He's also got a list in the post of the 20ish decks in "other meta decks", which is everything with 400+ games and 49%+ winrate. I'd never even heard of Sivir/Renekton Demacia before.
I know and understand that statistically there's a bunch of different decks being played right now but I keep running into the same one on Ladder so uh just gonna end the Ladder on Silver that's fine.
And I'm in. We had virtually the same lineup but I drew the nuts both games and he got pretty blown out.
(2-0) Masters Icon
Thresh Nasus, Ez Draven, Pirates
Opponent bans Thresh Nasus, I ban Thresh Nasus
Game 1: Azir Noxus (W) vs Ez Draven
Curved out perfectly while opponent struggled to find removal that lined up well with the board, dead to a Darius on 6.
Game 2: Ez Draven (W) vs Ez Draven
Opponent had some House Spiders and small removal and not much else while I was popping off with Dravens, Ballistic Bots, all the Rummages, and double Tri-Beams for 6+. Just a great demonstration of how much the deck's performance can differ based on draws.
And mission accomplished. Got all heroes to Legendary difficulty in Lab of Legends.
Zilean was by far the hardest of the new set to drag through Heroic. Ended up going heavy into an Ashe deck, which is pretty silly combined with the new "Frostbite the strongest enemy every turn" power. Dropping a leveled Ashe on 4 every time is pretty funny. Zilean put in some serious work though. I got the "countdown landmarks activate twice" power and did some massive board sweep with multiple Time Bombs a few times.
Some other fun combos:
Malphite + Yasuo is hilarious. There's just so much stun and with the double countdown effect power your Eye of the Ra-Horak turns into "Instantly level Yasuo and kill everything". Which gets even funnier when your Yasuo has Fury. And if you can get the "Rally every turn" power, a leveled Malphite just completely shuts the enemy down.
Fizz + "slow spells activate twice" + Lux. Fizz's core deck has like 3 solid slow spells and Lux adds Remembrance and Final Spark. Double Trouble summons 4 blockers which is really fun and helps stabilize the board early. Remembrance gets you 2 generally very strong units. But the fun combo is once you get Lux on the board. Lux + Remembrance means she instantly levels and then gives you a second Final Spark. And both Final Sparks will cast twice, for 8 total damage each. It's quite strong.
Anyway, one interesting thing about Lab of Legends imo is that while it can't tell you if a deck concept is good, it can show you which concepts just kinda fundamentally don't work. So like Malphite I feel like makes sense at some base level. He's way too slow and landmarks are trash, so he's trash. But in a situation like Labs where you can afford to play a bit slower, he hits the board hard and he's got a few decent support cards for ramping. Zilean on the other hand and his predict package just kinda doesn't make sense imo. Even in Labs it just can't gel.
Zilean on the other hand and his predict package just kinda doesn't make sense imo. Even in Labs it just can't gel.
I put together a Shurima/Ionia deck a week or two back whose goal was to repeatedly recall Zilean to load the deck up with Time Bombs, and then use those Time Bombs to keep the board clear and draw deep into the deck for various units to finish the game with.
And it works! You can reliably pop Zilean up and down, getting enough Time Bombs that you can reliably set it up for one to draw into another. You can reliably get Zilean leveled up, and start getting fleeting Time Bombs on top of all of your regular Time Bombs. The gears mesh together and spin around quite nicely.
They just don't ever actually do much to the opponent, which is a fairly major flaw. I lost games where I got it all working just because by the time I ran out of steam, or even just had a bad turn or two where the gears DIDN'T mesh, they were still over there, patiently tossing surprised-Jinx emotes at my third Time Bomb of the turn.
Yeah there was one game where Zilean's base package just really took off for me, there's a 6-drop in there that I had tons of copies of, and I just kept predicting those copies and the copies on the board blew up big time, but yikes there's nothing I could really find to make that happen ever again. There's like 2 levels (Spiders and Turrets) where the time bombs were worth playing.
