Since the release of the "Rise of the Ascendeds" expansion in March 3rd, Legends of Runeterra has been going through an almost complete reshape of the meta. Not only the newly added Egyptian-like region of Shurima and its fallen empire introduced much needed mechanics like "Predict" or the Sun disk's mini-quest to make the godly beings who once ruled the desert rise again in power, but also all the other champions and archetypes that were released alongside the Emperor of the Sands have seen large experimentation in all kinds of decklists during these weeks. But today we are not going to focus on meme-y or middle-of-the-pack tiered lists, today we are going to see which decks have come out victorious from the early-season brawl of theorycrafting, the 5 best to climb to master with in this patch.

1. Fizz/Twisted Fate

Courtesy of Mobalytics.gg

While Fizz was always seen as a champion with a "nearly competitively viable" power level, it wasn't until the fast and steady rise to the top of this deck that he found a stable place on the meta of the game. On the other hand Twisted Fate was always perceived, since his release in the "Rising Tides" expansion, as a balanced champion, with a difficult enough evolution requirement, fairly paid off by the overwhelming value that he can provide in terms both of board control and hand recycle with his constant draws.

But what allowed this strange couple to form the strongest and most annoying to play against deck of the game?

We have to look back at the "Cosmic Creations" expansion, when a card that most players didn't even notice was released: Stress Testing. This single spell allows you, paired with all the cycling that Rummage and Pick a Card already provided, to level up TF way more easily, sometimes in the very same turn in which you play him, to the point that he could be easily defined the primary win condition of this deck.

But it is not over yet. What if your TF gets removed? What if you don't draw him? And here it comes what we call a secondary or a side-win condition: Fizz and his Burblefishes. The Burblefish is another one of the cards that went unnoticed for the first few weeks after their release alongside Stress Testing, but it didn't take long before it's true potential was figured out. One of the characteristics of this deck is in fact, to only maindeck cheap spells that can either help Fizz level up and nullify spells targeting him, but also discount Burblefish to 0 in almost every game. The next step is copying him with Iterative improvement and you obtain a board full of 4/2 elusives that will hit the opponent's nexus freely, so you can use on the remaining health points the Mystic Shots and Get Exciteds and easily win.

This deck is not immune to counterplay though: there are some decks, most notably the "Lissandra/Trundle" that we will cover later and the "Fiora Freeze" lists that have being played lately are able to get the better of it in the 55-60% of matches through challenging his board presence or simply healing and staying alive long enough to develop their own win conditions.

Be aware also that even though an high-elo player will tell you that this deck is fairly easy to play, it takes time to be mastered but if you will be able to get enough practice on it it will for sure reward you with a swift climb.

2. Matron Combo (Lissandra/Trundle)

Courtesy of Mobalytics.gg

The Ice Witch was released into the game bringing with her the power of the Watcher, a card that she only creates once per game upon her level up, who can obliterate the opponent's deck on declaration of attack. This combo immediately got all the community's interest so from the moment the cards became available she was testes in all sorts of decks.

This version of the deck that we are currently analyzing is the most stable one, which all revolves into summoning Trundle to get his Pillar in hand and then proceeding to copy it over and over again with the spell Fading Memories. This allow a fast and unavoidable level up for Lissandra, that once played will also prevent your Nexus from taking too much damage from deck like "Fizz/Twisted Fate" and most of others aggro and burn-y style decks. At this point all you need to do is discounting your Watcher to 0 cost by summoning other two 8-cost units, summoning it and attacking to see your opponent lose for lack of cards in their deck.

The strategy goes a little bit deeper though, in fact to develop your win condition you need to both stay alive long enough to see your Watcher attack and make sure its offense can't be denied. The strategy that was found being the most successful is using the Spectral Matron. She is both a 8 cost unit that helps the win condition develop directly and the means that will allow you to "cheat" the Watcher on board sooner than the opponent can respond to. The straight fact that your 17-cost drop will completely annihilate the opponent's deck upon attack make so that he must respond the ephemeral Watcher summoned by the Matron first, so that you can safely play the second without any consequence and slam the opponent with all its power.

When you play this deck remember to be careful with your HPs and don't play Lissandra before she is evolved in most matchups. You have all the removals and healing spells you need to counter almost every deck but be aware that against lists with a strong board presence you might lose if you can't reset the board at the right time with your Ruinations and Blighted Ravines.

This is a classic control deck, it offers a great range of answers to any play the opponents might do and has got a reliable win condition, but it also need a deep knowledge about the matchups with all the others meta-decks and a fairly good amount of skill and experience to be piloted at full strength.

