LoR Decks That Have Benefitted From Patch 1.14
Whenever balance changes arrive with each new patch, different decks are bound to rise and fall accordingly.
In this guide, two of our Glimpse Beyond experts, highlight the decks they believe are rising in stock.
Rattlingbones will be covering Ezreal Swain and Backalley Casino while Silverfuse discusses Tahm Soraka and Ashe Sejuani.
For each deck, we’ll include the separate decklists, meta stats for the archetype, as well as the deck’s good and bad matchups.
Ezreal Swain
Deck code: CEBQMAIEDMPSIJRNGQBQEAYBA4EQEAIDFY3QEAQBAQODUAIDAMGQCAICAQDA
[See Ezreal Swain deck details]
It goes without saying that Swain has had a huge presence in the game since his debut. He’s seen quite a few variations:
- Swain/Braum
- Swain/Sej
- Swain/Elise
- Swain/TF
And now, finally, we get Swain Ezreal (also known as Nox Ezreal). The goal of any and all Swain decks is one and the same. Trade for the board early so that you can safely play The Leviathan on turn 8. Summon your Swain and proceed to win.
The one key difference here is that Ezreal essentially acts as 3 additional copies of The Leviathan.
Assuming we have a Swain on the board, Ezreal in conjunction with Fast and/or Burst speed spells will stun your opponent’s board allowing you to push massive amounts of damage.
The cute thing you’ll notice in this list is that we play 3 copies of Zaunite Urchin, 3 copies of Sump Dredger, and 2 copies of Jury Rig.
These cards are intended to give you safe and reliable tempo plays + draw which in turn helps you deal with aggro decks and punish the really slow ones.
Matchups
Ez/Swain will generally do well into most of the midrange/aggro decks as it’s really good at clearing boards.
Decks like Ashe/Sej, Fiora Shen, Discard Aggro, and Scouts that rely on buffing units to deal damage and/or trade well are the sort of decks we’d be targeting. After all, we have a bunch of cheap removals that synergize well with our low-cost utility units.
While we’re good into these types of decks, we’re not going to do well into Tahm Soraka (which will be covered later). That’s because they can heal up their units turn after turn and effectively render our removals useless.
Backalley Casino
Deck code: CECAEAYFAYIAMAQGAQERUHJGHIBACBJRGUAQGBQIAIAQGBIIAIAQKAIPAEAQCBJA
[See Backalley Casino deck details]
Backalley Casino, also known as BWSI Aggro, was one of the most interesting decks that came about thanks to the release of the KDA cards, specifically Go Hard and Pack Your Bags.
Pack Your Bags essentially reads: clear your opponent’s board and deal 5 damage to your opponent’s Nexus for 1 mana.
Given that we only need 1 mana to wipe our opponent’s board and deal 5 damage to their Nexus, the stats of our units are irrelevant. All we care about is utility and low mana curves.
This allows us to get wider than our opponent whenever we need to and ensure that we are able to push damage in the earlier stages of the game.
That’s essentially what this deck does. We’re able to consistently secure Pack Your Bags while chipping away at our opponent at every turn. All in all, a very good deck in the current state of the metagame.
Matchups
Given our strategy, we’re great into decks like Ashe/Sej, Discard Aggro, and board-based aggro decks like Scouts because we can get good value out of cards like Twisted Fate, Go Hard, and Pack your Bags once we’ve chipped away at the board.
Similar to Swain/Ezreal, we can’t beat them all. We’re generally going to have bad matchups into FTR/Warmother decks because of Avalanche and their high statted units.
Furthermore, just like Swain/Ezreal, Tahm Soraka becomes infinitely harder to beat once they have that Star Spring up.
Tahm Soraka
Deck code: CEBAIAYGAQDQQDYHAMER2IZNGM2DOPABAMBQSEY3KUAQCAYJMI
[See Tahm Soraka deck details]
With the Monuments of Power expansion, came landmarks. One of the most popular landmarks is Star Spring. This card wins the game once it has seen units heal for 22 or more health. Most players achieve this through Tahm and Soraka.
