We’re happy to present RuneterraCCG.com’s Metagame Tier List! This is the page that will help you find a footing in Legends of Runeterra’s ever-changing ladder meta.
The rankings and decks presented here are curated by Agigas – a consistent top player on the EU Masters ladder since Beta, and Empires of the Ascended Seasonal Tournament Top 4 finisher.
Feel welcome to stop by our Discord for discussion, questions, and feedback!
Last updated: July 31.
This deck aims to put a lot of pressure on the opponent with units that give you access to strong offensive keywords (Quick Attack, Elusive, Overwhelm). While the list does not have removals, cards granting Vulnerable to enemy units (Rock Hopper, Merciless Hunter) allow for a strong control of the board. With Flurry of Fists, the deck can push an impressive amount of damage if a Quick Attack unit goes through. Sivir and Ruin Runner, thanks to their Spellshield, are very good targets to stack multiple buffs on (stat buffs, Flurry of Fists, Ghost) and kill the opponent without allowing them to interact. Deny, Concussive Palm, Spirit’s Refuge, and the recently buffed Twin Disciplines help this archetype to survive and protect its key units from the opponent’s interaction.
There are 2 different builds of the archetype, the one above, and the one featuring Zed instead of Akshan. As the new Akshan version gets refined, it is starting to slightly overperform the Zed version, but both are very competitive choices on the ladder.
- Strong against: Ezreal Draven, Lurk.
- Weak against: Jarvan Shen.
Azir Irelia is an exceptionally explosive aggro/combo archetype, looking to quickly win with its numerous Blades and Sand Soldiers. The deck relies on its 2 Sand Soldier generators – Azir and Emperor’s Dais – and has the ability to trigger their effects several times each turn thanks to Blade Dance. With this constant flood of small attacking units, Azir levels very quickly, and then buffs all those tokens to make them even more threatening. Irelia can make combat very complicated for the opponent.
- Strong against: Turbo Thralls, Akshan Lee, Ezreal Karma.
- Weak against: Pirate Burn, Discard Aggro, Ezreal Draven.
Pirate Aggro is a very aggressive archetype that aims to put pressure on the opponent right from the start with its numerous 1-drop units. It has a strong early curve to keep the pressure up for as long as possible. If the opponent manages to stabilize, Pirate Aggro also has a large amount of burn to finish them off. You can level up Gangplank quickly if you sequence your damage properly, which gives the deck a surprisingly strong midgame.
Previous versions of Pirates weren’t including Make it Rain and Double Up, and most still don’t, but with the buffs in Patch 2.11, both of these spells are performing great in the deck.
- Strong against: Irelia Azir, Lurk.
- Weak against: Discard Aggro, Nasus Thresh.
Lulu Zed is a very aggressive deck, mixing the power of elusive units from Ionia and rallies from Demacia together. Lulu helps to grow your elusive units bigger, and Zed offers a lot of pressure right from the start of the game. To back up your units and protect them from interaction, the deck packs some of the best buff spells, Twin Disciplines and Sharpsight. This is a very straightforward deck – play units that offer a lot of pressure, and rally until your opponent dies.
- Strong against: Lee Akshan, Sivir Ionia, Lurk.
- Weak against: Swain TF, Ezreal Karma, Ezreal Draven.
Decklist by BBG. Demacia Sivir is less popular than Ionia Sivir so far but shows a lot of promise in terms of its win rate. This archetype looks to build a strong board with the Demacia and Shurima units, and then forces very inconvenient blocks for the opponent thanks to the Vulnerable (Merciless Hunter) and Challenger keywords (Tattered Banner spell generated by Penitent Squire). The Quick Attack champions pair particularly well with that strategy. To back up the units, the deck has access to the very powerful Shurima and Demacia combat tricks, as well as a very efficient removal in Concerted Strike. For longer games, the combination of Sivir level 2 and The Absolver will help close things out.
- Strong against: Ezreal Karma, Ezreal Draven, Akshan Lee.
- Weak against: Pirate Burn, Discard Aggro.
Discard Aggro is all about flooding the board very fast with low-cost units, leveraging all the discard synergies. Once the board gets wide, board-wide buffs and Crowd Favorites follow. This game plan is very effective at punishing decks that struggle against a go-wide strategy, and Discard Aggro tends to have a great matchup against other aggressive archetypes as well.
