5 Off-Meta Decks Spotted in Masters – Patch 3.9
Hello everyone, Dragonguy here, and today I am here to bring you some off-meta decks that have been cropping up and having some success in Masters so far in Worldwalker patch 3.9.
The Worldwaker expansion gave us our first taste of Runeterran champions Jhin and Bard, and the patch has really shaken up the meta a lot. We just received the bug fix patch for 3.9, and won’t be seeing any balance changes until the next patch, which was teased by Steve Rubin. In the meantime, if you’re looking for some spicy brews to try out, I’ve got you covered.
All 5 decks that will be featured today come fresh from the Masters ladder, and will have the player and region of the player I got them from listed below. With that out of the way, let’s dive into the deck.
1. LeBlanc Bard
Bard Leblanc
created by Dragonguy • last updated 11 months ago
Regions
3
32
3
2
Types
6
24
10
0
0
Rarities
6
0
14
20
Mana Cost
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7+
- Player: Szychu
- Server: EMEA
To start things off, we have Bard pairing up with Noxus. Here, we’re combining Bard’s chime package with LeBlanc and reputation cards.
Leblanc is a champion that hasn’t seen much play, even after her latest buff to give her a Mirror Image on level up. This means she will benefit a lot from having 5+ power allies assisting her, as she can copy her allies with Mirror Image. This also incentivizes the Reputation mechanic to utilize some of the strong payoffs for achieving reputation. Enter Bard.
Bard will continually buff allies in hand with Chimes, making your units in hand larger as you accrue more and more Chimes. This benefits Leblanc greatly, as it can grow units to trigger reputation while making them bulkier. Getting Chimes on a key unit to put it out of removal range early can completely swing a game, and overwhelm units are great units to get buffed. Additionally, this deck gets to run Might, which can take advantage of getting a large unit with Bard.
There are many different Bard decks running around, so what does this deck have to offer? For one, the deck has some decent draw. Whispered Words can actually get discounted in this deck, making it a great card draw option. Trifarian Assessor also provides solid draw in the deck, especially when she is buffed by a chime to include herself. Then you have overwhelm, which allows you to use the extra stats from Bard to push for more damage. Finally, you can access rally with Incisive Tactician, which is especially devastating when paired with Mirror Image.
If you’re looking for a different take on the current assortment of Bard decks, Leblanc is looking to be another solid pairing. LeBlanc hasn’t seen a lot of play in recent days, so it’s nice to play a deck with her where she feels good.
2. Ziggs Taliyah Conservatory
Taliyah Ziggs Conservatory
created by Dragonguy • last updated 11 months ago
Regions
11
29
Types
6
8
20
6
0
Rarities
6
1
16
17
Mana Cost
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7+
- Player: beastllama
- Server: Americas
Up next we have a new take on Ziggs Taliyah, opting to go to Noxus to splash Ravenbloom Conservatory. This deck seeks to combine the landmark package of Shurima with the removal suite of Noxus, and get a lot of value from Tybaulk.
You have a few units for the early game, but the main goal is to find your Ravenbloom Conservatory, and enough landmarks to flip your champions. It can be a bit slow to progress Ravenbloom early, as we don’t have many skill attack units. As a matter of fact, only Ziggs and Taliyah have skills, but they both benefit greatly from an increase in damage from Tybaulk.
For protection, we have a copy of Rite of Negation and Ancient Hourglass. Ancient Hourglass in particular is quite good, as if used on Tybaulk, it will give you another summon trigger, further buffing your damage. To really go for the Tybaulk synergy, we’ve opted for Ricochet. Each Tybaulk summoned increases the damage by 5, allowing you to do some insane damage with the spell once he hits the field.
How does this deck stack up compared to the other Ravenbloom Conservatory decks, or Ziggs Taliyah decks? First off, the deck flips the landmark quite slowly. Since your spells want you to be reactively, and your landmarks want to be proactive, it can be hard to balance both plans and make the mana work.
Once Taliyah levels though, she turbo flips the landmark, progressing it by 3 with each volley. The landmark cards are quite strong on their own, and having access to hard removal from Disintegrate is quite nice. I would say this is not the best list for utilizing Ravenbloom Conservatory, BUT killing your opponent from full with a buffed up Ricochet is extremely satisfying.
3. Senna Veigar PNZ
Senna Veigar PnZ
created by Dragonguy • last updated 11 months ago
Regions
19
21
Types
6
9
22
3
0
Rarities
6
2
10
22
Mana Cost
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7+
- Player: Tealred
- Server: APAC
Coming up next we have Darkness… Outside of Bandle City. This list certainly surprised me when I first saw it, as Darkness is pretty entrenched in BC. After playing the deck a bit, however, I was seeing some moderate success with the deck, and it performed above expectations.
