Poros Decklists: Analyzing Different Meta Versions

Those who keep up with the stats websites and play competitively already know the latest trend in Runeterra; Poro decks. The Poro archetype not so long ago got a lot of support with the release of The Poro King, but, even then, no list that brought Poros ever became meta.

Actually, the most successful Poros deck in history was a Bilgewater list with Siren Song, which was, certainly, the worst out of all Siren Song decks at the time.

Today, let's see 2 Poro lists that are popping up on the ranked queue and have decent win rates to understand how one of the worst archetypes in the entire game is finally seeing play.

The Poros archetype was designed to be played primarily with Freljord as its second region, and the list within this archetype that has the best win rate brings this snowy region.

The Poro King deck focuses a lot on filling the board with the little Poros, which mostly cost 1 mana, to then buff them in several different ways, but mostly globally with Poro Snax. Eventually, you'll have a board full of big units with strong keywords that will lead you to victory.

This list hasn't changed much since the strategy first came to be in Runeterra, but the changes the community did to this deck greatly affected its win rate. We took a long time to figure out what was the best way to play this list, and, as a result, the first decks that brought Poros were quite bad and too dependent on Poro Snaxs.

We still have this problem of depending too much on Poro Snaxs, but, with the addition of better support spells and an upgraded focus on which Poros we should bring, besides how many of them are in this deck, the list got a lot better.

We're talking about Three Sisters and Buried in Ice, which are great responsive tools that protect your board and deal with the opponent's board as well.

A card that was left behind, and was considered very important to the archetype before and is no longer so, is Aurora Porealis. In the latest versions of this list, it now shows up only 1 time as it is a very expensive card that doesn't create immediate value on board, and for that reason can be too slow for us. As this archetype is now much faster, Aurora Porealis can delay you in a few matchups, bricking your hand.

The Poros which are less impactful in game are now only 1-ofs in this deck. Before, we had numerous questions regarding which poros were good, and how many of each one we should bring. Now, we have reached a better understanding that states we should bring some bad poros, but only 1 copy of them, to level up your champion.

The most important Poros all appear in 3 copies - they are:

Lonely Poro is useful to give you value during the match, besides being extremely cute.

Affectionate Poro helps you control the board by pulling the enemy units into combat.

Daring Poro is your main source of damage as it carries the keyword "Elusive".

Pouty Poro is the most important unit in the deck, as it is the Poro which is best prepared to play against direct removal lists due to its Tough keyword, and it is also an aggressive unit because of its Overwhelm keyword.

This list has a very decent win rate, and a gigantic play rate currently. This deck's problem is that it loses to a few popular matchups in the competitive scene, such as Darius Gnar and Janna Nilah, but, even then, it has good matchups against many other decks in the format.

Poros are currently an excellent option to bring to the ranked queue, as it is an extremely fun, cute and easy deck. That means you won't be dealt emotional damage every time you lose matches. Not to mention your games will be extremely fast.

Let's check out an alternative Poro list which is a bit more prepared to play in competitive formats, in case you want to take this archetype seriously.

The Poro King has already played with Targon a few times in Siren Song times, but it was never competitive, and/or strong. Now with a more optimized list, it seems like this archetype can finally perform well against many competitive decks.

This version is a bit more focused on value, and on protecting its units thoroughly while you make them gigantic with your Yuumi.

Targon allows you to bring Xolaani The Bloodweaver, which is a unit that allows you to be a bit more reckless with the way you play your units because you don't care about losing them as much. Your Xolaani, anyhow, will grow considerably even if your Poros are removed or killed during the match, and, for that reason, this list has a much better late game than the Freljord version.

This deck also brings one of the best removal spells in the entire game, Sunburst, and one of the best value cards in the entire game as well, Targonian Tellstones. Like so, you'll be able to even access Celestials if everything goes wrong.

Let's see this deck's win rate in the last few weeks:

Unfortunately, this list's win rate isn't as interesting, but that happens because this data is taken directly from the ranked queue. If we analyze it a bit more critically, we'll notice that some matchups against popular decks in the competitive scene are extremely favorable to this version of Poros.

The number of matches is low as this is a deck that has just started showing up, notably from the day this article is being written.

Targon Poros has good matchups against Shen Jarvan IV and Pantheon Akshan lists, not to mention it can perform well against Darius Gnar, and these are all decks that are used competitively.

This list's bad matchups are Ashe LeBlanc due to Frostbites and Janna Nilah as this archetype is extremely strong against these lists that can't remove enemy units early on, just like Poros can't.

If you read this far, now you're also being tempted by Poros' cuteness. Leave your opinion down below in the comment section if you think Poros deserve their own detailed guide!

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