The explosive aggression is a win condition by itself against unprepared lists – but even if the opponent manages to deal with it, Jinx comes in and gives everything you need to finish the game. However, Discard Aggro tends to fold when pitted against cheap AoE removal – like Avalanche or Withering Wail.
- Strong against: Irelia Azir, Lurk.
- Weak against: Swain TF, Nasus Thresh.
Jarvan Shen is a deck that uses Barriers and assembles a powerful board presence. Barriers are often used with Challenger units (Fleetfeather Tracker, Screeching Dragon), but also with units with on-strike effects (Greenglade Lookout, Rivershaper). The deck also packs a strong package of removals, as well as buffs and counters to defend your key units.
- Strong against: Thresh Nasus, Elusive Burn.
- Weak against: Ezreal Draven.
Lurk is a deck that wants to create a strong board presence with its numerous Lurker units and leverage the power of Rek’Sai and Pyke. Thanks to Predict and other top-deck manipulation tools, you can consistently trigger Lurk.
Pyke is often the most feared card in the deck – Death fom Below is an incredibly effective spell, and once Pyke levels up it is very easy for him to kill every unit on the opponent’s side of the board.
- Strong against: Dragons, Ezreal Karma.
- Weak against: Pirate Burn, Swain TF, Discard Aggro.
Reputation is a board-centric deck that leverages the namesake keyword and its numerous strong units to put pressure on the opponent. Sivir and Ruin Runner are perfect units to use Bloody Business and Whirling Death on, as their Spellshield protects them from the opponent’s interaction and their high attack helps you activate Reputation.
The deck also packs a lot of cards that give out a Vulnerable status – Thrashing Snapper, Waking Sands, Sivir, and LeBlanc can all take advantage of that keyword. Both champions can quickly level up, making the deck even more dominant on board and hard to stop.
- Strong against: Ekko Zilean, Shen Jarvan.
- Weak against: Nasus Thresh, TF Swain.
Thresh Nasus is a deck that centers its gameplan around Nasus. He can grow very quickly thanks to the high amount of sacrifice synergies, as well as due to all the trades forced onto your opponent. As Nasus grows, he starts to dominate the board. Later on, he is a great target to finish games with Atrocity, especially once he levels up and gets Spellshield.
With all the sacrifice synergies and numerous small units, Thresh can rapidly level up to bring Nasus directly onto the board. The deck plays mostly as a midrange archetype looking to finish with a big Nasus – but it also can punish slow decks with an aggressive approach thanks to its powerful early units.
Some versions of the midrange sacrifice archetype replace Thresh with Viego. Those are performing slightly worse than Thresh Nasus so far, but are still a viable choice.
- Strong against: Irelia Azir, Discard Aggro, Reputation.
- Weak against: Jarvan Shen, Turbo Thralls.
Zoe Lee is the latest iteration of the Lee Sin combo deck: you aim to level up Lee Sin, give him Overwhelm and buff him up, then blow up the opponent with an OTK. Lee Sin has an innate Barrier and the deck also runs a lot of additional protection (Deny, Nopeify, buffs, some versions – Bastion).
Zoe is a very good 1-drop in this deck that doesn’t need a second champion to execute its game plan, and the spells she creates can help with leveling up and protecting Lee Sin. Despite being a combo deck, Zoe Lee can put up a very strong fight against aggressive opponents thanks to Eye of the Dragon, which can be tutored with Crescendum generated by Gifts from Beyond.
- Strong against: Ekko Zilean, Turbo Thralls.
- Weak against: Irelia Azir.
Akshan Lee is a combo deck, using the Overwhelm keyword given by The Absolver to OTK the opponent with a level 2 Lee Sin. In the early to mid game, the deck controls the pace thanks to Eye of the Dragon, combat tricks, and the stuns and recalls from Ionia.
When Lee comes down, he can help controlling the board thanks to his Barrier and the opponent will have a very hard time removing him through your tricks. Akshan is a nice supporting champion in the deck, helping you survive the early turns, progressing Lee’s level-up condition with Relic of Power, and protecting your OTK combo with Sentinel’s Hoard.
- Strong against: Ezreal Draven, Jarvan Shen.
- Weak against: Irelia Azir, Zed Sivir.
This deck can dispatch all the opponent’s units thanks to the powerful Piltover & Zaun and Noxus removals, all the while building its own board and sending some damage to the opposing Nexus. It uses created cards like Draven’s Spinning Axes or Ballistic Bot’s Ignition as fodder for Rummage or Sump Dredger, which provides steady card advantage.
