THE META REPORT NAME IS TOO LONG, TOO DAMN LONG (n°11)
by Legna
2021/06/16
With the addition of content over the time, the meta report was turning into a simple dry agglomerate of tables. While there’s nothing really wrong with that, it’s also lazy from me and worse for those who don’t want to seatch for the “spicy” results or having to interpretate the latest numbers compared to the previous weeks. So, I decided add a few personal analysis/comments (this weeks also featuring some takes from CastMin ), which also required to clean up the overall presentation of the report to make it easy to read and navigate.
I’m a little sorry that I still can’t guarantee a format (layout and so on) that’s constant over the time.
Data
Sample population: Ranked games / Patch 2.9 / Master players
Number of games: 37352 1 (check the footnote for additional information)
Regions
Play Rate
Plot
Table
| Region | Play Rate | America | Asia | Europe |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bilgewater | 2.83% | 3.1% | 3.1% | 2.3% |
| Demacia | 6.13% | 5.8% | 5.9% | 6.7% |
| Freljord | 10.25% | 10.4% | 9.9% | 10.5% |
| Ionia | 11.06% | 10.3% | 10.9% | 11.9% |
| MtTargon | 8.53% | 8.3% | 8.4% | 8.8% |
| Noxus | 12.71% | 12.7% | 13.7% | 11.6% |
| PnZ | 10.74% | 11.7% | 10.3% | 10.3% |
| ShadowIsles | 14.5% | 13.9% | 14.3% | 15.2% |
| Shurima | 23.25% | 23.8% | 23.3% | 22.7% |
Play Rate by number of Cards
Plot
Table
| Region | Play Rate | America | Asia | Europe |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bilgewater | 2.82% | 3.01% | 3.21% | 2.20% |
| Demacia | 6.86% | 6.63% | 6.40% | 7.60% |
| Freljord | 10.97% | 10.93% | 10.62% | 11.40% |
| Ionia | 13.79% | 12.91% | 13.25% | 15.23% |
| MtTargon | 8.85% | 8.70% | 9.27% | 8.52% |
| Noxus | 11.72% | 11.44% | 12.55% | 11.04% |
| PnZ | 11.36% | 12.80% | 10.67% | 10.78% |
| ShadowIsles | 15.93% | 15.32% | 16.17% | 16.23% |
| Shurima | 17.7% | 18.25% | 17.86% | 17.00% |
Champions Combinations
Play Rates
In this section I provide the play rate of which combinations of champions (plus the regions) are used in a deck. The champions showed right before a game starts for example. Right now it’s a simple approximation of the archetypes played in the ladder as such information is not restrictive enough.
Plot
Table
CastMin’s take
PlayRate Meta Report 11
While the top 3 dogs (looking at you, Susan) of the meta remain unchanged, we are witnessing a lower play rate for Azir-Irelia (↓ 0.65 %) and Nasus-Thresh (↓ 0.45 %). In the meantime Draven-Ezreal seems to be on the rise, with a ↑ 2.06 % play rate increase; the culprits are the Asia and Americas ladder, with Europe already on the Draven-Ezreal train since last time. Other notable mentions are people going back to some old and evil gods like TLMC (↑ 0.64 %), who replaced what seemed to be the new sensation, Turbo Thralls, which took quite a decent play rate drop (↓ 1.75 %). All regions registered such a drop. Sometimes you cannot get between people and their Watchers. While Azir-Darius Burn is disappearing from Top 10 most played decks, we see an increase in Shurima Overwhelm (↑ 0.44 %) and Zoe-Vi (↑ 0.56 %). While classic Demacia Dragons (Zoe-Shyvana-Sol) go up in play rate (↑ 1.03 %), we are seeing the new-comer Shyvana-Zoe almost clawing its way into Top 10 (11), with a 1.91 % play rate. It seems like Alanzq and Szychu made quite the impact with their new creation in order to counter Azir-Irelia. All these decks are making up for almost 70 % of the global ladder. 2
Day by Day
With the previous reports showing that there’s a huge cluster of decks all with a very low win rate the following graph will show the play rate day by day only for the most played decks.
