Thoughts On The End Of The Burst Meta

So two big things happened that killed decks that went all in on uninteractive sticks backed up by burst spells.

One we got a lot of value followers and spells from bandlewood, but more importantly they nerfed the largest offenders in a hotfix you can't even find notes for.

Shaped stone now only give 2/1 which puts it more on par with elixir of iron/wrath.

Merciless hunter is a 4/2 putting it more on par with the likes of sand spinner.

Most importantly ruin runner only has 3 health meaning your 5 drop will now trade with even an inkeeper.

All good stuff, and Ionia even gets to keep twin disciplines for those who like burst decks, and Sivir is still playable in high synergy lists.

So what are the "decks to beat" now...the answer is that there isn't any and that's amazing.

Poppy for example can absolutely run you over with her bannerman style value, but she was also released in a set with a million free pings.

Sion can be a turn 7 auto win, but freezes exist, hush exists, polymorph now exists, or you can just pop him when they don't have the attack token, sure eating 8-10 dmg is scary but they are no longer an effective aggro deck, so you should have lots of life.

Pirate aggro is still strong, but people seem to have forgotten it exists and that's just fine with me, and it probably has bad matchups.

Lots of elusive stuff running around...but again free pings, free mystic shots, more healing, new pressure tools and wincons.

Darkness has started to drop a little from 55% - 53% which isn't surprising you just remove veigar and senna and now their deck doesn't do anything. Or alternatively you have so many infinite value tools it doesn't matter or Sion or shrooms.

As such for the first time you can grab a tier 3 deck and be pretty happy with that, or be like me and only run your own lists. If I were to say what I thought worked and what I thought didn't for deck builders?

The biggest thing to keep in mind right now is that most decks have very scary 1, 2, 3 curve or 2, 3, 4,. You basically need answers for these things if you like controlling game flow like me.

For example Sion will play, urchin, into surgeon dude, into Draven. If you don't answer these plays with your own you will effectively loose when Sion lands if you arent teching in counters to him. 

So let's say I'm playing ezreal Temo, I could play my stinky 1 drop trade into thr two drop ping the urchin with pokey stick, and thermo the Draven. Now we have a winnable game, but if I pass pass ezreal I've already lost, it's true I won't loose till turn 7 but thats a forgone conclusion.

So yeah as a deck builder have answers for midrange curves or play a deck that's just as threatening or you'll have a bad time.