Meta Monday 9/15 - I Told You So :)

Welcome to this week's Meta Monday article! Every Monday I’ll be taking a look at the current state of competitive Riftbound, recapping any big or notable tourneys, and giving some predictions on how the upcoming meta game could change!

This weekend was the last of the Chinese Regional Open that kicked off Riftbound's first competitive season. Up until this week, Kaisa has dominated all 3 of the previous Opens winning all 3 and having disgusting day 2 representation and conversion rates. That changed this weekend. While Kaisa was still the most played deck at 156 copies (30% of the field), and was still the 2nd most represented deck in day 2 at 23 copies, this is still a big dip from previous weeks (Kaisa peaked at 34 copies in day 2 previously making up over half of the total day 2 decks). While Kaisa still had a good representation in day 2, Master Yi was also having a great showing. Toppling Kaisa as the King of day 2 with 28 copies in day 2 and a conversion rate of 21.4%, players have clearly been in the lab adapting Master Yi to beat it's finals bracket demon. After Kaisa and Master Yi though was to many (but not reader's of this channel 🙂) a surprising stat line. Sett was the 3rd most represented deck in day 2, with 5 copies and a whopping 21.7% conversion rate, just barely beating out Master Yi's to have the best conversion rate into day 2. And of course, we can't talk about conversion rates and day 2 statistics without mentioning everyone's favorite fraud, Viktor. After having the most dissapointing start to the competitive season possible, Viktor has finally reached his low, of only 49 copies brought day 1, and only 1 copy of Viktor in day 2 for a very impressive 1.6% conversion rate, the lowest conversion rate we've seen for literally any deck that made day 2. But just like with the Sett prediction, readers of this channel and watchers of my YouTube content have known for over a month now, even before the tournament circuit started that I've called Viktor out for being a fraud deck that isn't actually good and is the most overrated deck in the game, and every week did nothing but prove me right. If only people attending these tournaments read my content and could've saved themselves the dissapointment of registering Viktor for these majors.

No, not exactly. What happened is players started refining their decks and adjusting specifically for the Kaisa matchup and for the greedy Kaisa builds that were doing well and being played in these Chinese Regionals. We were already seeing innovation in Master Yi by making Master Yi this ramping late game even greedier list, so most of them took it a step further and just built Aurora Master Yi, the greediest possible version of Master Yi, and the hardest version for Kaisa to deal with. Outside of Master Yi, we also saw new decks pop up with tech specifically for Kaisa like these Sett decks that are playing an aggressive package focused on buffing their small units so they can't die and you don't lose tempo, and then closing the game out with an accelerated Orange Lee Sin to have a huge final alpha strike. Do I think this is the end of Kaisa's reign and she'll never win a tourney in set 1? Not at all. Kaisa is still a top deck and a top contender to win events as long as Falling Star is legal, she's just getting put in the spot that I predicted previously. Kaisa will alsoways be good throughout set 1, but she shouldn't be and probably won't be this tier 0 dominating every tournament 30% play rate worthy deck like we saw in the early meta days of the Chinese opens.

The future is looking to be extremely bright for Riftbound. I've made this statement previously but there were still a fair amount of doomers and card gamers that were confident the meta is solved and Kaisa is the answer. Hopefully after this weekend's showing and after all of my meta predictions being proven correct, those gamers are a little more open minded and hopeful. Right now the meta is back to being in this very interesting spot. Do you choose to play an aggressive pressure style deck to punish these hyper greedy Kaisa and Aurora Yi lists? Do you try and find a way to make your list as greedy as possible since that's what's currently working best to beat Kaisa and try to out greed the Yi gameplans? Is Tempo Kaisa still just the best answer in the meta and we need to step down a level on the greed tier? All of these are very valid ways to approach the meta right now. Personally I think we should take a few levels down off the greed tier and try to make our decks more tempo based to punish the super slow greedy lists, but still keep up with the true aggro/pressure decks. Of course that gameplan will only work until the point to people start getting greedy again and the cycle continues, but honeslty, that's the beauty it metagaming. Find the best time to deviate from the current meta, and get rewarded accordingly.

As always, thanks for your time, I hope I've helped you on your journey to achieving your Riftbound goals, and have a nice rest of your day, evening, or morning!

~ Moe