Sirturmund & Monte’s Lineup Recommendations

Typical Triple Aggro Burn

This lineup is for those of you who love playing aggro. In the last patch, it was tough to find a good third Noxus aggro burn deck that was as consistent as Pirates and Spiders, and now we have it with Gnar and Ziggs burn aggro. Nine decimates anyone??

The strategy here is straightforward. This lineup should eat up a lot of the slow decks that don’t have heals/removal and the decks that rely on little units (Pantheon, Yuumi decks). Additionally, if you expect Formidable to be present this weekend, these decks should destroy Formidable decks as well. I have even made sure that all three decklists run Precious Pet just because of how much value that card can get vs Formidable archetype. 

Ban wise, you have to get lucky to dodge triple Shadow Isle control lineups. It will be very difficult to win a match vs something like Darkness, FTR, and Kindred Sentinels for example. The Wails, vile feast, and other forms of removal and heals just stop this line up in its track. Ban priority-wise, you always want to ban one of those three decks. After that, I recommend banning lineups that have a lot of AoE removal (most Freljord decks) or have ways to heal (Freljord again, due to Tavern Keeper). If you’re facing triple aggro, banning Gnar Noxus is better than the other burn decks as they will have more low-cost removal through Pokey Stick.

If there is a deck here that you don’t particularly enjoy playing, the next alternative is replacing it with Lulu Fizz or Gnar Fizz if you want to replace Ziggs burn. Both these decks play a bit different since they’re going more for a wide board to buff with Yordles in Arms but should still be able to aggro down your opponents faster than they can get to you.

I Want Darkness To Suffer

The purpose of this lineup is to make control suffer. Specifically, to make Darkness suffer which I expect to be included in a lot of lineups this weekend. We have our usual control boogymen with Scouts and Pantheon Taric. Both these decks rely on rallies to finish off the matchups vs control archetypes. To round it up, we go with Bandle Tree as it tends to be an auto-win vs Darkness match-up.

The strategy here is to target control and slow decks. So leave those Darknesses, FTR, Anivias, etc open. If the opponent does not have any control decks, you still tend to do well vs other archetypes like Formidable, TK Raka, or anything that generally suffers vs you having a wide board. If you end up facing the triple aggro lineup, you should try to beat their Pirates twice, as that tends to be an easier feat than trying to beat Spiders or Gnar Ziggs. Pirates rely on their board presence, and you can match that pretty closely with your unit-heavy decks. What your pantheon lacks in wide boards, he can get it with single combat and concerted.

Ban strategy is to prioritize decks that can go super wide and buff their units, AKA Fizz Lulu or Fizz Gnar Yordle In Arms decks. Yordle in Arms is a huge challenge vs this lineup, so ban those decks on sight. Next, I would prioritize decks with flocks or scorched earth, as your units tend to get damaged pretty frequently. Lastly, decks with freezes or relying on level up Sejuani would be a challenge and deserve a ban if the previously mentioned decks aren’t present.

If there is a deck in this lineup that you don’t necessarily like, an alternative is Akshan Sivir. This allows you to still rely on rally as a win condition. If instead, you want to go a bit heavier on the landmark train, Tahm Kench Soraka or Galio Soraka Star Spring are both good options that should do well vs control archetypes.

Sirturmund’s Pick - Let Noxus Control You

So this triple Noxus control lineup is something I have recommended in the past in one of our previous articles for last season. Surprisingly, a player took it to Seasonal and made the top 32 with it! The goal here is to play all Arachnoid Sentry, Flock, and Scorched Earth that you can to disrupt and stop Pantheon. Now, with the new patch, we can add Culling Strike on top of those previous tools to also stop Formidable decks, allowing us to target two different sets of decks. Double Scorched Earth means we also target the Bandle Tree line ups, giving us a third counter match up! With Ahri Kennen also gone, we have lost one of our biggest counters, leaving just really fast decks or super late control archetypes as our worry.

Your toughest matches will come from the super control style of decks, like FTR or Anivia that can just stall you out before you can do enough damage. They also have their own tools like Vengeance to deal with your Levy, so I would ban those styles of decks first. The second set of decks that we will struggle with are Minimorph decks. Things like Shellfolk decks that get value from your cards and can also minimorph your threats are big no-nos and should be banned. 

