Welcome to this week’s Monday Meta Report, where we take a look at the most dominant decks in the past 7 days and why they are currently on top of the meta. We also try to identify dark horses and predict what decks could be promising to move into this week.
The Data
Taking a look at Balco’s Meta Tier List, we can see that the top of the rankings hasn’t changed compared to last week – Rally Elusives and Plunder still are on top of the playrate with 12% and 10.7%. They are followed by Poppy/Ziggs and Lurk with a high 4% playrate.
Noticeably, Teemo/Swain has gained more traction again with a 4.6% playrate as an answer to Rally Elusives.
The only decks with 3% playrates are Draven/Sion, Darkness, and Liss/Taliyah.
Looking at winrates, we see a different picture. Plunder has lost some momentum and is “only” the fifth most winning deck.
Rally Elusives stays on top, being the only deck with a winrate over 55%, followed by Poppy/Ziggs and TF/GP with a 54% one.
We see a new challenger in Poppy/Lux, a deck that currently sits at a 53% winrate over the past 7 days.
Taliyah/Ziggs tries its best to make a similar entrance into the top cut with a 52% winrate over the past 7 days.
The Reasons
Since most decks are the same as last week, we won’t go into detail for most of them. If you are new to this series and want to learn more about those decks, check out last week’s report.
We see Teemo/Swain pop up on the ladder more again, which certainly comes from its great counter matchup into Rally Elusives, the most played deck of the meta.
Plunder actually hasn’t lost much of its winrate (from 53.7% to 53.1%), it’s just that some other decks have been performing a little better this week, mainly due to its good matchup into Rally Elusives.
Unfortunately, there is not much data on Poppy/Lux or Taliyah/Ziggs. While these decks are no new invention – they have been known for quite some time now – they have not seen a lot of play.
What we know though is that Poppy/Lux has a difficult time into Plunder (42% winrate), while having a better one into Rally Elusives (51% winrate).
When it comes to Taliyah/Ziggs, we know that it has a rough time into both Plunder and Rally Elusives, as well as Poppy/Ziggs (40% winrate in all matchups)… so it’s uncertain where the high winrate comes from.
Looking Back
Like we saw last week, counter decks against Rally Elusives did very well this week. Rally Elusives is a cracked deck that will not go away until it’s nerfed or other decks get buffed that shift the meta.
Poppy/Ziggs continues to dominate the ladder and most of its bad matchups are gatekept by Rally Elusives.
We saw a small but not essential drop in playrate of Plunder (from 12.6% to 10.7%). Maybe we will see another one in the near future?
Bandle Tree, Akshan/Sivir, and Draven/Sion all hover around a 51% winrate and haven’t really been popping off. I think this is due to the Rally Elusives dominance and the rise in popularity of its counters.
Liss/Taliyah dropped below the 50% winrate mark this week, due to its horrendous matchup into… you guessed it, Rally Elusives!
Jayce Sentinels actually made it to a convincing 51% winrate!! While there still isn’t a big enough sample size of games to determine its true matchup table, today’s data shows the following: Jayce Sentinels has a 58% winrate vs. Rally Elusives, 67% vs. Poppy/Ziggs, and 48% vs. Plunder. Most interestingly enough, it has a 63% winrate vs. Teemo/Swain, the popular Rally Elusive counter deck.
While these stats could easily diverge by up to 10% from their true winrate, the data infers that this deck is incredibly well seated in the current meta and ladder tendencies. Be aware that it has bad winrates into Draven/Sion, Liss/Taliyah, and Akshan/Sivir, though these decks luckily are on a downswing at the moment.
Interpretations and Moving forward
Let me say this right off the bat. I don’t think that Taliyah/Ziggs is a great deck and I wouldn’t count on it continuing to perform well. The three most popular ladder decks counter this deck and there is too much uncertainty, try it at your own risk.
Poppy/Lux on the other hand seems more promising. Having an even matchup against the most played deck is always a good sign and with Curious Shellfolk
in the list, it seems to outlast a lot of the slower decks. Especially with the scarcity of burn decks, it seems to be a good meta choice – if you can avoid Draven/Sion and Poppy/Ziggs that is.
Personally, I think that TF/GP is a great deck to play on the ladder at the moment. It has a great matchup into Rally Elusives (56% winrate), Poppy/Ziggs (61%), and Draven Sion (58%) (and, well, Lurk, but which deck doesn’t beat Lurk?!) while having an almost even matchup into Plunder (48%).
Teemo/Swain seems to be a worse version of TF/GP in the meta when it comes to the most popular matchups. Instead, it has some better matchups down the line into the likes of Lee/Zoe and Darkness.
Glorious Shellfolk has been a deck that has tried to make an entrance into the top cut for quite a while now, usually only being brought to tournament lineups. Though it finally crossed the 50% winrate mark this week on the ladder, we will have to pay close attention to its development. Especially, if it can establish itself amongst the likes of Darkness or Bandle Tree as a go-to deck when it comes to a solid ladder deck that consistently performs over a 50% winrate.
Conclusion
In this week’s report, we might have seen the last serious meta shift before a new balancing patch. We will very likely see more meme and player-favorite decks pop up on ladder in the coming week, now that the ladder cut-off has happened and the Seasonals Open Rounds were played.
As this was the first meta cycle this series has recorded, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did writing these reports. Thank you so much for reading and showing these reports lots of encouragement, it means a lot! As always, big thanks also go to Balco and Legna for making this a possibility in the first place with their incredible meta reports!