‘sup, We are in the second week of the new patch and things start to get a little more stable. With one week left before the Seasonal Open Rounds, things are quite tense on the ladder!
The Data
Sorting Balco’s Meta Tier List by playrate (PR), we see the following:
As predicted last week, Trundle Tryndamere (FTR) rises to the top with a 6% PR.
Thus, Azir Xerath (Sun Disc/Mono Shurima) is only #2 with a 5.5% PR. Where last week was Caitlyn Ezreal (Tri-Beam), now stands Miss Fortune Twisted Fate Gangplank (Pirates) with a 5.4% PR.
Pantheon Yuumi Demacia (PhDE) and Taliyah Ziggs share a 4% PR this week.
Tri-Beam fell all the way down to #6 with a 3.7% PR, followed by Lux Jayce and Viego Shurima with a 3% PR.
Akshan Udyr, Heimerdinger Jayce, and Draven Sion (Discard) all share a 2.2% PR!
Turning to winrates (WR), we get this result:
Miss Fortune Quinn (Scouts) stands at the top with a 56.3% WR, closely followed by PhDE with a 56% one.
Pirates comes in third with a 55.8% WR.
Taliyah Ziggs sports a 54.4% WR, while Fizz Aphelios (Afaelios) and Viego SH clock a 54.1% WR.
Discard, Jayce Heimer, and FTR all share a 53% WR.
Jayce Elise (Sentinels) and Azir Irelia are the only archetypes with a 52% WR.
The Reasons
Like we found out last week, FTR had no bad matchups besides Sun Disk and was destined to ascend.
You could expect Sun Disc’s WR to go up with FTR being played more, but its WR actually dropped by 1.4%. That’s because PhDE and Tal Ziggs have become more popular – two unfavored matchups for Mono Shurima.
Also, as stated last week, bad decks like Ashe Leblanc and Garen Jarvan IV inflated everyone's WR. Does that mean Mono Shurima is bad? Nope. But maybe it’s time for the deck to step down in PR a little. =)
While FTR had a promising future last week, we also talked about how Tal Ziggs and PhDE are two prime suspects along FTR to find success this week. And indeed they did, feasting on the increasing popularity of Trundle Tryndamere.
While FTR had barely any bad matchups last week, this week is looking very different. Especially the surprising rise of Viego SH means that the deck struggles to find a top-tier WR.
With PhDE and Tal Ziggs rising to the top, Pirates is more successful than ever. It tears Sun Disc and midrange decks apart, aggroing them down before they can set up their combo.
The only gatekeeper that keeps Pirates from being OP is FTR, the most popular deck of the week.
FTR and Sun Disk being this popular also invite a multitude of other archetypes into the meta. Scouts is the #1 deck this week since it destroys control decks and aggro alike. The same can be said for Afaelios, the new Tristana DE.
Specifically, Afaelios’ only weakness appears to be PhDE, who can lethal them with their big Overhwelm units, while Afaelios doesn't have any defensive tools to prevent PhDE from doing so. If you’re looking for a Seasonal line-up, maybe Scouts and Afaelios would be a great starting point? =)
Unfortunately, Scouts didn’t get played enough to appear in Legna’s matchup grid but as a well-known archetype, there’s lots of historic data to speak from: They also struggle against PhDE and Tri-Beam, while being pretty solid into everything else.
We have a free guide for each of these decks available on MaRu – The Afaelios guide by MonteXristo (link), and the Scouts guide by yours truly (link), though you might want to run this (link) updated list of Scouts! =)
Moving on, Discard has taken a big hit to its WR due to its weakness versus FTR and dead-even matchups against Pirates and Tal Ziggs. Still not totally dead though, having the seventh-highest WR of the week, and might be especially attractive to bring to the Seasonal Open Rounds where you can ban FTR.
Lastly, Viego SH has made a surprising entrance into the top cut, being the eighth most played, and sixth most winning archetype of the week.
Looking at the matchup table though, Viego’s success becomes quickly apparent – It feasts the **** out of FTR, and is only mediocre otherwise. Their gameplan of growing Encroaching Mist
with Viego
and Invasive Hydravine
does wonders against FTR who can’t punish them for their slow gameplan.
On the other hand, most archetypes can punish Viego SH for their slow setup and have a close to 50% WR against it. Especially the efficient removal tool of Tri-Beam appears to do wonders against the deck.
Honorable Mentions
Fizz Riven
17 cards
23 cards
27 300
Fizz Riven has been a known archetype ever since the release of Attach units. There’s even a Premium guide by bA1ance (link) available.
The archetype sports a 57.4% WR over the past seven days in Masters and thus has the second-highest WR after Pirates in this time frame.
There’s not much data available (750 games played, 0.2% PR), but it appears to destroy Sun Disk while struggling versus Pirates.
Riven Viktor
24 cards
16 cards
24 200
You might remember this one. =)
The nerf to Ballistic Bot
and Ambush
, as well as the diminishing PR of Sun Disk took a toll on Riven Viktor, but it appears to have recovered from its losses.
The deck does struggle against Tri-Beam and Pirates but otherwise has a solid matchup spread. There’s no fancy matchup table to show you, but most matchups seem to be around 50%, with Sun Disk being the obvious exception (63% WR there).
There’s a Premium guide by Card Gamer (link) if you wanna learn the deck. It currently sits at a 57.2% WR over the last seven days in Masters, with 1.4k games (0.4% PR) being played.
Gnar Ziggs
20 cards
20 cards
22 400
You might notice a theme of this week’s honorable mentions. =)
It’s all about aggro, despite FTR’s popularity. That’s because many of the popular decks, like PhDE, Taliyah Ziggs, or Sun Disk struggle against aggro.
Gnar Ziggs is the OG aggro deck (with Teemo over Gnar before Gnar was released, and Poppy over Teemo before Poppy got double nerfed) that has always stood at the edge of excellency.
It is a pretty straightforward archetype with fast games and an easy learning curve. The latest version runs Teenydactyl
as “high-end” (well, at least for aggro a four-drop is high-end =) due to its synergy with Gnar
.
Gnar Ziggs achieved a 56.9% WR over the past seven days in Masters with 700 matches being played (0.2% PR).
Conclusion
With this, we conclude this week’s meta report. Are you excited about the upcoming Seasonal?
I’m really glad Riot listened to the community and brought back the stream coverage.
Will you be participating in the Open Rounds? If yes, what lineup are you looking to bring? If you still are in search of inspiration, you might want to check out the free recommended lineups article (link) by tournament veterans Sirturmund and MonteXristo!
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, I will “Hi” you back! =)
The data has been due to the amazing website by Balco 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 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) anytime.
Thanks for reading and see ya next week! =)
