‘sup everyone, Leer here. We are back to the Standard format and this gamemode will be the standard for this meta report!

We got a brand new season on our hands which spells mayhem on ladder. The new champions are struggling to find a place in the meta, whereas Siren Song is getting exploited left and right!

Legends of Runeterra Decks

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

Evelynn Kayle is the most-popular archetype in the game! Siren Song was tested in lots of different decks, and Evelynn turns out to be the most potent one!

Annie Jhin is your go-to Aggro deck that was successful in the Eternal meta and continues to be in Standard.

The Poro King is the most-tested (and most-adorable) champion of the Heart of The Huntress expansion. While he is cute and his archetypes are fun to play, his archetypes are lacking in strength.

Evelynn started out with Kayle as its plaything supplementary champion. Over time, she was shed in favor of Cosmic Youngling, helping with the archetype’s Aggro matchups.

Nidalee and Neeko were tested in the early days of the new season but to no fruition. Nidalee Gnar and Neeko Garen are the best players could come up with, but they lack in power.

Pyke Rek’Sai (Urgh) is another staple of LoR that has been around for several years by now.

The Poro King is also being paired with Freljord for Ingvar the Younger but is a weak deck nonetheless.

Aatrox Bilgewater was an underrated archetype last season and got bumped up a power level with Siren Song.

Karma Sett Piltover & Zaun is one of the biggest losers of the new patch. It dominated the playrate chart last season and now has to make do with 10th place.

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

Illaoi Swain is the king of Standard. It was pulling off numbers all throughout last season and is continuing to do so. The same can be said for Jinx Samira, although it started spiking towards the end of the Glory in Navori season.

Evelynn Targon and Evelynn Kayle both perform extremely well on ladder. The Kayle-less Evelynn Targon is performing a tad better, with Cosmic Youngling carrying Aggro matchups that Evelynn Kayle struggles into.

Kai’Sa Garen was performing extremely well towards the end of last Standard season and is back at it again.

Evelynn Lucian is more niche and was fairly inconsistent in what it was doing, but improved with the addition of Siren Song.

Samira Fizz was abandoned by gamers in favor of new brews but continues to perform.

Urgh is a potent midrange counter and is also doing well, although there is a one percent winrate gap between Fizz Samira and Urgh.

Aatrox Bilgewater is not a meme deck, it’s a powerful meme deck! As the only Siren Song brew including Reaver's Row, it has the most snowbally playstyle of the Siren Song blends.

Finally, Annie Jhin is performing well. Ladder data suggest that Ravenborn Tome is not the way to go and you’re dropping more than four percent winrate if you play the Equipment.

Factors Shaping the LoR Meta

With Evelynn Kayle, Evelynn Targon, Aatrox Bilgewater, and Evelynn Lucian popping off on ladder, it is fair to say that Siren Song is the best card out of the Heart of the Huntress set. 

As I used Evelynn Targon, Annie Jhin, and Samira Fizz to place third in the LoRreport £100 Heart of the Huntress Tournament and this is my report, let’s take a closer look at these decks! =)

Evelynn Targon is the name of the game right now and for a good reason. Siren Song was tested in a multitude of archetypes but Evelynn has succeeded. 

Your usual playstyle is pass -> pass -> Siren Song/Domination. Once you get one of these cards down, all your Husks – and thus all your units consuming those Husks – have their power buffed and will advance Xolaani the Bloodweaver. 

I am not going to go too much into detail here, as yours truly has written a beginner-friendly Evelynn Targon deck guide! =)

As you can see, Eve Kayle’s bad matchups are not that bad. Besides Annie Jhin, Eve Kayle is above 45% against all of them, indicating that this deck is difficult to counter.

Their bad matchups are usually Aggro, and Evelynn Targon has a fix for that with Cosmic Youngling replacing Kayle.

The Kayle-less version doesn’t really get worse matchups from cutting the winged justicebringer but is better-versed against its bad matchups. The matchup graph is already targeting an Honorable Mention brew – Teemo Elusives, so stayed tuned for it! =)

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Fizz Samira has seen repeated nerfs like Powder Pandemonium not giving Vulnerable to enemies. Samira Seraphine popping off in Eternal hasn’t helped Samira dodge the nerf hammer, adjusting her ability to Rally.

Nonetheless, Samira Fizz is one of the most powerful Legends of Runeterra meta decks. Especially when considering that this blend has a high skill-ceiling, it can compare with Evelynn Targon in power level.

As we can see, the archetype has some nasty matchups like Samira Jinx and Karma Sett. Luckily for them, though, these see few play and are thus not hurting the deck’s winrate by much.

This matchup table also highlights well the difference Cosmic Youngling makes in Evelynn Targon, essentially flipping its matchups against Fizz Samira.

On the positive, Fizz Samira is great at getting rid off its Aggro brethren like Annie Jhin and Urgh. Due to their early plays and Pirouette, they have great tools at stopping any aggression early on.

Annie Jhin was one of the most-successful decks in Eternal and is continuing its streak in Standard. The biggest hurdle of the archetype is piltos getting baited by Ravenborn Tome. 

Matchups are looking hot, with Annie Jhin being one of the few decks able to compete against Siren Song blends like Evelynn Kayle and Aatrox Bilgewater. 

Its bad matchups are not that bad – just like Evelynn Targon – with most of them being above 45%. Especially Nidalee Gnar is a deck that struggles heavily in the meta and will soon be gone. 

With its bad matchups on the downtrend and lists being unoptimized, Annie Jhin is one of the most underrated decks in the meta, despite its already solid performance. Definitely be on the lookout for this brew in the coming week!

Honorable Mentions

Teemo Ionia

Evelynn Targon blends are flooding ladder right at this moment. It seems to lack bad matchups and is taking the meta in its devious grasp.

Teemo Ionia is posing a solution to this problem. It’s farming Evelynn Kayle, having a 68% winrate over 400 games against it. 

If 17% of the meta is made up of one archetype, specialized decks like Teemo Ionia have a place in the meta that would otherwise be too low power to compete.

On ladder, Teemo Ionia is sporting a 58% WR over 4k games in the last three days!

Fizz Bilgewater

Fizz Bilgewater is a faster iteration of Evelynn Targon that is looking to exploit Siren Song more aggressively. 

With Xolaani being a second thought, Fizz Bilgewater is running all the 1-drops it can and doubling down on the synergy of Siren Song with Reaver's Row. 

The most fun part about this blend? You can run it together with Evelynn Kayle in a lineup, as the decks don’t share champs or the same region combo.

On ladder, Fizz Bilgewater is holding a 60% WR over 2.3k games in the last three days!

Gnar Jhin

If you don’t like Aggro but would like to experience Jhin’s facets, Gnar Jhin got you covered!

With a multitude of early units and pings it can fend off against the aggressive side of ladder, while its stuns and hard removal got you covered against big threats like Xolaani the Bloodweaver.

On ladder, the brew achieves a 59.5% WR over 700 games in the last three days. Game sizes for lists are low, so feel free to experiment with your cards in the above list!

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!