Welcome to our 51st meta snapshot, potentially our last for a while, as our content team goes on hiatus for the foreseeable future. We want to thank you for engaging with our content over the past year, and hope you all have a great 2022.
Like in our previous snapshot, we remain in a murky state of affairs. Kennen-Ahri lies atop proceedings, with Nami-TF and Pantheon not far behind. Outside of that, though, the meta hasn’t really formalized itself yet, so we present you with the clearest picture we can give of what’s going on at the top levels of the game. We hope you find this useful and enjoy your New Year celebrations, wherever you are.
If you have any questions, feel free to drop by our Discord. Best of luck on your climb!
Graphics: WellMax81
Editing: Wusubi, Sebodunum
Writers: Den, Ultraman, Othal
The Absolver
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Rating: 4.5 stars
Difficulty: Hard
I, for one, would like to introduce one of the most difficult archetypes to play! As the best Ahri deck, the Shuriman splash has got itself quite the nice reputation, almost invalidating people’s complaints about the Elusive keyword that has pretty much been going on since the beginning.
So, what makes this deck so good? Well, the deck has quasi-direct damage, many ways of keeping its units alive, a somewhat early curve and the ability to delay the inevitable, which grants you countless options. Being able to stop your opponent from finishing off your Nexus is a skill, and this deck can master it nicely.
You have a few win conditions, be it destroying the opposing board with the 0-tempo Kennen spell, flooding your board with Elusive threats, a leveled-up Ahri wreaking havoc, or even a crazy high attack Yordle with Overwhelm.
It’s a never-ending nightmare of threats for your opponent to deal with, and they can’t afford to make a mistake, or fail to play around your multiples outs, such as Recall spells and Nopeify! or Deny.
As some of you may have guessed, the only way through this deck is literally through it. Trying to damage-control this deck is nearly impossible. It’s time to try and outrun the fox. Good luck! (Write-up by Ultraman)
Go Hard
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Rating: 3.5 stars
Difficulty: Hard
Hey, guys, I have an idea. Let’s use the card that denies Allegiance the most as our splash in an Allegiance deck! I swear, despite the idea not looking that great on paper, it kind of works. It’s up to you to decide whether it’s thanks to Ahri, the Recall options, or the healing and the cheap spells being nice to play.
Avoid playing too many copies of Go Hard too quickly, as missing out on double Turn 1’s will always hurt. With a bit more draw, your goal is to get Go Hards out of the deck, while surviving and slowly eroding the opposing Nexus, so that Pack your Bags is enough to close out the game. (Write-up by Ultraman)
Rally
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Rating: 3.5 stars
Difficulty: Hard
Yeah, welcome to the world of splashes - let’s go and present the same deck for the third time. Oh right, sorry, there are some Demacian cards in this one. We have our own opinion on the matter, but nothing stops you from trying out all three decks and seeing which one you like the most.
While The Absolver version has the highest win rate, there isn’t yet a consensus on which one is the best. That said, the Rally version is closer to the Go Hard one, with Scattered Pod helping you draw your alternative win conditions, and it has a slower game plan overall.
It also plays Concussive Palm, which helps you slow down the game and set-up your board, making the Rally a powerful threat to your opponent. (Write-up by Ultraman)
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Difficulty: Moderate
Do you want the best deal on an Elusive package? Come on, I can tell you crave it. Nah, this one isn’t the cheap stuff everybody has nowadays. This is pure, excellent quality, coming directly from Fizz-TF, the best deck in the history of the game! Yes, people. Wiggly Burblefish is back, and Nami too.
I swear, they’re trying too hard to create the league of Supervillains in Runeterra, but don’t worry, they’re all nerfed. All but one. Curious Shellfolk still reigns supreme in the value land, and its iron grip of terror can only be mitigated by decks that can win before Turn 6, or anything that silences, kills, obliterates or recalls it. I can see your smirk, but it’s easier said than done.
