As the year comes to a close, our beloved game is entering the most exciting stage that competitors have fought for all year – the Legends of Runeterra 2023 World Cup.
With decklists revealed, we can see that the new expansion is a full-on success – two of the new champions find their way into most players’ strategies.
Let’s take a look at the most common decks and lineups!
LoR Worlds 2023 Decks Breakdown
Let’s first look at the most popular LoR 2023 Worlds meta decks – stats due to Aegis Esports!
As we can see, Elder Dragon Norra and Mordekaiser Morgana are by far the most popular decks. Half the player base is on one of those decks each, indicating their incredible strength.
This is quite the contrast to ladder stats from a couple of days ago. There, Elder Dragon Garen and Morgana Riven looked like the go-to choices.
Moving on, the next most popular brews are Karma Sett, Seraphine Sett, and Jax Ornn. This should come as no surprise to anyone who followed the LCQ, where these were the most popular weapons of choice.
Hence, they had a big target on their back. Especially Elder Dragon Norra and Morgana Mordekaiser can play into all of them. Still, these top five decks have very close matchups against each other, setting us up for closely contested Worlds games!
The next LoR Worlds 2023 deck is a control spin on Norra Elder Dragon. Adding Gnar
to the deck gives us more value and an efficient way of activating Riptide Rex
. Other than this, the decks are the same though.
The final popular Legends of Runeterra 2023 Worlds meta deck is Poro King 
Targon. It’s a great meta-read that forces you to ban Jax Ornn, but beats Elder Dragon 
Bandle City and Sett 
Piltover & Zaun convincingly. Only Mordekaiser Morgana is a close matchup, that gets much better if the Poro King player decides to run Yuumi
.
The biggest downside of Poro King, though, is its consistency issue. If you don’t find The Poro King
by rounds six to seven, even the favored matchups are easily losable. This means that all the players who decided to bring this deck have massive guts!
LoR Worlds 2023 Lineups Analysis
Let’s continue with the most popular LoR 2023 Worlds Lineups:
As our deck tech section already revealed, Elder Dragon Norra and Morgana Mordekaiser are the most popular choices. As it turns out, they also collaborate well in one lineup!
This is essentially the “50/50” lineup core – you can play into most of the meta, making your ban flexible and skill expression high.
When it comes to third deck choices for the Legends of Runeterra Worlds 2023 lineups, we recognize familiar faces. Jax Ornn, Karma Sett, and Seraphine Sett are the most popular choices, mixing old powerhouses with new-age prodigies.
This sends a message – most people think Jax Ornn and Karma Sett are not effectively targetable without taking big risks against the rest of the meta. Considering that competitors have to play seven rounds of Swiss before entering a double-elimination bracket, it’s understandable that most choose the consistent path.
LoR Worlds 2023 Off-Meta Decks
While Mordekaiser 
Demacia and Elder Dragon Bandle City are well-liked and safe choices, some players decided to go against the norm and take some risks.
Let’s scrutinize some Legends of Runeterra Worlds 2023 Off-Meta decks and lineups!
As previously mentioned, Poro King Targon is a ballsy meta-call that attracted a couple of world-class players. Two players, namely Korean legends J01 and Chenia, decided to pair it with Seraphine Sett and Fizz Yuumi.
Considering that they run the same 89 cards (only their Fizz Yuumi lists differ in one card! =), it is safe to assume that they prepared and came up with this lineup together.
Especially Fizz Yuumi 
Freljord comes as a surprise – there is not much data on it this season. Judging from the few data we have this season, and old data from last season, this lineup aims to beat both Mordekaiser Morgana and Norra Elder Dragon.
The matchups against Karma Sett and Jax Ornn don’t align though – Fizz Yuumi wants to ban Karma Sett and can play vs Jax Ornn, while Poro King Targon (without Yuumi) struggles against Jax Ornn but beats Karma Sett.
Luckily for the Korean competitors, these two decks are not a popular pair. If they did their homework and perfected their matchup knowledge against Mordekaiser Morgana and Elder Dragon Bandle City, they might just upset the entire competition and take it all!
Another lineup that risks it all is Elder Dragon Norra and Poro King Targon paired with Volibear 
Shadow Isles; Worlds players Tos and Padoru decided on this strategy. Since their lists look quite different, it is safe to say that they came up with this idea independently.
This lineup has the big upside of being favored against Sett Piltover & Zaun and Elder Dragon Norra. Especially Karma/Seraphine Sett cut most of their copies of Deny
in this meta, making Volibear Shadow Isles’s Warmother's Call
more likely to resolve.
A downside of this deck is its weakness against Morgana Mordekaiser due to Volibear Shadow Isles. The control deck can’t keep up with early tempo plays, and Morgana
is a nasty answer against their high-cost units.
Furthermore, due to Poro King Targon, this lineup is also susceptible to Jax Ornn. Poro King gets overrun by big Weaponmasters and Overwhelm units before The Poro King can scale with Special Snax.
Since Jax Ornn + Mordekaiser Demacia is one of the most popular LoR Worlds 2023 lineups, this means that the strategy of Tos and Padoru might run into trouble. There is a ray of hope though – the Karma/Seraphine Sett and Elder Dragon Bandle City pairing is also very popular, which this lineup convincingly beats!
Conclusion
… And that’s it!
All that’s left to do is wait for the Worlds stream to start and cheer on your most-liked competitors. Speaking of which, who is your favorite player at Worlds? Let me know in the Reddit thread comments!
Have an enjoyable Worlds weekend, I’m sure it is gonna be great! =)
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