Mono-Shurima is not that good

The stats are up on Runeterra.Ar, and I have some personal experience with it as well. The site's data shows about 8.5k games played, making it a whopping 17% playrate over the past two days, which is pretty insane. About double the playrate of anything in the past few months. But its winrate is only about 53%.

Yes, it can highroll pretty hard. Yes, it's actually a good deck now. No, it's not as OP as people think it is.

Examples of decks that beat it:

• Elise Spiders - mono-shurima is actually listed on Runeterra.Ar as the best matchup currently for spiders. Spiders deck has a 1.5% playrate and a 55% winrate overall - no doubt thanks to the easy wins from all the mono-shurima players
• Azir/Irelia - mono-shurima is also listed as the best matchup for this deck as well - this deck that got nerfed hard in the past and fell off the scene for a long time. Well, it's back, and it's eating mono-shurima for breakfast. Azirelia's playrate is at 2% and winrate is at 57%.

So, yeah, guys. Don't fall into the trap of the alarmist hype that mono-Shurima is completely broken and OP. It just isn't.

Side note - I played 5 games with the deck in Plat 2 and lost literally all 5 games. Never touching it again. Time to play decks that beat up on it, so I can get back my lost LP. Also, just for fun in normals, I played an old poro deck with Fabled Poro and such, focused on building a buffed board of all types of poros, and I queued into mono-Shurima all three games so far, and I completely wrecked my opponent in all of those games - with poros. Seriously, the deck can't be that good if it folds to poros. (Edit - though, to be fair, I did include two copies of Aftershock in there, and those did have an impact on two of my wins. In one of the wins, the opponent put their Xerath into a landmark, preparing to level him when he popped out the next turn. Aftershock ended that dream, and the game. In the other game, the opponent didn't bother to spellshield the Sundisc, so I killed it. Third game, I just beat him the normal way.)

I think that having a 17% playrate while retaining a 53% winrate is pretty absurd for a deck and I think that the only other time I've seen something close to that was around when Azir Irelia released which I believe had something around 10% playrate and 58% winrate? Idk I'm really just pulling numbers out of a hat. Though through sheer numbers alone I would probably say the deck is definitely tier 2 and borderline tier 1.

The fact that Azir and Xerath can both level pretty fast in the same deck is pretty nice and definitely strong. Having a 5/9 by turn 6 that pings for 5 damage each round and a deck that can only churn out game-ending values is pretty hard to beat when they get going. I think that depending on how you build your deck, you may have varying consistency with this strategy. My deck runs a lot of predicts while forgoing some cards like Ancient Hourglass or Quicksand and I'm able to get it up about 10-20% of the time by turn 6. I can imagine that if you focus on just turbo leveling your champs and not drawing them you could probably get a faster turn to flip the sun disc but less consistency. Idk if that's better but I like having to win on turn 5.

Is it broken though? I wouldn't say it is as of now. Maybe it will be, maybe it won't. There are a lot of decks that have similar hype around launch before dying down to obscurity the following week. The recent cases of Iceborn Legacy Poros and Dragons with the buff to Dragon's Clutch is a prime example of this. There are also decks designed to counter it already like Viktor Riven Ambush or Taliyah Ziggs. Burn and aggro does well into it and a single well-timed landmark removal may just swing the game. Regardless of how it is, I would say that it will impact the meta a fair amount and probably settle in tier 2 just like all the aforementioned decks but I still wouldn't be surprised if it's any higher as well.

My answer to mono shurima is quite simple: play Scorched Earth turn 2 and watch their strategy fall apart on the spot

As usual after a major patch it's better to wait after two weeks for the meta to settle before judging a deck power level, elusive Poros and Dragons were both showing some crazy numbers after they got buffed then their play rate and winrate dropped significantly.

One thing for sure, mono Shurima is no longer a meme deck.

I'm very much in agreement with the topic maker and was gonna post the same thing if he hadn't already and received the flame in his place.

High synergy concepts have a history of being bad in LOR with few exceptions. As opposed to something like mtg that is predominantly run by high synergy decks.

So right now every aggro player, every value grinding midrange player, every combo Lee Sin player is wondering why a "Quest" deck is kicking their butt.