This deck is all about controlling the board and removing opposing units. You supplement your SI removal options with PNZ, which gives you a ton of removal tools. Ferros Financier gets to utilize the powerful SI pool of cards, and with The Forge of Tomorrow, you’re able to keep up spell mana after your big plays. Defective Swapbot seems odd at first, but can do some solid work against big threat units to weaken them. Commander Ledros lets this deck actually end the game, and there’s plenty of stall to get you there.
So, why are we going to PNZ for Darkness instead of Bandle? On top of this, our champions are the only way to generate darkness, so how would we generate more? For the second question, we have Mist’s Call. This lets us revive an ally that died, so if we play it right we can revive our champs and make more Darkness. Another thing we get from PNZ is more direct burn damage and landmark removal from Aftershock. Along with a full playset of Piltovan Tellstones, we have quite a few ways to access landmark removal and face damage, as well as draw cards when we need to from a Progress Day.
For the first question, losing our other darkness generators and darkness buff units does hurt. But, the PNZ tools we gain access to ease this pain, and provide some powerful options we don’t have access to in Bandle. Additionally, you have more options for win conditions, with access to on demand burn.
The deck is pretty solid into aggressive lists, as you have a lot of early removal and a bit of healing. Slowing down the game and drawing it out is what you want from this deck, especially if you are able to slowly build up your Darkness with Veigar in play. If you’ve missed Darkness and are looking to try a new twist on the archetype, this deck has been putting up pretty solid results for Tealred, and it might be able to do the same for you.
4. Teemo Tristana Allegiance + Atrocity Splash
Teemo Tristana Atro
created by Dragonguy • last updated 11 months ago
Regions
39
1
Types
6
24
10
0
0
Rarities
6
3
18
13
Mana Cost
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7+
- Player: TKG Goon
- Region: EMEA
Next up after that control list, we have a much more aggressively slanted list in Teemo Tristana splashing Atrocity. The deck does something that no Bandle City deck has done before: actually play the allegiance unit, Gruff Grenadier.
The deck seeks to utilize strong engines in Bandle City Mayor and Gleaming Lantern to cheat costs and quickly deploy a powerful board. We can buff up our multi-region units with Tristana and Faes with Grandfather Fae, strengthening our units we play. Many Fae are multi-region, so we get to double dip a bit of the value we get from the packages, and it can quickly get out of hand if our engines are left intact.
The deck really likes to swarm, so it wants to have ways to end the game with this strategy. One way to abuse the wide board is Yordle in Arms. While nerfed to +3|+3, it is still powerful and allows us to close out the game in one big swing. Another way to close out games is make an Elusive with Rainbowfish. Finally, our 1 of spells, Friendship! and Atrocity, can catch our opponents off guard and swing games in our favor.
Tristana has fallen off a bit since the nerf to Demacia Yordles in Arms, but this deck utilizes her quite well. Teemo is here for an early elusive body that is multi-region and gives us a region for Yordle in Arms. The deck has felt quite strong against decks that didn’t interact much early, so it could quickly snowball out of control. However, the deck is a bit susceptible to early interaction, as you want to set up a few of your engine units before swarming, and lack consistent protection for your units. Still, if you want to try a new aggressive list, this deck is a great deck to try out.
5. Bard Renekton
Bard Renekton
created by Dragonguy • last updated 11 months ago
Regions
4
3
3
30
Types
6
20
11
3
0
Rarities
6
2
10
22
Mana Cost
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7+
- Player: djreddragon
- Server: APAC
For the final deck on our list, we have Bard Renekton, also known as “Yup Croc”. The deck has been gaining popularity in every region, and here we see a list from the APAC server.
Renekton Bard is another Bard deck that wants to hit some chimes on some cards to buff them up. Renekton is an amazing Chime target, as they will let him level up more quickly, even in one hit. Ruin Runner is another amazing target to hit, as overwhelm and spellshield makes her hard to stop. Rampaging Baccai is our other overwhelm unit, with the ability to kill a unit when played if we have enough slays. The rest of the units in the deck are strong early drops and ways to apply vulnerable to enemy units.
Our spells help us protect our units and protect ourselves, so we can get more time to draw more chimes. We also get some draw from Preservarium to keep our resources flowing while also hitting more chimes.
Renekton Bard is fun when it gets to do its thing, as a leveled Renekton on turn 4 is pretty neat. Even when it doesn’t it has quite a few tools to push damage, and chime high rolls can easily swing games in your favor. Unlike the earlier version of LeBlanc, you don’t have access to rally or as much burn damage, so you are more reliant on getting in one big, strong attack. Fortunately, the deck is quite good at getting a big overwhelm unit to hit face.
Closing Words
Thank you all for reading this deck. I had a fun time trying out all these different brews for this week, and I’m excited to see the level of diversity in this meta. Personally, it was a bit more difficult than usual to find off meta decks, as there are so many decks that are viable right now.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the article, and found at least one of the above decks interesting enough to give a try, whether it be to climb the ladder or play some games in norms. Thank you all for reading, and have a great rest of your day.
Dragonguy
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