Dude I'm sorry but elusives is not a deck that people run in this game at any tier.

Go to swims site if you want to net deck, but he wouldn't have updated for post patch yet.

Its not a prediction, its already happened. 9/10 of recent streamer vids post patch feature frejord, and Sejuani. While there is flexibility in terms of what region you combine with it, it's pretty obvious what has become top tier.

Youre best second choice for a primary control region is shadow like usual, with bilge being the best card advantage engine to include with shadow or freijord. 

Ezreal as I mentioned is struggling right now because mystic shot and get excited dont have any good targets.

If you havent noticed the changes in the meta yet that's okay, give it a week.

All I see is instant Demacia conceeds as soon as turn 1 plays get answered.

Like literally what are they gonna do menace you with a 3 attack badger bear, thats not exactly a scary play anymore compared to the buffing potential of Frejord.

Honestly, plunder is it's own win con.

It turns out that if your opponent runs out of cards they can't play the video game anymore.

That's why bilge Frej with Sej and TF is one of the best lists out of the new meta.

I'm usually ahead of the curve on stuff like this and the fact that the first response is a casual shrug, vs the you're wrongs I was getting before indicates that people are accepting that the game is different now.

The times they are a changing boys.

Assumptions made by streamers and pro players prior to the release of the patch have been proven false.

The sooner you accept this, the better you will do on ranked ladder.

So which regions were the big winners.

Tier 1 - Frejord

 Yup from meme to dream, slow rolling is how the game is played now and this region is the best at that style of play

It turns out that early game pressure doesn't exist to keep this faction in check anymore

You can pair it with Noxious, or Shadow or Ionia or Bilge

It honestly doesn't really matter, you can even go pure allegiance

Expect to see an obnoxious amount of Sejuani over the next month

Tier 2 - Bilgewater

This faction is just a card advantage control machine and in a meta where healing doesn't matter this is very very strong

You can run any champions that generate additional value but TF is the best at this.

What else is there to say plunder effects are very good right now

Tier 3 - Shadow Isles

Healing's decreased importance see's Shadow drop down a bit but the sheer flexibility of the faction means it's still very strong.

Run keg control, run ephemerals for fun, probably not spiders anymore, but sea monsters and they who endure are fine.

Tier 4 - Ionia

Stun effects, will of ionia, counter spells these things are naturally good in a slower meta

But we can't pretend that this faction wasn't nerfed decently hard

Ironically, enlightened decks with Fejord are okay now, again no early game pressure

Stun decks with mr samurai were designed to deal with aggro and midrange and they don't exist anymore

Tier 5 - P And Z

The burn nerfs hit harder than anyone else predicted and Temo is not a good sub for rearguard

He is too R And G and he doesn't interact well with transfusion

Ezreal is fine, but P and Z struggles to deal with huge creatures, 3 thermos will only get you so far

Heim has similar issues where his turrets don't deal with overwhelm

Tier 6 - Noxious

The aggro noxious identity isn't really a thing now, but the Vlad list is so strong that it almost makes up for it

Swain is a little worse by proxy, in a game where you can't bring the nexus health down to 0 by turn 6

Tier 7 - Demacia

Oh how the mighty have fallen bannerman are nowhere to be seen, or missfortunes scouts, or Fiora thanks to the stand alone nerf

That really just leaves Lux, who again 4 damage removal  is less valuable when every list has unlimited card advantage and huge dudes

I look forward to all of the angry trolls in the comments and the silent confirmation that this list is accurate in the next two weeks.

Just gotta embrace the way the game works now. I have found that things have slown down enough for TF and have been enjoying that style of game play.

We've already seen the push to a slower meta with streamers.

The number of 1 drops have basically been removed from lists,, unless they have card cycling or buffing potential.

Everything needs to trade 2 for 1.

Any win con that exists before turn 6 is unattainable.

I'm sorry but this is simple how the game functions now hate me all you want.

The point wasn't that one opinion is better than an other, but that fan feedback is bad for strategy card games.

I opened with the Gwent example for a reason, fan feedback killed that game.

So here we see the case where Riot is balancing based on fan complaints.

Burn had a higher winrate with rearguard turn 1 so it gets deleted, even if that makes a lot of other noxious decks worse.

Badger bear is over tuned so it gets nerfed even if it makes midrange unplayable.

Zed lists were upsetting to pro players so they get deleted.

This is a bad way to balance a game historically, and your vs my opinion is irrelevant in the face of that.

Just release new sets, and let the balance adjust in the face of new mechanics minus tiny tweaks don't kill entire archetypes.

I was using burn as the example of unintended effects. Which granted you seemed to have missed.

They wanted to nerf burn and only hit 1 of it's trademark tools. Boomcrew

Then they nerfed rearguard which hurt Noxious's region identity.

You have to understand that only 20 percent of a card game operates based on tier lists.

mtg understands this that's why prices are impacted by commander not standard.

There was a better way to nerf burn without harming low tier noxious champions like Katarina and Darius

I'm just coming at this as a guy with nearly 20 years of competitive card game experience.

Its fine if you dislike the predictions it doesn't make them any less correct.

There is also the budget player considerations that again make up the majority of your player base.

Nerfing things that aren't top tier doesn't make sense, unless you are fostering a very particular play style that only appeals to a very small but cash rich player base.

There has always been pros and cons of live card balancing in games when compared to the hands off approach of mtg.

For one, you can unintentionally ruin what has made you game fun by listening to your fans, Gwent being a great example with it's gold update.

Similarly, with it's limited card pool and emphasis on champions,  Legends of Runterra has to be cautious not to make too many archetypes unplayable.

So what changes did we see and what are the meta implications...

1. Stand alone no longer works with Zed, this list want never top tier so why did Riot want to kill this champion

2. Elise is worse because she can't flood the board with brood swarm - again not on the tier list so this nerf doesn't make sense

3. Legion rearguard was an aggro card not a burn card per say, so now Darius and Katarina are worse

4. Badger bear was showing up in control decks, but they nerfed the damage not the toughness, so they made it worse at aggro but still good in control

5. Unyielding spirit still exists so Fiora is fine, even though she was the nerf target

6. Boomcrew nerf was needed and well implemented

7. Grizzles ranger got double nerfed and is now unplayable

Unintended meta consequences

control variants are the only archetypes worth playing mid range and aggro are dead

So no bannerman, no noxious anything that isn't swain

Region diversity will appear healthy, but deck archetypes will all be very slow

Fun for some, absolutely awful for the majority of players 2/3