Legends of Runeterra Best Decks – Meta Report

The Best Meta Decks for Legends of Runeterra (A Curious Journey)

Hey everyone! Welcome back to our Meta Decks Report for Legends of Runeterra.

As always, these deck recommendations will be provided by our Glimpse Beyond expert, Swim.

Swim will be creating and curating competitive decks for our site and content so be sure to bookmark his Mobalytics Deck Library and follow him on Twitch, Youtube, or Swim’s LoR website.

If you want to explore the meta on your own, check out our Meta Stats feature for the most in-depth statistics in LoR.

Best Runeterra Decks

• S-tier: Pirate Aggro (Bilgewater + Noxus)
• S-tier: Feel the Ramp (Freljord + Shadow Isles)
• S-tier: Jayce Sentinels (Piltover/Zaun + Shadow Isles)
• S-tier: Creations (Noxus + Piltover/Zaun)
• S-tier: Scouts (Bilgewater + Demacia)
• A-tier: Freljord Overwhelm (Freljord + Noxus)
• A-tier: Mono Shurima (Shurima)
• A-tier: Ezreal Slow Burn (Noxus + Piltover/Zaun)
• A-tier: Bandle Burn (Bandle City + Noxus)
• A-tier: Spider Aggro (Noxus + Shadow Isles)
• A-tier: Fate (Demacia + Targon)
• A-tier: Rumble Discard (Noxus + Piltover/Zaun)
• B-tier: Formidable (Demacia + Targon)
• B-tier: Lurk (Bilgewater + Shurima)
• B-tier: Darkness Control (Bandle City + Shadow Isles)
• B-tier: Irelia Azir Blades (Ionia + Shurima)

Note that our experts update the tier list often so there may be some lag time between this blog version and the one on our site. When in doubt, use the LoR Meta Tier List feature for the most up-to-date tier list.

LoR Meta Decks

Whether you like to play aggro, midrange, control, or combo, we’ve got meta deck archetype for you. Enjoy!

S-tier LoR Decks

Pirate Aggro (Bilgewater + Noxus)

Deck code: CECAGAQGCYTDYBABAMBAYDZIAIBAGAYEAECQMAICAEAQGJIDAIDCALJ6AEBAEBQ2HI

[See Pirate Aggro deck details]

General info

A deck that pushes for fast wins giving you short game times. A great choice for players looking to punish greedy decks.

How to play

Your biggest priority is making sure you have a good early curve with your 1 drops.

🃏 Mulligan 🃏

Mulligan for an aggressive early game, your late game finishers and over the tops like Decimate will come naturally in your later draws.

Keep: Legion Rearguard, Legion Saboteur, Jagged Butcher, Miss Fortune

💡 Tips 💡 ‎ ‎ ‎

You don’t want to use Noxian Fervor proactively unless you’re forced to or you have multiple back up plays to push through lethal.

Noxian Fervor is great as a counter to drain spells like Grasp or general removal since you can use it in response.

Sometimes you can use the kegs to set up burn turns or have a better attack with Miss Fortune.

👌 Strong Against: Lurk

👎 Weak Against: Scouts

Feel the Ramp (Freljord + Shadow Isles)

Deck code: CECAIAYBAMDAUFQCAECQCKABAQAQ4AQBAEGCOBABAQAQUAQBAEKDIAIBAUOQCAYBCMBACAIBAEBACBIPDE

[See Feel the Ramp deck details]

General info

Feel the Rush is an easier to use and more immediate payoff version of Warmother’s Call. This is the premiere deck for ramp players.

How to play

Feel the Rush doesn’t provide as much value over time the Warmother’s Call but it provides a big enough impact to end the game on the turn or 2 after you play it.

The combination of Freljord Shadow Isles stall tools and the over the top potential of giant overwhelm units like Trundle and Tryndamere being pulled out for free off FTR.

Early game, your goal is ramping your mana with Catalyst of Aeons to get a fast Feel the Rush vs control or keeping your stall tools like Avalanche and early blockers so that you can survive to your late game.

Jayce Sentinels (Piltover/Zaun + Shadow Isles)

Deck code: CECAEBIFBMHQIBIECYMBWHYBAECDIAQBAUASQBABAECBWAQBAUYTKAIFBKMACAIFAUBQGAIFAQKQCAYEBMAQEBAI

[See Jayce Sentinel deck details]

General info

A great deck for players who like a flexible tempo-based gameplan.

How to play

The core of this deck revolves around using Shadow Isles removal spells to enable your sentinels for extremely valuable units. By making value plays with good trades and efficient removal, we can get in for chip damage and eventually burn our opponents out with our scaling burn cards.