With multiple layers of threats, this deck proves its flexibility, allowing itself to win due to Elusives, pure value, buffed boards, or by controlling the early game with a swarm of cheap minions and TF’s scary cards. Seems like a winning recipe, as other decks seem to be getting better at handling one threat - so what about 4 or 5 of them, can they handle that? (Write-up by Ultraman)
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Difficulty: Moderate
A lot of players thought Pantheon’s stats were underwhelming when he was revealed, but tried to make him work nonetheless. He was paired with Zoe, Taric, Riven, and even Akshan, but, like those people who get married to themselves, he found that his one true pairing was with himself.
All Pantheon archetypes share the same early game plan: deploy cheap units like Saga Seeker and Mountain Goat, target them with spells to boost them through Fated, and make sure your champion is ready to level-up by Turn 7-8 at worst. Gems are your best friends in this plan, providing a +2/+1 buff for 1 mana at Focus speed.
While other versions rely on both champions, this one can win through units like Wounded Whiteflame receiving a lot of buffs and quickly getting to a point where your opponent cannot ignore it (or block it) because you gave it Overwhelm. They might also have to use a lot of resources to deal with them, resources they need to answer Pantheon.
Blinded Mystic is a great addition to the deck in mirror matches or against Elusives, as it’ll Silence the opponent’s biggest threat (not necessarily the biggest statted follower) and boost one of your Fated units at the same time.
If your followers don’t win the game by themselves, a flipped Pantheon will seal the deal. If you played him before he leveled-up and boosted him each turn, he’ll be a monster with too many keywords to be dealt with.
And if you play him late, he’ll get even more keywords to compensate for his lack of stats. Many opponents will surrender after his level-up cinematic so enjoy the show! (Write-up by Othal)
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Difficulty: Hard
Everyone’s favorite Blind Monk is back again, and we can still find him with his best friend Zoe. While Lee Sin might suffer the backlash of Pantheon’s rise in the meta, especially in the form of decks utilizing Minimorph and Hush, it’s still one of the most reliable decks to play.
The archetype hasn’t changed much and its variations are more often due to personal preference than pure optimization, as it has been refined time and time again. It’s one of the hardest decks to play, but in the hands of an experienced player, it should find a win in almost any given situation.
Eye of the Dragon and Gifts from Beyond are still here to provide the best answers against Burn decks or board swarm decks like Lurk, and the lower number of Rally decks on the ladder removed one of Lee Sin’s biggest weaknesses.
On the flip side, decks like Kennen-Ahri will prove a pain to fight due to the prevalence of Elusive and Quick Attack units that don’t allow your Dragonlings to strike defensively and thus deny a lot of healing.
The inclusion of Wounded Whiteflame gives you another threat your opponents can’t ignore, even more so if you pair him with a Zenith Blade. Its high HP makes it a great blocker against Aggro decks, and healing it procs Fated and boosts its stats.
Imagine giving Lee Sin the Fated and Fury keywords through a leveled-up Zoe. That’s living the dream. (Write-up by Othal)
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Difficulty: Moderate
After Poppy’s nerf, most aggressive decks using her have disappeared, leaving a big hole in the Aggro department. Over time, decks have become more comfortable and forgot that protecting your Nexus was an important part of the game, which led to Teemo-Ziggs finding something to exploit.
The deck obviously isn’t as explosive on the board as it was previously - Poppy isn’t around anymore to act as a huge punish to an opponent who didn’t remove our early units. However, this deck still represents one of the best options to play some quick games and punish those who are greedy.
With almost every unit and spell contributing to damage in some form, the deck offers a mix of early game board aggression and late game spells to close things out. The trick to managing the transition from the first part to the second is to read the opponent’s reaction to your pressure and know when they’re able to react to your board. From there, you can stop investing into the board presence and focus on direct damage instead.
Currently, the best decks in the meta rely on their own synergies and try to force the opponent into a tempo battle, which they can sustain for a long time thanks to their great value capacity. Going for a Burn approach will reduce the upside of that value, switching the focus to the health resource instead of the card one, making Teemo-Ziggs a good anti-meta pick if you run into many Ionia or Bandle City tempo decks. (Write-up by den)
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Difficulty: Moderate
Do you remember Lulu-Jinx? TLG Meta Snapshot #44 remembers. And the creator of this deck, too. Ahri has a nice interaction with Flame Chompers! allowing you to simultaneously Recall them and make a trade, giving you the opportunity to Discard it.
