Hello there!
I’m Wamuu and today I will be giving you our top 7 decks to climb with for patch 2.18.
Patch 2.18 was a very impactful patch as many meta cards were nerfed while not so meta cards got buffed bringing back old archetypes to the meta. If you would like to read more about the patch you can read our Patch 2.18 Card Review article.
The order of this Top 7 is based on deck popularity rather than win rate but I will be covering win rates and my thoughts on each deck. Some popular decks are not included as I do not believe they are good for climbing right now but people are rather playing them for fun. All data utilized in this article is from our Mastering Runeterra Matchup Table. You should check it out if you’re curious about a certain matchup.
Without further ado these are the top decks to climb with in this patch:
#1 Pyke Rek’Sai Lurk (54.9% Overall WR)
17 cards
23 cards
29 700
Lurk is in a very good spot right now in the meta because of the buffs to the Dragons archetype. Dragons are the most played archetype at the moment with a 14.8% play rate for last season’s master players. Because of this Dragons are an easy target for Lurk as it is their worst matchup currently. Lurk has a win rate of about 72.2% vs Dragons, so it is a free win for Lurk each time you face Dragons.
Lurk has very few bad matchups; the most notable ones are Draven Sion (33.2% WR) and Bandle Pirates (37% WR). The good news for Lurk is that people are not playing as much of either deck because of the nerfs to cards like Draven
and Twinblade Revenant
for Draven Sion and the fact that Dragons (the most popular deck at the moment) is very good into Bandle Pirates (35.8% WR vs Dragons).
Because of the things mentioned above, the stars have aligned for Lurk to be meta again and you should probably get free LP with this deck as fast as possible before people stop playing Dragons and start playing Draven Sion again.
If you would like an in-depth Lurk guide you can check out Jasensational’s Lurk Deck Guide.
#2 Bandletree (55.4% Overall WR):
5 cards
35 cards
26 500
It is no surprise that Bandletree remains a good deck to climb with as it was one of the top decks last patch and was barely nerfed this patch. The only card that got nerfed in the deck is Aloof Travelers
but in this type of deck, it is not a detrimental nerf as it only means the deck is just weaker against fearsome units.
As with Lurk, Bandletree benefits from both Dragons’ rise to popularity as it has a 60.8% win rate against it and the nerfs to Draven Sion as it is one of its worse matchups. Coincidentally Bandle Pirates is also a bad matchup for Bandletree but is kept in check by Dragons. This means Bandletree is in pretty much the same position as Lurk but Lurk has better matchups across the ladder at the moment.
If you would like to learn more about Bandletree you can check out my deck guide by clicking here.
#3 Poppy Ziggs (55.9% Overall WR):
16 cards
24 cards
26 500
Poppy Ziggs is in a similar situation as Bandletree, it was a very dominant deck last patch, and only one card in the deck got nerfed which was Tenor of Terror
. So, we just switch Tenor of Terror for a better four drop in Bandle City in the form of Lecturing Yordle
and voila! We got ourselves a still, top-tier aggro deck.
This deck is a powerhouse right now because it beats Dragons soundly and doesn’t have bad matchups besides Draven Sion, Bandle Pirates, and Lee Sin Zoe. We already covered why Draven Sion and Bandle Pirates are not being played as much on the ladder, besides that, Lee Sin Zoe is a very difficult deck to play so you won’t see much of it on the ladder. This means Poppy Ziggs is currently uncontested against most of the ladder.
I used this deck to climb to diamond this season in basically one day in conjunction with Draven Sion so I highly recommend playing this deck on ladder right now. It is a very simple and fast deck, this means more matches and more LP faster.
You can check out CastMin’s Ziggs Poppy Deck Guide if you are interested in climbing with this deck.
#4 Draven Sion (57.4% Overall WR):
22 cards
18 cards
27 000
Draven Sion is a deck people are sleeping on right now, the nerfs to it are not as significant as people think and more people should be playing this deck as it is still one of the strongest decks out there.
