We got a lot of cards to talk about here. Read on to find out what the best 25 cards in the game are at the time of Patch 3.11.0

Hello again, Legends of Runeterra enjoyers! As you all surely know, we got quite the expansion recently. With the addition of a whole lot of new and powerful cards and the advent of a whole new meta, it can be rather confusing to tell the overpowered cards from the meme-tier ones. That is why, after getting an impression of our new meta, I have decided to make a large ranking of the best 25 cards in the current patch.

I was considering to exclude champions from this list since I have made a top 10 champions list not too long ago, however that was before the expansion and I am happy to affirm that the meta has changed substantially since then. There will be some overlap with the top 10 champs list, simply because by design champions are more powerful cards than the rest. Well, at least that’s the theory. In reality we all know that Ebb and Flow is the best card ever.

Additionally, I want to mention that this list will mostly focus on the standalone value of cards. For example Windswept Hillock can be seen as a very good card because it enables the entire Yasuo archetype, however that deck is powerful as a whole and no one card in it is exceptional without the rest. Be that as it may, it is time to let the ranking commence!

 

25. Go Hard

Going hard.

Very strong on release, Go Hard remains a constant presence in spell-heavy decks.

These days it’s used more as a Spell Shield popper than removal proper, but it is still amazing against aggressive decks.

What is great about Go Hard:

Provides significant amount of healing.

• Good against low-curve aggressive decks.
• Great way to pop a Spell Shield.
• Great card to set up Ravenous Flock and similar effects (Disintegrate).

 

24. Preservarium

Preserving your handsize

When it comes to efficient card draw, Preservarium is hard to beat. Two mana for two cards is excellent. The delayed second draw due to the countdown may appear like a downside, but when it comes to drawing cards, immediate effect is not too important. In particular, Preservarium sees great use in many Landmark decks where it is considered an auto-include.

What is great about Preservarium:

• The most efficient card draw in the game when it comes to mana per card.
• Great in Landmark decks.
• Because it’s a Shurima card it is naturally paired with Predicts, giving great control over your draws for a consistent strategy.

 

23. Shen

may the force be with you

Shen Fiora used to be one of the most consistently top tier decks in the game. After the Fiora nerf, though, it fell off and Shen was faded out of the meta. Occasional attempts to revive the archetypes featured Jarvan IV but never really took off. Recently, however, the Ionia Barrier archetype received amazing new tools and Shen has resurfaced in style. A fantastic card to win over the board, Shen also has One-Turn-Kill potential with Sacred Protector giving your Barrier units Double Attack.

What is great about Shen:

• Good, hard to trade, statline. Not much can contest a 3/5 by turn 4 or 5 and even if something can, you will have combat tricks at your disposal.
• Strong level up that allows for explosive turns.
• Good Champion Spell that works particularly well with lvl 2 Shen.
• Sacred Protector (dubbed “Shen Boat” by the community) not only adds consistency but allows for OTKs.

 

22. Decimate

If this was a top 25 most tilting cards list this would be #1.

Do me trade? No! Me go face! Yes, Decimate is the ultimate SMOrc card of LoR. Scarcely any aggro deck does not include this card. When your deck consisting of 89 1-drops runs out of cards in hand on turn 2, you want to start drawing Decimates. The card may appear expensive but, as I said, aggro decks won’t have anything else to play very quickly and this is the best way to spend your mana at that point.

What is great about Decimate:

• Good bang for your buck. It may cost a lot of mana but it is also the most damage you can do in one card.
• Perfect top-end for any aggro deck.
• Almost unstoppable damage from hand that does not require any board presence.

 

21. Noxian Fervor

this would be #2

Decimate’s younger and slightly better looking brother is Noxian Fervor. Nearly as much a staple of aggressive decks, Fervor provides some additional utility but also has an opportunity cost. Having a unit to cast this on is generally easy, but a smart opponent may try to empty your board by the time you are likely to play this. The real issue, however, is that this can be disrupted by killing the target unit at fast speed. On the flip side, Fervor can be used to kill enemy threats and it can be used to deny strike effects like Lifesteal.

