12 Decks To Counter Ezreal Seraphine Noxus | Legends of Runeterra Patch 3.18

Introduction

Hey there, Raphterra here! Seraphine Ezreal Noxus is the most popular deck of the patch by a huge margin. In the past 7 days, this archetype has a 13.9% playrate with over 100,000 matches. When a deck has a playrate of this caliber, it’s usually a decent strategy to use counter decks for your ladder climb. In this article, I will be featuring 12 decks that can counter Ezreal Seraphine Noxus.

Take note that Ezreal Seraphine is a very strong deck, and skilled pilots may still find ways to win games against unfavored matchups. Tier 1 decks are high-tier for good reason.

With that out of the way, let’s begin!

---

Pantheon Vayne

Pantheon Vayne is the first deck in this list with it’s 59.7% winrate when facing Ezreal Seraphine. You can force two-for-one trades by buffing up low-cost units like Saga Seeker, Mountain Goat, and Petricite Broadwing. If you can force out removal spells on your early units, your opponent will not have enough resources to deal with Level 2 Pantheon, Camphor, the Doubt, and Horazi in the late game.

Ravenous Flock is Ezreal Seraphine‘s way of removing units efficiently, but Targon has Guiding Touch, The Expanse’s Protection, and Mountain Goat‘s Gems to prevent this from happening. The Darkin Aegis‘ Tough keyword makes removing units even harder. Single Combat and Concerted Strike are reliable removal tools to deal with their champions, as long as you use them on units with Spellshield.

---

Vayne Jax

Following Pantheon Vayne is another Vayne deck: Vayne Jax. This archetype has a favorable 59.3% winrate against Ezreal Seraphine. Similar to Pantheon Vayne, this deck has early units that can force out removal spells (Ionian Hookmaster, Jax, Piltovan Castaway). This may then give way for the deck’s main finishers to close out games (Ranger-Knight Defector, Bloodcursed Harpy).

Vayne Jax usually wins by forcing Ezreal Seraphine to use all their mana, then using Scout attacks with Ranger-Knight Defector or Bloodcursed Harpy to finish games. This version runs several copies of Fish Fight, Single Combat, and Concerted Strike as removal for opposing champions.

---

Viktor Seraphine Shadow Isles

If you’re a Seraphine enjoyer yourself, Viktor Seraphine Shadow Isles is a solid option to crush the mirror matchup. The spooky variant of Seraphine has a 57.3% winrate against Ezreal Seraphine Noxus. The reason for this is very straightforward; Shadow Isles gives the deck access to reliable champion removal tools in the mirror: Quietus and Vengeance. The Seraphine mirror is a grindy, value-oriented matchup, and whoever can stick more champions on board usually wins.

---

Zed Hecarim

Zed Hecarim recently gained a lot of traction after seeing success in the hands of several Master players. This ephemeral combo deck is a great option to counter the meta with its 53.9% Masters winrate against Ezreal Seraphine Noxus. Ezreal Seraphine will have a difficult time surviving against continuous attacks of multiple Shark Chariots. Dragon Ambush can be extremely punishing on turns where Fanclub President or Back Alley Bar are played.

This is the deck that I used to climb to Masters this season, where I had a score 12 Wins and 3 Losses against Seraphine decks. If you want to learn how to play this fun archetype, check out my full guide on Zed Hecarim!

---

Aphelios Seraphine Zoe Purrsuit of Perfection

If the Shadow Isles variant of Seraphine isn’t enticing enough for you, a Targon version with Aphelios might do the trick. Purrsuit of Perfection Targon decks have been showing some success for the past weeks, and we might have reached the optimized version of the archetype. Aphelios Seraphine is another mirror-breaking Seraphine deck with a 61.5% Masters winrate against Ezreal Seraphine Noxus. The gameplan for the mirror matchup is to force out Disintegrate with Seraphine or Aphelios. Catastrophe can win the game instantly if your opponent doesn’t have an answer for it.

---

Miss Fortune Swain

The revamped version of Miss Fortune Pirates is a great option for aggro players looking to counter the meta. Miss Fortune Swain has a 56.1% Masters winrate against Ezreal Seraphine Noxus. This underplayed archetype might be the next meta breaker, as it currently has a very impressive overall Masters winrate of 61.7% in 2400+ games.

Turn 5 Swain can be difficult to answer for Ezreal Seraphine, especially since they would already need to deal with the usual early aggression from Pirates. This version no longer runs the nerfed Decimate, but instead runs a full set of The Leviathan to close off games.

---

Mono Shurima Sun Disc

Mono Shurima Sun Disc is back? Kind of, but not really.. Azir Xerath has a surprising winrate of 55.1% against Ezreal Seraphine, but unfortunately it loses against almost everything else. Games against aggressive decks like Annie Jhin and Zed Hecarim are extremely unfavored, and the Vayne matchups are nothing to be celebrated about.

That being said, a deck that’s favored into the most-played and most popular deck should still be a decent deck to take for ranked ladder. Mono Shurima hasn’t seen any competitive play since its nerf, so I’m counting this as a win for the archetype!

---

Shadow Isles Feel The Rush

Trundle Tryndamere Feel The Rush might be the hardest counter to Ezreal Seraphine with its 61.1% winrate against it. Shadow Isles Feel The Rush has always been the hard counter to removal-based Noxus P&Z archetypes like Ezreal Draven and Ezreal Caitlyn.

Ezreal Seraphine wants to use spells and target units to progress their champion level ups. Feel The Rush decks can just not play any unit and focus on ramping up mana gems instead. Summoning Tryndamere and Trundle from Feel The Rush is usually game-winning, considering that Ezreal Seraphine doesn’t exert enough pressure in the early turns.

---

Demacia is the Key? – Other Potential Counter Decks

The following decklists are all favored into Ezreal Seraphine according to the numbers. However, the sample size for these decks are not large enough to make reliable conclusions about their matchup against Ezreal Seraphine. Nonetheless, there are some builds below that you might be interested in exploring.

---

Closing Words

In every meta, there’s always a deck that the community complains about either due to its power level or due to its frustrating play patterns. Ezreal Seraphine is the controversial deck of the expansion, with some players claiming it to be worse than what we had back when Azir Irelia was dominating.

In my opinion, the current meta is actually pretty fine compared to what we had back then. Facing Kai’sa Demacia, Azir Irelia, and even pre-nerf Mono Shurima felt more frustrating to me compared to facing Ezreal Seraphine. The deck is relatively counterable, and hopefully this article helps you find the counter deck that you can bring to your ladder climb!

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me on YouTube, Discord, or Twitter!