Legends of Runeterra: Top 5 Most Hated Archetypes of All Time

If you play Legends of Runeterra frequently, you have likely faced a deck you despised. It is impossible to play card games in general and not have that deck, archetype, or even a single card that you just can't stand.

For that reason, I decided to bring the top 5 most hated Legends of Runeterra decks of all time!

The Siren Song archetype dominated the competitive meta and the entire game's ranked queue early in the Heart of the Huntress expansion.

This card was so strong it was the main character in the Heart of the Huntress' first Runeterra Open, showing up in 5 out of the 6 lists which were in the Americas shard finals. Not to mention it was also very present in the lineups of players who top-cutted the tournament in other server shards as well.

It was clear Siren Song deserved a nerf, but as this meta happened in a period in which Riot Games staff had a few weeks off due to the 4th of July celebrations, this nerf took too long to happen. This way, players were forced to play ranked matches with 80% of the queue being represented by lists that brought at least one copy of Siren Song.

The most popular list was the Fizz Siren Song Targon deck, even though Siren Song was a support card for Evelynn's archetype. On the last few days before Siren Song was nerfed, even a few Demacia versions with Illaoi and Lucian showed up and won important tournaments, including the Runeterra Open.

Which means, Siren Song lists were so strong that it didn't make sense for you to bring any other deck, be it for the ranked queue or tournaments. Players started hating this archetype very early on, particularly the most competitive-inclined ones. As a result, this archetype deserves 5th place in this list.

Kai'Sa entirely changed Runeterra when she was released, alongside one of the most popular events in the entire game: Star Guardians. Kai'Sa was released with her own skin, the most expensive one in the game and the only one in its rarity tier to this day, and also got a legendary board skin.

But this champion was also extremely strong and dominant when she was released, quickly becoming the most played card in the entire ranked queue. Early in the Worldwalker expansion, the Mono Kai'Sa Demacia deck created a new tier of Midrange lists in the game, because now keywords were the strongest interaction in the entire game.

These Kai'Sa lists could draw and play this champion on curve very easily, and it was extremely easy to level her up every single game. Not to mention this list could grant this champion Scout and Spellshield very easily as well, making her an unstoppable lethal weapon.

That, added to the fact Shurima was proficient at dealing with removals, made the meta at the time based on whoever played Kai'Sa first on board, and whoever had the best keywords.

This deck won the Forces From Beyond Seasonal Tournament, and the very last match to decide the winner was a mirror match, in which the player 4LW won after they played a Void Abomination with 8 different keywords on board.

The main reason why players hated this deck was that the keywords granted to Kai'Sa were very important to the match. If a player managed to find a way to grant her premium keywords early on, such as Elusive, Scout and Spellshield, that would almost guarantee the match.

Another reason for how hated this list was is because no one likes to play against an unbeatable archetype. At the time, even decks which won against this archetype in theory many times couldn't close out matches, because a random keyword which was good against that particular anti-meta strategy could come up and ruin the match.

Nerfs soon came, and the card Second Skin became a slow speed spell (it was focus speed before), and the spell Supercharge went up in cost by 1 mana, becoming a 4-mana spell, finally pushing this champion out of the game's competitive meta for a good while.

It is somewhat hard to pick the Fizz Twisted Fate list to put as an example of a "most hated deck", because this archetype is to this day the greatest winner of big tournaments. This list went through so many nerfs, and so many metas, that it is, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the most hated archetypes of all time. For that reason, I chose the list in this archetype which last appeared in a Seasonal Tournament. This deck won the Guardians of the Ancient Seasonal Tournament, after it was nerfed.

The Fizz Twisted Fate decks have a main game plan that involves playing countless cheap spells, discounting your Wiggly Burblefishes' mana cost, at the same time it deals a lot of damage to the enemy Nexus with Burn elements, all that as it draws numerous cards.

The problem with this archetype is that it was historically very hard to balance, once Fizz forces a game style in which it can escape any removal just by playing a spell. That "protection" spell many times was a Mystic Shot, which could go straight to the Nexus or to a unit on the enemy board. Which means, the Fizz Twisted Fate player could protect its units at the same time it progressed their match tempo, all that simultaneously.

Another toxic interaction in this list was with the card Suit Up! with Fizz himself, as the only way to remove him at the time was to use units with Challenger, and Suit Up! would place Fizz out of the range of these units.

This list is only in this spot because it was an extremely hard deck to pilot. So, besides being an outlier when it came to power, many players weren't successful playing this list only because they didn't know how to play this archetype. As a result, most players who nurture a hatred for this list are part of the competitive bubble.

Aphelios, besides being in the Targon region, the most hated region in the game, was also the main character in one of the most toxic lists of all times. An interesting fact about this deck is that it existed in the meta at the same time as the Fizz Twisted Fate list, and they even won the same Cosmic Creation Seasonal Tournament together in the same lineup, in the hands of the player MajiinBae.

This list created the second-slowest meta of all time, only losing to the TLC meta (Trundle Lissandra Control). As most Runeterra players identify heavily with aggro strategies, this time was very sad for most fans of the game.

The Aphelios Bilgewater list, at the time, could bring the most powerful play in the entire game, which to this day doesn't compare to any powerful play that came after it.

The combo was simple: you just needed to have Aphelios on turn 3 with at least 3 spell mana available. Then, you'd play this champion activating its Nightfall effect using any activator, and there you have it; you just had to pick Crescendum. At the time, Crescendum would bring onto the board a random 2-cost follower that was already in your list, and the list only had Boxtopus available, which would come on board without activating its effect of dealing 3 damage to itself, as this is a Play effect, and not a Summon effect. This way, you'd have a champion on board and a 3/4 unit with Challenger on turn 3.

Not to mention the rest of the deck had one of the best late game plays Runeterra has ever seen, full of healing cards and Celestials. We haven't even touched the issue of The Veiled Temple, which was also a main card in this list, preventing the Aphelios player from ever running out of mana. That means, it was practically impossible to build another list that came close to this deck's power level.

Soon afterward, Aphelios and his support cards, including Crescendum, were nerfed, finally pushing this list out of the meta.

Lastly, we have the Azir Irelia deck, which, even though it wasn't as strong as the other decks listed above, it was, by far, the most hated deck in the community.

This list brought a game mechanic which was very annoying to play against as it was the only deck at the time that was able to attack on defensive turns. Nowadays, you can do that with Rally effect cards, but the most significant difference between them is that Azir Irelia could Rally at burst speed.

Ribbon Dancer and Blossoming Blade activate their Blade Dance effects as soon as they go on board, without them going to the stack, and that was extremely annoying to deal with, once only a few decks at the time had the resources to survive that type of play.

Another reason this deck was hated so badly was because Ionia, added to Shurima, were the only ones that could deal with spells with their deny cards. This deck can also protect their units really well returning them to your hand, not to mention you can also return your opponent's units to their hands.

Lastly, Irelia, after reaching level 2, could easily dodge removals during attacks, adding another protection element to this deck's units.

To sum up, this deck attacked multiple times, on defensive turns, and lost no units as they did so, while they dealt with the enemy board.

After several nerfs, this list's popularity diminished, but it remains terrorizing victims in the Eternal format competitive season.

If you read this far, now you know which decks are the most hated decks in Legends of Runeterra history.

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