The basic problem with predict is that it's not draw. So yeah, you can see and somewhat control what card you get next. But you can't get that card. It just replaces a different card and only does so once and only next turn. This is a good power but it's also fundamentally very limited. There's massive diminishing returns on using it and it ultimately provides no card advantage and a very limited ability to push your gameplan forward. What this ends up meaning is that you can't build a deck around the idea. It's just a nice added bonus to an already existing gameplan.
I think part of the issue is that the cards they've designed to lean on Predict need a stronger version of the concept to work but that stronger version would be ridiculously powerful outside that specific archetype. It also feels like there just isn't enough Predict to go around.
But just fundamentally you you predict once, you get a better card then you might have gotten next turn and ... yeah, that's it. A second predict gives you a better chance of getting a card if you didn't get one you wanted the first time. If you did get the one you wanted the first time, every other predict is literally detrimental to your plan. And then you are just replacing a draw you would have had next turn.
There's a kind of synergy between draw and predict where you predict first and then use draw to put that card into your hand. But both powers are too limited and too expensive to make that viable. It's a lot of resources spent on a chance of pulling the card you want.
So with Zilean you've got at best like a 1/3 chance of getting that Time Bomb when you drop him and that's only next turn. So then you gotta draw the damn thing and then the next card you don't even know what you are getting. And it sets you back 2 mana for each time bomb and on a landmark, which gets you no blockers or attackers.
Khahiri the Returned is even more emblematic of these problems. The idea is clear: fill your deck with Khahiris so you predict them more often, then flood the board. But firstly he's just too fucking expensive for this strat to work. At 6 mana your gameplan can't even really come online till late game. And then chances of buffing him before that are minimal because predict is not that reliable at hitting a specific card. And then you gotta burn a draw just to put him in your hand.
Predict as a power is good. But it's not a power you can build a deck around because it's just too limited. Which is one of the big problems with Zilean and his archetype.
I still haven't beaten Malphite or Zilean on Normal. They're so fucking bad I can't stand these landmark decks.
They didn't even give Malphite the one that removes shit from the board. They gave him a ton of landmarks that buff and shit and like 4 follower cards, good fucking luck.
I still haven't beaten Malphite or Zilean on Normal. They're so fucking bad I can't stand these landmark decks.
They didn't even give Malphite the one that removes shit from the board. They gave him a ton of landmarks that buff and shit and like 4 follower cards, good fucking luck.
Take the Advanced Preparations power. Malphite can do real solid on anything but Hexcore.
3/3 Chip and Blue Sentinel will block early, fish for Eye of the Ra-Horak and then Malphite closes it out with non-stop stuns.
Picking a good 2nd champ is really important though.
Predict decks could use a card that says: "After you Predict, draw a card." Slap it on a 2-4 mana card with a neutral to weak body and it would really help that archetype out without breaking it.
Need a voice actor? Hire me at bengrayVO.com
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051 Steam ID Twitch Page
Khahiri the Returned is even more emblematic of these problems. The idea is clear: fill your deck with Khahiris so you predict them more often, then flood the board. But firstly he's just too fucking expensive for this strat to work. At 6 mana your gameplan can't even really come online till late game. And then chances of buffing him before that are minimal because predict is not that reliable at hitting a specific card. And then you gotta burn a draw just to put him in your hand.
I wonder if Kahiri the Returned would be better if he also triggered off spotting Kahiri the Student in your deck, or if he also buffed Kahiri the Student or something.
Could also be cool to have cards that did something like "when you predict and see me, draw me and predict a new card in my place." Or "when you predict me and don't pick me, put me second from the top in your deck."
Definitely agree that Predict works pretty well as a mechanic that you're glad to have in your deck, but needs something to really grease the wheels of it as an archetype.
Khahiri the Returned is even more emblematic of these problems. The idea is clear: fill your deck with Khahiris so you predict them more often, then flood the board. But firstly he's just too fucking expensive for this strat to work. At 6 mana your gameplan can't even really come online till late game. And then chances of buffing him before that are minimal because predict is not that reliable at hitting a specific card. And then you gotta burn a draw just to put him in your hand.
