeve, and this trick has worked for quite some time: Teemo Yuumi's performance has been excellent for several weeks now, even when it has remained a bit of an off-meta choice.

Further reading: Teemo Yuumi Deck Guide.

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Wrapping Up

With Janna Nilah (seemingly) dead, other Standard decks are rushing to fill the power vacuum – Galio Garen Jarvan holds the crown for now, but current matchup data suggests it won't be for long.

Something similar happens in Eternal, this time with TF Nilah taking the lead but with its matchup spread showing signs that it's Enduring Elise, or perhaps Ezreal Janna Seraphine, who will come out on top.

Too early too tell, though. We'll see how things look like next week, as pilots and brewers get ready for the next (and this year's last) Eternal Open!

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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/

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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.

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