Aside from that, I believe this lineup is very well positioned in the current meta. It can do well vs Aggro since you have a lot of cheap removal and units in all three decks. Can do well vs Pantheon decks because of scorched earths, flocks, and stuns. Can do well vs Scouts type of decks due to the removal of their board. Can do well vs Formidable due to culling strike. And can do well vs landmark decks like Star Spring, Bandle Tree, and Thralls due to Scorched Earth.

If you’re looking for a potential alternative to one of these decks, you could try Twisted Fate Swain if you don’t want to play Gnar Swain, or Freljord Noxus (with any combination of Sejuani, Gnar, Swain, Trundle, Udyr). Again remember strategy is to have triple sentry, triple flock, double scorched earth, and a couple of culling strikes. 

Monte's Aggro

This is another aggro lineup that's a little bit more board-based. I will personally be playing this lineup in any tournaments this week and probably some of next. I really like what Gnar did for Bandle Burn and I'm happy to see it back, Yordles in Arms is better than ever with the addition of Spirit Portal and Scouts also got a fancy new toy in Petricite Broadwing - AM player TheBlackBoss took this list from Plat 4 to Master!

This lineup doesn't have a perfectly cohesive strategy as Scouts is usually ok leaving SI Freljord (like Feel The Rush) unbanned, while the other two decks would prefer to remove it from the equation. That shouldn't be much of an issue however, any control lineup will be inclined to ban Scouts and while the other two decks are still unfavored, they do have a chance into Darkness & Lee Sin (the other two decks most likely to be played in that line-up).

Your next ban priority should just be whatever you want to play against least.

The other benefit to this lineup is that it should be ok into Pantheon - both Yordles in Arms and Bandle Burn should do well into all variations.

You could very easily swap out any deck in this lineup for another aggro deck like Spiders or Pirates. You could also swap Bandle Burn for Bandle Tree and have a better matchup into the control lineups.

Healing is Cheating

This lineup is for anyone who loves to bully Aggro players. Mastering Runeterra's very own xXWhatAmIXx won Thursday night's Runeterralife weekly with a very similar lineup. He played Thresh Aurelion Sol over Darkness but that's a pet deck of his and not something you should bring to a tournament without extreme familiarity. This is probably a good call for any weekend tournament as well, there's likely to be a ton of aggro running around (a side effect of a new meta).

Your ban priority with this lineup is going to be any rally deck, prioritizing Taric lists then Scouts. For lineups that don't have rally, my advice is to ban the deck with the most burn (direct damage spells). In the control mirror, you'll want to ban Darkness

I don't have any recommendations for other decks to play in this lineup because I think it's very well balanced as is. However, you're more than welcome to swap any deck out for another, slower deck of your preference.

Let's Run'em Down

This lineup comes courtesy of my teammate (and seasonal top cutter) Seku! Shen Demacia has always been a favorite archetype of his so he decided to try and bring it back with this Shen Galio deck. If you want to try hard your tournament run you should probably swap it out for a different rally deck like Yuumi Pantheon but there's no time to experiment and have some fun like the early season meta!

This lineup should really beat up on any control players you run into and there may be quite a few of them looking to farm the aggro players (like myself) who always come out in the early days of a metagame.

Ban priority is gonna be whichever aggro deck you feel like playing against the least. I would recommend removing the deck with the most burn or the most fearsome units - your choice!

About the authors

Sirturmund is a long-time player of the game, having played LoR since beta. He has found competitive success in the past year with a couple of seasonal top cuts finishes, rank 1 ladder placements, and first spot in a Qualifier of Mastering Runeterra's Championship. Best known for being one of the very few to still bring Star Springs (link) to tournaments, you can find Sirturmund lurking around all the social media sites absorbing anything he can about the game!

MonteXristo has been playing the game since closed beta and has consistently made it to masters every season he’s been active.  His accomplishments include having peaked in the top 20, taking first place in the “Streamer Sideboard Showdown” and LPP Riot Grand Prix. When he’s not writing for Mastering Runeterra he keeps his card-slinging skills sharp by playing in the Runeterra Academy tournament, with his team The Wobbly Wombats!