Creations (Noxus + Piltover/Zaun)

Deck code: CECQIAYEAIBQKEQDAMBQCAYHAICQIFAZAIAQIJZUAEAQGAQCAECQIDABAQBRMAA

[See Creations deck details]

General info

Play Creations if you love aggressive value or have been waiting for a good deck to finally play Viktor in.

How to play

At its core, you want to play Creations as an aggro deck. Curve out your early drops to get in chip damage and then burn your opponent out with your spells. If the game goes longer, you can play a slower game with the generated value from your champions.

Scouts (Bilgewater + Demacia)

Deck code: CEDAIAIAAYER2MYCAQAAEBYCAUAAUDABAMAA4AQCAYLD4AICAADACAIFAYAQCAQCAADQU

[See Scouts deck details]

General info

Scouts is a unit focused Demacia deck. I highly recommend playing this board if you enjoy completely dominating board combat with Challengers.

How to Play

Scouts aim to curve out, trade efficiently, and level up Miss Fortune or Quinn. Miss Fortune is an amazing keep in the mulligan because of how easy she is to level with your scout units.

Your strong early plays are Fleetfeather into Brightsteel on turn 2 attack. Avoid playing Miss Fortune into obvious removal unless you have a way to protect her with one of your protective spells.

Once you’ve built a wide board, you can overwhelm your opponent with Cithria the Bold or Rally for lethals.

Freljord Overwhelm (Freljord + Noxus)

Deck code: CEEAIAIDBMGCMKACAEARMHYBAIAQMAIDAEBACBIBAYAQEAYFAECQVIIBAECQGDYCAEAQGDIBAEAQKAA

[See Freljord Overwhelm deck details]

General info

This deck is one of the beefiest decks in the game. Your overwhelm units are big and scary. If you enjoy beating your opponent’s face in with absolutely massive overwhelm units then this is the deck for you.

How to play

Freljord Overwhelm is an Aggressive Midrange decks in the format that focuses on going tall. It utilizes truly massive threats with overwhelm to attack for giant chunks of damage.

This deck includes Ancient Yeti which if you keep in your opening hand it can cost 4 by turn 4 and just gets cheaper from there which can give you some really powerful swing turns.

In general, you’re looking to play to the board aggressively in the early game so that by the mid game you’ve done enough damage where you can finish your opponent off with overwhelm or burn damage.

Mono Shurima (Shurima)

Deck code: CEBAOBAHAMGRYJJGMZWQEBIHBMHAEBAEA4NEQTCZAECQOBYBAMCAOAJ3HY

[See Mono Shurima deck details]

General info

Mono Shurima is a fun transformation deck that aims for value over time. Play this deck if you love value or enjoy watching movies.

How to play

Goal of this deck is to level Xerath and Azir as early as possible to trigger the Sun Disc and become ascended. An early Unraveled Earth makes leveling Xerath easy but you’ll have to wait to play a few more units to level up your Azir.

It’s advised to not play Azir until he’s leveled or you’re forced to in order to survive. Once you get your Emperor’s Deck and ascended champions, you should have no trouble closing out the game.

Ezreal Slow Burn (Noxus + Piltover/Zaun)

Deck code: CEDACAQDBECAKBAGBQGRQAYBAQPSINABAEBS4AIDAMGQCAYECEBACAIEDMBACAZTG4AQCBADAI

[See Ezreal Slow Burn deck details]

General info

This reactive midrange-control deck is for players who enjoy controlling the board whilst also developing some early pressure.

How to play

🃏 Mulligan 🃏

The mulligan relies heavily on what you are facing but keeping a Tri-Beam Improbulator with some 3 cost cards is always a good plan to start stacking Tri-Beam. Ezreal is great versus decks that struggle to deal with Elusives as you can get tons of value out of the mystic shots he provides. House Spider can buy you a few turns versus Aggro.

💡 Tips 💡 ‎ ‎ ‎

-BE COMFORTABLE PASSING. As a very reactive deck, you always want to be considering starting your turn with a pass. Ask yourself: If the opponent passed back and ended the turn, would that be a bad thing for me? Aggro players can’t afford to send to spell mana or skip attacks. Reactivity is KING.

-Thermogenic Beam for 3 mana triggers Tri-Beam so when possible try plan out your mana usage to get that extra trigger.

-Don’t be afraid to use Thermogenic beam early as you may struggle to use it in the late game, it can even be used for 0 when Ezreal is leveled for an extra 2 damage.

-Tri-beam is generally super solid at 5-6 charges, and growing past that point is sometimes even worse in terms of the random unit. Looking at you, 7.