The answer is because they are supposes to, don't nerf mono shurima buff more high synergy decks, bring back Fiora, Tf, Jayce God the list goes on.

If every card in your deck belongs together, and triggers a wincon that is the game working as intended.

If your deck has 0 synergy and is designed to value grind, or swing the opponent to 0 your deck should be below average not meta.

Welcome to card games people aka every other cardgame that has existed isn't it beautiful?

Update: The playrate according to Runeterra.Ar is now up to almost 23%. Winrate is down to 51.6%.

It's novel. People like making their opponents watch a movie. It will fade once people realize it's not really that good actually. 

Meanwhile, Azirelia is a real deck again. And it kicks the crap outta mono-Shurima.

Seeing that mono Shurima best match up is Ez/Caitlyn has me convinced me that people just don't know how to play the game.

How the hell does a deck that run two  Scorched Earth and can find extra copies with Station Archivist have only 42% percent win rate into mono Shurima?

Even without landmark removal that deck have so many removal for it's champions with cards like Ravenous Flock Noxian Guillotine and Tri-beam Improbulator.

Because the way you beat mono shurima isn't landmark removal its presenting high synergy wincons before they complete their quest.

Stop thinking like a meta slave. Graplr is out there turbo ramping into she who wanders and deleting all their creatures and Champs 

You do the same, or be original and pick a different fast wincon like Nasus slay.

All the patch did was take a 45% winrate deck and move it to 52% and people are so unused to seeing high synergy concepts win at all they all blew a gasket at the same time.

Its not good guys its just good in a way the game hasn't seen before and that's healthy.

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So to comment on what the previous comment is saying Catlyn control would be worse then say an all in Temo concept. Old school decks were all hey here's my wincon now do yours we only turned into value wars more recently.

I said that I am surprised that people are losing to mono shurima with Ez/Cait, not that I am using said deck or that I am struggling against mono Shurima.

So please take time to read and understand a quote before you reply and keep your advice to yourself, no one here is asking for your help.

I think Ez/Cait is unfavored because it's a harder deck to use in general and is a combo deck which gets their pieces slower than Mono Shurima can get it in general. Also while a well-timed Scorched Earth can just win you games, most Mono Shurima decks run Rite of Negation and Soothsayer, and a single one of those could just as easily beats people who didn't draw it super early or didn't have a good opportunity to use it.

If you really want to go super favored into Mono Shurima, just run Cait/Teemo. They can't really deal with burn that well and shrooms just demolish the Emperor's Deck. I've even been running Entrapment just because it can hit a lot of Emperor's Guard.

Also out of curiosity, which kind of data set are you guys using (personally I use lor-meta and llorr-stats) because depending on the site you're using the playrate and winrates of decks may be wildly varied. But in general, Mono Shurima has 25% playrate while maintaining 49-50% of a winrate. In terms of strength, Mono Shurima is doing well in that department. Since decks with higher playrate will have a lower winrate and if it was truly a bad deck, it would not be able to maintain 50% winrate for so long despite having a ton of counters in the meta.

Is it tier 1 material? Eh, that's a bit hard to say still. Maybe in a week or so, there'd be a more defined meta and they become a tier 2 deck. But there could also be a case where the deck lists gets even more refined and goes to tier 1.

Quote From FenrirWulf

Also out of curiosity, which kind of data set are you guys using (personally I use lor-meta and llorr-stats) because depending on the site you're using the playrate and winrates of decks may be wildly varied. But in general, Mono Shurima has 25% playrate while maintaining 49-50% of a winrate. In terms of strength, Mono Shurima is doing well in that department. Since decks with higher playrate will have a lower winrate and if it was truly a bad deck, it would not be able to maintain 50% winrate for so long despite having a ton of counters in the meta.

Is it tier 1 material? Eh, that's a bit hard to say still. Maybe in a week or so, there'd be a more defined meta and they become a tier 2 deck. But there could also be a case where the deck lists gets even more refined and goes to tier 1.

