LoR: 10 Decks with the New Cards to Play on the First Day of the Variety Patch

The variety patch is here, and brought 10 new cards for all of us to test out.

As always, I bring you, in this article, some lists with the new cards. Usually, I research lists that were used by my competitive friends, or by someone who is getting good results on data websites. However, today I decided to do something different: I created these decks myself!

Throughout the years I played Runeterra, I always really enjoyed having fun deckbuilding crazy lists, but, as I started to create content for the game, I stopped having time to do that.

As now we have very little data on the websites that showed us the most played, and victorious decks, considering some deckbuilders stopped playing LoR after we got the news the competitive scene was sunsetting, I was forced to bring my own creations for this article.

The 10 lists below are 100% my creations, adapted from archetypes I love playing, but with the new cards. Some decks are entirely new.

Keep in mind, this content was based on my 4-year experience playing and casting LoR professionally. Let's see these lists!

This list is my first attempt at creating the new Bird archetype. Riot has been buffing this deck for a while now, unsuccessfully, but now, with Taloned Strike, this can change.

Unfortunately, if we only count Demacian birds, we'll hardly have a list that has enough structure to only play Birds. We don't have enough Bird followers in Demacia, even though Demacia has more Birds than any other region in the game.

So, I added Neeko to this deck so I can access her origin and use all the Birds available in the game.

Usually, Neeko decks stand out because of how many different unit types they use, but this one in particular doesn't focus on her - it focuses on her origin.

This way, we have an extremely strong early game with the following cards:

This deck also has Swiftwing Flight, which boosts most of your units, and also Jarvan IV.

Quinn has a fundamental role in this list, considering she can create a Bird. If you boost a Valor with Taloned Strike, you'll have a lot of stats that will help you control the board.

I have been talking about this list in my articles a lot, and once again I bring it here because I simply really enjoy this archetype, and want to share it with everyone.

For those who haven't played the new Buried Sun Disc yet: this archetype has now fused with the Warden of the Tribes archetype, and formed a new, unique archetype that combines these two lists almost homogeneously.

The result is an Ascended deck that has a lot of early game options, with numerous strong Freljord spells, and that can still easily play in the late game with the Emperor's deck.

The main difference is that this deck's finisher is now Warden of the Tribes, considering it can grow exponentially because of how many unit types we have in Freljord and Shurima.

We have Elites, Weaponmasters, Dog, Bird, Reptile, Dragon, Cultist, Lurk, and Ascended - which means, there are at least 6 Warden stacks you can get rather easily during your matches.

This deck is extremely fun, and now that we have the first Dragon in Shurima, Horned Swarmcaller, it becomes even stronger, considering you have an excellent turn 6 option if you want to control your opponent's board.

This list is nothing more than a reinterpretation of the classic Poro archetype, but with a new Poro: Prototype Porobot.

In a recent article, in which I assessed the new cards, I briefly commented how Prototype Porobot is a support follower for Jayce decks. I also explained how classic Poro lists might enjoy this Elusive Poro way more than Jayce enjoyers.

You don't necessarily need to recycle Prototype Porobot with a spell that costs 6 in classic Poro decks as it will have a lot of stats because of the Poro Snaxs, and will be, on its own, a threat.

Attune is a very interesting tool for the Poro archetype as well, considering spell mana has always been a problem for this deck. Many times, you were forced to pass turns to save mana, and, now, with Prototype Porobot, you'll be a bit more comfortable to develop without losing so many resources.

Having another Elusive attacker in a Poro list is extremely strong as well, considering Daring Poro is already one of the best cards in this list.

Prancing Sea Spirits is one of the best Elusive followers in the game, and can already be considered one of the best Bard followers as well.

Its game style, which doubles itself, really matches chimes, and this, added to how cheap it is, allows you to develop it effortlessly, and then protect it with your spells later on.

This list brings a bit of Zed Gwen, and mixes it up with Bard lists so you can take as much advantage of your Prancing Sea Spirits as possible.

It is also straightforward to pilot, and quite strong too. Ionia is the best region to play with this type of archetype, that "only attacks", considering how many deny and protection spells it can access.

This is one of my favorite archetypes of all time, particularly this list, which I hold dear to my heart. This deck combines the Portal archetype with Noxus's control in Standard perfectly.

Obviously, this type of strategy is much better in Eternal, considering we have Ravenous Flock and Death's Hand over there, but, still, it is playable in Standard.

Now, with Kashuri Swipe, this deck has more removals that are strong against Mordekaiser lists, considering they play expensive followers.

To be extremely honest, this new spell doesn't really make that much of a different for Norra Swain, aside from giving you another removal that is similar to Scorched Earth.

But it is a fascinating addition for this archetype, considering it is a bit more flexible against units, which can be good to remove small followers, or early game attackers in fast lists. You lose some of your strength against landmarks, but gain advantage against units.

