LoR Meta Snapshot #30

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Difficulty: Moderate

After many nerfs, Bilgewater only retains one true identity: drawing cards. With many cheap tricks, you can enjoy the possibility of playing Aggro without ever running out of cards to play! Although drawing costs you tempo, you’ll be able to compensate for it thanks to Wiggly Burblefish and its rapid descent to 0 mana cost thanks to all the spells you’re able to play.

At the same time as you’re reducing the cost of your Burblefish, you’re leveling-up Fizz and thus preparing your win conditions. These involve using multiple Elusives for maximum damage and/or trying to set-up a powerful Mind Meld. Handling this many high strength Elusive units will be quite the challenge for your opponent… As long as they don’t have The Ruination or Deny.

Despite all this, the biggest threat is the man often described as the best champion in the game: Twisted Fate. Drawing is good for cycling your deck and ensuring you maintain board pressure, but a leveled-up TF is what you really want from all this draw, as this is (almost) an instant win scenario. This deck allows the player a positively rapid level-up with cards such as Rummage (draw 2 for 1 mana) and Pick a Card.

It’s possible to level TF in one turn, which should terrify your opponent. Try to surprise the opponent, or tire their answers out until you get that sweet turn of freedom to plan a powerful Elusive attack! (Write-up by Ultraman1996)

Additional notes: The main reason that this deck has emerged so forcefully into the meta this week is that it heavily counters Targon, a region that’s all over the ladder. You draw cards so quickly that TF will level-up instantly in some cases, giving Targon little to no time to find an answer. The fact that Targon can’t effectively deal with TF is another boon to this archetype.

Another lesser reason is that it has the ability to resist other common archetypes, such as Scouts or Ezreal-Draven. It punishes misplays, while forcing the opponent to play around tons of damage for no mana (Burblefish). If the opponent commits their mana to something like The Ruination to clear the board, they’ll lose half their health without any ability to answer the threat. You’ll have some mana banked thanks to your 0-cost units, but they won’t have any mana left after using the board clear.

In this way, Fizz-TF is an Aggro deck that doesn’t run out of steam - it can push up to 13 damage for 2 mana. The deck is strong enough that it’ll still be able to outplay some matchups even against decks full of AoE removals, built specifically with the idea of countering it. Traditional AoE decks are currently rather weak in the meta (e.g. FTR, Anivia, Deep) and, as we outlined above, they aren’t good counters to Fizz-TF anyway.

As such, there’s considerable room for the deck to dominate the ladder in the near future. There probably is a counter out there in the longer term, but in the shorter term, the deck will force the meta to adapt, which could put an end to Targon’s dominion.

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Difficulty: Hard

Still able to survive against board-centric decks thanks to a flurry of reactive spells, Ezreal-Draven is currently the strongest deck in terms of denying the opponent a chance to develop their strategy. When looking at the current meta, we can see that most decks are working on building a game plan more than answering the one their opponent has. As a result, Ezreal-Draven takes the throne for the time being.

Whether it’s Scouts, Lee Sin or even Fiora-Shen, these decks cannot function if they cannot build tempo, which Ezreal-Draven excels at destroying - both in the early and the mid game. What’s more, with the draw potential the deck features, it can keep up with pretty much anything for a solid 9-10 turns, up to the point where Captain Farron crashes the party. (Write-up by Den)

Additional notes: It’s worth mentioning that some players have also started running one copy of Vi in their Ezreal-Draven deck, removing one Ezreal to make room for the Piltover Enforcer. While this looks like a test more than anything else for now, it’s an indication that some players might be looking to innovate with the list in an attempt to adapt to the changing meta.

Vi is one of the best Midrange threats, as the Challenger tag is very valuable at the moment. We could imagine that the spells the deck usually relies on might need a bit of help for dealing with some difficult threats, such as Fizz.

Rating change: -0.25 stars

As a Tier 1 deck gets more popular, players are starting to understand how to outplay the deck. This trend is pervasive; if you’re the best deck in the game, then people will come for you either by learning how to play around your cards or by playing a deck that does well against you.

However, the trend of the best deck being less good after it has been around for a while doesn’t always hold true. For example, it may not be possible to outplay a deck like Go Hard before the nerfs due to its sheer strength.

The popularity of Fizz-TF, while not a direct counter, also hurts Ezreal-Draven’s winrate because the matchup isn’t an easy one.

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Difficulty: Hard

Zoe-Lee is the new take on the Lee Targon deck. Zoe is here for board presence. This might sound counterintuitive, but she does generate cheap units or stuns every time she strikes the enemy Nexus. This gives you a better matchup into decks like Plaza or Demacia in general. The rest of the deck is like older versions of Lee Sin.

Some notable inclusions are Pale Cascade, Guiding Touch and Deep Meditation for cycle, Zenith Blade to give Lee Overwhelm or to give extra health to Zoe. Mentor of the Stones and Mountain Goat are used for Gem generation and Concussive Palm will help you with maintaining board presence.