What is great about Fervor:

• Can be used to stop the opponent from healing with Lifesteal.
• It can best be used “Glimpse-style” meaning that, just like Glimpse Beyond, this is best used on a unit that is already being killed. This way you won’t lose a unit and your opponent is less likely to disrupt the Fervor as they are already using a kill spell, making them less likely to have another one.
• 3 mana for 3 damage is very efficient.

 

20. Vile Feast

Are you afraid of spiders?

From the aggressive to the defensive, our rank 20 is Vile Feast. This card is a staple of control decks but also features in faster archetypes. The ability to get a unit at fast speed is valuable for punishing an opponent that takes too many actions before their attack. The healing can be relevant, and 1 damage finds way more use than one would think. In particular, aggressive decks often feature a lot of 2/1 statlines and Vile Feast is amazing against those, since the damage ping kills one and the spider trades the second 2/1.

What is great about Vile Feast:

• Excellent against aggressive decks with many early units.
• Cheap way to get rid of a Spell Shield.
• Sets up further removal spells like Ravenous Flock.
• Often does two things in one card: killing a unit and providing a blocker.

 

19. Glimpse Beyond

What she sees.

Like Vile Feast, this card has been around since the early beta of LoR and it is still one of the most played cards in the game. Nearly every Shadow Isles deck will include Glimpse. This card is best used on units that are already dying, be it to an opponent’s spell or to a very unfavorable trade – for the price of just two mana you can get a lot of value out of your soon-to-be-gone unit.

What is great about Glimpse Beyond:

• Like Fervor, this can be used to great effect to deny strike effects or targeting effects.
• At fast speed, this can be used to find an answer to an opponent’s development.
• Good enabler of Slay synergy cards like Cursed Keeper, Thresh or Black Spear.

 

18. Durand Sculptor

Thats how you build a board

And here we have our first Demacia card, but by no means our last. Durand Sculptor was probably intended as a synergy point for the Formidable cards. Well, it is pretty good with Petricite Broadwing, but it is also pretty good with everything else. 2/2 is a decent enough statline for a 2-drop, but the snowball effect of buffing all your subsequent units with an extra point of health will make it nearly impossible for your opponent to keep up on board.

What is great about Durand Sculptor:

• Particularly strong on Formidable units.
• Powerful snowball potential if not removed early.
• Drawing two of these early will make your board nearly unkillable.
• Great for protecting cards with bad stats but powerful abilities like Poppy.

 

17. Petricite Broadwing

Why are half of Demecias cards birds?

Probably the best two-mana follower in the game now, Petricite Broadwing represents initially a 2 mana 3/3 Challenger. The Formidable makes this bird a bit more tolerable since after the first trade its power will be significantly reduced. Still this card, especially if paired with other strong Demacia early-game cards like Durand Sculptor, will allow you to dominate the game early.

What is great about Petricite Broadwing:

• Almost no card played around turn 2 can survive a fight with this formidable combatant.
• Gets great value out of health buffs and heals as they effectively buff its attack too.
• Works very well with Durand Sculptor, making for an oppressive early game.

 

16. Concerted Strike

See? Another bird!

Demacia has great, strong board presence, efficient units and lots of combat tricks. But the straw that breaks the camel’s back is the fact that Demacia also has tons of removal. Granted, all of the removal demands for the Demacia player to have a board of units to cast the Strike Spells on, but if you don’t have a board as Demacia you lost anyways, so the requirement really isn’t steep at all. Concerted Strike allows two of your units to gang up on a much bigger threat and take it out, it lets you shut down opponents’ threats, and stops threats like Ezreal that would try to ignore the board and win through their innate abilities. This card is a great tool to force the opponent to play on your terms.

