The best Legends of Runeterra decks for patch 1.2

Hey friends, welcome back to another Legends of Runeterra guide! Patch 1.2 is now live so I’ll be doing some analysis of the best Legends of Runeterra decks right now.

I’ll be explaining my thought process with each deck. Just remember, that these are just my initial thoughts. My rankings could slightly change in a week. The decks are also in no particular order.

And if your favorite deck didn’t make my cut, make sure to stay to the end – I have some honorable mentions!

Heimerdinger Control

Lets begin with Heimerdinger Control. In Legends of Runeterra, Burn Aggro had so far been extremely good at killing slower control decks before they could stabilize. However, Burn Aggro received some pretty impactful nerfs in Patch 1.2. And although I don’t think Burn Aggro is completely dead, I do think that it will see less play, which means that slower control decks naturally become more viable. Here’s one:

Out of all the control decks in the format, I think Heimerdinger Control benefits the most from all the new changes. So if you are still fairly new to Legends of Runeterra, you might be wondering why this deck? Didn’t two cards in Heimerdinger Control get nerfed?

Well, yes they did. Deep Meditation increased by 1 mana, and Vi lost 1 point of health. Let me address each one.

best legends of runeterra deck — I am including excerpts from the patch notes here to provide some context to the changes.

The “nerf” to Deep Meditation might negatively impact other control decks, sure. However, what some experienced players have already realized, is that Deep Mediation costing 1 extra mana is a buff for Heimerdinger decks.

Why’s that? Well, with Heimerdinger on the board, the deck was extremely good at creating a crazy amount of 3/1 Elusive turrets out of nowhere because of all 3-mana spell options the deck had. That’s how the deck wins a lot of its games.

So going back the nerf, Deep Meditation is now 5 mana instead of 4 mana. However, that also means that its reduced cost is 3 mana instead of 2, effectively increasing the number of 3 mana spells in the deck. Increasing the number of 3-mana spells in the deck means more 3/1 Elusive units. More Elusive units mean a more consistent win condition and… you get the point!

Okay, so the nerf to Deep Meditation can technically be a small buff to Heimerdinger Control. But what about the nerf to Vi? She lost a point of health, doesn’t that impact Heimerdinger?

Yes, it does hurt Heimerdinger decks a little bit, but it doesn’t make her unplayable. The nerf to her health wasn’t because she was particularly good in Heimerdinger Control, it was because she was just too good of a card overall.

However, while other decks will just completely remove her, she still holds her value in Heimerdinger Control. Shes still resistant against damage based removal and can still pick off weaker creatures effectively

Also, because you’re naturally going to be playing so many cards in Heimerdinger Control anyways, Vi is always going to be a good synergistic champion in the deck.

Overall, Heimerdinger will still be one of the best Legends of Runeterra decks this patch. This is a great deck to pick up if your itching to play control.

Midrange Bannerman

Next up is Midrange Bannerman. Honestly, Bannerman is pretty much still a top tier deck, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. People have to remember that before Rising Tides, Bannerman was one of the best Legends of Runeterra decks to play. The deck is still currently favored against several meta strategies.

Let’s just quickly go over the nerfs that hit Midrange Bannerman. Vi was nerfed by 1 health, while Grizzled Ranger and Badgerbear were both nerfed by 1 attack point. But did these changes weaken Midrange Bannerman?

Well, yes and no. I think due to the nerfs, Midrange Bannerman is going to rely a little more on curving out. It’s going to be a Tier 1 deck, just not as oppressive or explosive as it was before.

First off, Vi’s nerf did nothing to this deck. Midrange Bannerman didn’t depend on Vi to win, and can easily replace her with the deck’s previous go-to champion, Garen.

The biggest change lies with Grizzled Ranger and Badgerbear. Although this change did hurt Bannerman, it’s going to hurt other strong decks like Lux/Karma way more. This is because those decks rely way more on the individual power of Grizzled Ranger and Badgerbear, while Midrange Bannerman doesn’t. At 3 power, Grizzled Ranger is still solid and great when played curve.

Badgerbear, however, should be replaced with Laurent Protege because Laurent Protege now just provides more value through Challenger.

Overall, the deck is almost always going to be great. Midrange Bannerman is still quite a few card nerfs away before I see it losing steam.

Sejuani Swain

I don’t think enough people are talking about this, but currently Sejuani-based decks seem very strong.

I’ll mainly be referring to the Sejuani Swain deck, since I just think it is the best option right now, and has proven to work well. That said, there are some variants – like Sejuani Gangplank – that have caught my attention, and should be on your radar too.

Many of you might not have seen this deck around too often, so if you don’t already know, Sejuani Swain is a value deck that takes advantage of how similar both champions level up conditions are. Swain levels up after we deal 12 non-combat damage, and Sejuani levels up if we deal any type of damage to the opponent’s nexus on 5 different turns. So that’s why the deck includes cards like Ember Maiden, which deals 1 damage to everything.

Okay, but why exactly do I think Sejuani Swain is going to be a top tier deck? First, Burn Aggro and Vi were the two things that kept Sejuani in check. Sejuani decks couldn’t develop a strong enough board against Burn Aggro, and Vi just killed Sejuani too easily. However, these two things just got massively nerfed. So now Sejuani can shine without worrying about her worst match-ups.

The second reason is that the deck is incredibly good at locking out our opponent through constant stuns and frostbites, and I find that it can win against every control deck if they’re able to curve out. So, if the meta starts seeing more control decks, Sejuani decks are going to shine.

Overall, Sejuani Swain is a really fun deck to play, and I think it’s going to have a breakout win-rate in this patch.

Honorable mentions

Our first honorable mention is going to be Burn Aggro. The deck received some impactful nerfs. Legion Rearguard was pretty much slashed out of this game, since losing on turn one as a target for Transfusion and Imperial Demolitionist is huge.

Also, reducing Boomcrew Rookie’s health makes him more vulnerable to removal spells and getting traded in combat. Before, Boomcrew Rookie was at least guaranteed to attack twice, but that isn’t the case anymore.

With all that said, the deck itself is still fast and can win games, but I think it just lost some consistency. It isn’t oppressive anymore, but it’s still a viable option. I think it might even see a midrange variant.

Also, I just wanted to note that Burn Aggro outshined Kinkou Elusives since it was one of the harder match-ups and was just a faster aggro deck. This means that whenever Burn Aggro gets nerfed, Kinkou Elusives becomes stronger. That’s just one more deck we should keep in mind.

The second honorable mention goes out to Karma decks. I think Karma Decks are still going to be good. Karma wants to be played later anyway, so I don’t think this nerf stopped her from being good. Deep Meditation is going to feel a little clunky, but we’ll just have to see how bad it affects Karma decks.

Next up, Deep / Seamonster decks. Deep had an amazing 57% win-rate before the patch. However, this was because the deck was heavily favored against Burn Aggro.

I’m carefully looking at Deep decks, and curious to see how good the archetype becomes, since none of the cards in the deck were affected. Overall the deck is still solid, and can adjust to the meta by removing some of its healing cards for more toss effects in order to get Deep quicker.