Tri-beam Improbulator is a key spell of the deck – it can quickly stack up and swing the tempo of the game massively. The deck looks to finish the game with Ezreal or Captain Farron. However, don’t consider this archetype to be an all-in Ezreal (or Farron) deck. Rather than setting up for combo finish, its game plan instead relies on constantly pushing tempo, damage, and card advantage.
Because of its flexible game plan, this deck has an extremely evenly distributed matchup table.
- Strong against: –
- Weak against: –
Ereal Karma looks to control the pace of the game thanks to Piltover & Zaun removals, Ionia stuns and recalls, and Eye of the Dragon. Once it gets to the late game, the deck is able to kill with a leveled Ezreal. Karma provides a lot of late-game value and is able to greatly accelerate the Ezreal win condition.
- Strong against: Zoe Lee.
- Weak against: Azir Irelia, Zed Sivir.
Sejuani Gangplank is a Bilgewater-focused deck, with strong Plunder cards and a lot of enablers for them. The deck packs a solid mix of efficient units, draw, and removals, and it can feel powerful at all points of the game. Sejuani and Gangplank will level up consistently to become game-winning threats. The Dreadway is a very strong finisher, and it also draws Gangplank.
- Strong against: Ezreal Karma, Lurk.
- Weak against: Turbo Thralls, Irelia Azir.
This deck plays in a similar fashion to Discard Aggro but brings Ionia instead of Noxus to leverage the strong synergy between Flame Chompers and Lulu. With the addition of Boom Baboon you effectively have access to 6 copies of Flame Chompers, and the recent buffs to Twin Disciples and Young Witch go a long way to enable this archetype. It seems that Jinx Lulu is now more than just another meme deck!
- Strong against: Azir Irelia.
- Weak against: Swain TF.
Draven Fizz is an extremely aggressive archetype, where every card is there to create pressure and push Nexus damage. All its units either have an aggressive keyword (mostly Elusive, but also Fearsome or Quick Attack) or deal face damage (Legion Saboteur, Legion Grenadier). The other cards are burn spells and attack buffs – which synergize with your evasive units.
- Strong against: Reputation, Lurk, Irelia Azir.
- Weak against: Pirate Burn, Jarvan Shen.
Champions (6)
landmarks (8)
Turbo Thralls is a deck that leverages Frozen Thralls with ‘advance countdown’ cards and Promising Future to create a massive board advantage. The archetype consists of 3 core parts: the Frozen Thralls package (Frozen Thralls, Lissandra, Draklorn Inquisitor, Succumb to the Cold, Taliyah), the accelerators (Clockwork Curator, Draklorn Inquisitor, The Clock Hand, Time in a Bottle), and the defensive tools (Blighted Ravine, Kindly Tavernkeeper, Three Sisters, Ice Shards, Avalanche, Rite of Negation). The very sudden burst of tempo created by Frostguard Thralls makes the deck very powerful against slower archetypes, though it tends to struggle against fast lists.
- Strong against: Zilean Ekko, Swain TF.
- Weak against: Azir Irelia, Zoe Lee.
Swain TF was a dominant deck at one time in the past, and with the revert to the Make it Rain nerf in patch 2.11, it is looking to come back into the meta. The removal packages of Noxus and Bilgewater combine very well together, making Swain TF feel like a control deck.
However, Swain TF also has numerous and strong early units and is able to punish slow opponents and close out with burn damage. Swain is the key finisher of the deck – he levels up quickly, and Stun + Fearsome combo makes him hard to block. Swain and Leviathan together quickly close out games against any deck that can’t deal with it.
- Strong against: Ekko Zilean, Lurk, Discard Aggro.
- Weak against: Turbo Thralls.
Taric Jarvan looks to dominate the board by combining the most powerful support units with the strong Challengers from Demacia. Sparklefly is another very potent target for support buffs. With its dense package of buffs, the deck is able to snowball its board extremely hard by enabling support units to use their effect several times. Once the deck gets out of control, it closes out games very effectively thanks to Golden Aegis.
- Strong against: Ekko Zilean.
- Weak against: Shen Jarvan.
Riven Draven is an aggressive deck that leverages the recently-buffed Riven and her Blade Fragments. Both your champions, as well as Ballistic Bot, Boom Baboon, Blade Squire, and Runeweaver, generate cards, allowing you to use the discard package very effectively. The deck can win through sheer aggression followed up by burn spells, but can also work towards setting up some devastating combos with Riven, Ballistic Bot, and Nyandroid. Those grow extremely fast thanks to the numerous cheap created cards that trigger Augment, and the Heavy Blade Fragment can give it Overwhelm for a huge hit.