Deny and Nopeify! can interact with the opponent’s spells and finally Eye of the Dragon and Sparklefly will offer you even more board presence and sustain. Lee Sin is transitioning to a situation where two copies of Deny (as opposed to three) is the norm, freeing up space for an additional Bastion or two.

When used preemptively, Bastion helps against Burst speed answers such as Hush and Flash Freeze, further improving Lee’s winrate on those fronts (i.e. against Zoe-ASol and Ashe-Sejuani). (Write-up by Pespscola)

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Difficulty: Easy

Feel The Rush is a Freljord/SI control ramp deck. Its main win condition is to play Feel The Rush on T7 with the help of ramping tools like Wyrding Stones and Catalyst of Aeons. With the exception of Ionia lists, which have access to Deny, many decks find it very difficult to answer FTR’s huge tempo swing. Thus, if FTR resolves, the game is usually over. Atrocity is another crucial card, as it can help you to end the game one turn after FTR is played.

One important skill when playing Feel The Rush is banking mana so that you can play it as early as possible, or to keep yourself open in order to have enough mana for board wipes. For example, it might not be a good idea to play anything on T1 and T2 so you can play an Avalanche with no downsides on T3-4. Of course, a lot of this is matchup-dependent, but (as usual) being able to plan ahead will be helpful to pilot this deck well.

If possible, try to level-up Trundle before you play FTR, so that you have two Overwhelm units with 10/10 statlines to attack with. Trundle with the Overwhelm keyword can often be the difference between losing and winning. Against Aggro, it might not be a good idea to focus on ramping. Instead, you want to mulligan in search of an Avalanche. (Write-up by Crixuz)

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Difficulty: Easy

The Ephemeral keyword didn’t really have a home for a while. Although the whole mechanic has fairly efficient support cards (Fading Memories & Soul Shepherd) and also has several champions benefiting from it (Lucian, Kalista, Hecarim), it has never really clicked. With the introduction of The Grand Plaza, the time has come for the undead to come back as a solid archetype.

The problem with Ephemeral followers has always been their volatility, the keyword not allowing the player to establish a board presence from one turn to another and therefore falling behind in the mid game. Now that The Grand Plaza landmark allows the followers to get the Challenger tag, the Ephemeral tag isn’t so much of a problem and the deck can control the board until its Ephemeral synergy builds up and takes over the game.

With the looks of an aggressive deck trying to go all-in, the deck actually builds toward a huge Hecarim when the early game pressure doesn’t work; its strongest turns in this case are usually in the 5-8 range. If the opponent cannot keep up, then Lucian has all the support he needs to evolve, which allows you to attack multiple times. (Write-up by Den)

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Difficulty: Easy

Even with a Make It Rain nerf some patches ago, Gangplank isn’t willing to leave the meta without a fight. So he mustered his pirate brothers and sisters, co-opted his arch enemy (Miss Fortune) and is now trying to come back from the dead. How’s that for a newspaper headline?

It’s a very simple list, where you’re trying to curve out from the beginning of the game and consistently push damage on your opponent’s Nexus, so you bring it to a low amount of HP, which is ideal for a finishing touch with Decimate and Noxian Fervor. Being able to push damage turn by turn often proves useful, since you can apply the final blow with a leveled-up Gangplank; just watch out for Hush.

If you need to shift to value damage mid to late game, instead of being able to push it through a solid board, Jack, the Winner and Captain Farron are glad to lend you a hand. Sleep with the Fishes is an infinite value engine, as long as you can stack a few units on the board, and the 3x Decimate from Farron is a nightmare for any opponent without healing. (Write-up by CastMin)

The above prescription may include the following side-effects:

• Not attacking without Crackshot Corsair, unless your opponents have other threats they need to deal with
• Treating MF as an over-the-top damage dealer and not caring about her dying or not leveling
• Using Legion Grenadier to get additional procs for Gangplank on the defensive turns
• Baiting your opponent into using mana before killing them with a Noxian Fervor they can’t answer
• Taking full hits like a maniac and not blocking, so you have a board to apply more pressure and win the game
• Compulsive crying when queuing into any Targon list

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Difficulty: Moderate

At its core, Teemo-Ezreal is a Teemo or Poison Puffcap-focused deck. You want to mulligan for Teemo and Puffcap Peddler to get your engine going. The deck deliberately plays cheap spells, allowing you to maximize your Puffcap generation.

Every Freljord-PnZ deck ultimately needs to solve the problem of limited card draw. Previously, this mainly came in the form of Statikk Shock or Progress Day! The introduction of Hexcore Foundry, however, has meant that the region pair has a new way to avoid running out of steam. Yet, given Foundry’s bilateral effect, timing its use is important.

Many players play Foundry in early turns, as a way to improve their bricked hands. This is usually a bad play, as you’ll allow the opponent to advance further. Rather, aim to play Foundry when the opponent has a hefty amount of Puffcaps in their deck or when you get to a certain turning point.

The turning point can be recognized by asking “If I play Hexcore Foundry now, and both players each draw one additional card per turn, who’s more punished by it? Is the advantage that my opponent gains from drawing one additional card much greater than the advantage I gain?”

