Understanding Meta Shifts Before They Happen

So a new balance patch just hit.

Attrox got nerfed Jinx got nerfed but more importantly a ton of cool decks got massively buffed so what the hell do you play?

Reading patch notes to understand what's viable and what isn't is a tough skill to master, even a ton of pro players are notoriously bad at it.

So I'm gonna help you out and list the top winners from the patch:

1. Illoi 3 mana tenticle smash is nuts and she got eye of God equipment before in the expansion making this deck a must play

2. Jax another good deck that got pushed over the edge of awesome with the recent buffs.

3. Thralls just that one change to lissandra makes this deck wprth revisiting on curve it's the same as playing a thrall on 1 so you're 10 times more likely to turbo out

4. Master yi leveling in deck is nuts first he gained a mana reduction passive now hes a guaranteed flip how great for Ionia!

5. Shivana while this deck is in need of some new support cards if you want to run ramp shivana into asol or shadow shivana it will be okay but not great.

6. Lucian heckarim is looking good with the challenger landmark ephemeral combo. Lucian outside of combo deck is worse where his mana reduction and statline is a liability. Play for the flip.

7. Sion duplicate - so everyone saw the new card and though anivia enabler that's small brain big brain is 3 sions with infinite rally. Only trouble is that discard Sion is kind of a bad aggro deck so you need to rely on shadow isles to help stabilize a bit.

8. Kayle not a huge fan of the champ design but I think this mana reduction will help bring bard back. They curve together now and you can hit your free 1 mana, 2 mana chimes to buff her easily then use spells to get her the rest of the way.

So there you have it the meta shift before it happens Jax and Illoi looking like the top contenders for new competitive lists. Jinx and attrox moving down to make room for new exciting possibilities. Gj riot

‐------extra note-----

I forgot about the hallowed Katarina nerf because that deck is so idiot proof I'd rather imagine it doesn't exist.

So yeah ruined reckoned (5 mana no blocks) was nerfed before and now Katarina got nerfed the deck will still be very playable because Katarina gets extra attack so her base stats don't really matter.

That being said, the more nerfs to hallowed the better its just too consistent on both the aggro play, and the closer. So still S tier I guess because easy = winrate but in reality I say A tier along with all the other meta nerfs.