Standard Meta Report - June 13th

‘sup everyone. To be completely honest, I expected the Standard LoR meta to be stale after Eternal became the supported game mode.

While this might look true on the surface, there is actually a lot more going on beneath. Many decks shuffled in power ranking, and we ended up with a very, very balanced metagame where the top ten ladder decks share almost the exact same winrate.

Standard Legends of Runeterra Decks

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

Kai’Sa J4 usurped Karma Sett’s throne, becoming the most-played deck in the Standard LoR meta.

Karma Sett and Fizz Samira still see a lot of play, whereas Jinx Samira saw a sharp drop down to #9.

Nasus Vaults of Helia has found its place in the middle of the meta, neither at its peak nor out of the meta.

Pyke Rek’Sai (Urgh) saw a sudden rise in playrate as an answer to the Demacian dominance.

Teemo Caitlyn remains played, despite its horrendous success at winning games.

Nautilus Maokai (Deep) and Senna Veigar (Darkness) don’t have access to Vile Feast here but see steady play nonetheless.

Finally, Shen J4 is the second most popular Jarvan IV deck in the Standard Legends of Runeterra meta.

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

Jhin Annie (Jhinnie) remains the best Standard LoR meta deck. It also found success in the Eternal meta with access to Decimate.

Lurk climbed all the way to second place. I despise this timeline, but Lurk has become one of the best ladder decks. It is a response to the reign of Karma Sett and Kai’Sa J4.

This week, Shen J4 has overcome Kai’Sa J4. The reason for this is Lurk, as we will see in the next section.

Illaoi Swain is still a great Standard LoR ladder deck, being able to play at all speeds (Aggro, Midrange, Control) according to its hand and foe.

Heimerdinger Jayce (Shadow Tech) is also going strong, although losing some winning percentages since the last report.

Samira Fizz keeps in check with the nerfs, posing a strong meta deck with a high skill ceiling. For example, Hash climbed to 1k LP last week with this brew!

Nasus Vaults of Helia is the most successful when paired with Azir for a cheap Glory's Call.

Jinx Samira is a strong ladder deck but fell off a little due to Kai’Sa J4 being completely fine against it.

Speaking of, Kai’Sa J4 flew high and came back down this week. 

Finally, Ekko Jinx is a solid meta deck!

Factors Shaping the LoR Meta

Lurk is the big winner of the last two weeks. It’s historically best at beating go-big Demacia decks thanks to their high-attack units not getting punished for having low health counts. 

And such a go-big Demacia deck happens to be at the top of the meta with Kai’Sa J4. 

As we can see, Lurk also beats Karma Sett and Deep due to their control playstyle that gets punished by Lurk’s multitude of early-game units. There are no good deal-one spells in their regions (in Standard). And once Lurk’s stats spiral out of control, they can easily contest activated Sea Monsters.

Teemo Caitlyn is a pushover and beats almost nothing =)

On the other hand, you could consider Lurk “slow Aggro” or “aggressive Midrange”. As such, it gets outpaced by full-on Aggro brews like Fizz Samira. 

I said Pyke Rek’Sai beats most Demacia blends, but Shen J4 is an exception. They have early units and Barriers to out-trade Lurk’s units, and Lurk lacks pings or other mechanics to pop Barriers.

Nasus SI is a close call, as it struggles against the Aggro tendency of Lurk. On the other hand, Nasus can block big Lurkers like Xer'sai Dunebreaker and Vengeance an unflipped Rek'Sai. Add to that Lurk’s disability to stop the Vaults of Helia chain, and we get a closely contested matchup!

Does this mean Pyke Rek’Sai is the new ladder king? Not really. We have eight 55%-winrate decks on ladder that can all be considered Tier 1. As such, we have an extremely balanced meta with many weapons to choose from for your climb!

Honorable Mentions

Jhin Kennen

Regions

Runeterra
23 cards

Bandlecity
15 cards

Noxus
2 cards

Rarities

25 200

6

2

8

24

eternal

Mana cost

0

0

15

1

13

2

4

3

5

4

0

5

2

6

1

7+

Champions

6

1

Kennen

3

4

Jhin

3

Followers

27

1

Byrd, The Bellringer

3

1

Crackshot Corsair

3

1

Legion Saboteur

3

2

Conchologist

2

2

Imperial Demolitionist

2

2

Solari Sunhawk

2

2

The Stagehand

3

2

Tusk Speaker

3

3

Manasoul Student

2

4

The Witness

2

6

Augmented Experimenter

2

Spells

7

1

Pie Toss

3

2

Quicken

1

3

Lightning Rush

2

10

Treasured Trash

1

If Jhin Annie is working, why shouldn’t Jhin Kennen? With no intent on leveling Kennen, or even recalling him, Mark of the Storm is a cheap activator for Lotus Trap.

On ladder, Jhinnen sports a 56% winrate over a tiny sample size of 100 games in the past three days.

It’s pretty clear that the data is heavily influenced by one individual skill-diffing on the deck but you might as well give it a try and see if you can pull it off too!

Akshan Kayn

Regions

Shurima
16 cards

Runeterra
24 cards

Rarities

31 100

6

7

10

17

eternal

Mana cost

0

0

10

1

12

2

6

3

9

4

3

5

0

6

0

7+

Champions

6

2

Akshan

3

5

Kayn

3

Equipments

5

1

The Darkin Bloodletters

3

3

Swinging Glaive

2

Followers

14

1

Fireth, Reaper of the Sands

2

1

Forsaken Baccai

3

2

Keeper of the Box

3

2

Lunari Cultist

3

4

Ranger-Knight Defector

3

Spells

15

1

Tempting Prospect

2

2

Momentous Choice

3

3

Desert Duel

3

3

Quicksand

1

4

Furious Wielder

2

4

Rite of Negation

2

4

The Expanse's Protection

2

I thought about featuring Kayn Aatrox this week, but this brew had other plans in mind. Promising an earlier payoff than Aatrox with Relic of Power, Warlord's Palace advances through Weapon equips.

On ladder, Akshan Kayn sits at a 55.8% winrate over yet another tiny sample size of 160 games over the past three days.

If you miss Akshan, or want to try a new Kayn blend without ending worlds, this brew is perfect for you!

Jhin Norra

Regions

Runeterra
11 cards

Bandlecity
26 cards

Noxus
3 cards

Rarities

27 900

6

3

16

15

eternal

Mana cost

0

0

4

1

9

2

12

3

5

4

4

5

3

6

3

7+

Champions

6

2

Norra

3

4

Jhin

3

Followers

17

2

Junk Construct

3

2

The Stagehand

1

3

Manasoul Student

3

3

The Tea Maker

3

4

The Witness

2

6

Lord Broadmane

2

8

Riptide Rex

3

Spells

17

1

Pie Toss

3

1

Poison Dart

1

2

Drop the Bomb

2

3

Condense

3

3

Lightning Rush

3

5

Cosmic Binding

2

5

Portalpalooza

2

6

Minimorph

1

Wait, three Jhin decks in one meta report?! This can’t be real, can it?

Well, it is! Jhin Norra is a Lord Broadmane fatigue deck with Riptide Rex to finish it off. Lotus Trap chips some damage in while you remove enemies, and can pop off when Jhin on board sees a Riptide Rex. 

This deck gives a unique experience where using removal spells lead to stuns by Jhin, which can be used in defensive or offensive ways.

I almost had to play against this creation in the Aegis playoffs, where StolenConch fielded it, but “unfortunately” missed out on the experience. 

On ladder, the unusual Jhin archetype holds a 55.4% winrate over 650 games in the past three days!

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!