Legend of Runeterra's Patch 4.8 has brought tons of changes: new cards, lots of nerfs, a bunch of buffs, and the Eternal LoR ladder being again on the menu.
With roughly 24hs of data, here are the forerunners of both ladders – in Standard we'll see the same familiar faces (although their relative power seems to have changed quite a bit), while Eternal is a brave new world. Or a brave new mountain, perhaps, by how strong the Eternal 
Targon decks look right now!
Standard Forerunners – A Quick Glance
As with every one of these early glimpses at the LoR meta, data samples are very small, and to be taken with lots of grains of salt…
… plus, like in the Glory in Navori season, the majority of pilots seem to be focusing on Eternal right now, rather than Standard.
Having said that, here are the early forerunners – all familiar faces, but their early performance do suggest the Runeterra meta has changed.
Heimer Jayce
Perhaps the biggest winners of LoR Patch 4.8, Professor and Student have dodged nerfs like the Champs they are, and currently lead the Standard race to the top: with their exact pre-patch list and 300+ games since the patch landed, Heimerdinger
Jayce
is the most popular deck thus far, and shows the highest win rate among decks with more than 120 games – a whopping 59%.
9 cards
31 cards
28 000
Nasus Veigar
Vaults of Helia
doesn't seem to have received the "You Have Been Nerfed" memo and, like Heimer Jayce, the most popular Nasus
Veigar
deck brings to the fray the exact same list as last week, and with excellent results: winrate north of 57%.
25 cards
15 cards
32 500
Fizz Samira
At last, some novelty!
Or, at least, some return to roots – Fizz
Samira
's best list is very similar to its build from a few weeks ago, rather than what was terrorizing the ladder last week.
Interestingly, it has stuck with the nerfed cards (Fleet Admiral Shelly
and Pirouette
), and other version show the same trend thus far.
27 cards
13 cards
34 700
Pyke Rek'Sai, aka Lurkers
Current numbers suggest that, if not Heimer Jayce, then Lurkers may be this patch's biggest winners – Pyke
Rek'Sai
was already doing very well last week, it was left untouched, and right now there are quite a few slightly different builds punching between 55% and 57%.
25 cards
15 cards
26 400
Eternal Forerunners – A Quick Glance
Like during 'Glory in Navori', the majority of pilots are flocking to the Eternal ranked ladder, now that it is available – lots of toys to play with, and Eternal will be the focus of this patch's Runeterra Opens.
Galio Udyr
Galio
received huge buffs in Path of Champions, and is also behind Eternal's most popular deck: Galio Udyr
, with over 900 games since the patch landed.
It's not performing amazingly well, though: just a modest 50% win rate.
24 cards
16 cards
31 600
Aphelios Zoe Atrocity
Aphelios
Zoe
, on the other hand, is popular and looks quite scary. There are a couple of fairly similar lists punching above 56%, with the most played having about 700 games under their belt -- their difference is a single copy of Solari Sunhawk
and small tweaks to their spell ratios (but both splashing a single copy of Atrocity
).
Do notice that there's a mono-Targon version without Atrocity, but it doesn't seem to be working very well.
39 cards
1 cards
27 400
Akshan Lee Sin
The partnership between blind monk and suave rogue has sprung a plethora of slightly different versions, with the most played having about 700 games on record since the patch landed – they all pack pretty much the same cards but with different ratios between Equipments, Followers, and Spells.
Although not as punchy as Aphelios Zoe (but still smacking at a very solid 53-54% with all the most popular versions), it would seem that Akshan
Lee Sin
is the one that has the most room for optimization.
22 cards
18 cards
28 200
Samira Zoe
With so many buffs to Targon, it's not a surprise that our favorite one-eyed Desert Rose has taken a trip to try her luck there – being in fact the only Noxus card in this otherwise all-out Targon deck, and with Samira Zoe bearing many similarities to Zoe's partnership with Aphelios. About 600 games played, very nice 55% win rate thus far.
37 cards
3 cards
28 700
Draven Jinx
Ah, the best pair in LoR's history reunites!
Going for a very low-to-the-ground approach (Crowd Favorite
is notably absent, and there's a single Augmented Experimenter
) while adding a couple of the latest Discard toys (like Blowback
), what is irrefutably the most fun deck in LoR also happens to be one of the hardest-hitting Eternal brews right now: with just about 300 games played, its winrate is way above 60%.
It's not the highest performance we'll see today, though; more about that in a bit!
17 cards
23 cards
23 900
Jax Vi Timelines
And today's "Looking Scariest" award goes to… Jax
Vi
!
Or maybe it goes to Concurrent Timelines
, but they are all in the same deck, so anyways: returning to a concept that showed modest success last year, Weapon Master and Enforcer are back together, and this time around they may have what it takes to shake things up, big time. Although it doesn't have too many games on record (just a bit less than 300), Jax Vi has the highest win rate among all decks showcased today.
19 cards
21 cards
32 800
Braum Vladimir Scargrounds
A champ rework (Vladimir
has a new Play effect) and new cards have done the trick to push good ol' The Scargrounds
deck forward – doesn't look like it will break the Eternal LoR meta, but Braum
Vladimir puts a nice 53% winrate and, like most other decks showcased today, has a handful of slightly different lists, all of them doing well.
25 cards
15 cards
32 600
Wrapping Up
Twice the ladders, twice the fun!
We've seen today the same familiar faces in the Standard LoR ladder, but those that dodged the nerfs are showing a much better performance this early on, so things may shift in the coming days.
And it's a brave new world in the Eternal LoR ladder – a world in which, judging by these very early trends, Targon will play a big role.We'll see tomorrow in By the Numbers which of these trends continue!
If you have any questions or comments, or more data you may need, feel free to:
Poke me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HerkoKerghans,
Or find more writings on substack: https://riwan.substack.com/