I wonder if Kahiri the Returned would be better if he also triggered off spotting Kahiri the Student in your deck, or if he also buffed Kahiri the Student or something.
Could also be cool to have cards that did something like "when you predict and see me, draw me and predict a new card in my place." Or "when you predict me and don't pick me, put me second from the top in your deck."
Definitely agree that Predict works pretty well as a mechanic that you're glad to have in your deck, but needs something to really grease the wheels of it as an archetype.
"When you predict and see me, put a fleeting copy in your hand" could also be cool.
"When you predict and see me, put a fleeting copy in your hand" could also be cool.
That's a way smoother way to do it. Could generate other cards, too. Like a version of Kahiri might put a fleeting copy of the Predict and advance a landmarks card.
Woo-hoo! Made it out of Gold and into Platinum for the first time. The last push was mostly with a Nocturne/Diana nightfall deck that was just a ton of fun to play. Lots of games that turned my way thanks to a well-timed Unto Dusk or two targeting a Doombeast.
my chest today was lvl 4, i just dont even want to play the game now. had they released skins 8 months ago i may have bought some. now it isn't even something id consider seeing as i dont really want to play the game atm. fix the game then come out with cosmetics.
After speaking with a lot of other competitors the wide consensus seems to be that Turbo Thralls is the deck to beat this season.
Our overall lineup rock paper scissors is Thralls/Deep/X (usually Azirelia or Shurima Noxus Overwhelm) > Thresh Nasus/Ez Draven/Y (usually Dragons) > triple aggro and then it loops back around to the start. Although I quite enjoy playing Thralls, I think my experience in the mirror is lacking. Aggro lineups seem highly reliant on dodging Thresh Nasus which seems unlikely. So I've decided that I'm just going to ban Lissandra decks and run the cookie cutter anti-aggro lineup.
I considered running Zoe Vi instead of Dragons, which would retain my Hush deck for mirror lineups and can tech Aftershocks to make the ban options more fluid, but I think I'd rather have the edge against aggro instead. In the past I've had that third deck be an aggro deck to really capitalize on pressuring Azirelia, but discussion with other players has discouraged me from doing that given how damaging it is into another Thresh Nasus lineup compared to a Hush deck. Since I'm banning Thralls anyway I also thought about possibly swapping Scorched Earth for Noxian Guillotine, but I think the edge it would give into Thresh Nasus isn't worth it compared to the chance I run into some rogue landmark decks like Star Springs, Scargrounds, or Hexcore.
Thresh Nasus CMBQEBAFAMIAIAIFFAYDCNAEAQDQEGRPM4BACBAHPEBQCBILDERAEAIBAUAQCBAHHM
1 Rite of Negation, 1 Vengeance, just enough to make people respect spell mana.
Ez Draven CECACAQDBEBACAYUFYBAGBAFCECACBABEQTDIAYBAMBQ2AQBAMCDGAYBAQNR6JYBAEAQGNY
Some people are on 1 Farron now but I still prefer 2. If you don't counter pressure Thresh Nasus they just build Nasus up in hand and OTK you on like turn 13 before you can ping Nasus to enable Scorched Earth.
Dragons CIBQCAIADIBAGCKV3UAQIAYAAYEAWDQEAEAQACYBAIAACAIEAAHAKAYJDQ4VOXDEAIAQCAAPAIBQSAYJ
3 Concerted Strike, 1 Judgment because I need the edge into Deep. Even running 6 lifesteal units this feels kind of greedy and I'm hoping I don't get punished for it.
That should put me at like 45/55 into a Thralls lineup and 60/40 into aggro, which seems like a decent hedge. Meanwhile the Thralls lineups are like 35/65 into aggro. Just need to see how the populations play out I guess.
2-5, plus two forfeits from people dropping out in rounds 8 & 9.