-Playing Farron can leave you with little mana to work with and you may be easily punished, avoid playing Farron against decks that can swing the game in one turn until 100% safe to do so.

Bandle Burn (Bandle City + Noxus)

Deck code: CEBQOBIKA4HDCSNBAGRQDJQBAQAQGAQMB4UACAQDAMAQCAQDAQBACBIKUQAQCAIDG4

[See Bandle Burn deck details]

General info

Bandle Burn is a great deck for all in aggro players that like to hit their opponents fast and hard or lose trying.

How to Play

Flood the board with cheap units, efficient units then pump up your team or burn your opponent down to finish them off.

🃏 Mulligan 🃏

Keep: Legion Rearguard, Stone Stackers

Legion Saboteur and Inventive Chemist are less valuable in matchups that have access to early 1 damage pings.

💡 Tips 💡 ‎ ‎ ‎

-Noxian Fervor is great as a responsive card. Use it in response to your opponent spending their mana on a spell or when they are tapped out of mana and can’t stop the Fervor from going through.

👌 Strong Against: Lurk

👎 Weak Against: Poke City

A-tier LoR Decks

Spider Aggro (Noxus + Shadow Isles)

Deck code: CECAKAIDAIGA6KBXAMBQKAYEAYBQCBJHGU4AEAQDAMCAAAIBAECRM

[See Spider Aggro deck details]

General info

This scary aggro deck is for those who enjoy swarming the board with units that end up dealing some deadly direct damage due to their Fearsome keyword.

1 drops and Elise start the fight with some big hits followed by Frenzied Skitterer to reduce the amount of potential blockers and if that doesn’t finish them off then a Decimate or Doombeast will.

How to Play

🃏 Mulligan 🃏

As with all aggro decks this has a pretty straightforward mulligan. Look for 1-2 mana units, and pretty much nothing else. If you have early spiders already, you can definitely keep a Frenzied Skitterer.

💡 Tips 💡 ‎ ‎ ‎

-When facing decks with little removal, playing multiple Stygian Onlooker from Fading Memories or Stalking Shadows can be deadly in the early game.

-Always save Doombeast and Decimate until your opponent is low or you run out of cards to play.

-Plan out your damage, if you face an opponent that has no answer to decimate and you have one in hand, treat it as if your opponent is on 4 less health.

-Keep Noxian Fervor as a way to fizzle a drain spell or removal in general unless it’s completely safe to do so. You can also completely stop a lifesteal attack by declaring a block while sacrificing the blocker with Fervor on the same action.

-Elise’s Champion Spell (which summons 2 Spiderlings if a unit died this turn) can be a useful way to trigger her level up as well as having some smaller spiders to challenge the bigger blockers aside.

Fate (Demacia + Targon)

Deck code: CECQGBIJAMCQMBADBENSGM24AEBQADQBAUFB2AIEAABAGAQBAAERUAIFBEFACAQAAEBACAIABUAQGCOXAE

[See Fate deck details]

General info 

Fate is a midrange deck that’s perfect for players that like to slam down and buff up lots of big stompy units.

How to Play

🃏 Mulligan 🃏

Keep: Saga Seeker, Pantheon, Wounded Whiteflame, Yuumi

💡Tips 💡

-Be flexible in your gameplan. Sometimes you’ll be able to turbo level Pantheon and other times he’ll take a back seat while you build up your dragons.

👌 Strong Against: Scouts

👎 Weak Against: Lurk

Rumble Discard (Noxus + Piltover/Zaun)

Deck code: CEDAEAYEAUJAEBIDAYGQGAIEE4WTIAIEAQIAGAIDAIJRIAIFBJMACAICAMBQEAIFAQKACBIDBE

[See Rumble Discard deck details]

General Info

This is a unique deck archetype that actively uses discarding as a main synergy point to its strategy.

Instead of burning through its resources quickly, Discard Midrange aims to play a more flexible value-based gameplan.

How to Play

With good early draws we can pressure our opponent’s life total fast but we can grind our opponent’s out with value as well.

Urchin, and Dredger help develop to the field while generating card draw and discard value.

Once your opponent is low, the deck still has the over the top burn to close the game out.

🃏 Mulligan 🃏

Keep: Lost Soul, Zaunite Urchin, Fallen Rider, Boom Baboon

💡 Tips 💡 ‎ ‎ ‎

• Lost Soul is an infinite discard target that is amazing at leveling Sion quickly. ‎‎  ‎
• Don’t tunnel on using axes to level Draven. He’s a powerful champion to fuel your discard cards even at level 1.

