Monday Meta Report
‘sup everyone. With a heavy heart, I have to announce that Balco discontinued their metadata website. 💔
Thus, there will be a few differences with the data moving forward:
We’ll be using Masters-only data from MaRu’s very own Meta Tier List. Also, some archetypes such as Gwen Katarina and Gwen Katarina Elise were merged in Balco’s data but not in MaRu’s Tiers list.
LoR Meta Decks
Sorting MaRu’s Meta Tier List by playrate (PR), we see the following:
Vayne Kayn (VayKaytion) is the most popular deck in LoR. After last week’s sudden entrance, the Kayn blend has gone from 0 to 100 real quick.
Katarina Gwen Elise (Red Gwen) has lost some of its momentum. But you see, it is not due to Kata Gwen being less popular. It’s because Kata Gwen Elise and Kata Gwen are considered two archetypes now. Kata Gwen sits at a 2.19% PR, so Kata Gwen Elise + Kata Gwen would have a 7.94% PR, surpassing its PR from last week!
Moving on, we have an unexpected comeback – Ezreal Seraphine. This time, though, they have teamed up with 
Bandle City instead of 
Noxus!
Teemo Zoe (Elusives) is seeing less and less play as control is dominating the ladder.
Sejuani Gangplank (Plunder) is on a steady rise, now being the 5th most-played deck in Masters.
Trundle Tryndamere Feel The Rush
(FTR) on the other hand is seeing less play again.
Jinx Lulu has been lurking in the shadows for quite some time now, and finally jumped into the spotlight!
Similar to FTR, we see other control decks like Annie Twisted Fate (Twisted Annie) and Seraphine Viktor 
Shadow Isles lose some popularity.
Varus Pantheon is barely clinging onto a spot in the top ten most-played decks in the game!
Turning to winrates (WR), we get this result:
Jinx Lulu is by far the most winning archetype, with a mind-boggling 59.5% WR that makes it one of the best LoR decks right now. Despite its seemingly sudden rise, it was a well-known deck for a lot of players, and MaRu even has an in-depth Jinx Lulu deck guide written by Seasonal runner-up ThChEm!
Despite it getting targeted, Teemo Zoe is back on track as the second-best deck in the game. As we found out last week, Elusives destroys off-meta brews, and its slightly favored matchups into VayKaytion and Red Gwen also have a say in Teemo Zoe’s dominance!
With VayKation and Red Gwen following, the top three of last Monday had to make room for Jinx Lulu.
Despite its slight loss in PR, Twisted Annie experienced enormous growth in the WR department, now sporting a 54.6% WR.
Annie Jhin (Jhinnie), on the other hand, had a short stay at the top, losing 1.6 points off its hard-earned WR score.
If I’m being honest, I would’ve never expected to write these next words in my life:
Hecarim Zed has moved from Meme-Tier to one of the best brews in the game, sitting for what might be in the first time in its long life at a WR above 50%!
Following suit with these last aggro decks is Jinx Ekko 
Shurima.
Finally, Varus Pantheon is also holding onto a spot in the WR graph by the skin of its (wonderful) teeth, while Plunder has received some pushback from the meta after its entrance last Monday.
The Reasons
Let’s start with the yordle in the room – Lulu Jinx.
Lulu Jinx is a reincarnation of the Lulu
Flame Chompers!
combo found historically in decks like Ahri Lulu and Fizz Lulu Yordles in Arms 
.
When Sneezy Biggledust!
was released, players knew there was something special, but they couldn't figure it out. Mono Lulu (lovingly nicknamed Sneezy Lulu) was around for a week or two, but the archetype went unfinished.
As it turns out, all this archetype needed was a buffed Jinx
. She allows us to dump our hand by discarding Flame Chompers!, making it a good thing that we run out of cards. Add Mystic Shot
and Get Excited!
to Super Mega Death Rocket!
, and we have a peculiar aggro deck with a dangerous burn ability.