With Lulu and Ahri both giving you great trades, you’ll surely obliterate the opposing board... as long as you find your cards in the right order. Yes, the deck’s big weakness is the shaky consistency. Finding a Chomper, a Discard tool and both champions isn’t as easy as you might expect.
Luckily, you have a few cards that help you keep weaseling your way out of terrible situations - that’s what Elusives do! You also have a lot of draws in the late game if you find Sai’nen Thousand-Tailed, and Ahri can put it back in your hand for massive value, if your opponent somehow forgot to kill you, of course. (Write-up by Ultraman)
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Difficulty: Moderate
GP-Sejuani didn’t suffer from the last patch - the loss of 1 HP on Gangplank didn’t make him much weaker to removal in the current environment. What has changed for the deck though is the overall use of its mana, making it easier for your opponent to punish you for impactful actions.
With Ionia being back as one of the top regions, spending 5 or 6 mana on a single unit can get punished by Concussive Palm for example, translating into an immediate loss of tempo. This simple interaction has forced Plunder to deviate from its original goal to simply level-up its champions. With Gangplank and Sejuani doing less work currently, the early game curve has to put the deck in a dominant position rather than negating what the opponent might do.
The deck still has some wonderful cards - Monster Harpoon and Make it Rain are as great as ever. Parrrley might also finally have a meta where the card routinely finds good targets against several opponents. This puts the deck in a weird spot - its powerful, but the way it interacts with other top decks lowers the impact of some of its best cards. (Write-up by den)
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Difficulty: Moderate
The standard way to play this deck seems simple: attack every turn, swarm the board and win because your opponent cannot afford to block you or survive your Overwhelm units. But getting lethal requires a decent set-up, and you can quickly exhaust your cards if you don’t play cleverly.
You have the Predict package to help you draw both champions and put them on top of your deck, but it can also help you thin out the cards without Lurk on your opponent’s turn if you need to put in a blocker, or if you want to set-up a great Open Attack with Xer’Sai Caller.
In addition to your creatures, you get some versatile cards: Call the Pack gives you value and ensures you get a Lurker such as Rek’Sai on top of your deck, or can change your Pyke into Death From Below.
Bone Skewer can be used offensively to remove a crucial unit from the opposing board, but also defensively as an answer to a Concerted Strike or another removal, while also giving you a Lurker on top of your deck if you need it.
A leveled-up Pyke can clear a full board, even more so with a Jaull-Fish to set him up. But the deck lacks a touch of consistency in order to be considered Tier 1. All too many Lurk players remember a time where the deck whiffed and no Lurker was on top when we needed Xerxa’Reth, The Undertitan to get Overwhelm.
Due to the low HP of Lurk units, they’re vulnerable to the removal found in Freljord and Shadow Isles, or to the chump blockers so prevalent in Burn and swarm decks. (Write-up by Othal)
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Difficulty: Hard
Decks come and go, but Darkness stays. The last of its kind, Veigar-Senna does the whole heavy-control thing, but with a twist. They can high-roll almost as hard as their aggressive counterparts, and thus have crazy returns on their Darkness spells.
Minimorph is as good as ever, and rather necessary against many archetypes. But the new arrival of cheap Ionian decks is bad news, as they took the place of Zed-Poppy - a deck which has been bullying the evil friends for a while now.
However, with the right hand and plays, this deck can challenge just about anything. Watch out for those games where both Twisted Catalyzer and Veigar are stuck in your deck - it’s hard to win without them. (Write-up by Ultraman)
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Difficulty: Moderate
While Taric-Pantheon’s game plan is similar to other Pantheon decks, Taric adds another twist at the cost of slowing it down. You’ll need to sink some resources into setting him up and have fewer buff spells in the deck.
