LoR Monday Meta Report
Ho ho hoooly shit do we have a meta at hand. Aatrox
is the forsaken meta-king, ruling ruthlessly over rocket girls and popstars.
LoR Meta Decks
Sorting MaRu’s Meta Tier List by playrate (PR), we see the following:
Aatrox Quinn Vayne dominates the LoR ladder, doubling the PR of the second-most popular deck.
By now, Ezreal Seraphine 
Bilgewater (Bandle Bar) and Katarina Gwen (Red Gwen) have a long history, and they feast on the scraps Aatrox leaves them.
Aatrox Kayn is a shadow of itself... which is okay if your shadow was the best deck in the game not too long ago (and not Zed! =)
This week, the ladder stats have mistaken the holidays, though. It appears to be Halloween, with horrendous horrors like Hecarim Zed (speaking of the devil) and Mono Shurima projecting into popularity.
Rumble Vayne is your resident usurper, the only character killing king Aatrox.
Draven Jinx (Discard Aggro) and Pyke Rek’Sai (Urgh) had a short stay in the spotlight, halving their PRs this Monday.
Gangplank Sejuani (Plunder) exists. 🙂
Turning to winrates (WR), we get this result:
To no one's surprise, Aatrox Quinn Vayne also rules this chart.
What’s surprising, though, is a brew challenging the data quo. Jinx Lulu (Julu? Lux
?) is not widespread yet, but is keeping up with the mind-boggling WR of the Darkin spitter.
Despite Discard Aggro losing supporters, it has climbed the ladder, reaching the top three of the best LoR decks.
Red Gwen is back on track as a meta staple, retaliating on the pushback it received on the expansion’s launch.
Rumble Vayne Tumble
s into the meta as one of the very few Aatrox counters. It is unique in doing so, and benefits from the popularity of the World Ender.
Aatrox Kayn and Plunder are no news on this chart.
What’s exciting is the existence of Aatrox Kindred, an unlikely champion and region pairing.
Moreover, Bandle Bar is no longer lounging among the top meta decks.
Annie Jhin (Jhinnie) received a significant swing in WR, similar to Discard Aggro, launching it back into the top ten best LoR decks.
The Reasons
Let’s quickly get Rumble Vayne out of our system:
As mentioned, Rumble Vayne is the only deck consistently beating Aatrox Vayne. The way Aatrox Vayne wins is by casting World Ender
, farming foes with Valor
+ The Darkin Harp
, or out-trading small units with meaningful one-drops and The Darkin Aegis
.
The first strategy is too slow against the Rumble
snowball, and Challengers with Harp fall flat against Riposte
and combat tricks like Whirling Death
. Finally, small units don’t matter against Rumble’s high Power and Quick Attack.
On the downside, Rumble Vayne struggles against real aggro blends (not Hecarim Zed) like Discard Aggro. While Rumble Vayne runs some early units, they are not enough to beat go-wide strategies, and they lack the tools against burn. The only way to win is to out-race Aggro with Rumble and Great Hammers
.
Despite the only mediocre-looking matchup table, Vayne Rumble is a powerhouse on ladder. This is due to the fact that Aatrox Vayne makes up an eighth of the meta, putting more weight on Rumble Vayne’s one good matchup!
Lux Lulu Jinx couldn’t be more different from Vayne Rumble. Instead of beating Aatrox Vayne and losing to most other decks, Lulu Jinx loses badly to Xolaani
’s archenemy but incinerates everything else.
This is because Jinx Lulu is helpless against The Darkin Harp apart from Get Excited!
, which they don’t want to cast early. Especially Flame Chompers!
is vulnerable to any Challenger, even without The Darkin Harp.
Moreover, Aatrox Vayne wins when they get to swing with World Ender.
This means the wisest way for Jinx Lulu to win is by going wide and finishing the game with burn, just before Aatrox can turn the game around. Going tall with Mecha-Yordles can also work.
How do I know that? I read the insightful Jinx Lulu guide by ThChEm, silly! =)
On the other hand, Jinx Lulu tramples Red Gwen and Rumble Vayne, thanks to their broken Lulu
+ Flame Chompers! combo challenging enemy champions.