What is great about Concerted Strike:

• Gives Demacia decks great interaction.
• One of the few answers to really big units. Your guys may be big, but sometimes the opponent plays something reeeally big and that’s where this card comes in handy.
• Great for triggering multiple Strike abilities.

 

15. Ravenous Flock

Yep Flock!

From Demacia to Demacia counters. Ravenous Flock is as efficient as removal can be. This card singlehandedly makes Noxus Control a thing. In particular, in combination with Arachnoid Sentry or the more recent Spell Slinger, this card can swing the early to mid game in your favour very easily.

What is great about Flock:

• It is simply extremely efficient: 1 mana for 4 damage is fantastic, and the condition is easy to meet as you will be playing a deck that has either a lot of pings or a lot of stuns or both.
• Yep Flock!

 

14. Ravenbloom Conservatory

Stay in school kids

While Flock put Noxus Control on the map, this card is what pushes it into the high tiers. Tybaulk (or as some call it, “Tabaluga”) is not only a sizeable mid game threat, but scaling all your damage spells up by 1 is incredibly powerful and allows slow control decks to become burn or even combo decks out of nowhere, by just throwing all your damage spells in the opponent’s face.

What is great about Ravenbloom Conservatory:

• Rewards hands with a lot of removal, making the mulligans easier and more consistent.
• Provides a win condition to otherwise mostly reactive decks.
• Has great synergy with cards like Twisted Fate and Riptide Rex.

 

13. Gwen

Snip Snip Snip!

One of the three new champions, Gwen is already making a name for herself in Runeterra. In combination with Annie, she finds a home in a very powerful control deck that uses Catalogue of Regrets and Go Hard together with the usual Noxus control tools such as Ravenous Flock and Disintegrate, to stall the game out and finish with Tybaulk from Ravenbloom Conservatory. In that deck, Gwen is used to advance the Conservatory with her Snip skill and provide some healing and burn damage. Other decks utilize her Hallowed keyword to a greater extent, but so far Gwen has proved most useful as a standalone unit to apply some burn damage.

What is great about Gwen:

• Good stats and quick attack make her a very solid tempo play.
• The Hallowed cards are generally early game cards, and Gwen provides the win condition to that archetype with her lvl 2 ability.
• Gwen and the Hallowed cards set up great Atrocity targets or allow for huge Overwhelm attacks to finish the game.

 

12. Ferros Financier

This guy could be in a Deodorant ad

Legends of Runeterra is a game all about flexibility and resource management (at least it used to be until a certain card started killing you on turn 5 every game, but we will get to that later), and Ferros Financier excels at providing both. A solid blocker in the early game, this card will give you much needed early stability and pay dividends in the lategame – provided, of course, that you picked the right card. This is what makes this card great: it will reward a player who understands the matchup they are in and can predict what tool they will need later down the line.

What is great about Ferros Financier:

• Efficient early blocker that gives a lot of value.
• Even low-curve tempo decks can use this guy and avoid running out of steam.
• 2 attack is just enough to trade most things in the first three turns, whereas the 1 hp rarely gets punished.

 

11. Flame Chompers!

Nom Nom Nom!

Now here is an unlikely hero! This card really doesn’t look like much, but a more experienced player will shudder at the sight of this little guy. It has to be said that on its own Flame Chompers! really doesn’t accomplish much. To start with, it requires a discard activator (you won’t be happy actually playing this out for two mana and an action), then it could use some buffs and ideally also a good target to chomp! However buffs exist plenty – in particular, when someone thinks Flame Chompers! they should also think Lulu because they go incredibly well together. Most commonly, Chompers gives discard tempo decks a way to line up favorable trades by pulling aside all these pesky units that have way too many stats.

What is great about Flame Chompers!:

• If discarded with Poro Cannon, it gives you a burst speed 0 mana Challenger.
• Can pull away big units or Lifesteal units, allowing your other attackers to do real damage.
• Fantastic buff target. A buffed Chomper being played at burst speed can really catch your opponent off guard.
• An absolute must in discard decks.