- Strong against: Lurk.
- Weak against: Swain TF.
After the nerfs to Dunekeeper and Azir, the Shurima Burn archetype, previously a Tier 1 deck, got overshadowed by Pirates Burn. But, despite losing a lot of popularity, the archetype managed to adapt and is currently still performing very well.
This deck has a very straightforward plan: rush you down with aggressive units in the early game and finish with burn damage. With its numerous 1-drops, the deck is able to quickly punish clunky early draws from the opponent.
- Strong against: Azir Irelia, Lurk.
- Weak against: Discard Aggro, Nasus Thresh.
Pirate Midrange is at the intersection between Swain TF and Pirate Burn. While it doesn’t have as much early aggression as Pirates or as much late-game control as Swain TF, what makes the deck a strong option is its versatility. Being able to either be aggressive and finish with burn damage, or to take things slower and play as a control deck, allows the deck to adapt on the fly to the matchup and the situation.
This midrange deck packs a good mix of strong early units to create pressure, value, cost-efficient removals, and very strong finishers with The Dreadway and/or level 2 Gangplank.
- Strong against: Discard Aggro, Elusive Burn, Reputation.
- Weak against: Akshan Sivir.
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Can you add yasuo malphite?
Unfortunately no, Yasuo Malphite is performing far too badly to make it to the tier list – this list is only about competitive decks. 🤔
Can you add yasuo malphite?
How about matron cithria?
thank you so much for the ui update, now i no longer almost crash from loading all decks at once
Would appreciate if the Nasus Thresh Deck could get a Matchup Guide for Azir Irelia.
Thanks for the update
What do you think about Leona/Yasuo or any Leona variations? Would she perform at least slightly decent? Would she be at a tier 2 or lower or is she unplayable in the meta?
I don’t think it’s unplayable, but I don’t consider it as competitive – I would place it in tier 3. However, be aware that Legends of Runeterra is a pretty skill-intensive game with not that big of a gap between tiers. A strong player can climb all the way up to master with a tier 3 deck, especially when he has the power of surprise. What I’m saying is, if you like Yasuo Leona, don’t let a tier list dissuade you from playing it, unless what’s most important to you is to play the very best archetypes.
For what is the strongest Leona version, there are tons of pretty decent Leona archetypes. Leona Asol and Leona Karma are looking to be the strongest control ones, but you can also find some more aggressive daybreak decks, like Leona Lucian or Leona Draven!
Yeah, as a new player I would really like to see a somewhat optimized decklist for Droplet, Yasuo, Leona. These are basically my only cards 😀
Well, if you really want a deck that features all 3 of these cards, I think you’ll have to do a homebrew because Droplet isn’t usually featured in Yasuo Leona lists. 🤔
What about Ez/Teemo freljord?
It has a low play rate and isn’t very successful right now because of the high amount of aggressive deck on the ladder. I wouldn’t recommend it outside of specific targeting strategies.
I just want to take a moment to thank you Agigas for all the work you’re doing on the meta analysis! Everything is very in-depth and well documented & Runeterraccg helped me a lot with my performance. I’m really grateful that you’re updating the tier list constantly with new information and I wanted to say thanks to you and to the Runeterraccg team! 😁
I second this! Thank you Agigas, and all those that contribute to this website. Thank you thank you thank you!! I have improved tremendously as a LoR player from your content.
Thanks a lot, I’m really happy you like the content and that it helps you! 😄
What’s the best deck with Viego in it right now? Is it Viego Nasus, or is there not really one worth mentioning right now?
Viego Nasus does seem like the most successful Viego deck so far, other builds for the champ are performing pretty badly. Viego Nasus is performing sightly worse than Nasus Thresh, which is a very similar deck, and that’s why it doesn’t have its own spot. I’m going to include it in Nasus Thresh’s description.
The only think I’d like to you to add to these tier lists are some “Bonus Decks.” Kinda like TLG adds to theirs. Maybe decks with great win rates but small sample sizes, or decks that you might have your eyes on that haven’t caught on (Elusive Rally) yet. Other than that, I find your list to be most helpful of all that are published regularly. Thanks again for all your hard work Agi. 😀