Since I collect a match detail at random without giving advantages to the latest matches it’s probably better to ignore the latest values (2021-06-15). Sadly this problem will most likely continue for two more weeks until the new set is released. In the meanwhile I’ll try to improve the visualization and limit my limitations.
Win Rates
Tie games are excluded
Win rates of the most played combination of champions, against all decks, this week. This time I left all cases with more than 1000 games
CastMin’s take
WinRates Meta Report 11
Now it’s time to talk about the winner of this meta report aaand… the Top 3 decks in term of win rate are still the same 😥. With a minor drop of ↓ 0.90 %, everyone’s favourite power couple, Azir and Irelia, is yet again the #1 deck; how’s that for some couple goals? The boy with the magic gauntlet threw the frisbee too far for his dog; while he was out there searching for it ( Nasus-Thresh win rate is ↓ 0.60 % lower), him and his moustache buddy managed to climb to #2, with a ↑ 0.50 % win rate increase. Eee Zeee! Just like his name. Speaking of doggos, Zoe’s relationship with his space doggie has ended and now Shyvana is her new friend; while their relationship is still advancing, it was enough to get them in the top 11 (was 10 right before the last update) (Shyvana-Zoe Dragons has a 47.50% win rate). Well, we might have lied a bit. Classic Demacia Dragons is registering a ↑ 0.90 % win rate increase, helping them advance one positions since our last report. We bet that is how Aurelion is trying to say “Sorry!” for whatever he did. From loser of the previous report, TLMC is coming back strong, registering a ↑ 2.00 % global win rate increase, putting them just behind Draven-Ezreal on the leaderboard. In the meantime, Turbo Thralls are slowly dropping in terms of win rate, as well (↓ 0.50 %), becoming one of the losers of this report. It seems like Lissandra’s pillar addiction is just too strong to resist.
Underdog(?) Win Rates
Top Win rates of the least played combination of champions. Min 300 games and a play rate of less than 2% play rate (in this sample)
CastMin’s take
Yess! With so many dog mentions, we are reaching the ones that are really creative. And this time we are seeing the same Noxus Leona-Zoe deck present on duty with a 59.0 % win rate. It is actually a ↑ 4.61 % from last time, but still not enough to make people absolutely fall in love with the deck. If you are reading this, Dyna, you might be happy to read this: people are starting to play Nightfall Aggro again, which is boasting a 53.1% (Legna’s note: sadly it dropped to 50.3 with the latest updates, I guess players had quite the losing streak to make such a drop in one day, even considering the small sample size, still it’s a deck that day by day has the potential to top this chart so it’s worth considering ) win rate. But what if that is just Dyna smurfing on people? 🤯 To end with style, Shen-Jarvan IV is still wandering around, hoping people might still not abandon Demacia-Ionia and will still give it a try. To be fair, the deck is increasing in winrate (↑ 0.70 %), so it might not be that bad as you think. Give it a spin and convince yourself.
Riot PoV(?)
This is a section that will be present pretty much once a month, two weeks before a “balance change patch”. When Riot released their latest “big patch” on 2.5: https://playruneterra.com/en-us/news/game-updates/patch-2-5-0-notes/ they explained a few details like the timing of snapshot used to inform patching decisions. This time the time period may be different as the patch is also a response to the community feedback.
In addition to the time range they also explained:
Only “meta-decks” (defined as 3%+ play rate or 50%+ win rate) are represented in the play rates below, but win rates are based on all games played during the time period analyzed.
The meta-decks shown below are based off of the 3%+ play rate definition since they’re the decks you’re most likely to encounter, but there are a number of high win rate, low play rate decks that inform our balance decisions as well.
As a rule of thumb, 55%+ win rate and 15%+ play rate are our normal benchmarks for corrective balance, but we do make adjustments outside of those numbers.