 

 

10. Vengeance

Back to serious captions

Probably the best single target removal in the game, Vengeance would rank higher on the list but the specifics of this meta are such that there is a lot of protection against big spells like this. Generally speaking, however, Vengeance is an auto-include in all Shadow Isles control decks and many midrange builds.

What is great about Vengeance:

• It may seem expensive, but a lot of the cost is usually carried by spell mana, so Vengeance ends up being a rather efficient fast speed answer.
• It meets certain synergies like Jayce and Lux.
• Finds versatile application, seen in many decks.

 

9. Annie

One of the scariest cards in this game

From the top 10 champions list straight to the top 10 of best cards in the game, Annie spreads mischief wherever she goes. In this meta as in the last, she is a great proactive play in aggro and control decks alike. Her level-up ability gives you Tibbers, who is a strong threat in itself. She is best paired with Gwen in a Ravenbloom Conservatory deck, where their skills help advance the landmark and get you closer to your win conditions.

What is great about Annie:

• Very difficult to block efficiently in the early turns.
• Her Champion spell, Disintegrate, works very well in Noxus control decks.
• Tibbers makes for a very powerful turn 6 play.
• She is great to advance Ravenbloom Conservatory.

 

8. Single Combat

Ah yes, two mana Vengeance!

On rank 8 we have Vengeance but for two mana. Just kidding, but jokes aside, Single Combat is great for all the reasons that Concerted Strike is – except it’s just a lot cheaper. Sure, you do less damage and your unit also takes combat damage, but it is very cheap fast-speed interaction using your powerful units.

What is great about Single Combat:

• Very cheap fast-speed interaction.
• Lets you capitalize on board advantage by using it to remove opponents’ threats.
• Can be used similarly to Glimpse and Fervor to get value out of a dying unit.

 

7. Golden Aegis

A glorious way to close out the game.

The ultimate busted Demacia card, Golden Aegis is used as a finisher in innumerable decks. But its game-ending ability is not all this card has going for it. Since it gives you a Barrier it can be used to punish opponents’ development, as they will skip their attack to not attack into a barrier, allowing you to swing back on your own terms, now with a Barrier unit too.

What is great about Golden Aegis:

• Great finisher if you have a strong board.
• Can be used defensively too, to protect an important unit.

 

6. Mystic Shot

The most staple card in the game.

I don’t think this card was ever bad. Mystic Shot saw play in every point in Runeterra history. It’s a very simple card, 2 mana for 2 damage at fast speed, and that just goes to show how important fast-speed interaction is in this game. This card is so common that having 2 HP is considered a downside on a unit specifically because it dies to Mystic Shot.

What is great about Mystic Shot:

• There’s really not much to say. It does two damage to anything for two mana... that’s just really good.

 

5. Aphelios

CRAAAAWLING IN MY SKIIIIN

One of the best in the previous meta, Aphelios remains on top in this one as well. Primarily he is still used in the Targon PnZ Winding Light deck, but also sees experimentation with Gwen. This champion is simply very good for decks with very focused gameplans that need time to set said gameplan up. While you are assembling all the right pieces, Aphelios will provide you with Moon-Weapons to spend your mana on and keep in the game. Sometimes the Moon-Weapons and Aphelios can just win the game on their own. At his best, Aphelios feels less like a card and more like a whole deck.

What is great about Aphelios:

• He provides lots of value in just one card.
• The Crescendum → Calibrum → Gravitum cycle is very good for holding the board but also easily lets you branch into Infernum or Severum for an Overwhelm finish or much needed healing.
• At 3/3 Aphelios has good stats on his own and can be used well to fight the early units of an aggro deck, for instance.

 

4. The Winding Light

Bad doggo! stop doing 30 damage to me on turn 6! BAD BOY!