At the end of the day, it's a matter of taste: it's up to you to decide if you want to bring more copies of Kashuri Swipe. In this list, in particular, I'm playing 2 copies of Kashuri Swipe and 2 copies of Scorched Earth.

After hours trying to give some purpose to Chained Caster, I finally reached a Nightfall deck with Piltover & Zaun.

Chained Caster is the perfect Nightfall activator. This card places on the board, for free, a follower with incredible stats, and then you can easily combo it with your Nightfall followers.

However, it isn't exactly "for free", considering it will enter the battlefield Cursed, and that's why Piltover & Zaun is here: with Sunken Temple, you'll Upstream your Curses and improve your hand.

We all know the Nightfall archetype has always been terrible at drawing cards - now, with this landmark, you no longer need to worry about that.

Not to mention, the Shackles themselves can be a great Nightfall activator if you really need them to be.

This Nightfall version isn't that fast compared to the one we play in Eternal, but it is a very sequenced deck that plays similarly to Nilah Janna lists (only without them).

I'm very proud of this creation. I hope you guys have fun with it, and improve it in your own way. Tell me later if you had any success with it!

Out of all the lists in this article, this is the one that appears to be the most competitive one. However, it was also the one that didn't really get much attention on Runeterra.AR, maybe because it is the most "obvious" one.

Bladebound Berserker is one of the best units we have to boost Udyr. As a result, we got the Galio Udyr archetype and made it a bit slower to open up space for this card to shine.

A combo that I'm quite anxious to play is Bladebound Berserker + Magical Fettering, considering you'll give two Suppression to your opponent.

We all know doubling spells has always been a strong mechanic in Runeterra, and this card can now bring this game style to Demacia and Freljord. Obviously, Udyr's stances are the main stars in this game style and new archetype, but we still bring other burst spells, such as Sky Splitter and Shield of Durand, considering these cards really match Formidable units.

This archetype might not be as strong as it was before, when Champions' Strength was around, but it seems a viable option to play against removal lists that work with direct damage, usually Piltover & Zaun, and control decks in general.

Petricite Charger and Suppression really control the board, and make this list extremely competitive.

Particularly, I didn't find Erastin, the Disgraced as interesting in Mordekaiser decks as people said it was (I swear I tried making it work).

Maybe this card works better in the deceased, and now revived, Vaults of Helia archetype.

After the nerfs, Vaults was completely forgotten, and was never popular again. However, as the competitive scene was retired, the number of decks that bring cards to deal with this archetype might go down rather drastically.

This list is a bit weak, considering Vaults now cost 5, but it can be one of the most fun, and well-built decks of all time (for those like control lists, of course).

If you don't know this list, you basically have 3 copies of a single follower for each mana cost, with a few exceptions.

The main idea is to play Rockbear Shepherd, then pop out the landmark it creates while the Vaults of Helia are on the board, so you can summon a Nasus for free from your deck. Subsequently, it will summon a The Rekindler, which will summon another Nasus, which then summons Erastin, the Disgraced. All for free.

This deck has one of the strongest engines in the game; it allows Shadow Isles lists to have enough mana to play Vengeance and other removals without worrying about refilling the board with units.

I strongly recommend you give this list a chance because it can surprise you on the first few days of the new patch.

Lovingly nicknamed Bandle City Yasuo, this archetype just got another super interesting card: Chakram Dancer.

This card can fix one of this archetype's problems: it can't heal and can eventually lose if their opponent has too much Burn.

Unfortunately, this list is very, very, very slow, which means it doesn't have good matchups against most lists that have Burn, such as Janna Nilah decks, Pirates, and others.

Now, you can heal yourself with Jhin, which can breathe a new life into this archetype, and place it back on the map.

I love this list, even though I think it is a bit too RNG-dependent because of Portals and Riptide Rex, your main win conditions. This can be a bit frustrating when we play with this archetype.

However, apart from that, now with Chakram Dancer, we might play a bit better into some bad matchups, and let go of RNG a bit.

Sneaky Swap is by far the worst card in the new variety patch, and it was a bit difficult to find a list for it.

In the end, I decided to adapt a Kayle Yuumi deck with Yordles, considering it is one of the few decks that "matches" (somewhat) Sneaky Swap.

Unfortunately, this new card is a bit bad and might only make sense, just like all 2023 Bandle City cards, after the next set, and after rotation 2024 comes along.

For now, the Yordles deck with Yordle Captain and Xolaani the Bloodweaver is the best option we have to play this incredibly weird spell.

My opinion is that, if this card was an Ionian card, besides the fact it wouldn't lose its flavor that badly because there are owlcats in Ionia, it would make more sense in the new variety pack and would boost some Recall archetypes in this region.

For now, we have Kayle Yuumi, at least until the new cards come along.

If you read this far, thank you! Now you're ready to play the new cards in the next patch!

Don't forget to share and comment. See you next time!