8 Best Decks in Week 1 of Patch 3.4 – Power Rankings by Sorry – April 4, 2022

Hey there, it’s Monday and that means a new Power Rankings article! This week’s power rankings are right after the new patch that slightly shook up the meta.

Both Azir and Aphelios received buffs in Patch 3.4, bringing a couple of Aphelios decks into the mix along with Mono Shurima that managed to become the most played deck in the first week of the patch! Who would have thought, huh?

On the other hand, Gnar received a well-deserved nerf after his complete domination of the meta in the past patch. However, to the surprise of the community, Yordles in Arms managed to dodge a nerf, a card that is run in two dominant meta decks, Fizz Lulu and Tristana Demacia.

Alright, let’s get started with this week’s power rankings, here are the top 8 decks I believe are solid choices to play for your ladder climb!

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Fizz Lulu is my top performer on the first week of the patch! The deck managed to dodge all the nerfs and maintain its strong ability to go wide on the board, buff the whole board with Yordles in Arms, and threaten to close out the game with burn damage.

Additionally, Fizz Lulu also performs well against the popular decks on the ladder. For example, it’s a solid choice against Mono Shurima, Zoe Aurelion Sol, Yuumi Pantheon, and aggressive decks looking to counter the meta.

Its matchup table is crazily favored for Fizz/Lulu, the archetype only really struggles against Trundle Tryndamere due to AOE damage spells and Caitlyn Ezreal due to the many removal cards that can shut down Fizz Lulu.

So if you’re looking to climb the ladder and do it fast, Fizz Lulu is my best choice for that! The deck really doesn’t have weaknesses against the top performers and can be extremely dominant in some matchups.

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Yup, that’s right, Riven Viktor is the second deck on my list that has been performing outstandingly well! The archetype falls under the aggressive combo category where it relies on either Riven or Viktor as win conditions. The Overwhelm or Elusive damage from those two champions can put your opponent’s Nexus on a low enough health for your burn cards to close out the game.

Riven Viktor managed to hit a 60% win rate on the competitive ladder, the fact that there aren’t any hard shut down cards like Minimorph being run in the meta allows the combo deck to set up its game plan much easier. It also stomps on Mono Shurima which is the top played deck right now.

However, the archetype struggles against decks capable of going wide on the board such as Fizz Lulu or Scouts. You do though run Mystic Shot and Get Excited! that can come in handy to remove nuisance units that advance your opponent’s win condition.

So far the stats might be a bit high due to the fact Mono Shurima has been rampant on the ladder, the high win rate might slowly fall down but I expect the deck to still remain in the meta as a solid aggressive archetype.

Important to note that there is another version of this deck that opts to run Draven over Riven which is also performing well on the ladder! Both have similar play styles but the Draven version relies on Might to get the Overwhelm keyword and runs the discard package, here’s the list.

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Overwhelm Gnar Darius makes the list as one of the top ladder picks for this week’s power rankings!

The Overwhelm deck relies on squeezing early damage with cheap units and then setting up your big Overwhelm units like Darius, Ancient Yeti, and Fallen Reckoner to carry the mid-game. Cards like Battle Furry and Decsivie Maneuver set up for a lethal attack thanks to their synergy with the Overwhelm units.

This is a fast-paced archetype that performs well against decks like Mono Shurima, Aphelios Viktor, Zoe Aurelion Sol, and Caitlyn Ezreal all popular picks for the competitive ladder right now.

Although Gnar Darius is a good pick into some of the popular meta, it does struggle against Fizz Lulu and Scouts, that’s not to say that games aren’t winnable, those two decks can’t really deal with a massive Overwhelm unit swinging for lethal. But it can be “Overwhelmed” with a wide board of units that threaten to deal a lot of damage to the Nexus.

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My all-time favorite Caitlyn Ezreal, this deck never fails to deliver in the current meta, especially with the slight buff Caitlyn received in the latest patch, which allows for faster Flashbomb Traps.

