The first Runeterra Open of the third competitive season just finished and we finally have the full decklists and stats for the event, so I’m here to break down the top 4 and talk about lineups!
The Meta
This was probably the most diverse meta in a long while, where we literally had 9 different decks win the opens. Courtesy of Boulevard, these were the Top 64 breakdowns, decks with at least 5 brings:
AM
EMEA
APAC
Apac’s Warden breakdown is
- 20 DE / 8 SH / 2 BC / 1 Neeko / 1 SI
If you want to see more interesting stats, check out lor.dne.to for detailed graphs!
Americas Top 4
Top 3/4 - TheCupIsMine
26 cards
14 cards
34 600
20 cards
20 cards
33 300
6 cards
34 cards
19 400
Cup was definitely prepared to beat warden decks and Jax
Ornn
. You can notice that on the Heavy Metal
techs to get around lots of forging and units like Innovative Blacksmith
or Combat Cook
and also in the Supercharge
tech on Nidalee
to get around Freljord’s freezes.
Top 3/4 - Hawk362
14 cards
26 cards
23 100
29 cards
11 cards
34 100
21 cards
19 cards
32 300
Hawk took a different approach in a “beat freljord decks” lineup that involved a much more aggressive decks. Unfortunately for him, Douguito’s lineup didn’t have warden and instead had much faster decks then his.
Runner-Up - Douguito
22 cards
18 cards
30 300
14 cards
26 cards
22 600
24 cards
16 cards
18 200
Douguito had very aggressive decks and managed to dodge Bandle Elusives lineups that could bully his Ionia Elusives list. Just like Cup, he had a “beat freljord decks” strategy, but AJ was on fire Sunday.
Champion - AjTehPro
23 cards
17 cards
25 300
18 cards
22 cards
30 100
8 cards
32 cards
36 400
Aj mentioned on his post-game interview that he just “brought 3 good decks and piloted them well” and that’s exactly what happened. A few lucky hits from his decks were all he needed to pilot them into a win in this Open tournament. Shoutout to this Janna
Champions' Strength
deck that really performed when it had to.
EMEA Top 4
The EMEA tournament was filled with technical issues and cheating drama, as we couldn’t have an official broadcast due to technical difficulties on the spectator accounts, so we had to watch the tournament through the players that were kind enough to stream their PoVs.
Top 3/4 - Mantarochen Marc
16 cards
24 cards
24 800
22 cards
18 cards
30 600
20 cards
20 cards
33 300
Mantarochen’s lineup was on the right track and I believe was prepared to face Warden of the Tribes
, but his semifinal opponent which ended up taking the whole tournament was not on what he wanted to face.
Top 3/4 - TheShak3r
17 cards
23 cards
24 900
24 cards
16 cards
27 400
27 cards
13 cards
34 800
If there’s one thing I learned from playing the open rounds is that Aatrox Vayne was not a good deck to bring this open, and you really needed to dodge basically the most popular deck of the format to win games. TheShak3r struggled as his Aatrox Vayne had to stare down at three bad matchups.
Runner up - Tm Bladesurge
24 cards
16 cards
32 600
23 cards
17 cards
25 300
17 cards
23 cards
29 000
We sadly had no way to watch the finals and know how the games went, but Bladesurge’s lineup was very good and almost identical to Aj’s. Boksör’s lineup wasn’t bad by any means, but I can only wonder what happened in those games since on paper I’d say Bladesurge should be ok into him.
Champion - ll Boksör ll
11 cards
29 cards
26 600
25 cards
15 cards
31 500
18 cards
22 cards
33 300
The main point of Boksör’s lineup is the Seraphine
deck. After trying it out on ladder myself I didn’t find it very good, but maybe I was just not understanding the way to pilot it correctly. It did end up beating Janna Nilah
which in my opinion was the better matchup for the deck in that best of three that ended in a Janna mirror won by Boksör.
APAC Top 4
Top 3/4 - SuperEvaElfie69
21 cards
19 cards
25 900
27 cards
13 cards
35 500
20 cards
20 cards
25 500
Aside from the amazing ingame name, SuperEvaElfie went pretty far with an Aatrox plus Illaoi lineup. Illaoi is one of those decks that can just win any matchup with the right curve, but it just didn’t come online in the semi finals.
Top 3/4 - FnP Chenia
24 cards
16 cards
29 900
27 cards
13 cards
35 900
26 cards
14 cards
27 200
Previous World Finalist FnP Chenia came in to this open and had interesting deck choices with a combination of Karma
Sett
and Aatrox
Vayne
. It’s a pretty odd choice of decks because one wants to ban warden lists and the other wants to leave them open. At the end of the day, his semifinals opponent Soromon not only didn’t have a Warden deck but were on fire that day and beat them up with aggressive decks instead.
Runner Up - Lets See
21 cards
19 cards
25 700
29 cards
11 cards
27 100
19 cards
21 cards
28 400
Let’s see Lets see’s lineup. He was one of the only successful Heimerdinger
Jayce
players, and I would say it was because of the techs he chose for his deck that really liked to face aggressive decks. Though going up against Soromon’s lineup, it was a sure ban and he would proceed to bully the slower Freljord decks that couldn’t handle pure aggression.
Champion - Soromon
9 cards
31 cards
19 800
17 cards
23 cards
26 700
10 cards
30 cards
28 000
Soromon was playing extremely well on Sunday and the final game was decided by no other card then Shadowshift
. I suggest you watch the vod of this finals as it really was a treat to watch really old cards doing god’s work in the current meta. Congratulations to Soromon and to every region’s Open Winner!