As already mentioned, this card is often found in Aphelios decks. Or should I say Aphelios is often found in Winding Light decks, because this card is definitely the star of those decks.

Being basically a Darius that casts Pack Mentality on play, Winding Light is just way too many stats with Overwhelm for its mana cost. And the mana cost can be quite variable. The Nightfall tag of this card allows to cheat it on earlier turns using the token card Duskpetal Dust from the Lunari Duskbringer. Winding Light may not be the most powerful card in the game at the current time, but it is very close.

What is great about Winding Light:

• Extremely strong impact upon play. Many games end after just one Winding Light, but the scary thing is that they could have another one.
• Can be played early by using the Nightfall tag with the Duskpetal Dust token.

 

3. Quicksand

I have fallen and i can not get up.

Normally this card would never feature in a top 3, however, as we will shortly see, this meta is dominated by one specific card and Quicksand is one of the few ways to deal with it – kinda, sorta, maybe. Apart from THAT use, Quicksand is generally a great defensive tool – allowing you to stop, for example, two elusive units – but it is also a good combat trick with its -4 attack option.

What is great about Quicksand:

• Great defense, allowing you to neutralize two threats for one attack.
• Can tip a trade in your favour with the -4 attack option.
• One of the rare ways to maybe deal with Kai’Sa (but probably not).

 

2. Ancient Hourglass

Time is running short, they are about to play Kai'sa.

This card is not very good… Ok, so, listen, hear me out, I know, I know but the thing is: it’s the best way to protect Kai’Sa. Hourglass is a good protection tool to save important units from cards like Vengeance, and sometimes there are cards that you really need to save or you will lose the game, but if you can save them then you will crush your opponent. Well, Kai’Sa is such a card – and Ancient Hourglass (paired with Rite of Negation, but that’s a much clunkier answer) is the reason why you can’t really stop her. If it was not for the current state of Legends of Kai’Sa, this card would be nowhere near a top 25 ranking. But, oh well, that’s where we’re at.

What is great about Ancient Hourglass:

• Great counter to removal on your key units, such as Kai’Sa.
• It’s really good in Kai’Sa decks.
• Yup... sure is.

 

1. Kai’Sa

All hail queen Kai'sa, the sole regent of our meta!

And for the first place we have Ebb and Flow! Okay, so, yeah, Kai’Sa. Pretty good card huh? Well, in my opinion Kai’Sa is so good that the 3rd and 2nd spot are only here because of her. Basically the whole top 3 belongs to Kai’Sa. I don’t even know where to begin. She is easy to level; she can be tutored with Rite of Calling which is in her native region; in that same region we also have great protection cards as mentioned above; she can easily be given Scout, making her attack ability trigger twice, then they rally triggering it again and then they play Cataclysm just to rub it in. Oh and also her champ-spell is Supercharge, which gives a unit Overwhelm and Spell Shield, which she then can copy, all of that at focus speed. This means if you don’t kill Kai’Sa on sight you are most likely not having a good time. But of course you can’t kill Kai’Sa on sight because of Ancient Hourglass, so you just end up wasting all your removal for nothing. Did I mention that she is also actually bugged, receiving a level up progression from Sharpsight? Yeah, Sharpsight is my favorite keyword too. So let’s sum up: Kai’Sa is an overstatted, unremovable unit with tons of keywords, almost built-in Spell Shield, an ability that repeats with every time she attacks and damages your whole board, nexus included, and has bugged advantageous interactions with some of the best Demacia cards. Ok, did I forget something? Oh yeah: all of that happens on turn 5. Good one, Rito.

What is great about Kai’Sa:

• Everything. Rito pls nerf.

 

This concludes my top 25 cards in Legends of Runeterra list.

 Please keep in mind that this list pertains only to the current patch and some of the picks are heavily dependant on the current, shall we say, Kai’Sa situation. Nonetheless, I hope you found this list useful and until we meet again in the next article!

 

 

 

 

 

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