Welcome to Monday LoR Meta Report, a weekly series where we take a look at the most dominant decks in the past 7 days and analyze why they are currently on top of the meta. Take note that you can click on any bolded name and it will link you to the corresponding deck list. Let’s jump right into it!
The Data
Taking a peek at Balco's Meta Tier List, we still see Pantheon as the most played deck, this time around the mono variant though.
The Kennen/Ahri decks got grouped together into one archetype and sit with Nami/TF at a 5% playrate. There are 4 decks that get played 4% of the time each: Plunder (GP/Sej), Darkness (Senna/Veigar), Lulu/Ahri, and Spider Aggro (Elise).
Going by winrate, we can see that Ahri/Kennen is the clear favorite rocking a 55% win rate.
Draven/Rumble, Lulu/Ahri, and Shyvana/Pantheon win around 53% of their games, while there is a multitude of decks with a 52% win rate, most notably Teemo/Ziggs, Darkness, and Pantheon.
The Reasons
Like we mentioned in last week's report, Ahri/Kennen has a lot of great matchups and heavily benefitted from an inflation of Pantheon decks.
Furthermore, the popularity of Ahri decks stimulated the advent of long-forgotten aggro decks like Spider Aggro and new ones like Draven/Rumble.
Looking at the matchup table, we confirm that only aggressive burn decks and Nami/TF are bad matchups for Ahri/Kennen.
We can see a similar image for (Mono) Pantheon, which also falls prey to Spider Aggro, but additionally to Ahri/Kennen and Lee/Zoe instead of Nami/TF.
Note that Shyvana/Pantheon basically does the exact same thing as Mono Pantheon, so almost everything said about Pantheon also holds true for the Shyvana variant.
There's not much data about Draven/Rumble in the current meta, but going by the similar playstyle to Spider Aggro, it's safe to assume that this deck also benefits from the popularity of the above two decks.
Spider Aggro seems to be extremely well-positioned in the current metagame with a lot of midrange decks that lack the defensive mechanisms against aggro decks.
Aggro decks will always be polarizing decks and in the matchup table, we can see that exact picture.
This is also where the Ahri decks split: While Ahri/Kennen gets their toy stolen by aggro decks, Ahri/Lulu uses that very same toy to beat the **** out of them. Maybe Kennen should consult Lulu about his fear of spiders - as should I.
Naturally, this difference in matchups has to be equalized elsewhere. Ahri/Lulu lacks the disruption tools of Concussive Palm
or Homecoming
and longevity through Dancing Droplet
or Shadow Assassin
to combat Pantheon decks and Ahri/Kennen.
The rise in aggro decks also explains the resurrection of Darkness, a value-oriented anti-aggro archetype. The deck is slightly unfavored into Ahri decks though but justifies its rough matchup against Pantheon through its favorable one into TF/Nami.
Looking Back
This section is dedicated to looking back at last week’s meta report and comparing what has changed moving into this week.
Last week we saw overpowering stats by Ahri decks. While Lulu/Ahri tanked some of its winrate (from 57% to 53%), mostly due to the rise in popularity of Ahri/Kennen, it’s a little different for Ahri/Kennen decks.
This week, the Ahri/Kennen Allegiance decks got grouped into one single archetype, even though the win rate of the different decklists varies heavily (53% for Demacia and Shadow Isles, 57% for Shurima). While this indeed is painting a confusing picture of the decks, the bottom line is that all Ahri/Kennen decks are great, the Shurima variant is just a little bit better at winning 🙂
Like we anticipated last week, aggro decks have emerged and taken solid grounds in the metagame. While Pirates didn’t make the top cut this week, they still sit at a 52% win rate over the past 7 days.
People also figured out that Taric
is obsolete in Pantheon decks and moved on to either Mono Pantheon or the Shyvana variant, following the convincing stats.
While Nami/TF has a fine matchup into aggro decks (53% vs. Elise), it suffered under them nonetheless. The reason is that Darkness has become a lot more popular and Nami/TF can’t handle the slow setup of Veigar and the following cheap removal of all their relevant threats like Curious Shellfolk
, Nami or Fleet Admiral Shelly
through Darkness
.
Moving forward
Like we’ve seen above, Nami/TF isn’t doing so well anymore with only a 51% overall win rate. The deck isn’t very advisable to play at the moment, but if Pantheon or Darkness should lose popularity, this deck will surely top the charts again.
Aggro decks seem to perform especially well and besides Darkness, there aren’t many good anti-aggro decks currently around. This could very well mean that Lee/Zoe is a hot pick that should see a rise in play- and winrate once again.
Ahri decks seem to be the most robust archetypes of this meta alongside Pantheon decks, they seem to neither suffer nor rise under the arrival of aggro decks when it comes to winrate. They definitely are on their way to becoming meta staples.
I think the most fascinating fact in all this is that there is not one suffocating deck that gets played all the time and wins all the time like it was the case with Plunder and Rally Elusives last season (a shiver just went down my spine writing Rally Elusives, yikes!).
If you’ve paid close attention to the matchup tables you might’ve noticed that Ekko/Zilean was listed in there. The deck is extremely new at the moment and can be considered a dark horse. Its current 48% win rate is not very convincing so far, but we will have to wait and see how that might change in the coming week.
Rumble has been a late bloomer, but finally found its way into the meta in the Draven/Rumble archetype. We’ve talked enough about how aggro decks are great in this meta, so go and play some of this new Mecha-Yordle tech already!
I also think that Akshan/Sivir is a great pick at the moment. Of course, it is an old and boring deck, so you might ask yourself why you should play this over something like Pantheon, but Akshan/Sivir does well into mostly anything but Ahri decks, especially Darkness, Nami/TF, and Elise. The deck currently sits at a 55% win rate.
Conclusion
Since the emergency hotfix patch, a plenitude of decks have emerged and until now, everyone has behaved. It seems like Riot has banned the bully (yes, we are looking at you, Poppy
) from the playground and it has been an incredibly enriching metagame so far.
If you’ve made it this far, tell me your favorite vegetable in the Reddit thread comments. Just one word without context, I will reply with a vegetable I like as well.
Thanks go to Balco and Legna for providing the community with valuable statistics, these reports wouldn’t be possible without you!
My continuous gratitude also goes to Herko Keghans, MonteXristo, and Hydroflare, they have been doing a lot of editing and proofreading that deserves appreciation!
As always, thank you for reading and until next week!