… and on LoR Ladder News: Frost is the New Flock!
Now that the Samira Fizz tide is under control, somebody's gotta boot those big Demacian butts.
Aaaand we have a new meta, folks! =)
For reference, this is how things looked like back on Sunday, and this is how things look right now, on Tuesday:
Samira Fizz, still the most popular LoR deck by a huge margin (note that the X-axis, showing games played, is in a log scale) has shrunk both in play rate and win rate…
… while, yes, that's Ashe LeBlanc, jumping at the head of the pack of most punchy decks! =)
We'll go into detail about each deck (plus a handful of fringe brews, because the spice must flow of course!), but if you've stopped by just for the builds, here you go:
(Frozen) Cream of the Crop – Best LoR Decks, with WR over 57%
Kayle Leona Samira, or the very similar Leona Samira variant,
Hits like a Truck – Decks with WR between 55% and 57%
The Most Popular Choices
Can't Go Wrong – Popular, Strong Decks
The Spice Must Flow!
The Prince's Brews: Garen Galio Jarvan, Jack Jarvan, Illaoi Jarvan, Ashe Jarvan.
Sources: MaRu's data (which samples Plat+ players) and Legna's data (which tracks those players that ended in the Top 1K of their respective shards last Season) – both sources in turn get their data directly from Riot (via Riot's API).
(Frozen) Cream of the Crop – Best LoR Decks, with WR over 57%
The Runeterra meta is far from settled (as we'll see right below, part of Ashe LeBlanc's success is how well it is against decks that are good against Sam Fizz), but against the current field these are the heavy-hitters: LoR decks with more than 2K games in the last three days, and sky-high winrate.
Ashe LeBlanc
And the day has come! =)
Ashe LeBlanc has quite a long history of showing up in the early days of a new, fresh meta, only to soon disappear like a Yeti in a snowstorm.
Looks like those days may have rotated away, though!
The Black Rose and Runeterra's favorite archer-queen have, at long last, scaled at the top of the winrate charts, with near-silly 59% win rate across close to 4,000 games with the best Ashe LeBlanc deck:
Ashe LeBlanc – Link to full deck
What's fascinating is that Ashe LeBlanc doesn't have particularly good odds against the new popular kids: matchups against both Samira Fizz and Karma Sett are pretty much a coinflip.
And the Reputation duo is slightly the underdog against strong rotation survivors, like Lurkers or Deep.
But!
Ashe LeBlanc is excellent at hunting down the Demacian tide that surged as an answer to Sammy Fish: Ashe LeBlanc's odds against Elites, Aatrox Quinn Vayne and Gwen Quinn are superb, and the deck also makes quick work of Aatrox Kayn and Samira Leona.
Will Ashe and LeBlanc's good fortune hold?
Thus far, there has never been a better time to pilot these two!
Kayle Leona Samira and Leona Samira
Another deck that spiked in performance in the last couple of days, and given the different variants to be found, probably far from refined just yet.
Kayle Leona Samira – Link to full deck list
Leona Samira – Link to full deck list
Stats seem to favor the Kayless version, but only slightly – and both versions are punching above 58% in about 3,000 games each, so pick as you prefer.
Sammy Leo is favored against Samira Fizz (by quite a bit) and Karma Sett (by a lot), while losing to Ashe LeBlanc. And is split against Demacian deck: beats Gwen Quinn, but loses to Elites
Garen Jarvan, aka Elites
Brewers are showing a lot of interest in the Demacian prince (pairing him with Galio, Ashe, and even Jack), and we'll share some fringe brews in our spicy decks section – but for the tried-and-true, you can't go wrong with Elites:
Garen Jarvan – Link to full deck list
A powerhouse last patch, it's now very good against the new kids, and is also slightly favored against other Demacian decks (Gwen Quinn, Aatrox Vayne) or Aatrox Kayne.
Suffers horribly when confronting Ashe LeBlanc, though, and is not happy with Ekko and Jinx rekindling their friendship.
Hits like a Truck – Decks with WR between 55% and 57%
Just a bit below the Cream of the Crop, these LoR decks punch above the 55% win rate mark, also having from big (1K+ games) to huge (12K+ games) sample sizes.
Gwen Quinn
The second most popular deck today, with close to 12,000 games under its belt – surpassing Karma Sett by nearly 4000 games – and only a hair's breadth away from a 57% win rate, Gwenn Quinn makes a strong argument for being perhaps the best LoR deck right now.
Gwen Quinn – Link to full deck list
Like most Demacian decks, it reliably beats both Samira Fizz and Karma Sett, also punching Deep, Aatrox Kayn, and Lurkers.
On the flipside, Ashe LeBlanc does a great job at keeping Gwinn at bay, and Leona Samira decks are also looking like very solid counters.