This analysis will depend on the natural strength of the cards they can draw, the mana that they’ll have going into the next few turns (if their cards are all 10 mana and the game is at T5, you may safely play Foundry), the potential number of turns that they will destroy their Nexus from the extra card they draw (due to the Puffcaps), your health or ability to chump block, etc.

Basically, knowing when to play your Foundry is the toughest element of this deck. Whatever it is, the answer is nearly always not going to be Turn 3 and the landmark will mostly likely be played on Turn 5-8.

Teemo-Ezreal also has the ability to go faster or slower. It’s easy to understand how to go fast. Play Teemo on T1, Puffcap Peddler on T3, go face against an empty board and so forth. To go slow, you should understand that outside of Deep decks, no deck has the ability to remove Puffcaps. Knowing this, simply play a Puffcap Peddler (or two) and plan for the long game.

That means protecting Peddler, managing your opponent’s board so that it doesn’t go crazy, and not overextending (i.e. don’t empty your hand followed by playing Foundry early). Many decks don’t have a way to effectively deal with the Peddler.

If Challengers are a problem due to The Grand Plaza, you have Aftershock. Single Combat can be replied with Troll Chant, and this will be relevant as long as you don’t overextend with your attacks.

Attacking means that you might be forced to exhaust your Troll Chants, but you don’t want to do that sometimes. Keep your Peddler alive and “turtle” your way to 80 Puffcaps in your opponent’s deck.

Lastly, the final component of the deck would be Ezreal. First, determine if Ezreal is ever coming out early. This will depend on, but isn’t limited to, whether the opponent can answer an early Ezreal, or if you need to answer Zoe. Next, Ezreal is often a great finisher for many decks.

For matchups that are going to be a little tighter, Ezreal will be your saving grace. The deck levels Ezreal easy; all of your spells target units and Icevale Archer is a 3 for 1 (it levels Ezreal, gives you an attacker or chump blocker and prevents your opponent from attacking for one turn). A leveled Ezreal in the late game can look at dealing 4-8 damage, which is very useful for closing the game. (Write-up by Crixuz)

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Difficulty: Moderate

You’ve played Zoe-ASol, Zoe-Diana and Leona-ASol. Now, get ready for the next Plaza deck that shows promise: Leona-Lux.

Fundamentally, the deck shares many similarities with other Plaza decks. It has the landmark, it requires you to Invoke often and it runs the Solari package. The difference is that Leona-Lux plays 2x Moonlight Affliction and swaps ASol for Lux.

Moonlight Affliction, when played with Nightfall, silences and stops two enemy units from blocking. Combined with a flipped Leona, you can effectively Stun 3-4 enemy units before even passing the priority to your opponent.

This is of course the ultimate win condition of the deck. It can swing for 20 damage to your opponent’s Nexus in 1 turn due to Moonlight Affliction + Leona’s Stun ability to completely ignore your opponent’s board. Your opponent won’t enjoy this, as they can have the superior board presence with some big units to threaten you, but one good turn is all you need to win.

Lux is in the deck to manage the opponent’s board. The deck wants to use 5-cost spells like Concerted Strike and Starshaping anyway, so Lux being on the board generates a free Final Spark once you play 6+ mana worth of spells.

Like all Plaza Targon decks, Leona-Lux plays 3 copies of everybody’s favorite card, Hush. What makes this deck special, though, is that it has 7 ways of silencing units. The meta right now is reliant on keywords and stat buffs, so having this much access to silencing can really negate a lot of power from most decks. (Write-up by Crixuz)

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Hey guys,

This is a new section we’re trying for the future. Each week, we’ll highlight a deck that isn’t doing so great in the current meta, but still could have merits in some matchups if it receives help from specific tech cards. This week, Den will share his take on Fiora-Shen and how it plays against the current Targon and Piltover decks who should be bad matchups for the deck.

The meta is tilting towards a more aggressive, damage-focused approach with smaller minions but a lot of synergies. Fiora is a great champion right now, benefiting from all these small Elusive units with which she can trade easily. The list is built around protecting her for that reason.

As attack points aren’t as important at the moment, Spirit’s Refuge joins Riposte as a Barrier Burst card. Another card that feels good for trading and denying damage spells is Chain Vest, acting as a cheap reactive card to PnZ spells or Pale Cascade buffs.

Lastly, a card that has been doing great lately is Concussive Palm. This is because it allows the player to block an attack from an Elusive minion that they couldn’t block or simply save an ally from a trade we couldn’t otherwise avoid.

Genevieve Elmheart appears to be better than Cithria The Bold right now, as the Challenger tag helps in the Aggro matchups but can also help in killing Lee Sin in that particular engagement. Her +1/+1 buff allows you to use her in defensive situations to heal or protect our units and set-up an open Scout attack that doesn’t cost anything and can result in an important takedown. The end of the curve covers slower matchups, as Brightsteel Formation helps you in the late game battle.

We hope this section is informative and can help some of you understand better how to build your deck to fit the current meta. As we stated in the introduction, feel free to join our Discord and let us know your thoughts on this section and how we could improve it in the future.