Top Masters Decks – Season of Fortune – Week 7

Another week of the Season of Fortune has come and gone. Last week we received Patch 1.7, a cosmetic update, which left the meta largely unaltered. Regardless, players are making the most of what is currently available and continuing to push the boundaries of what decks are capable of in Patch 1.7. Despite the unfortunate news of Patch 1.8’s (and by extension, the new expansion) delay, I want to express my gratitude to the development and balance teams behind Legends of Runeterra for making the game as enjoyable and addicting as it is. Enjoy your week off – you’ve earned it! Anyway, let’s get to the decklists!

Noxus Yoink by JonesAF – Top 20 Masters

JonesAF continues to innovate and adjust to the meta with custom brews, this time with a spicy take on the Twisted Fate “Yoink” decks that have continued to float around since the introduction of the archetype in Rising Tides. JonesAF takes the archetype to new heights, climbing to Top 20 in Masters with his Twisted Fate/Gangplank version of the deck.

Mobalytics Link

The deck includes the typical “yoink” package with the likes of Black Market Merchant, Yordle Grifter, and Pilfered Goods. To leverage these cards effectively and to ensure you hit your Plunder triggers, this list runs a multitude of damage spells such as Death’s Hand, Noxian Fervor, and Warning Shot. If stealing your opponent’s cards and chipping away at their Nexus isn’t quite enough, you can always rely on Gangplank and Riptide Rex to wrap up.

Rex is currently one of the most powerful followers in Legends of Runeterra and this deck is poised to take full advantage of him. Along with Rex, Jones includes a singleton copy of Captain Farron in the top-end to help close out games as well. Overall, this is a hard-hitting deck that can trounce players caught unawares. It can be weak to Deep decks as they tend to go over the top rather easily. Similarly, the Fizz Elusive decks that are gaining popularity prove an issue for this archetype as it doesn’t have a great way to deal with Fizz. 

JonesAF put up a remarkable 84% winrate with the deck over 56 games! Similar versions of the deck posted a 51.1% winrate with a 6.3% playrate in Masters this week.

Fizz Elusives by NicMakesPlays – Top 35 Masters

Last week I featured a Hyper Fizz deck by fainHD. This week NicMakesPlays brings us another beautiful Fizz deck. This one brings with it a multitude of spells with which to protect Fizz and several supporting followers to push through damage. As the name implies, the deck hopes to win by dealing damage with Fizz and his band of Elusive misfits, including the new and improved Golden Narwhal.

Mobalytics Link

That’s right. There exists a successful deck in Masters that is running 3 whole copies of Golden Narwhal. The deck operates on the back of Starlit Seer buffing your units before you draw them while using a plethora of Burst speed spells to keep your Fizz alive. Cards like Zap Sprayfin, Salvage, and Shared Spoils keep you from running out of cards in hand. Your other Elusive units, namely Narwhal and Slippery Waverider are either difficult to deal with or too efficient for that to matter; especially when they are buffed. 

Many decks in the meta are not equipped to deal with Fizz and he runs away with games quite quickly. Until the meta adapts to address this, Fizz Elusives is a strong pick and capable of battling it out with the best of them. This week the deck boasted a 60.4% winrate with a 1.7% playrate in Masters. 

Machine Gun Ezreal by DaddysHomeLoR- Top 150 Masters

At this point, I doubt anyone is surprised to see an Ezreal deck featured here. The last few weeks have seemingly been all about Ezreal decks and this one is no exception. Similar to the Spooky Ezreal list that I featured last week, DaddysHomeLoR has brought us a slightly different take on the P&Z/SI pairing with a deck focused on reaching a critical mass of Ezreals. Disclaimer: in his deck guide on Reddit, DaddysHome credits Glop with the deck idea/list.

