Lineup Thoughts for the WCQ Open

Introduction

What’s up everyone, Yangzera back with an article that aims to help you prepare for the upcoming World Championship Qualifier Open! Today I’ll be giving a few thoughts on specific lineup choices I'm considering and that I think are strong picks for this Saturday, especially if you're looking for a last minute answer to your problems. I’ll try to be easy and concise here as people are mostly locked by now but you never know, hopefully I can help a lost soul decide on what’s their third deck for this weekend.

The Third Deck Issue

We as a competitive community are no strangers to the “Third Deck” issue in LoR Tournament meta. It’s a tale as old as the competitive scene itself that the third deck in most lineups is generally not good enough compared to the other two that make up for the lineup’s “core”.

The main issue this time around is that most of the time, we have to pick a third deck between a plethora of pretty mediocre options, but this time every single thing you can be doing that’s not a Samira or Tristana deck is just bad. And I mean really bad.

The aggravating factor is that generally you would be able to just craft a third deck that while it may not be as good os the other two top dogs, it has winning chances into both – and since we’re on a 2-deck format, we don’t really care about scuffed matchup tables. As long as the matchups against those two best decks in particular are good or at least playable.

Today’s meta is dominated not by 2 decks, but by 2 champions. Samira and Tristana are just the best thing you can be doing right now and on top of that, they have different ways to build themselves that are all strong and viable, and have wildly different matchup tables between each other so trying to beat any of these is like literally rolling the matchup dice for nine rounds and praying you get the better end of the stick.

These things make the competitive meta kind of dry and frustrating to tackle, and while it could promote some deck diversity in the sense that every single third deck option blows massively, I’m afraid we’ll end up with a format that’s solved by the person or small group of people who figure out how to make a “second Samira” or “second Tristana” deck without actually having to use the champions in the deck (and have that deck not be terrifyingly bad).

The Top Dogs

Samira and Tristana, as we’ve discussed before, are the best things you can be doing right now and I expect most of the lineups to be made of Samira plus Tristana plus X deck. They have different ways to be built, let’s check them out.

Tristana Decks: Noxus, Demacia, and Bilgewater

Personally, I think the Bilgewater version is the better of the three, followed in powerlevel by demacia and noxus, respectively.

Samira Decks: Fizz, Pantheon and Jinx

People say Fizz is Samira’s best pairing, and while I’m inclined to agree, I think anything that involves Samira and isn’t a Jinx based deck will be able to carry you to the top.

Tying Your Core Together

It looks like the best pairings for Tristana and Samira decks are Tristana Noxus with Samira Jinx, Tristana Demacia with Samira Fizz and Tristana Bilgewater with Samira Pantheon. I can’t back this take up with stats, though, it just feels like they vibe together better then others. Of course, you can mix and match these six concepts as you wish, and you’ll generally end up with a decent core to play the open.

Possible Third Deck Options

Nasus Veigar is the new kid in the block, and it’s been making waves. We have very little tournament data on the deck, but I’ve heard people mention they’ll bring this deck to the open. It’s a solid option, but it will lock your ban into Samira Fizz. My recommendation is to play the Veigar version – it plays very much like old Viego Shurima where you can just permapass and win through sheer board control. Play greedy, slow and abuse inevitability.

Karma lists can be playable, but their different versions have different matchup tables. I don’t believe all Karma variants are viable, but you can play her to just feast on the terrible third decks people are forced into bringing.

Kai'Sa has made a comeback into the meta and boasts pretty good matchup numbers. I haven’t personally tried her out, but she’s cool and she will bring results. Bajatakk won may’s Mastering Runeterra Open with it.

Lucian Evelynn is another Champions' Strength deck that can be used in conjunction with Tristana Demacia and just abuse this powerful win game button while not being complete trash deck when it doesn’t draw the card.

Ekko Jinx has been a popular choice among Brazilian players, making a lot of appearances in the most recent edition of OLS.

My last recommendation os Swain Illaoi, just an overall strong deck that’s available for those who choose to not play Samira Fizz

Honorable Mentions

I’ll mention here decks that can be played as a third, but in my opinion require more time invested into learning them and mastering their ins and outs. Register these at your own risk or if you’ve already played them previously!

Jarvan IV Shen

Illaoi Jarvan IV

Aatrox Vayne

Lurk

What I’m Considering for Myself

I’m most likely going to play some flavor of Karma as my third deck, just to be able to prey on the bad third deck of people. I’ll most likely build a version that can pick on one of the two top dog champions (probably Tristana) and set myself up to ban Samira Fizz and see if I face a different flavor of Samira, look at my opponent’s deck lists and decide on the fly. I’m a kind of “vibes” guy when it comes to banning, so I like to build lineups in a way I have some leverage on the ban phase to just not play against a deck I don’t feel like playing against.

There’s also the possibility of me playing Nasus Veigar as a third deck, but we’ll have to see. I’m not entirely sure yet, but those are my two personal picks to choose between. You can check my match history or social media to see if I come up with some last minute spice, but if I find the new meta breaker, I’ll try my best to write about it!

In Conclusion

It’s just hard to choose a third deck, man, I don’t know. Whatever you end up choosing, make sure it fits the matchup table of your lineup core and you’ll generally be fine. This is the first time we’ve had this issue in a 2 champions format(at least in the Vayne and Seraphine era we had Red Gwen as a decent third deck). I hope this article was a useful north to follow and could provide acceptable options for third decks. Whatever you end up choosing, I hope you have a lot of fun in this upcoming World Qualifier Championship and thank you so much if you’ve made it this far into the article – I’ll see you all very, very soon.