However, Ramp Warmother as well as Ramp Feel the Rush decks were incredibly strong and keeping Tahm Soraka down a bit.
The ramp was very hard to deal with as well as it allowed Feel the Rush decks to generate a lot of pressure very quickly often with units that were too big for Tahm to eat or for Soraka to attack into. This put the deck into a tough spot.
With the balance adjustments to Wyrding Stones and Trundle, the deck is no longer as hard for Tahm/Soraka to deal with as it was before.
This allows the deck to have an easier time surviving against Freljord Ramp while still having other strong matchups on ladder as well as tournament play.
Matchups
This deck generally does well against Ezreal decks as Ezreal decks generally chip away at larger units to kill them through spells. However, Targon has a lot of ways to heal the damage along with Bastion to prevent any damage through spells.
Decks with low interaction also have a hard time against this deck because it is often incorrect to attack into this deck unless you can kill the units you are attacking into.
If you don’t kill the units, then they will be receiving additional Star Spring value through healing which will lead to their win condition quicker.
The best decks against Star Spring Soraka/Tahm are aggressive lists such as Elise Shadow Isles / Noxus Aggro which utilizes Fearsome units.
Since many of Soraka/Tahm’s units are under 3 attack, it makes them unable to block the Fearsome units.
Other forms of aggressive decks generally go too wide for Soraka Tahm to deal with and kill the deck quicker than they can out heal the opponent with their spells.
Ashe Sejuani
Deck code: CEBAMAIBA4FRMJRJGABQCAYED4QQIAYBAEAQGKQBAMAQEAIBAM2QCAQBAIAQCAIDGM
[See Ashe Sejuani deck details]
A few metas ago, Ashe and Sejuani was a force to be reckoned with on the ladder.
This was back when Trifarian Assessor was a 4 mana 4/3 that drew one card for each 5+ power unit you have in play. It now costs 5 mana which makes the card a bit lower tempo than before.
In this meta and the previous meta, Scouts were very popular. Ashe/Sejuani does quite well against Scouts due to its bulky units and Frostbite effects that allow large units to trade into the well-stated Demacian units for free when paired with a freeze effect.
Avarosan Trapper is also a key player where the 3 mana 3/3 body is slightly understated, but it produces a 1 mana 5/5 yeti which does well into other midrange decks.
Culling Strike is another strong tool for Ashe Sejuani, especially when combined with the Frostbites in the list. This allows Ashe/Sejuani to have solid interaction against slower, control opponents as well.
For example, when your opponent slaps down a Leviathan, you might respond with a Flash Freeze and a Culling Strike. This is a 6 mana combo which often allows you to play an additional unit when your opponent could only play one.
Trifarian Assessor is also an insane draw tool that allows the deck to be fine with expending extra resources to deal with a single threat.
The Reckoning has also shown an increased amount of play rate in the deck as a lot of Tahm/Soraka decks are being played.
The deck has no interaction with Reckoning which allows the Ashe/Sejuani player to sweep the board with a single card. It can be a giant swing and often game-deciding.
Matchups
Ashe and Sejuani is a flexible deck and its versatility is one of the reasons why many people like it.
It has good matchups into most other decks with the exception of Discard Aggro. Discard Aggro is able to go wide against Ashe/Sej where the Frostbites and chunky units are less impactful against wide boards.
Burn decks, in general, can also be rough on Ashe/Sejuani as it doesn’t have a way to interact or heal against direct Nexus damage.
It is no surprise that after a small nerf, Ashe Sejuani is back to being one of the best decks in the game whether it be for ladder or tournament play. It’s also fun to play!
Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, feel free to ask Rattlingbones during his streams (every weeknight @9PM EST).
Bones streams at twitch.tv/rattlingbones_ every weeknight @9PM EST