Malphite Taliyah
And look who's making a comeback! =)
Even when having fairly lousy odds against Samira Fizz, Malph Taliyah is showing some very solid numbers, with a 55% win rate with their best deck:
Malphite Taliyah – Link to full deck list
Data is a bit scarce for other matchups, but Daddy Big Rock looks roughly even against both Gwinn and Ashe LeBlanc, and with an edge over KaSett and Leo Samira
Illaoi Swain
One of the hottest trends last Sunday has kept a steady pace, punching above 55% in more than 1,400 games – and this is an unrefined deck yet, showing a lot of slightly different variants all doing fairly well.
Illaoi Swain – Link to full deck list
Tentacle Priestess and Grand General look like a duo that likes to play fair: as of now, the great majority of their matchups are inside, or close to, the 45/55% odds – a well-rounded deck that, while not crushing anything, doesn't seem to have too many weak spots. Elites may be a problem, but we'll in a few days.
Ekko Jinx
The Zaunite pair is back, and they have ran out of chewing gum! =)
Jinx was the scariest thing on the ladder a couple of patches ago, until she was toned down a tad – but after the rotation, she has rekindled her friendship with Zaun's foremost time traveler, and boy are they blowing shit up: over 55% in more than 3,000 games, and the trend looks like going upwards.
Ekko Jinx – Link to full Deck List
Despite their boom-boom nature, Ekko Jinx looks like another well-rounded deck, with the majority of matchups in the 45/55 rate – except that, mirroring Illaoi Swain, Elites is their outstandingly good confrontation.
The Popular Choices
If you want to play it safe (or want to play with the new toys, which in this case happens to be pretty much the same), these LoR decks are as tried-and-true as they come this early in a new meta.
Samira Fizz in particular is the most popular deck in Runeterra by a good margin, and Karma Sett is the third, having just been pushed from second place by Gwen Quinn – and both are, when looking at whole archetypes, overwhelmingly ahead of other choices.
Karma Sett: If you ever wondered what round ten looks like in LoR, this is your chance – Karma tends to spark a bit of controversy whenever her decks are good (some pilots just don't enjoy facing removal piles), but unlike her previous good decks, Karma Sett fights for the board quite a bit. Karma's goal is still to delay things until her level-two comes online, though, which may not be everybody's cup of tea, but does provide a game plan and play style that is unique in Runeterra.
Fizz Samira: The tide has indeed turned – although early numbers gave a lot of credence to Sam Fizz being perhaps a broken deck, the multitude of strong counters that emerged since then has pushed its win rate well inside okay margins. That's not to say Samira Fizz was just a fluke: overwhelmingly popular, it's without a doubt a deck with a lot of play in it.
Can't Go Wrong – Popular, Strong Decks
Surviving rotation, these old archetypes are enjoying a nice bit of success.
Lurkers was already very solid in the previous patch, but Aatrox decks had sort of disappeared as of late, and Deep hasn't had this much success in a very, very long time.
As seen on the graph at the start of today's article, all of the above decks have between 2,000 and 4,000 games played, and win rate between 52% and 54% – if any of this happens to be an old flame, it's a good time to take them for a spin again! =)
The Spice Must Flow!
All the above decks are all well and good, but… what if you're after a bit less worn out?
Here we'll check a few decks that have between 200 and 1,000 games played in the last three days – proceed with caution, but no reward comes without a little risk! =)
Pantheon Samira is definitely not a fluke – while not looking like a meta-breaker, it has kept a very solid win rate (around 53%) and accrued close to 1,000 games in the last three days. And, while there are some Pantheon Varus sightings in the data, the Samira version looks thus far the best Pantheon deck.
Riven Samira Varus is another deck that doesn't look like it's gonna break the meta any time soon, yet has shown a nice 52% performance in the last couple of days, and has brought an old-time Champ back to the limelight.
Jack Nami – Jack remains the most underwhelming of the three 'Glory in Navori' champs: Jack Sett is awful (as folks have finally noted, and stopped playing), while Jack Samira doesn't seem like much better (even if it's what Jack fans are playing now). But hope is not lost – although a fairly fringe option, Jack Nami is the one Jack deck showing promise right now.
Evelynn Lucian was a very good deck early last patch, then sort of vanished – but has returned again, looking right now (with a 55% WR in about 600 games) both the best Lucian, and the best Evelynn deck.
The Prince's Brews: as noted above, brewers seem to be paying a lot of attention to Jarvan, and experimenting outside of the Elites' shell. Garen Galio Jarvan is a fairly popular experiment with a modicum of success; Jack Jarvan is, thus far, only a modest brew, but it does hit above 51%; Illaoi Jarvan, on the other hand, is showing quite a bit of promise (and we've seen, in metas past, this champion pairing doing quite a lot); and Ashe, perhaps a bit ashamed of pushing the Noxian agenda, has turned to Demacia in Ashe Jarvan, which is of all these experiments both the least played (just around 250 games) but the most explosive thus far.
Wrapping Up
As seen on Sunday, both Samira Fizz and Karma Sett have gone down in win rate, thanks in large part to how efficiently Demacia is against them… in turn giving a chance to shine to decks that can slap the big butts that Garen and Jarvan like so much.
In other words, things are far from settled – we'll see what the LoR meta brings when the next round of counter-decks arise.
Hope you've enjoyed today's catch, and good luck out there! =)