His Support ability can help you draw a lot of cards through boosting your Fated units with Guiding Touch and Pale Cascade, while also giving you some added resilience with Tough. Where he really shines, though, is in his synergy with the Rally spells.
If he’s supporting an ally, he’ll cast Rally spells again when attacking, meaning you attack twice during your opponent’s turn, and three times in your own, all for 4 mana.
Now just imagine this combined with a Zenith Blade on Taric, giving Wounded Whiteflame and Taric himself Overwhelm and attacking three times… Yes, I see you smiling. (Write-up by Othal)
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Difficulty: Moderate
Pretty much the same list as before the expansion hit, Draven-Sion has suffered a lot from the latest releases. Indeed, with Ionia gaining a lot of popularity, cards like Concussive Palm and Homecoming have denied Sion the ability to attack as freely as he’d wish to. With the main win condition becoming a liability, it’s no wonder why the deck has struggled to find a solid spot.
What the deck has going for it though, is the ability swarm the board and develop great immediate pressure, which switches the focus of the deck to the early game rather than building a big Sion to crush the opponent in the late game.
While the second approach is effective against decks like GP-Sejuani, the new matchups have pushed it to be faster in order to keep up with the tempo they can develop in the mid game. This puts Draven-Sion in a weird situation, needing to decide which matchups it hopes to face and tech against.
As such, while Discard is still undergoing some kind of a transition with a lot of lists being tried, Rumble and Jinx also making appearances in some. In all of these, though, it’s becoming clear that the deck needs to put more emphasis on its early game.
For now, the archetype is a fair pick that can adapt its list to various matchups. Arachnoid Sentry is decent against Pantheon, while Decimate helps upgrade their capacity to close the game in matchups where Sion is at risk. (Write-up by den)
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Difficulty: Easy
Rumble has had a rough time finding a spot in the meta, and well, none of his decks felt optimized. We aren’t saying that this deck sucks, but there’s a heavy cost to building around Rumble - the whole deck is as unstable as his mechanical creations.
When everything goes your way, the SpellShielded Yordle can carry quite the punch, but if you don’t have Rumble in hand by Turn 4, your options will be even more limited. This deck reminds us of Draven-Viktor and or Riven-Vi, two decks that suffered from the same restrictions with a pretty similar set of cards.
While Sion is bad in some matchups, especially in this meta, you at least have a rough idea of what the deck can, and will do, each and every game. With this version, you better embrace chaos, and brace yourself for either broken mechanics or broken and malfunctioning hands. (Write-up by Ultraman)
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Difficulty: Moderate
This duo still roams the lands of Runeterra, trying to fit as many mushrooms in a deck as they can. Which isn’t many, actually. But as long as it’s enough for Swain to level-up, you should be fine. Ravenous Flock and pings aren’t quite as impressive after Poppy got nerfed, as this was one of the few answers to those pesky Bandle/Demacia decks.
Teemo-Swain’s popularity suffered from those nerfs, and its reliability too. While some cards are great no matter the matchup (e.g. Lecturing Yordle), others tend to be useless in some cases, such as Scorched Earth or Noxian Guillotine.
The tricky part is that these are needed in other matchups, and you’ll have to navigate between the matchups where one of these cards can save you, and the matchups where they’re dead meat, rotting in your hand the whole time.
Despite not being the most adapted to the meta, the deck has some use, mainly to counter other decks when they get a high play rate. You’re good at what you’re doing, but the deck isn’t very flexible. (Write-up by Ultraman)
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Difficulty: Moderate
Thralls is a deck that usually thrives in a slower meta, which would give it the most time to set up its synergies and summon as many 8/8 Overwhelm units as possible.
Even though Noxus and Scorched Earth aren’t too popular, the deck still suffers from Recalls (e.g. Homecoming) in the popular Kennen-Ahri decks, which prevents the deck from going all-in on a landmark with Promising Future.
The deck still has some upsides, as it has good tools to fight off most of the decent archetypes. Avalanche and Blighted Ravine are great against Ahri decks, usually removing most of the board and denying Ahri cheap options to utilize. The Freeze package is great to slow down Pantheon decks and can buy time against Zoe-Lee.