Mobalytics Link

Right, so how many Ezreals is too many? Some would say one. Others might say the limit does not exist. This deck aims to find out. At its core, this is an OTK (one turn kill) deck and, as such, has a relatively high skill ceiling. It isn’t the easiest list to just pick up and jam wins. The deck looks to stabilize the early game by leveraging its removal spells and early followers to keep your Nexus healthy. To close the game, look to cast The Harrowing when you can return Ezreals and The Rekindler (for more Ezreals). With 2 or 3+ Ezreals, you can put your cheap spells such as Mushroom Clouds, Jury Rig, Rummage, and even a low-cost Thermo Beam, to use to close the game out in one turn.

A word of caution from DaddysHome for anyone hoping to climb ladder with this list:

When playing this deck you want to play slow, calculating, and very reactive […] If you are purely looking to climb the ranked ladder, pick an easier more consistent deck.

This is fully backed up by the Mobalytics data for the archetype. Of the P&Z/SI archetypes (which have a 47.8% win rate and 3.5% play rate), this archetype in particular only had a 41.9% win rate with a 14.0% play rate. DaddysHome was able to climb ladder and take the deck to Top 150 Masters rank. 

Draven/Vi by FromTheBoulevard – Top 200 Masters

Vi hasn’t seen much play since her nerf in Patch 1.2, but FromTheBoulevard has decided to prove that she still has a place in Legends of Runeterra. After all, she still punches the Nexus and swings for 10 when she levels up! With the overwhelming lack of Ionia in this week’s meta, she might be just the vault breaker we need. 

Mobalytics Link

This archetype is an aggressive-leaning deck that aims to chip damage early while setting up for a big swing with Vi, Kato, Captain Farron, and/or Subpurrsible. It packs the best of both Noxus’ and Piltover’s damage spells (seriously, the deck runs just about all of them) to deal with opposing board presence and continue to chip damage in where possible. Once the opposing Nexus is low enough this archetype has plenty of ways to get your opponent dead. 

The archetype is a refreshing take on the Noxus/Piltover region combination and gives Vi a chance to see play again. She can close games on her own, but paired with Kato The Arm, she’s truly a force to be reckoned with. Mobalytics doesn’t seem to have enough players running this list in Masters to display their metrics on it, but FromTheBoulevard managed to break Top 200 with the list and it looks like a blast to play. 

Harrowing Ashe by JeffHoogland – Top 900 Masters

Lastly, this week I am featuring an “oldy-but-goody” archetype from one of the most prolific Magic: The Gathering streamers: Jeff Hoogland. This week Jeff pushed up the ladder with his take on the Harrowing Ashe list from the days of Open Beta and he’s not the only one. 

Mobalytics Link

Harrowing Ashe is a midrange/tempo style archetype. It focuses on making effective trades while working towards leveling up its champions: Thresh and, of course, Ashe. Once Ashe levels up she can lock down your opponent’s followers to allow you to attack profitably. A leveled Thresh can fish for your Ashes and the deck runs several ways to bring back dead champions as well. Cards like Chronicler of Ruin can fuel The Rekindler and The Harrowing to bring back a board full of Ashes. This list doesn’t run nearly as many Frostbite effects as some other noteworthy Ashe decks, instead opting to run Shadow Isles’ heavy hitters in the form of Grasp of the Undying, Glimpse Beyond, and Vile Feast. Two copies of Mist’s Call are also at your disposal for some sweet recursion value.

It is nice to see an archetype this old and out-of-practice (if you will) make a resurgence into Masters rank and do well against this meta. If you haven’t had the opportunity to play this gem of a deck, I would strongly recommend you give it a try. Jeff took the deck into Top 900 Masters and (amongst the FR/SI region combination) the archetype is seeing a 57.1% win rate with a 3.0% play rate in Masters overall. 

That does it for Week 7 of the Season of Fortune! Some interesting innovations came through this week. Hopefully, the awesome brewers in this community keep at it with the delay of Patch 1.8. Either way, I’ll be back with you all next week for another look at the hottest Masters decks on the ladder! What do you think about the current meta? Did I miss any decks you were hoping would make the list? Which of these decks are you dying to try out? Let me know here in the comments section or over on Twitter!