3. Fiora/Shen

Courtesy of Mobalytics.gg

The good old "Fiora/Shen" deck finds itself untouched by the new expansion, rising to being a top choice for climbing after being toned down a bit during the last month. This archetypes has seen an impressively low amount of changes through the entire lifetime of the game, the major notable addictions being the Nopeify spell and the Screeching Dragon after the release of the "Call of the Mountain" expansion.

The game plan of this deck is plain and simple, and it works. Your primary win condition is the mere presence on board thanks to the value generated by the Demacian followers, which can in most cases take value trades against units of the same cost played by the other regions, and the spell cycling given by the Rivershaper. If the game goes long enough you just need to play the Brightsteel Formation to have a near unstoppable attack force that will reset the opponent's board every single turn. The side-win condition of this deck is, of course, Fiora's own passive ability; while it's not anymore a realistic threat to the opponent's Nexus because of the high amount of removal present in the game, there are still an handful of matchups where she shines and represent a clear danger for the adversary. However she is still a very good 3-drop and with the right amount of luck (and barriers) she is still able to steal wins against everyone.

This deck is not particularly difficult, but every good "Fiora/Shen" player must have learnt the importance of developing board without overextending and the importance of knowing how and when to use his Denys and Nopeifys.

4. Shurima Burn (Azir/Draven/Darius)

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If you are a new player that has just joined the game to harness the power of the Sand Emperor do not fret, we got you covered. This is by far the easiest deck to pilot between the ones that we are analyzing in this article, because it has got one straight game plan: hit your opponent with all you have got.

This deck runs a lot of low cost units that only serve the purpose of hitting the enemy nexus. Azir is a free token generator with every attack you declare and with the help of cards like Imperial Demolitionist and Legion Grenadier you will easily get the enemy's HP below 10 thus enabling your finishers in Captain Farron, Ruin Runner and Darius.

If the opponent's deck has got single of even Area of Effect removals don't panic, but instead use your Noxian Fervors to make them waste their mana while still getting closer to the ultimate goal.

This list suffers decks that got an high healing capability and decks that are able to challenge his board presence. If you have to choose between blocking enemies attacks in matchups where you most likely won't lose from direct hits anyway or not, preserve your board and try to be prepared to declare the best attack you can. This type of decks is very fast paced so if the game stretches for too long and you don't see a way out, don't hesitate to surrender and queue up again, it will benefit you in the long run!

5. Reputation Aggro (LeBlanc/Sivir)

Courtesy of Mobalytics.gg

This last deck is the perfect mix of old and new; it is based on the newly released "Reputation" archetype, a keyword that allows various beneficial effects to take place once your stronger units have struck at least 4 times, which is perfectly on theme with the statlines of the champions that you will found on this list: the mischievous LeBlanc will strengthen your board control with unavoidable value trades while feeding both hers and Sivir's level up quest. All the followers in your deck are also meant to lower the opponent's nexus life and maintain control long enough to have Sivir on board. Once she is levelled up and allowed to attack, any other deck will find itself incapable of resisting your attacks and the finishers of Kato The Arm and Ruin Runner will do the rest.

This deck is also very flexible because of its capability of draw given by whispered words and the use OP combat tricks as Whirling Death and Bloody Business, while the Reckoning is used to reset the enemy board state in times of need.

As its flexibility is high, so it is the amount of skill necessary for achieving a right execution even against unfavourable matchups. Don't forget to respect the opponent's removals and healing spells, as well as their combat tricks responses to your attacks. If you find this deck too difficult to pilot try to practice with the "Shurima Burn" that we've talked about earlier, learning the importance of when to open attack and when to play units is very important in this game and you don't want to get on a losing streak with highly skilled decks when you still have to practice fundamentals.

Conclusions

In this quick Meta Report for patches 2.3.0 and 2.4.0 of Legends of Runeterra we have only focused on either the most stable ("Fizz/Twisted Fate" and "Matron Combo") and the most faced-paced ("Reputation Aggro" and "Shurima Burn") that will for sure help you in your climb to the Master rank.

However take note that these are not the only viable decks and are definitely not unbeatable even from decks that would be put in a lower tier on the Tier List, only the ones that will give you the highest certainty of winning the majority of your matches in the long run. As per the data that were useful for this report, I owe a huge thanks to Kozmic that gathered information across EUW and NA servers of all the matchups in Diamond+ elo.

The meta, as the sands of Shurima do, shifts very frequently so be sure to look out for more articles like this in the future to stay updated on everything new that happens around the world of Legends of Runeterra.