Legends of Runeterra might’ve lost some of its popularity on Twitch, but the metagame keeps developing and changing week to week. Some of the new decks that came in the wake of Patch 0.9.2 are still there, but new, powerful ones have also appeared to take over the ladder.
Below is a list of some of the best LoR decks, updated as of Apr. 2.
1. Bannerman Midrange
If you are playing Legends of Runeterra ranked ladder, there’s 100% chance that you have encountered some of the many versions of Bannerman Midrange. The namesake of the deck, Vanguard Bannerman, is the key card (obviously), giving +1/+1 to all your units if it triggers Allegiance.
The majority of Bannerman decks will therefore run almost an identical list: 37-38 Demacia cards and splash 2-3 other cards. Variants include:
- Splash of Shadow Isles for Rekindler to revive your champions
- Any combination of Zed, Lucian, Fiora, and Garen as champions (decklist)
- Splash of Omen Hawk for extra unit-buffing (decklist)
This is an incredibly powerful and easy to play list. It has a strong curve of durable units, who almost become unkillable once Bannerman buffs them. If they play Fiora, they also have ways to deal with Elusive decks, and if they play the Lucian/Senna, they become very dangerous against controls too.
2. Corina control
This is a relatively new archetype but one that has taken over the ladder recently. Its key cards are Commander Ledros, Atrocity, and the namesake of the deck: Corina Veraza.
This deck starts by chipping away your health points with spider offense from Elise and Brood Awakening. This isn’t meant to kill you, just to soften your Nexus. Once in the late game, the deck starts dropping Commander Ledros over and over again, melting down the remaining hit points. Once the Nexus is low enough, it plays either Atrocity or drops Corina Veraza. Corina’s effect serves as a board clear as well, as it’ll often deal 4-5 damage to everything, since most of the deck is spells.
Corina control is very powerful against other controls, since removal is very ineffective against Ledros and there’s enough time to find all the tools to finish the game. It struggles a bit against OTK (one-turn-kill) Ezreal decks, however.
3. I/F Elusives
Unless the Elusive mechanic and units drastically change, the I/F Elusive likely won’t disappear from the meta. It has been here since day 1 and it’s still going strong, several patches later.
The difference is that the new Elusive decks have gotten more aggressive. There is no hand and deck buffing and it’s almost pure aggression. Jeweled Protector is the new addition after Patch 0.9.2, securing a strong mid-game buff for the deck.
Oftentimes, however, Elusives will struggle against Bannerman Midrange, especially those that run Fiora. Bannerman decks like their Challenger units and can snipe the weaker Elusives by dragging them out of the shadows.
4. Endure Tokens
Another deck that rose to popularity in the Patch 0.9.2 meta, the S/F Endure Tokens is a solid Tier S deck in Legends of Runeterra. It starts by playing cheap early game units for early offense, not caring if and how many of them die.
The finisher of the deck is They Who Endure, a powerful unit that, when summoned, gets +1/+1 for each unit that has died this game. Suddenly, all those 1/1 spiders and Omen Hawks become valuable and you’ll often see 9/9 Endures on Turn 6, sometimes even larger.
They Who Endure also has Overwhelm, so it can’t be chump-blocked, but in case the opponents find a big enough unit to block and kill it, in comes Atrocity to fling Endure at the Nexus for lethal damage.
5. Karma/Heimer control
Karma is an evergreen control staple and the next two decks are all built around her. The first one is the Ionia/Piltover combo with Heimerdinger, which is all about the spell synergy: Karma creates free spells, Heimerdinger turns them into free turrets.
This is an old archetype that doesn’t need much more presentation. It does well against Elusives and can put enough pressure to bend the Corina controls. It’s issues are the Endure Token decks, as well as the S/I Karma control, the latter being a very skill-intensive match-ups.
6. S/I Karma control
This is the list that Pokrovac took to top 10 on all three servers at the same time and it’s still strong in the current meta. It doesn’t run The Harrowing, as it no longer revives enemy units too, and it’s more built towards respawning Karma over and over again and generating infinite value.
The deck runs 2x Thresh to deal with aggro decks and the obligatory set of Emerald Awakeners as the main finisher. With 3x Solitary Monk and Frenzied Skitterer, the deck can even put decent pressure against Endure Tokens and Corina controls. The latter, however, remains a problematic match-up and relies on the Karma control to pull off double/triple Mist’s Call combos to overtake the board — ideally with Emerald Awakeners so they can keep healing back the Nexus.
7. Draven/Ezreal combo
After Elnuks got nerfed, Freeze Ezreal combos got out of fashion, but the champion found a new best friend in Draven. Like the Freeze Combo, this is another OTK deck, but focusing more on aggression than stalling until it finds all OTK pieces.
This list has a lot of tools to deal with aggro, taking care of the annoying early games of Corina Controls and Endure Tokens. Noxian Guillotine is also a great removal against fat units (Those Who Endure, Emerald Awakener, champions, and anything in the Bannerman Midrange decks) and is great in combination with Statikk Shock.
Draven is there to apply early game pressure and get the Nexus down to OTK reach. Like the Freeze Combo deck, this one is a fun and rewarding list to play.
8. Lux Mageseekers
In the first days of Patch 0.9.2, this was the dominant control list, but it has fallen down drastically since. The deck is slow and greedy, giving way too much time to the other, stronger controls to find their finishers. It doesn’t run a lot of removal either and mostly relies on units to control the board, which makes it easy prey to the Bannerman Midrange decks.
Once Lux and Heimerdinger start working in tandem, however, the deck peaks and is very hard to deal with. The free 4-damage Final Sparks are a great way to keep the board clean, which usually spells the end for Elusive decks, but the other top contenders will have either killed the Mageseeker Control, or will have game-finishing threats that won’t give a damn about the Final Spark.
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