I ran into two people hard countering Thresh Nasus with double Hush and TLC, and I lost a bunch of close mirrors 1-2. I did beat the one Thralls lineup I ran into, and also lost to the one aggro lineup I saw, which is funny given how I prepped.
Interestingly, although this was a pretty bad showing and my worst performance yet, I also had the most fun with it so far. When you have a deep run and lose it's kind of heartbreaking, but if you get knocked out earlier it's a much more relaxing experience because the stakes aren't really there, it's like you're just playing gauntlet/ladder instead.
I appreciate when you share your strategy behind your deck choices. You're playing at a deeper level than I am, but I still find it interesting to see the thought behind that level of play.
I'm glad to hear it! I was unsure if it was just clogging up the thread given that other people don't seem to be as competitively minded.
A lot of my knowledge is drawn from the community though. There's a discord for Masters players where I get advice and discuss stuff with the actual top players, and I listen to a couple podcasts and watch the occasional tourney.
Doing too much of that and too little practice hurts me though. I play maybe 15-20 hours of ladder a season and that lack of experience really hurts me, like losing all those mirrors for example.
The Sivir/Renekton Demacia guy brought it yesterday and top 32'd with it. It's interesting how little people care about that deck if it's apparently this solid.
Turns out you actually create a decent amount of cards with the Zilean deck, so Viktor was right at home and was all, "Yes, of course!" for the whole run. Used Advanced Prep and a bunch of created card cost reduction stuff and Viktor just ran away with it.
Viktor is super bullshit on his own, btw. You can just farm some of the games for health, sitting there murdering all of their dudes while you wait for Viktor to get lifesteal, and then boom, you leave the game with full health. I think at the end of the second-to-last match I was at 12 and then Viktor said, no, leave at 30.
Posts
He's also got a list in the post of the 20ish decks in "other meta decks", which is everything with 400+ games and 49%+ winrate. I'd never even heard of Sivir/Renekton Demacia before.
Well, ok...technically I'm missing 3 Champions, but otherwise it's all there.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
Twitch Page
(2-0) Masters Icon
Thresh Nasus, Ez Draven, Pirates
Opponent bans Thresh Nasus, I ban Thresh Nasus
Game 1: Azir Noxus (W) vs Ez Draven
Curved out perfectly while opponent struggled to find removal that lined up well with the board, dead to a Darius on 6.
Game 2: Ez Draven (W) vs Ez Draven
Opponent had some House Spiders and small removal and not much else while I was popping off with Dravens, Ballistic Bots, all the Rummages, and double Tri-Beams for 6+. Just a great demonstration of how much the deck's performance can differ based on draws.
Zilean was by far the hardest of the new set to drag through Heroic. Ended up going heavy into an Ashe deck, which is pretty silly combined with the new "Frostbite the strongest enemy every turn" power. Dropping a leveled Ashe on 4 every time is pretty funny. Zilean put in some serious work though. I got the "countdown landmarks activate twice" power and did some massive board sweep with multiple Time Bombs a few times.
Some other fun combos:
Malphite + Yasuo is hilarious. There's just so much stun and with the double countdown effect power your Eye of the Ra-Horak turns into "Instantly level Yasuo and kill everything". Which gets even funnier when your Yasuo has Fury. And if you can get the "Rally every turn" power, a leveled Malphite just completely shuts the enemy down.
Fizz + "slow spells activate twice" + Lux. Fizz's core deck has like 3 solid slow spells and Lux adds Remembrance and Final Spark. Double Trouble summons 4 blockers which is really fun and helps stabilize the board early. Remembrance gets you 2 generally very strong units. But the fun combo is once you get Lux on the board. Lux + Remembrance means she instantly levels and then gives you a second Final Spark. And both Final Sparks will cast twice, for 8 total damage each. It's quite strong.
Anyway, one interesting thing about Lab of Legends imo is that while it can't tell you if a deck concept is good, it can show you which concepts just kinda fundamentally don't work. So like Malphite I feel like makes sense at some base level. He's way too slow and landmarks are trash, so he's trash. But in a situation like Labs where you can afford to play a bit slower, he hits the board hard and he's got a few decent support cards for ramping. Zilean on the other hand and his predict package just kinda doesn't make sense imo. Even in Labs it just can't gel.