The table tries to recreate what Riot should be seeing from their data (at least for Master) and so checking what is surpassing their benchmarks. I actually added a condition to the “50% WR” inclusion by requiring at least 200 games or I would also add special cases with very little games which can easily surpass the 55% WR benchmark
Based on their conditions, not only Azir/Irelia and Nasus/Thresh require additional nerfs but Draven/Ezreal is also in need of considerations. The other two: Leona / Zoe (MT/NX) and
Match Ups
Match-up Grid
The win rates on the grid are among the 10 most played champion combination. Match-ups with less than 300 games are not included
While this is one of the most interesting data for many the results are still heavily affected by the small sample size. They may be the 10 most played combination of champions but it’s still a 100 cell grid. Also, while my approximation for archetypes usually works, this weeks more than usual, two decks are not well reported: Dragons and Azir/Noxus. In these two cases the inclusion of J4 / Garen / Zoe and Draven / Darius create different values for in the end it’s the same deck with just a couple of different card. I already have an idea and part of the code how to solve this but will use it for next week. I could use Dr.LoR approach with bayesian statistics but I want to be consistent with my metholody in order to have a better comparison for my results. Of course I can still make changes in the future if the quality vastly improve with them.
Match-up Table
I updated the table in order to be easier to navigate, know it’s possible to select the specific combination of champions and filter the results by regions. (not done in the draft) Filtered cases with less than 30 games
Deck Structure of the week
While I was looking at the data about the perfomance of decks against the “unholy-triad” of AzIrelia - Nasus/Thresh - TLC, one deck stood high among the rest which is completely different from the usual decks seen in this meta which is a sort of Demacia/Shruima mid-aggro deck with Garen and Sivir.
| opponent | Win Rate | WR > 50% p.value |
|---|---|---|
| Azir / Irelia | 60.0% | 0.212 |
| Lissandra / Trundle (FR/SI) | 66.7% | 0.254 |
| Nasus / Thresh | 56.5% | 0.339 |
To be fair, the sample size is quite low and I can’t guarantee even the direction of the MU. I can only offer the example that a player interested in the deck was still able to reach Master with it and one or two more also had discrete success with it.
Garen / Sivir
How to read the table:
- Play rate: How often a card is included in this class of decks / the table is order by this column.
- 3/2/1 is the relative and absolute frequency of the number of copies in the decks that plays them
- Frequencies from 50% to 100% are colored from shades of green to white to identify more easily the highest values
LoR-Meta Index (LMI)
The LMI 3 is an Index I developed to measure the performance of decks in the metagame. For those who are familiar with basic statistical concept I wrote a document to explain the theory behind it: , it’s very similar to vicioussyndicate (vS) Meta Score from their data reaper report. The score of each deck is not just their “strength”, it takes in consideration both play rates and win rates that’s why I prefer to say it measure the “performance”. The values range from 0 to 100 and the higher the value, the higher is the performance.
With fewer decks in the graph this week it’s possible to notice different groups of decks based on their LMI/coordinates which could be translated in “Tier” in which case we would have a clear Tier1 group made of EzDraven, Nasus/Thresh, and AzIrelia. The latter is almost “Tier0” material by being almost the undisputed number 1 deck in terms of playrate and win rate (almost) but with aggro decks still being ignored in the ladder (aside for Azir NX burn) those values are simply a result of the meta created. Something that’s noteworthy is how TLC performance continue to drop week by week (both WR and PR), the overall MU are still great but it’s not an edge as it was in the past as all of the top10 most played decks are functioning as hard counters to other of top10 decks. The only exception is EzDraven which is a “Jack of all Trades” with no big advantages but also with no big weaknesses.
Cards Presence
Play Rates
Top 3 Play Rates by Region
Forgotten Cards
Cards that couldn’t find place even in a meme deck.
| Region | Bilgewater | Demacia | Freljord | Ionia | MtTargon | Noxus | PnZ | ShadowIsles |
| 1 | Plunder Poro | Vanguard Lookout | Feral Mystic | Nimble Poro | Wish | Savage Reckoner | Golden Crushbot | Stirred Spirits |
| 2 | Scrapshot | For Demacia! | Sown Seeds | Shards of the Mountain | Arrel the Tracker | Scrapdash Assembly | ||
| 3 | Confront | Zephyr Sage | Porofly | Wrathful Rider | ||||
| 4 | Towering Stonehorn | Ritual of Renewal |
Legal bla bla
This Meta Report was created under Riot Games’ “Legal Jibber Jabber” policy using assets owned by Riot Games. Riot Games does not endorse or sponsor this project.