The archetype holds its ground against almost everything! Popular matchups like Fizz Lulu, Scouts, Riven Viktor, and Aphelios Viktor are all favored for Caitlyn Ezreal which makes it the perfect deck for the ladder climb.

Moreover, Caitlyn Ezreal doesn’t really “auto lose” a matchup, every game feels winnable thanks to Tri-Beam Improbulator‘s ability to swing board presence to your favor.

Now there are attempts to popularize Caitlyn Swain Tri-Beam deck which somewhat has the same play pattern but has Swain and Leviathan as an additional win condition. The deck seems to be performing alright for now, but we don’t have enough data to fully know if it’ll ever overtake the original list.

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Fifth on the list is Miss Fortune Quinn, better known as Scouts! The deck did receive 2 nerfs to its list, both Sergent Vanguard and Sharpsight were nerfed but that didn’t really stop the deck from remaining a top contender in my power rankings!

Scouts still is one of the best decks against the meta, it has a good matchup table against almost all the popular decks! It only really struggles against Caitlyn Ezreal due to the deck’s capability to kill Miss Fortune.

The aggressiveness of the deck allows you to close out games fast before most of the meta decks like Peak or Mono Shurima can set up their game plan.

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Draven Rumble made it to the top of my last power rankings and the archetype still remains solid in the meta! Its aggressiveness allows you to close out games quickly with the use of Rumble + Might combo play.

The meta right now doesn’t run direct answers to your combo play, especially with the fall of Darkness. On top of that, the Spell Shield on Rumble gives you an extra layer of protection when setting up the combo play.

As we’ve seen with the sudden rise of Riven Viktor, the burn plan seems to be on the dominant side of the meta. Most decks really cannot interrupt the burn damage, so they end up on the clock, having to close out a game before you get their Nexus health down to zero.

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Aphelios Viktor lands on the list of top 8 power rankings! The Piltover and Zaun version quickly became the most popular and consistent on the competitive ladder.

The access to removal cards, Invoke, and Aphelios’ Moon Weapons on top of late-game win conditions like Viktor and Starshaping makes the deck adaptable to different scenarios, capable of switching its game plan to keep up with different decks in the meta.

It mostly struggles against Caitlyn Ezreal as they have access to a lot of removal cards to deal with your champions and can swing the board presence to their favor with Tri-beam Improbulator.

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Last to make the list is Ziggs Taliyah, a landmark-oriented deck that looks to play a mid-game aggressive game plan. Both Ziggs and Taliyah act as win conditions and can threaten to deal Overwhelm damage through The Absolver or Herald of the Magus.

Ziggs Taliyah performs well into Mono Shurima, Caitlyn Ezreal, and Aphelios Viktor making it a good choice for a ladder deck. However in the Fizz Lulu matchup, you might find yourself a bit unfavored but if you’re able to set up a Taliyah with Overwhelm attack, they don’t have the tools to easily deal with her.

The meta right now lacks hard removal cards for your champions, decks that run Vengence or Minimorph aren’t very popular right now, so it allows you to set up your winning play much easier.

Finally, the deck does have a difficult matchup against Elise Feasomes or Azir Irelia, so you might have to switch off the deck if your ladder experience is mostly counter matchups,

Closing Words:

What’s obvious in today’s power rankings is that the nerf to Gnar dropped his play rate significantly, only Gnar Darius managed to make it to the top 8 whereas a popular deck like Gnar Trundle has fallen out of the meta.

Although Azir Xerath (Mono Shruima) had a high play rate and good win rate in the first couple of days of the patch, I didn’t include Mono Shurima in today’s Power Rankings because the meta is targeting the archetype with aggressive decks. Mono Shurima is starting to lose its popularity slowly along with the high win rate it had, at the time of writing this article, Mono Shurima is sitting at a 50% win rate.

In conclusion, the meta seems to favor aggressive archetypes right now, basically fast-paced games where you want to close out a match before your opponent can set up their game plan.