And it works! You can reliably pop Zilean up and down, getting enough Time Bombs that you can reliably set it up for one to draw into another. You can reliably get Zilean leveled up, and start getting fleeting Time Bombs on top of all of your regular Time Bombs. The gears mesh together and spin around quite nicely.
They just don't ever actually do much to the opponent, which is a fairly major flaw. I lost games where I got it all working just because by the time I ran out of steam, or even just had a bad turn or two where the gears DIDN'T mesh, they were still over there, patiently tossing surprised-Jinx emotes at my third Time Bomb of the turn.
The basic problem with predict is that it's not draw. So yeah, you can see and somewhat control what card you get next. But you can't get that card. It just replaces a different card and only does so once and only next turn. This is a good power but it's also fundamentally very limited. There's massive diminishing returns on using it and it ultimately provides no card advantage and a very limited ability to push your gameplan forward. What this ends up meaning is that you can't build a deck around the idea. It's just a nice added bonus to an already existing gameplan.
I think part of the issue is that the cards they've designed to lean on Predict need a stronger version of the concept to work but that stronger version would be ridiculously powerful outside that specific archetype. It also feels like there just isn't enough Predict to go around.
But just fundamentally you you predict once, you get a better card then you might have gotten next turn and ... yeah, that's it. A second predict gives you a better chance of getting a card if you didn't get one you wanted the first time. If you did get the one you wanted the first time, every other predict is literally detrimental to your plan. And then you are just replacing a draw you would have had next turn.
There's a kind of synergy between draw and predict where you predict first and then use draw to put that card into your hand. But both powers are too limited and too expensive to make that viable. It's a lot of resources spent on a chance of pulling the card you want.
So with Zilean you've got at best like a 1/3 chance of getting that Time Bomb when you drop him and that's only next turn. So then you gotta draw the damn thing and then the next card you don't even know what you are getting. And it sets you back 2 mana for each time bomb and on a landmark, which gets you no blockers or attackers.
Khahiri the Returned is even more emblematic of these problems. The idea is clear: fill your deck with Khahiris so you predict them more often, then flood the board. But firstly he's just too fucking expensive for this strat to work. At 6 mana your gameplan can't even really come online till late game. And then chances of buffing him before that are minimal because predict is not that reliable at hitting a specific card. And then you gotta burn a draw just to put him in your hand.
Predict as a power is good. But it's not a power you can build a deck around because it's just too limited. Which is one of the big problems with Zilean and his archetype.
They didn't even give Malphite the one that removes shit from the board. They gave him a ton of landmarks that buff and shit and like 4 follower cards, good fucking luck.
Take the Advanced Preparations power. Malphite can do real solid on anything but Hexcore.
3/3 Chip and Blue Sentinel will block early, fish for Eye of the Ra-Horak and then Malphite closes it out with non-stop stuns.
Picking a good 2nd champ is really important though.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
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Scry decks in MtG can be very good and that's basically what this is. Except Scry actually dictates where each card you're looking at is gonna go.
Could also be cool to have cards that did something like "when you predict and see me, draw me and predict a new card in my place." Or "when you predict me and don't pick me, put me second from the top in your deck."
Definitely agree that Predict works pretty well as a mechanic that you're glad to have in your deck, but needs something to really grease the wheels of it as an archetype.
https://riot.com/2TZeupu
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
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"When you predict and see me, put a fleeting copy in your hand" could also be cool.
So nothing changed? :biggrin:
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
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Oh wait shit wrong company
Also there's no way I'm spending money on the alt art, but Pool Party Draven is perfect in every way.
https://podcast.tidalwavegames.com/
I wonder why that could be....