Lastly, the Thralls themselves represent a major threat that’s difficult to contain for most opponents, which is sufficient to beat some popular matchups like Darkness or GP-Sejuani. (Write-up by den)
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Difficulty: Moderate
The Bandle Tree is the only deck that has kept on playing Poppy after her second nerf to a 2/3. Indeed, the deck didn’t use her for pure pressure, but rather as the champion which best suited the Demacian part of Bandle Tree’s required regions.
Still, the deck felt like it suffered a lot from the latest patch, gaining almost nothing but seeing new matchups arise that were rather difficult to face. The Elusive units pushed by Ahri decks and Overwhelm from Pantheon builds are the 2 most annoying keywords this deck can encounter. Also, with TF making a comeback, you have to be worried about his Red Card.
These matchups make Bandle Tree harder to pilot in the current meta, and the good matchups like Lee Sin or Darkness aren’t popular enough to make up for the ones where you have to play perfectly in order to win.
Still fairly well represented at various ranks, Bandle Tree benefits from being a deck that can have a big spike in win rate every time defensive decks emerge, keeping it relevant and on our radar for the time being. (Write-up by den)
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Difficulty: Hard
Playing this deck would suggest that you hate Pantheon players with a burning passion... and maybe yourself too. Zoe is good at creating opportunities for you to exploit, and the fact that she can create Equinox is awesome in this meta. But it takes a lot of mana and with many Elusive threats back in the picture, she may just get blocked each time she goes for a Nexus hit.
If that happens to be the case, you have a Plan B - Curious Shellfolk. But if Shellfolk gets removed, your options become limited. You might go for crazy Celestial creatures created by a Targon spell, somehow leveling-up Zoe, or rely on some Elusive damage here and there to engender your opponent’s demise.
However, as soon as your game plan doesn’t go as expected, you don’t have as many win conditions as the other archetypes. But you’re still required to pilot this deck well enough to find some options. A bit of a hefty prize just to smack silences on your poor opponents, but a valid choice nonetheless. (Write-up by Ultraman)
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Difficulty: Moderate
What’s better than Zoe? A Zoe that can’t die, of course! The full array of buffs and spells help her survive while the opponents just throw all their resources at her in hope to prevent her level-up. Supercool Starchart can also give you a lot of handy spells, like Equinox against Elusives or mirror matchups, or simply Moonglow if you need to buff a unit.
Having access to Celestial cards before and after her level-up will give you a lot of options and keywords from cheap creatures, like Overwhelm for 1, Challenger for 0, Elusive for 3... Once she’s leveled-up, trust me, you’ve never seen a board with that many keywords. When playing Pantheon on a full board, you’ll give all his keywords to the whole board.
Or you can play Wounded Whiteflame and give Fury to all your other Fated units. And what about playing The Golden Sister and The Silver Sister, giving Lifesteal and Elusive to everything and then giving them Fated, Fury and more?
However, this deck is slower and more highroll-y than other Pantheon decks, and needs a leveled-up Zoe to fulfil its potential, something that won’t happen in every game. And when playing in Gauntlet or in a tournament, you’ll probably want your Zoe to go with Lee Sin anyway. (Write-up by Othal)
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Difficulty: Moderate
A less standard, but more straightforward Pantheon build is the Noxus one. While lacking the removals and buffs provided by Demacia, this deck has an endless supply of Focus speed boosts due to the Reforge mechanic and Mountain Goat.
The game plan is even simpler than before: get the biggest creatures you can and literally Overwhelm your opponents with insanely strong bodies. Your Fated followers will enhance the boosts given by the Noxus cards and somewhat mitigate their temporary nature. Riven and Pantheon are happy to receive Blade of the Exile and charge at the opposing Nexus.
Pantheon should be able to level-up quickly, but is more vulnerable to removal, as there’s a notable lack of defensive buffs and combat tricks in this deck, which makes it weaker than the other Pantheon decks. (Write-up by Othal)