Jinx Lulu isn’t able to lumber the Bandle Bar but goes toe-to-toe with them, thanks to their long reach with Mecha-Yordles and Jinx
.
Which deck is better then… Jinx Lulu or Rumble Vayne?
When it comes to the LoR ladder, I wouldn’t pick a favorite. It comes down to the playstyle you prefer, though both decks have a unique game plan that is not comparable to any other meta deck.
When it comes to Bo3 lineups, the choice is easy.
Rumble Vayne forces you to target Aatrox blends, and there are no two other powerhouses convincingly doing so.
On the other hand, Jinx Lulu incentivizes you to ban Aatrox Vayne, which most decks want to do anyway. This leaves Jinx Lulu with barely a bad matchup, making it a premium pick not only on ladder, but also in a Bo3 setting!
Aatrox Kindred is the latest addition to the meta, making for an unusual symbiosis between Darkins and the slay mechanic.
The curious crux of this brew is its ability to weather the Darkin storm thanks to Kindred
exploiting 
Demacia’s necessity of running the board (and thus letting units get slain, activating her ability).
Seasonal Champion 4LW presented four archetypes to counter Aatrox Vayne last week, and even included Aatrox Kindred, arguing that with enough expertise this matchup becomes favored for the Kindred pilot.
Overall, Aatrox Kindred has a lot of 50/50 odds against the most popular decks. While this makes it a solid Aatrox blend, it poses the question of why you should play this over Aatrox Vayne.
What’s worse, Aatrox Kindred folds to Rumble Vayne – a deck picking up steam – and Aggro:
This presents a pertinent weakness that turns Aatrox Kindred into an inferior Aatrox deck. If you want to have fun and try a solid brew, Aatrox Kindred might be your jam. But if you want to play the best, Aatrox Vayne is still the go-to!
Honorable Mentions
Aatrox Elise
30 cards
10 cards
26 200
If you don’t want to give up on the idea of Aatrox Shadow Isles, you may want to add Elise
to the previous Aatrox] brew.
Actually, Aatrox Elise is a drastically different deck from Aatrox Kindred. Instead of slaying allies and facilitating Kindred, we buff allies with Hallowed, Soul Shepherd
/Moonlit Glenkeeper
, and The Darkin Bloodletters
to transform Xolaani the Bloodweaver
.
Prior to this Xolaani the Bloodweaver iteration, there was Azir 
Targon but it lacked the numbers to back the silly gameplan.
With Aatrox Elise, though, you have an archetype sporting a 54.4% WR over 1.2k games in the past three days.
Pirate Aggro
20 cards
20 cards
29 600
Pirate Aggro was a meta menace a couple of patches ago, and it’s attempting a comeback in recent times. With a 58.6% WR over 2.9k games in the past three days, it will show up in the next report as the protagonist if it can maintain this pace.
Pirates Aggro is known as the anti-Aggro Aggro blend thanks to Miss Fortune
and Red Card
. With Aggro being this prevalent in the meta, Pirates is trying to outshine them once again!
How convenient that we have a Pirate Aggro deck guide ready for you to get a headstart.
Kai’Sa 
Demacia
20 cards
20 cards
21 100
Once the most-hated deck in the game, Kai'Sa
now lives on the fringe of the LoR meta. Depending on the source, you can find solid to promising data on this archetype.
MaRu’s Meta Tier List is showing a 53.2% WR over 1.9k games in the past three days, though Legna’s Meta page is indicating a 55% WR in the last seven days!
In case you'd like to read more about it, here is our Kai’Sa DE deck guide.
Conclusion
Hope you had a Merry Christmas with tasty Poro Snax
s and delicious Fae Sprout
s, may you be gifted with tons of LP and RP. Let’s hope Aatrox gifts us an un-ended world in 2023!
And, for competitive folks, we got the best Christmas gift ever:
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 Meta Report, I can't express my gratitude enough to him!
Thanks also to Herko Kerghans, 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!