Monday Meta Report – July 24th

sup, Leer here and welcome back to this bustling new LoR meta! Siren Song was nerfed into the ground and new decks are already taking over the ladder. 

One card overshadows everything else though – Sump Monument. Will the meta be held in this unique mechanic’s grasp, or find a way to free itself?

Legends of Runeterra Decks

Sorting MaRu’s LoR Meta Tier List and meta stats by playrate (PR), we see the following:

My dream has finally come true… Illaoi Swain gets the attention it deserves! Throughout past months, it has consistently overperformed under the radar. The time has finally arrived for Illaoi Swain to leave the Darkness and enter the spotlight!

Teemo Puffcaps started to pop up shortly before the last Runeterra Open. Now, it is the most popular LoR ladder deck.

Jax Ornn has performed in Eternal and needed some time to cope with the loss of Hearthblood Mender and resurge.

Heimerdinger Jayce (Shadow Tech) appears to have invented advanced tech for flickering in and out of time. Not much changed about this enigma of an archetype (except the addition of Epic Scraptraption) but it has returned from the depths of below 45% winrate deck. 

Teemo Targon (Elusives) is the latest trend that is starting to take over the ladder. Elusives was one of the most successful archetypes of the Eternal meta and has traded Sparklefly for Sump Monument!

Gnar Neeko (Gneeko?) was one of the first concepts players turned to when the patch hit. Warden of the Tribes got a substantial buff but proves to be – just like The Poro King – to be too one-dimensional as an honest unit-based brew.

Pyke Rek’Sai (Urgh) is a staple of the meta with nothing impressive to talk about.

Jack Sett (Jet) was the Copium of many when Coins got nerfed but Jack received a buff. Its winrate is down in the dumpster and you shouldn’t touch it with a three-foot pole. 

Vayne Aatrox is an evergreen LoR meta deck that pilots can rely on in the face of uncertainty, e.g. right after a patch.

Ashe LeBlanc got resurrected and with not a bad winrate at all!

Turning to winrates (WR), we get this result:

Elusives dominates the chart here. We got a glimpse of the power of Sump Monument in Teemo Puffcaps and Elusives takes exploiting this landmark to the next step.

Shadow Tech is the aforementioned enigma that somehow managed to come out on top of the meta.

The potency of control is reassured by the success of Illaoi Swain.

Aatrox Vayne is a consistent powerhouse that benefits heavily from the absence of Xolaani the Bloodweaver. Similar things can be said about Jax Ornn!

Teemo Puffcaps quickly became one of the most popular Legends of Runeterra meta decks and thus had a target on its back. Somehow, Teemo Caitlyn manages to dodge those targets and perform much better (4% higher winrate).

Gnar Jhin Norra was a powerful brew that was held back by Siren Song decks. With the patch, Jhin Bandle City has free fire on the ladder!

Nasus Vaults of Helia manages to sneak two iterations into the chart – the classical Mono Nasus one, and the Azir Glory's Call one. 

Finally, Urgh is a boring and average deck that shouldn’t be here.

Factors Shaping the LoR Meta

Teemo Elusives is the name of the game. Historically, Elusives started as a champless brew with cards like Silverwing Diver in the beta season, long before Zoe or Targon were introduced to the game.

Later iterations evolved in Ionia Demacia alongside Zed with pre-nerfed Golden Aegis and Relentless Pursuit. (Here’s a Zed Elusives build if you’re interested)

After the Rally nerfs, Elusives pivoted into Bandle City thanks to the introduction of The Sudden Surge, which used to grow units to 5|5. (Here’s an Elusives Bandle City build if you’re interested)

One adjustment to The Sudden Surge later and players pivoted to Piltover & Zaun due to the access to one-cost Elusives that synergize with Purifying Flames. We saw the archetype first in the 2022 World Championship playoffs but never found its place afterward.

That is until last season, where Teemo Zoe Elusives suddenly surged back to power in the Eternal format – even with a nerfed Sparklefly.

In Standard, Sparklefly got rotated (just like Zoe) and Elusives lacked the longevity to fulfill their Elusive game plan. With Sump Monument, this problem got conveniently fixed!

Sump Monument often buys the deck one to two extra swings before going down, which is paramount to this aggressive deck.

When it comes to matchups, Elusives performs especially well against board-based brews that have limited backline access and removal. These are decks like Jax Ornn, but unfortunately also Jack Sett and Gnar Neeko.

Why am I saying “unfortunately”? Because Jet and Gnar Neeko are atrocious archetypes that have no future in LoR. They will soon vanish and bring a food scarcity for Elusives with them.

When it comes to bad matchups, Elusives is vulnerable to removal-based blends like Illaoi Swain and Shadow Tech.

Elusives also struggles against tempo decks like Vayne Aatrox that don’t need to pay for the Elusive keyword on their units to out-pace their foes. Teemo Targon can’t trade with a The Darkin Harp-equipped Ranger-Knight Defector and takes 12 Nexus damage (or 48 Puffcaps) per round.

Honorable Mentions

Nasus Veigar

Nasus, Nasus, and more Nasus! 

This week, we found two Nasus brews perform well on ladder. This third Nasus blend, Nasus Veigar, is not performing well – it is performing exceptionally!

It seems that Dess & Ada does the trick. Board wipes are high in demand against decks like Elusives or Gnar Neeko that go wide to run down Nasus.

On ladder, Nasus Veigar achieves a 58% WR over 2k games in the past three days!

Fizz Samira

Fizz Samira got repeatedly hit with nerfs to Wiggly Burblefish, Samira, and finally Powder Pandemonium (twice!). The second adjustment to Powder Pandemonium was especially brutal, bumping the card up by two mana.

With this change, Fizz Samira has regressed, or rather flung back, to Elusive builds with Fleet Admiral Shelly and Wiggly Burblefish. 

While there was a reason Fizz Samira dodged this version when Burblefish was nerfed, this was in Eternal times. In Standard, power levels are much lower and even this nerfed blend is enough to overachieve in Standard.

On ladder, Fizz Samira holds a 57% WR over 1k games in the past three days. If you missed your fishy friends, now is the best time to rejoice in this historic build!

Jinx Kennen

Jinx Bandle City performed in the Siren Song meta and continues to do so. With Return-o Wrench winning awards for the most accurate name and providing infinite Discard value, Jinx Kennen is looking to exploit this with as many Discard cards as possible in this aggressive archetype.

Oh ladder, Jinz Kennen achieves a 56.9% WR over 800 games in the past three days. If you like Discard and Aggro, but are tired of Jinx Samira, this is for you!

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 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 Legends of Runeterra Meta Report, I can't express my gratitude enough to him!

Thanks to Herko Kerghans for his ever-lasting influence on this series and my writing as a whole.

You can reach me on Twitter (@Leer97) or Discord (Leer#2026).

Thanks for reading this Monday's LoR Meta Report and see ya next week!