I use Runterra AR from what I am seeing the decks winrate is decreasing by the day going from 53% to 50%. It still has a high playrate tho. Around 19% last time I checked:

https://runeterra.ar/meta

Quote From minuano28

Quote From FenrirWulf

Also out of curiosity, which kind of data set are you guys using (personally I use lor-meta and llorr-stats) because depending on the site you're using the playrate and winrates of decks may be wildly varied. But in general, Mono Shurima has 25% playrate while maintaining 49-50% of a winrate. In terms of strength, Mono Shurima is doing well in that department. Since decks with higher playrate will have a lower winrate and if it was truly a bad deck, it would not be able to maintain 50% winrate for so long despite having a ton of counters in the meta.

Is it tier 1 material? Eh, that's a bit hard to say still. Maybe in a week or so, there'd be a more defined meta and they become a tier 2 deck. But there could also be a case where the deck lists gets even more refined and goes to tier 1.

I use Runterra AR from what I am seeing the decks winrate is decreasing by the day going from 53% to 50%. It still has a high playrate tho. Around 19% last time I checked:

https://runeterra.ar/meta

I also use Runeterra AR, but I use the stats page, and set the time window to the last two days, and that's how I get a playrate of 23% with a winrate of 51.6% over 13k matches.

Stats page for Runeterra AR

Quote From FenrirWulf

Since decks with higher playrate will have a lower winrate and if it was truly a bad deck, it would not be able to maintain 50% winrate for so long despite having a ton of counters in the meta.

This is a subjective thing. None of the "counters" are getting higher than about a 2% playrate. Since mono-shurima has a 23% playrate, the mono-shurima players have a much higher chance of a mirror than a counter, honestly.

And that's the biggest reason it will continue moving to 50% winrate as the playrate increases.

Quote From sto650

Quote From FenrirWulf

Since decks with higher playrate will have a lower winrate and if it was truly a bad deck, it would not be able to maintain 50% winrate for so long despite having a ton of counters in the meta.

This is a subjective thing. None of the "counters" are getting higher than about a 2% playrate. Since mono-shurima has a 23% playrate, the mono-shurima players have a much higher chance of a mirror than a counter, honestly.

And that's the biggest reason it will continue moving to 50% winrate as the playrate increases.

That's a fair assessment actually.

If you were to take the top decks according to playrate, Mono Shurima has a favorable matchup against very few of them and has an unfavorable matchup to everything else. But if you were to tally up the playrate top decks that Mono Shurima has less than 50% winrate against decks that Mono Shurima has 50% winrate or more against (including mirrors), it'll see that the decks that have an equal or favorable matchup for Mono Shurima have a bigger presence in the meta than the "counters".

Guys and this isn't just you this is everyone.

We need to accept the meta has changed.

Want to know what the highest winrate deck is right now? It's Viktor at 60% why is nobody talking about him?

Because he doesn't counter the previous meta decks that were popular like sundisc does 

How about Rumble? 58% he's now in arguable the second best deck.

Why is nobody complaining about him? Because again he doesn't counter cycling decks.

Everyone just needs to chill out, let the meta settle and do some actual math and then swap decks to things that are powerful.

Thats the game operating as intended.

If your stuff you've been playing since bandle releases still didn't get countered a year later that would be messed up.

Quote From Nifty129

Everyone just needs to chill out, let the meta settle and do some actual math and then swap decks to things that are powerful.

Thats the game operating as intended.

If your stuff you've been playing since bandle releases still didn't get countered a year later that would be messed up.

You seem to be under the impression that people here are complaining. We are not complaining. We are analyzing the situation that is developing, nothing more.

Speaking of which, new data is in, and the playrate of Mono-Shurima is plummeting, as I said it would. Numbers for the last two days:

Playrate down to 13%. Winrate down to just a shade over 50%.

Meanwhile, Riven/Viktor is up to 10% playrate with a 60% winrate.

Yep the obvious thing that would obviously happen happened obviously.

When people see that Rumble Draven is almost as good at 58% they will start trying it too.

Like everyone gravitates to what they think is good. Streamers said mono shurima was tier 0 everyone tried it until they realized it was just really good at beating value decks but suffered in the aggro matchup among other things.

People find out Viktor is essentially a better aggro deck then spiders now and pretty soon they'll migrate there. 

SSDD as they say in one Stephen King novel