When looking at Jinx Lulu’s matchup table, we realize that it’s almost all green – apart from the VayKaytion trial. This is because the Flame Chompers! Lulu combo has proven to out-match other aggro decks by forcing their most important timings (think of Elise
, Annie
, Gwen
) into combat with a zero-mana discarded Flame Chompers! and win that battle.
But, against some control decks like FTR or Ezreal Seraphine, Lulu Jinx is able to stand their ground by bursting out a full board + Sneezy Biggledust!, giving the control player no chance to react.
As we can see in the Vayne Kayn matchups, Jinx Lulu benefits heavily from the absence of Demacia brews in the meta: if the foe can remove our champions before they give us value, or challenge our Flame Chompers! and kill the for free, Jinx Lulu struggles to find an alternative win condition.
If you want to read in-depth about this archetype (that, as far as we know, won't be nerfed with this week's expansion, so may remain as aa good deck in the new meta) check ThChEm's Lulu and Rockets – A Jinx Lulu LoR Deck Guide.
One deck that can stand its ground against Lulu Jinx, and has come to outshine other control blends, is Twisted Annie. On the surface, it is your usual anti-aggro control brew. When looking deeper, though, Twisted Annie has quite some differences to Shadow Isles and 
Freljord control decks like FTR and Seraphine Viktor. Those differences are indicated by today's data, showing that Twisted Annie’s WR rose significantly, as opposed to the descending WR of other control blends.
What makes Annie TF shine is their access to Ravenous Flock
and Twisted Fate
. Ravenous Flock allows us to efficiently remove strong units like Vayne
and Lulu, while Twisted Fate sweeps the board clean of one-Health units against Jinx Lulu.
That being said, Twisted Annie is the most feeble of control decks. It loses hard against the aforementioned FTR and Seraphine
decks because its wincon is too slow when their removal doesn’t matter.
Here is Annie TF’s polarized matchup table:
Honorable Mentions
Aphelios Leona
10 cards
30 cards
27 500
Remember Leona Diana, the Celesbians? Well, I’m sorry to say this, but Leona has found a new pairing with whom she collaborates better in this meta – Aphelios
. Not-so-coincidentally, the most-played list on ladder is the exact same one WhatAmI brought to qualify for Worlds.
On ladder, Aphel Leo is sporting a 57% WR over 130 games in the past two days. Personally, I have gained 300 LP piloting Aphelios Leona this past week. You should definitely give this one a try if you enjoy the Celesbians or Aphelios!
Jinx Zoe?!
23 cards
17 cards
28 300
We have Zoe Teemo Elusives, and we have Jinx Lulu. So, why not merge them to create rocket-shooting, elusive Sparklefly
s?
The access to Piltover & Zaun cards ditches The Sudden Surge
in favor of Suit Up!
, and allows us to additionally run the burn package of Mystic Shot, Get Excited!, and Super Mega Death Rocket!. Man, do Piltover & Zaun cards have many exclamation marks in their name. It’s really tiring to shout their names all the time.
Despite their prerequisite of owning a strong lung to shout their cards, Jinx Zoe is putting up numbers on ladder – it sports a 58.2% WR over 250 games in the past three days. And look, your favorite YouTube creator and streamer just released a video about it!
Pirates
19 cards
21 cards
25 900
Last season, Pirates saw a surprising comeback after a ton of cards got nerfed. This time, they needed a little longer to jump into people’s memories. While typical aggro blends like Jhinnie have seen a downward momentum this week, Pirates is on the rise.
They sport a 53.8% WR over 270 games in the past two days, making them one of the strongest Noxus aggro brews right now!
If you want to change things up, you can throw the Swain
package in for similar success on ladder:
19 cards
21 cards
26 300
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 the fantastic website by Balco 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 Balco's MaRu’s data into these stunning graphs for the Monday Meta Report, I can't express my gratitude enough to him!
Thanks also to Herko Khergans, he has been doing lots of editing and proofreading that deserves appreciation!!
You can reach me on Twitter (@Leer97) or on Discord (Leer#2026)!
Thanks for reading and see ya next week!