Yangzera's September Open Report - Top 4 Lineups

Hello everyone, Yangzera here with the report for this weekend’s Runeterra Opens! After lots of competition and high level games we have our winners and their respective decks. Without further ado, let’s talk about their lineups:

APAC

Top 3/4 - GreenSlimey

Slimey’s meta read was pretty good, acknowledging the power of triple invoke, but I think his build choices let him down. Particularly when opting out of triple Targonian Tellstones in all decks and missing the opportunity to use the Sump Monument plus Starlit Epiphany combo in his Aphelios build.

He did the right thing by making all three decks share the same core, but I think the core had issues, and that’s probably what let him down in the end since his top 4 match against the champion ended up in an Invoke mirror matchup.

Top 3/4 - Ravexnous

Ravexnous’ lineup was pretty good at doing one thing: beating down on Invoke, but unfortunately his run ended when he faced the polar opposite of that. Facing yata’s more midrange builds he wasn’t able to set the pace of the games and fell short on top 4.

Runner Up - Yata64

The star of this lineup for me was the Draven Samira deck, that I really disliked when I saw the list but started really liking it when I saw the deck in game. Elise Gnar proved itself to be one of the strongest decks in the format but Yata’s build was still the unrefined starting version. That didn’t really matter in the end because it was Jayce Lux who got 2-0’d in the finals, a deck that over the course of the day proved itself to be unreliable at times, but really strong when it hits the right hands.

Champion - Kh0a

Kh0a did what I believed was the right call for the tournament: double invoke plus a third really strong deck which probably involves abusing either Samira or Piltover burn. He went with the route of throwing Samira in the Invoke package and using Piltover burn as his third choice.

Katarina was a powerful replacement for Samira in the Draven Lost Soul deck, and Kh0a was able to 2-0 Jayce Lux in convincing fashion for the APAC crown.

EMEA

Top 3/4 - Vendorty

Vendorty’s lineup was pretty good, but Champless Timelines was its weak link. EMEA was very high on Warden of the Tribes SI and rightfully so. He was on the right track of things but missed a few key points for playing Nasus and Warden of the Tribes. Those decks gave you access to tools like Castigate and Buried in Ice, which are amazing against the entire meta, but he was not on them. Ultimately, Timelines got 2-0’d by the runner up’s very strong lineup.

Top 3/4 - MisterScandalous

Here we see more refined concepts, but still a few key misses. Mister Scandalous’ Sump Monument deck was not the allegiance version and he also missed the Buried in Ice tech on Warden SI. Those small flaws would be exploited by EMEA’s champion who was on fire in the last rounds of the tournament, taking the clean 2-0 victory.

Runner-up - AtLeastIGotTheCS

AtLeastIGotTheCS had all the right tools and techs, making a smooth run to the finals. In the end, it was a lineup mirror match, with exact decks. After a nail biter Samira Seraphine mirror, Gamov was able to beat him and have the advantage for the rest of the match, since Sump Monument’s mirror is a complete coin flip and the matchup for this specific version of Sump Targon Allegiance is favored against Samira Seraphine granted equally good hands from both sides. I was watching this series and commentating on it, and in my opinion a few mistakes in the Seraphine mirror were the difference of the matchup. Both players played tremendously well, though, but sunday was simply Gamov’s day.

Champion - Gamov

Gamov’s lists were greedier then his opponent’s, and that put him at a clear advantage for the entire match. With such advantage, he was able to push through a very intense Seraphine Samira mirror and then finish it with a favorable matchup in Sump Monument Targon Allegiance for the win. As someone who has played Samira Seraphine extensively this season, I would say the deck is favored into every form of invoke including regular non-allegiance Sump Targon with the only exception being Sump Allegiance.

Of course it’s not a doomed matchup, but the amount of mana cheating the deck has on top of being extremely resilient makes it have an easy time into Seraphine Samira as long as they can deal with Samira and prevent rallies from happening. This ultimately led the series to a 2-0 win from Gamov, who was on fire that day and deserved the win.

Americas

Top 3/4 - Rusticles

After all the Brazilians were eliminated, I was rooting really hard for Rusticles. Not only because he’s a very inspirational person for me but also because he’s the reason I was so high on Samira Seraphine this season in the first place. When I was playing ladder earlier this season this man got matched against me and beat me so hard with it that I simply had to pick the deck up, and here we are today.

His read of Buried in Ice for the Warden SI deck was very good, but unfortunately the inconsistent Jayce Lux was bound to brick some time and that happened to be on the semi finals against America’s champion.

Top 3/4 - Seku

Seku’s meta read was incredible and his decks were very well prepared for the tournament. Rumble Vayne is a direct counter to Invoke and the Soothsayer tech makes the Samira Akshan matchup against both it and Seraphine even better. I think Seku could have won against WAI in the semis if not for a slight miss in the end of game 2, but his overall play was very clean.

Runner Up - xxWhatAmIxx

It’s not a Targon meta without WhatAmI and the man came all the way from the Snapverse to show up and dominate the Open. His triple Invoke lineup was very well built, but the decks were tailored in a less greedy way. You can notice that from the 2x Mountain Goat and only 1x Starshaping idea present in all three decks.

Chinos was on fire that day and Seraphine Samira really beats up on less greedy versions of Invoke, but I still think banning Sump Allegiance was the move for WAI, as the greedier version of the deck has good tables in all of the Targon mirror matchups. To say that WhatAmI was just unlucky on his Celestial pools is an understatement, as some of those Living Legends were absolutely terrible for the matchup, but such are card games and random generation effects. WhatAmI showed great prowess of the Invoke archetype and great mastery of the playstyle, but Sunday was Chinos’ day.

Champion - ChinosTCG

Saludos for our latin friends! Chinos was not only on fire yesterday, but his greedier builds really gave him advantages in the slower mirrors. With a very good meta read and really good lineup, his Samira Seraphine was able to take down Invoke and then Sump Allegiance had 2 opportunities to do its thing, but it only needed one. It was heartbreaking to see 600 puffcaps planted in one swing just be completely erased in an instant after Starlit Epiphany, but like I mentioned before, such are card games. Chinos was playing extremely well yesterday and his decks helped him do just that, beat people up.

Tournament Stats and Fun Facts

• The most played card in all three shards was Cosmic Call
• Despite that, the most played deck in all three shards was Gnar Elise
• Even though Cosmic Call had massive presence, it still didn’t hit the 3 copies per lineup average, and didn’t even come close to Siren Song stats.
• Despite Cosmic Call and Gnar Elise being both the most brought card and most brought deck, the most brought region was Piltover and Zaun

You can check full stats on Dneto's website.