Hello! My name is Wamuu and today I’m bringing you the top five performing lineups for the Wednesday Night Mastering Runeterra tournament.
This article is mainly going through the strengths and weaknesses of each lineup and why they succeeded in the tournament.
We recommend utilizing these lineups for the weekly Gauntlet for prime glory if you’re interested on that. Although keep in mind that you should only bring decks you are comfortable with to either Gauntlets for prime glory or tournaments so if you’re not comfortable with the three decks of a specific lineup I would not recommend bringing it.
This top five is based on the tournament’s results and lineup variety. This means that the 3-1 lineups in this article were selected over other 3-1 lineups as variety alternatives for the 4-0 lineups.
TOP 5 LINEUPS
#1 GRANDPAROJI 4-0
19 cards
21 cards
23 200
25 cards
15 cards
24 300
18 cards
22 cards
23 800
If you like rallies or just really like Demacia in general this is the lineup for you. This is a very standard rally lineup with just one spicy deck which are Dragons. Even though Dragons are a very popular deck on ladder they are rarely seen in tournaments because their matchup table against other popular tournament decks is not that good. It does have good matchups into control decks because it can outvalue them with Aurelion Sol
or run them down with big units.
or run them down with big units.
If I had to guess the reason why GrandpaRoji brought this lineup my reasoning would be that he is very comfortable with Demacia decks in general and he was looking to target control lineups. Rally lineups are very good into control lineups because control decks can’t deal with multiple attacks in one turn as they usually lack blockers.
Now, a good question would be: why target control lineups? Control lineups usually are targeting decks such as Draven Sion which is a very popular deck in aggro lineups in tournaments. So, if we think of aggro lineups as rock then control lineups are paper and rally lineups would be scissors.
Let’s see an example of a bad matchup and a good matchup for this deck utilizing Mastering Runeterra’s Bo3 Ban Helper:
GOOD MATCHUP:
In this scenario we will be using MajinBae’s control lineup for the tournament as an example:
As we can see if we ban Lee Sin Zoe our opponent is between a rock and a hard place. No matter what he bans he is going to have a very hard time beating us as our three decks are very favored into two of his decks.
The reason why I would argue GrandpaRoji did so well in the tournament would be because there were a lot of top players in this tournament and most top players play control or combo lineups as they are more skill rewarding, so most matchups must have looked something like this.
BAD MATCHUP:
Now let’s see how GrandpaRoji does against a more aggressive lineup like Aikado’s:
As we can see in this example even if we ban our worst matchup which is Draven Sion if our opponent bans Zed Poppy we will have 50/50 and bad matchups against the other two decks. Demacia Dragons has bad matchups across all decks so we are basically starting the series 0-1 and we have to then win two 50/50 matchups in order win. This is a very tough spot and you have to be a great player to win both games.
Because the tournament was so infested with control and combo lineups my guess would be that this scenario was often avoided by GrandpaRoji.
TAKEAWAY
Basically, this lineup is very good against control and combo heavy lineups while being weak to more aggressive lineups that force you to block since rally lineups usually don’t want to be blocking. If you really like Demacia and rallies I would definitely recommend this lineup, just watch out for heavy aggro lineups.
#2 HOBS 4-0
4 cards
36 cards
28 000
17 cards
23 cards
26 000
15 cards
25 cards
28 100
This is a very interesting lineup, as it mostly a midrange lineup that has 50/50 matchups against most decks on the meta right now so Hobs had to be very comfortable with all three of these decks to bet on him winning those 50/50 matchups. Now the one thing this lineup does very well is targeting one of the most popular decks on tournament play: Lee Sin Zoe.
Targeting Lee Sin Zoe is a very smart move in a tournament filled with Master players because Lee Sin Zoe is very hard to pilot but rewards you for being good with it. Lee Sin Zoe is also hands down the best deck to target Draven Sion so it was very probable that a lot of people would bring it for these two reasons. This definitely paid off as a lot of players did end up bringing it.
Now let’s cover some matchups:
GOOD MATCHUP:
When we think of Lee Sin Zoe we all think of MajinBae so I will use his lineup as an example in this section too:
What this lineup wants to do is to get favorable matchups against Lee Sin Zoe and 50/50 matchups against the other decks and in case we run into a bad matchup we just ban it. In this case we have favorable matchups into two of his decks. If we ban Tryndamere Trundle we will most likely win because it does not matter if our opponent bans Lux Poppy or Veigar Senna the results are the same.
Note: Even though there is a low sample size for Lux Poppy vs Trundle Tryndamere and Thresh Asol we are assuming Poppy Lux vs Thresh Asol is favorable and Tryndamere Trundle is 50/50.
BAD MATCHUP:
Here we are going to compare Hobs’ lineup vs GrandpaRoji’s lineup.
We can see that Hobs’ lineup has a difficult time with Rally lineups. If we ban Zed Poppy and our opponent bans Gangplank Sejuani all of our matchups are slightly favorable for our opponent.
The lineup still does its job because even though we have bad matchups they are not terrible matchups so they are still pretty winnable.
TAKEAWAY
Hobs’ lineup is very well balanced against almost any lineup with the added benefit of targeting Lee Sin Zoe. If you really want to punish Lee Sin Zoe and you are very good with all three of these decks you should definitely give this lineup a chance.
#3 MAJINBAE 3-1
23 cards
17 cards
27 500
26 cards
14 cards
23 400
25 cards
15 cards
26 800
MajinBae’s lineup is a control lineup that looks to target mainly aggro lineups and specially Draven Sion. You can tell because he runs the number one Draven Sion counter: Lee Sin Zoe. Plus, two control Shadow Isles decks with lots of drain.
