8 Best Decks to Climb in Ranked – Power Rankings by Sorry – March 14, 2022

Hello everyone! It’s Power Rankings time! Over the past couple of weeks, Gnar has continued his domination whereas Yuumi has become the staple version in Pantheon Demacia. As for Galio and Udyr, they remain underperforming champions in the current meta.

Gnar’s popularity along with Demacia’s reign on the competitive ladder brought back some old decks into the meta that we haven’t seen in quite a while, in an attempt to counter currently omnipresent midrange arcehtypes.

Moreover, Darkness has become the most played archetype – which means a lot of players are attempting to target it while they focus on their climb. Below, I’ll rank 8 decks that I believe are solid choices to climb the ladder this week, let’s get started!

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Draven Rumble is my top choice to bring as a counter-meta archetype this week! It performs well into popular decks like Yuumi Pantheon, Tristana Demacia, Lurk, and most Gnar decks. Rumble + Might and the burn plan can be difficult to deal with for most of those decks.

You only really struggle against two popular decks out there, Darkness and Scouts. Even still – those matchups are winnable and you can highroll the matchup with an early aggressive mindset.

My Master climb this season was with Draven Rumble exactly where I managed to rank up from Diamond 4 to Masters with an 85% win rate!

In my last Power Rankings, Draven Rumble made it to the 5th spot, and since then the deck has continued its good performance, especially with the rise of Tristana Demacia and Pantheon decks – so the No.1 spot is very much earned!

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Gnar Teemo Tristana continues to perform well as a ladder deck – the swarm ability along with Yordles in Arms and Golden Aegis is difficult for most decks to deal with.

What’s interesting about Tristana Demacia is that its matchup table is mostly favored – or at least even! The only two decks that you’ll find difficult to deal with are Pantheon Demacia, due to the Overwhelm capabilities of the archetype – and Draven Rumble.

Aside from that, Tristana Demacia has the capacity to push through any other archetype – especially control decks like Darkness – the most played archetype in the meta right now!

The deck has an enormous amount of value generation, which ensures that you never run out of gas. You’re able to casually sacrifice units to clear out the board and rebuild a new one cheaply!

The meta right now doesn’t see much Deny or Rite of Negation, so Yordles in Arms and Golden Aegis aren’t difficult to pull off.

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Yup! Ezreal Caitlyn is back in the meta! During my research of best decks that made it to Master from Week 1, I found that Ragnarosich was already trying out the archetype on the competitive ladder and actually managed to speed-run his climb to Master. They were playing the Draven Ezreal version – but both lists are quite similar in their gameplan.

I quickly picked up the deck, tweaked with the list, switched Draven to Caitlyn, and took it on a test run, and to my surprise, it held up pretty well!

The archetype doesn’t quite “counter” the meta, its matchup table is mostly even with popular decks, like Darkness, Pantheon, and Akshan Sivir. I’ve always loved the old Draven Ezreal and believe that this archetype requires a lot of skills to unlock its full potential.

A skilled player can perform quite well on Caitlyn Ezreal, turning even matchups into favored ones! The list now has a lot more card draw, mostly to keep up with the value Bandle City provides. We aren’t really in an aggressive meta, so going for more mana demanding draw potential like Statikk Shock, Whispered Words, and Aloof Travelers isn’t much of a punishment.

Caitlyn Ezreal looks to prey on Bandle Tree, Lurk, Scouts, and Gnar Ziggs burn.

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Yuumi Pantheon remains a solid choice to climb the competitive ladder with – in fact, the popularity of Scouts, Tristana Swarm, and Darkness made Yuumi Pantheon’s feel even better!

There are different versions on the ladder, the most popular one is the Yuumi version. Taric seems too slow and not as valuable when you can run Cataclysm and end the game with an Overwhelm unit.

There are versions though that opt to run only 1 Taric and cut a Yuumi out, which seems reasonable, as you don’t really want a lot of Yuumi’s in your hand.

The worst matchups for Pantheon Demacia are Ziggs Gnar Burn and Fizz Lulu – two decks that are not very high in play rate, so if you’re able to dodge them you’ll have a smooth experience against other decks.

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Akshan Sivir climbs two spots in my Power Rankings! The archetype has received a couple of tweaks to its original list in order to match the current meta. The most notable inclusions are Petricite Broadwing and Shield of Durand.

Akshan Sivir is one of my favorite archetypes, the deck feels simply all-around powerful into most of the meta decks, you don’t “auto lose” into anything. Every matchup feels winnable – even the unfavored ones, which makes it a great ladder deck.

The addition of Shield of Durand gives you an extra protection tool for either Sivir or Akshan, two champions that are necessary to set up your game-winning play.

Akshan Sivir does fall short against Yuumi Pantheon, mostly due to the Fated units becoming a problem later on in the game, as well as Pantheon level-up can carry the matchup.

However, when it comes to the other popular decks like Darkness, Scouts, and Lurk, Akshan Sivir is in the driving seat!

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The new rising star! Gnar Lux has been doing well on the ladder and tournament scene. It’s the new version of the Curious Shellfolk archetype that looks to play for value late game.

Right now, Gnar Lux seems to be a good pick against midrange decks, the Final Spark generation from Lux gives you an edge in those matchups.

Darkness and Bandle Tree are the two worst matchups you’ll most likely have to face, if you’re seeing too many of those 2 decks on your ladder run, it’s probably best to switch off of Gnar Lux.

However, if your ladder experience is mostly midrange decks, Gnar Lux seems like one of the best choices!

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Oh boy did Scouts fall off compared to my last Power Rankings, from rank 1 to rank 7! Don’t get me wrong, Scouts is still a great choice for your ladder climb. After all, it’s still here in this article, which means the archetype is performing well!

While Scouts was dominating the meta against most of the Gnar decks, Pantheon Demacia, Akshan Sivir, and Ezreal Caitlyn rose in popularity in an attempt to combat Scouts.

The decks that Scouts were targeting fell off from the meta, whereas Tristana Demacia is the most popular Gnar deck right now, which actually has an even matchup into Scouts.

Nonetheless, Scouts is still holding its own in the current environment, mostly because it still beats Darkness which is the most played deck in the meta.

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Last in today’s Power Rankings is Fizz Lulu Yordles in Arms, the archetype fell out of popularity but remains a good choice against the Demacia and aggressive decks.

Although Fizz Lulu performed well into Scouts, Shield of Durand made the matchup worse for Fizz Lulu, since your biggest threat is Miss Fortune, failing to kill her can cost you the game.

As for matchups like Akshan Sivir, Pantheon Demacia, and Lurk, Fizz Lulu remains in a good spot against all three of those popular ladder decks.

Fizz Gnar is also another version of the archetype, but personally, I found Lulu a bit more aggressive in certain scenarios, especially when buffing up one of your Daring Poros.

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Closing Words

Gnar decks overall have toned down – mostly because they were getting hard-targeted. However, that doesn’t mean that Gnar has fallen off, he remains a strong champion!

Demacia is taking over, 5 of the 8 decks that made Power Rankings are from the Demacia region. The midrange archetypes are performing well, kicking control decks out of the meta.

Darkness is at a high play rate, but its win rate is around 50% which is mainly the reason it didn’t make it in to my Power Rankings, and almost all the Demacia decks listed perform well into it.

Alright, we’re done for today! I will see you in the next Power Rankings, good luck with your ladder endeavors!