It has an amazing win rate against top decks right now like Lurk (66,9%), Dragons (68.7%), Bandletree (64%), Poppy Ziggs (64%), and Sivir Akshan (65%). With your worst matchup being Lee Zoe (13,9%), a deck that does not see that much play on the ladder because of its difficulty. It is also important to note that Bandle Pirates are also a bad matchup for Draven Sion (38.1%) but are kept in check by Dragons.
The nerfs to Draven Sion in my opinion only made it worse against already bad matchups and better against its good matchups. Twinblade Revenant having fearsome is very good against Bandle City decks as they are not able to block it with most of its units, while it not having challenger is a problem when trying to remove Senna
or Veigar
in the Darkness matchup or Eye of the Dragon
in the Lee Sin Zoe matchup.
Overall, I highly recommend climbing with this deck as I personally used it to get to Diamond in conjunction with Ziggs Poppy.
#5 Gangplank Sejuani (54.8% Overall WR):
4 cards
36 cards
28 200
Gangplank Sejuani is the best all-around deck in the list as it has mostly 50%-win rates across the decks on the ladder currently with only two bad matchups which are Zed Poppy (40,7%) and Thralls (40%). Zed Poppy and Thralls are not popular decks so you shouldn’t worry too much about running into them.
The nerf to Aloof Travelers means it is no longer an auto-include in all Bandle City and PnZ decks, this is a soft buff to Gangplank Sejuani as your champions won’t get discarded as often in this patch.
If you like either Gangplank or Sejuani I highly recommend climbing with this deck as it rewards your skill as a player on it.
#6 Sivir Akshan (57% Overall WR):
17 cards
23 cards
23 400
Sivir Akshan has been a dominant deck for a while now on the ladder and it keeps being a top deck in this patch as it didn’t receive any nerfs.
If you want to climb with a deck that rewards your skill as a player, Sivir Akshan is the choice as it can be tricky to play in some matchups but can ultimately win almost any game if played correctly. It also punishes your opponent heavily for his misplays.
This deck has a pretty good win rate against the most popular deck on the ladder which is Dragons (66,4%) and it only has bad matchups against Draven Sion (35%) and Gangplank Sejuani (35.4%) which are not as popular currently.
If you want to learn how to pilot Sivir Akshan correctly you can read Leer’s Akshan Sivir Deck Guide.
#7 Zed Poppy (59.4% Overall WR):
19 cards
21 cards
23 400
By far the most underrated deck on the list, Zed Poppy is a powerhouse of a deck right now. With the nerf to Nami Zoe getting rid of elusives in the meta most decks are not expecting elusive units on the ladder. This makes Zed Poppy a very hard deck to deal with as most decks are not very interactive and you can rally multiple times with a full board of elusives.
I don’t believe the nerf to Relentless Pursuit
is as bad as most people think as now it can’t be negated by Nopeify!
and the +1/+1 on a unit can matter in some double rally scenarios.
This deck does very well against some of the top decks right now including Dragons (65,4%), Lurk (56,9%), Bandletree (63,8%), and Darkness (67,4%). While it has only a few bad matchups including Ziggs Poppy (40%) and Bandle Pirates (41%) but Bandle Pirates is in Dragon jail so you don’t have to worry about them.
If you want to learn how to play Zed Poppy Herko Kerghans has an amazing guide on it, you can check it out by clicking here.
CLOSING THOUGHTS
You can safely climb with any of these decks if you take the time to learn how to play them. If you are a newer player I recommend easier decks such as Lurk, Poppy Ziggs, and Bandletree as they have less room for mistakes and you don’t get punished as hard for messing up.
If you are a more advanced player, decks like Draven Sion, Sivir Akshan and Zed Poppy reward your game knowledge and your ability to pilot them.
Overall, climbing the ladder requires a lot of games so my advice is to choose one or two decks you enjoy playing from this list and stick to them and you will surely climb while having fun which is, in my opinion, the most important thing for this game.
I hoped you enjoyed my list and good luck with your climb!
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 to watch me play you can follow me on twitch at: https://www.twitch.tv/elwamuu
If you would like coaching from me you can dm me in Discord at: Wamuu#7531