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
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Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198004484595
Our overall lineup rock paper scissors is Thralls/Deep/X (usually Azirelia or Shurima Noxus Overwhelm) > Thresh Nasus/Ez Draven/Y (usually Dragons) > triple aggro and then it loops back around to the start. Although I quite enjoy playing Thralls, I think my experience in the mirror is lacking. Aggro lineups seem highly reliant on dodging Thresh Nasus which seems unlikely. So I've decided that I'm just going to ban Lissandra decks and run the cookie cutter anti-aggro lineup.
I considered running Zoe Vi instead of Dragons, which would retain my Hush deck for mirror lineups and can tech Aftershocks to make the ban options more fluid, but I think I'd rather have the edge against aggro instead. In the past I've had that third deck be an aggro deck to really capitalize on pressuring Azirelia, but discussion with other players has discouraged me from doing that given how damaging it is into another Thresh Nasus lineup compared to a Hush deck. Since I'm banning Thralls anyway I also thought about possibly swapping Scorched Earth for Noxian Guillotine, but I think the edge it would give into Thresh Nasus isn't worth it compared to the chance I run into some rogue landmark decks like Star Springs, Scargrounds, or Hexcore.
Thresh Nasus CMBQEBAFAMIAIAIFFAYDCNAEAQDQEGRPM4BACBAHPEBQCBILDERAEAIBAUAQCBAHHM
1 Rite of Negation, 1 Vengeance, just enough to make people respect spell mana.
Ez Draven CECACAQDBEBACAYUFYBAGBAFCECACBABEQTDIAYBAMBQ2AQBAMCDGAYBAQNR6JYBAEAQGNY
Some people are on 1 Farron now but I still prefer 2. If you don't counter pressure Thresh Nasus they just build Nasus up in hand and OTK you on like turn 13 before you can ping Nasus to enable Scorched Earth.
Dragons CIBQCAIADIBAGCKV3UAQIAYAAYEAWDQEAEAQACYBAIAACAIEAAHAKAYJDQ4VOXDEAIAQCAAPAIBQSAYJ
3 Concerted Strike, 1 Judgment because I need the edge into Deep. Even running 6 lifesteal units this feels kind of greedy and I'm hoping I don't get punished for it.
That should put me at like 45/55 into a Thralls lineup and 60/40 into aggro, which seems like a decent hedge. Meanwhile the Thralls lineups are like 35/65 into aggro. Just need to see how the populations play out I guess.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
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I ran into two people hard countering Thresh Nasus with double Hush and TLC, and I lost a bunch of close mirrors 1-2. I did beat the one Thralls lineup I ran into, and also lost to the one aggro lineup I saw, which is funny given how I prepped.
Interestingly, although this was a pretty bad showing and my worst performance yet, I also had the most fun with it so far. When you have a deep run and lose it's kind of heartbreaking, but if you get knocked out earlier it's a much more relaxing experience because the stakes aren't really there, it's like you're just playing gauntlet/ladder instead.
A lot of my knowledge is drawn from the community though. There's a discord for Masters players where I get advice and discuss stuff with the actual top players, and I listen to a couple podcasts and watch the occasional tourney.
Doing too much of that and too little practice hurts me though. I play maybe 15-20 hours of ladder a season and that lack of experience really hurts me, like losing all those mirrors for example.
Braum + Vlad + Endurance (the power that gives a unit +1/+1 whenever it takes damage)
This basically makes all the pings from Vlad Crimson cards into +1 attack and lets your Braum units grow real fucking beefy.
Basilisk Bloodseeker especially becomes super amusing. (the card that hits your unit and an enemy unit 4 times for 1 damage)
Turns out you actually create a decent amount of cards with the Zilean deck, so Viktor was right at home and was all, "Yes, of course!" for the whole run. Used Advanced Prep and a bunch of created card cost reduction stuff and Viktor just ran away with it.
Viktor is super bullshit on his own, btw. You can just farm some of the games for health, sitting there murdering all of their dudes while you wait for Viktor to get lifesteal, and then boom, you leave the game with full health. I think at the end of the second-to-last match I was at 12 and then Viktor said, no, leave at 30.