Lets’s jump into some matchup examples.
GOOD MATCHUP:
In this section we are going to compare MajinBae’s lineup with Aikado’s lineup:
You can see here that the Draven Sion target works perfectly as we beat it with all of our decks.
The bans should go something like this: we ban Sivir Akshan and our opponent bans Lee Sin Zoe.
This basically means MajinBae starts the Bo3 1-0 and has two chances to win a 50/50 matchup. This are very good odds and MajinBae should most likely win the series.
BAD MATCHUP:
We will use the same example as before with GrandpaRoji’s lineup:
As we saw before this lineup is very weak against rally lineups. No matter what MajiinBae bans all his matchups will be bad or 50/50. His opponent will most likely ban Lee Sin Zoe and MajinBae will ban either Dragons or Sivir Akshan. This only gives him one potential 50/50 matchup so he probably loses this Bo3.
TAKEAWAY:
If hate aggro with passion and your objective is to destroy both aggro and Sion Draven players this is definitely the lineup for you but this is a very risky lineup as you basically fold against both Rally and combo lineups.
#4 AIKADO 3-1
21 cards
19 cards
26 500
15 cards
25 cards
26 700
19 cards
21 cards
23 600
Aikado’s lineup is a pretty standard lineup as it does very well into what is popular right now on ladder. The two most popular decks are Lurk and Dragons and all three decks in Aikado’s lineup beats them soundly. This means Aikado was probably double targeting these decks for the tournament. He might’ve also been targeting combo heavy lineups as Shellfolk is a very popular deck in competitive play among master players.
Now let’s go to the examples:
GOOD MATCHUP:
We already covered what a Dragons deck looks like against Aikado’s lineup so let’s see how it does against a combo heavy lineup like Card Gamer’s:
We can see here that most of the matchups are favorable towards Aikado as expected. Aikado would probably ban Lissandra Taliyah as it is its only bad matchup and Card Gamer should ban either Sivir Akshan or Poppy Ziggs. The result is that Aikado will have 3 potential favorable matchups and one 50/50 matchup. Aikado most likely wins the series.
BAD MATCHUP:
Now the weakness of Aikado’s lineup is that Poppy Ziggs and Sion Draven can both be targeted by the same decks. MajinBae’s lineup is a good example as it runs Lee Sin Zoe and this beats both of those decks.
Here we see that even though Aikado has two good matchups in the table both of them are from Sivir Akshan. This means MajinBae just needs to ban it and he’s favorable to win the Bo3. Aikado is forced to ban Lee Sin Zoe which means Aikado has potentially two 50/50 matchups, one terrible matchup and one bad matchup. Aikado can definitely still win the Bo3 but MajinBae is definitely favored.
TAKEAWAY:
If you like aggro or fast midrange this is definitely the lineup for you and of the five lineups covered in this article this is the one I recommend the most for getting the Prime Glory on Gauntlet. It targets the most popular decks and it gets countered by decks that require a very skillful pilot. Most players in Gauntlet are not MajinBae so don’t be too scared of getting countered.
If you are planning on entering a tournament this can be a very good lineup but the more competitive the tournament the more people will be playing Lee Zoe so you might run into more counter lineups.
#5 CARD GAMER 3-1:
20 cards
20 cards
21 300
22 cards
18 cards
26 800
7 cards
33 cards
24 000
Card Gamer’s lineup is by far the most unique and spicy lineup on the list. It is a landmark heavy combo lineup. My guess on what Card Gamer was thinking is that in the current meta, both on ladder and competitively there is virtually no landmark removal or very limited at least. This can be exploited by running two landmark centric decks in the form of Lissandra Taliyah and Bandletree. Even though those two decks have the same weakness the chances of the opponent running two decks that can remove landmarks are slim to none.
Finally, the third deck is a Vi Shellfolk deck which supports the control lineup target idea behind this lineup.
Let’s see some examples:
GOOD MATCHUP:
Let’s take MajinBae’s control lineup and see how it does against Card Gamer’s:
We see here that the control lineup target is working extremely well here. MajinBae is forced to ban Bandletree as it destroys all three of his decks. Card Gamer only has to ban either Lee Sin Zoe or Thresh Asol and he should have potentially three very good matchups and one slightly unfavored matchup. So, Card Gamer probably wins this Bo3.
Note: Even though there is a low sample size for these decks the matchups are probably still favored but not THAT favored percentage-wise. We also assume the Thresh Asol vs Vi Shellfolk matchup is slightly unfavored for Vi Shellfolk.
BAD MATCHUP:
Because Card Gamer’s lineup is combo oriented his natural weakness is an aggressive lineup. Aikado’s lineup serves as an example of what a bad matchup can look like:
In this scenario Card Gamer only has one good matchup and all other matchups are either terrible or 50/50. Card Gamer is probably forced to ban Poppy Ziggs as it the most aggressive deck out of the three. Aikado probably bans Lissandra Taliyah as it is the deck with AoE removal. This means that Card gamer ends up with potentially two terrible matchups, one bad matchup and one 50/50 matchup. Meaning that Aikado will most likely win the Bo3.
TAKEAWAY:
Card Gamer’s lineup is definitely good but I would recommend it in tournaments with high level players as these players tend to play more control decks than average players. If you’re looking to get your prime glory from Gauntlet this lineup might not be too good because Gaunlet players tend to play the more popular decks which are mostly aggro and midrange at the moment.
Wamuu
Top 200 Master LoR player. I have a lot of passion for this game and love sharing my thoughts and game knowledge through deck guides and articles for competitive play.
If you would like coaching from me, you can dm me in Discord at: Wamuu#7531