👌 Strong Against: Bandle Burn

👎 Weak Against: Rally Elusives

B-tier LoR Decks

Formidable (Demacia + Targon)

Deck code: CEDAKBIABEGA4EQUAEBQCAQBAUAQIAIBAEZACBIKUEAQCAQAAEBQCAYABYAQKAARAICQCAICAIAQCAIEAEAQAGQ

[See Formidable deck details]

General info

Formidable plays units that are, by themselves, resilient. Play this deck if you like taking beefy cards and keeping them alive through tricks and buffs.

How to Play

🃏 Mulligan 🃏

Keep: Dragon Chow, Wounded Whiteflame, Petricite Broadwing

💡 Tips 💡

-Dragon’s Clutch is important to give over the top with Overwhelm. Only use it for draw if you have to.

-Sometimes it’s important to skip close blocks with cards like Dragon Chow or Wounded Whiteflame so that you can guarantee their value by playing around enemy buff spells.

Lurk (Bilgewater + Shurima)

Deck code: CEBAKBAGAEBQKBYPBACAOAITCY3ECRCKKAAACAIEAYBA

[See Lurkers deck details]

General Info 

🃏 Mulligan 🃏

We’re trying to trigger Lurk as much as possible so prioritize mulligan for a good early curve.

💡 Tips 💡 ‎ ‎ ‎

Snapjaw is best used on off-turns in order to trigger more Lurks.

We want to avoid playing Rek’Sai unless we can level her that turn or if we plan on using her on a turn we also want to Bone Skewer.

Predicts are perfect in order to ensure we have a Lurker on top of our deck or to grab key cards when we need them for a matchup

👌 Strong Against: Dragons, Thralls, Darkness Control

👎 Weak Against: Rally Elusives, Bandle Burn, Plunder Midrange

Darkness Control (Bandlewood + Shadow Isles)

Deck code: CEBQOBIKAQYTSXK6MKTACAIBAUUAEBIFBAEQCAYFBIARVUIBAIBQCBITCQXACBAFHA

[See Darkness Control deck details]

General Info

All in Veigar Darkness package that is fun for players that love to sling spells.

How to Play

Our primary goal is to develop an early Veigar and Senna and start ramping up your Darkness and controlling the board. Eventually we can start going for face once we leveled Veigar.

🃏 Mulligan 🃏

Keep: Twisted Catalyzer, Darkbulb, Veigar, Otterpus

💡 Tips 💡 ‎ ‎ ‎

– Don’t tunnel on triggering Ixtali’s effect. Ixtali Sentinel can come out in a pinch even if you can’t trigger her last effect but she’s still a large sized leech body.

-Twisted Catalyzer can get a lot of value if your opponent doesn’t have much removal as long as you remove their blockers.    ‎

👌 Strong Against: Discard

👎 Weak Against: Rally Elusives, Plunder Midrange, Lurk

Irelia Azir Blades (Ionia + Shurima)

Deck code: CEBQIBAHAMNDGXICAEBAMKQFAQBAIBIIBEFQGAIEA43ACAICBQAQGAQFAEAQIB3Z

[See Irelia Azir Blades deck details]

General info

This lightning fast combo deck is for the players who love to bombard their opponent with constant attacks from card effects. Set up Azir or Emperor’s Dais and then spam blade dances until your opponent folds to the unrelenting pressure.

How to play

🃏 Mulligan 🃏

Auto keep: Azir, Emperor’s Dais, Sparring Student.

Luxury keep (Keep these if you already have some auto keeps): Irelia.

Only keep Irelia if you have some of these early pieces already in hand; she isn’t core to the strategy and is interchangeable with other blade dances. Greenglade Duo should only be kept in matchups without elusive blockers.

💡 Tips 💡 ‎ ‎ ‎

• -Try to save your Blade Dances for finishers once you’ve set up your Dais, Azir, and sometimes Inspiring Marshall. Usually this is turn 4-6.
• When Irelia is leveled you can save up the swap spell given each attack to then swap Irelia with a unit with no blocker then swap again with a bigger unit such as Azir or Sparring Student.
• Both Irelia and Azir can be summoned from the Return spell after using Retreat which can be a useful way of cheaply cheating them out when your opponent taps out of mana.

👌 Strong Against: Any slower decks

👎 Weak Against: Aggro, Thresh Nasus

Conclusion

So there you have it! We’ll be updating the decks regularly so check back here. We also have our dedicated meta feature for LoR within our platform. See you next time.

Thanks for reading! To explore all the cards in LoR, check out our Card Gallery or jump straight into our Deck Builder if you already got some ideas from our article. Show us your best decks in the comments below. Be sure to follow our expert, EG Swim, at his LoR website, Twitch, Twitter, and Youtube.

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