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LoR Competitive Week in Review for 5/24 - 5/30

Now that we have another Seasonal in the books, it's time for another expansion release! Worldwalker has already made a huge splash in the meta despite minimal balance changes, and I’m here to walk you through what stood out on the opening weekend, and what to expect in the near future.

Fight Night Legends: BR

1st HDR Dudu de Nunu - Rubin Pile / Illaoi/Jarvan IV / Pantheon/Yuumi

2nd Roxas - Poppy/Taric / Illaoi/Jarvan IV / Fizz/Riven

Fight Night Legends: EU

1st Jinden - Lurk / Pantheon/Yuumi / Bard/Zed

2nd Lordvon - Bard/Zoe / Viego / Illaoi/Jarvan IV/Twisted Fate

Online League Series #44

1st  AK Tomaszamo - Jayce/Heimer / Annie/Ezreal / Rubin Pile

2nd WW PatPat - Annie/Jhin / Bandle Burn / Afaelios

Top 4  GSE Vanicius - Illaoi/Jarvan IV / Thralls / Pantheon/Yuumi

Top 4 HDR MaykaS - MaykaS / Pantheon/Yuumi / Scouts

Top 8 HDR Dudu de Nunu - Pantheon/Yuumi / Afaelios / Illaoi/Jarvan IV

Top 8 GnomuVerde - Jayce/Heimer / Fizz/Riven / Pantheon/Yuumi

Top 8 WW Seku - Aphelios/LuxSivir/Akshan / Lee Sin/Zoe

Top 8 GK Fisura - Annie/Ezreal / Viego / Thralls

Let’s get the not-quite-as-exciting stuff out of the way first; to the surprise of no one, Pantheon and Afaelios went absolutely nowhere. They were the most popular decks at our open tournament last weekend, and Pantheon took the win at both iterations of Fight Night. Like the meta before it, there’s still plenty of room for other decks and Ilaoi/Jarvan IV was the breakout deck during the first 48 hours in which both Fight Nights were played. It’s a fairly straightforward strategy - make a big tentacle, use Demacia strike spells to hit things with the tentacle. Dudu De Nunu’s Fight Night build might look a little different from the rest, but it doesn’t seem like it was a version made to last. Keep in mind that the expansion released on Wednesday and Fight Night BR takes place on Thursday so the deck may have been a bit of a rush job. The build he used to top the Online League Series is more in line with other Illaoi/Jarvan IV decks. 

While Annie didn’t make any waves in Fight Night, she claimed 1st and 2nd in the OLS. Tomaszamo piloted the new standard for Piltover & Zaun Noxus control in Annie/Ezreal, a deck looking to finally put Tri-Beam Improbulator in the retirement home after years of service. The deck instead looks to use Ravenbloom Conservatory to buff up its removal/burn spells and finish the opponent off with a combination of their raw damage and Ezreal. Much like Draven/Ezreal of old, there’s not a lot of variation between builds but there is some wiggle room. Tomas elected to cut the popular Piltovan Tellstones to streamline his build a little more with a 2nd Captain Farron. For all you Annie/Jhin enthusiasts, Patpat carried the mantle to 2nd place with a message you might not love; stop playing Ravenbloom Conservatory. There’s not a lot of word flourish I can put on Annie/Jhin if I’m being honest, it’s just the latest flavor of twelve 1 drop aggro to round out the trifecta with Spiders and Pirates without having an overlap regionally. Spiders and Pirates have been looking for their 3rd stooge for quite some time as the countless flavor of the week aggro decks have come and gone, and Annie/Jhin at the very least looks like it might be able to hold the spot for a few months. Whether or not it has the longevity of Spiders and Pirates remains to be seen, however.

To round out the news on new archetypes making waves, I want to quickly shout out Thralls and Lurk who made the most of their new tools before moving on to Bard. He came out swinging at Fight Night BR with Zoe and Zed lists but didn’t seem to last into the weekend. I wouldn’t write off the archetype by any means; it seems like one that’s going to take some figuring out. Bard/Zed seems to be the build with more legs on it, even moving into a top 5 ladder spot recently. While the Zoe invoke versions were hoping to hit a few key elusive or lifesteal units to snowball a game, the Zed version feels like one that can do more with fewer chimes. A 2/2 Zoe is threatening, sure, but the +1/+1 doesn’t hit quite as hard as it does when it’s on a champion like Zed. On top of generally more aggressive posturing, the Ionia version of Bard offers a fair amount more protection with its spell suite, as well as more ways to turbo-level your Bard thanks to cards like Greenglade Elder and Sai’Nen Thousand-Tailed.

It’s not often that we get to see every champion from a new expansion in top cuts the opening weekend, but Worldwalker has delivered quite the treat. There’s still plenty more discovering of new decks to do and there are some top contenders that popped up over the weekend a little too late to make it into tournaments that I expect we’ll see this weekend, like Noxus Viego. We’ve got a few big tournaments coming up again this weekend so be sure to check back for my next wrap-up as we explore the rivalry between new Worldwalker decks and the old guard to figure out who’s truly on top in this new meta.

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