This week's Runeterra Show focuses in on the upcoming champion reworks, and the current meta and the nuances of such.
The team’s first topic starts with going over their recent ladder exploits. Majiin has played Ahri Kennen and feels its still a strong deck, and that the nerfs basically just made it have bad matchups. Whatami has been making use of Sivir Akshan featuring Cithria the bold to take advantage of the meta.
They then mention how we're three weeks from the next balance patch, and their feelings on the preferable balance and tournament cadence for LoR, with a few members loving the idea of having a balance patch no more than a few weeks before large tournaments to allow more competitive players an edge to adapt faster and make use of a rockier meta.
Jasensational mentions how they've enjoyed Taliyah Malphite as of late, for preying upon smaller decks. They segue this into talks about another great Anti-Demacia list; Tri-Beam control and it's strange build choices as of late, with most lists being on 3x Statikk Shock. The deck is strong against smaller Demacia decks, but pales in comparison to less 'fair' decks, such as Lee Sin, Feel the Rush, and the like.
The Transposition Combo deck is brought up and discussed for how the interaction works between Plaza Guardian, Transposition, and allowing for a free Corina to be played. They talk about its strong matchups into swarm decks, and weakness to especially fast or tall decks.
Jason brings up upcoming champion balance patch + rework, and the team discusses what they hope to see from the reworks. Katarina, Garen, and Kalista came up as some of the most in need of changes. Generally they're fairly optimistic that they'll see interesting changes, as Riot's rework side of things based on league standards has always been quite good.
Bae brings up how his favorite times in Runeterra are when they make a large number of changes because then it results in a very exciting time to play and work out things. The team agrees that there are quite a few decks that have been on top for a long time, and while there is a very diverse meta, for some people there are simply not any decks that are strong enough and up their alley to play. Aikado brings up that Darkness, and Yordles in Arms are both very powerful, to the point he believes they deserve a nerf of some sort.
Whatami feels that “Any meta where Demacia is good, generally means the meta is good. Because when Demacia is good, it means that it’s hard to play unfair decks like combo decks. It leads to the meta cycling faster, leading to a meta where you get the most variety, and where (whatami) has the most fun.” Jasensational feels that there is a lot of diversity, but there are a lot of deck clumps (Demacia decks running broadwing + sergeant + rally, yordles in arms decks,) that feel samey overall due to them having the same core cards. Jason Fleurant brings up how a very balanced meta can lead to it feeling like a coin flip/matchup based game more often than not. Majiin feels that half the current meta decks do the same thing “build a board, pump board , Swing. They then go over the nuances of these decks that have the same boiled down gameplan for a while.
The last thing brought up is that Jason Fleurant mentions he has spoken to Riot, and they have confirmed that they do still care about Competitive, and announcements are coming