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Over this last weekend, the fourth and final Riftbound Open Regionals Tournament took place in China, as 510 players in Hangzhou battled their way for victory across two days. These tournaments have been an excellent insight into the paper metagame, and what we’ll expect to see in the West by the official release of Origins on October 31st.
For the last two weeks, the metagame has been overrun by two powerful legends, with the Top 8 of both Chongqing and Beijing consisting entirely of Kai’Sa and Master Yi players. Has this finally changed in Hangzhou? Have any other legends risen to take their place in the Origins metagame?
In this report, we’ll be going over the overall tournament metagame; the popular and the not-so-popular legends across the playerbase, and how they converted to Day 2 of the tournament. We’ll also look in depth at the Top 8 legends and their decklists, and all the important information you’ll need moving forward into a future metagame.
Tournament Metagame
Total Players: 510
Kai’Sa: 156 - 30.6%
Master Yi: 131 - 25.7%
Viktor: 49 - 9.6%
Miss Fortune: 44 - 8.6%
Teemo: 27 - 5.3%
Sett: 23 - 4.5%
Lee Sin: 15 - 2.9%
Ahri: 14 - 2.7%
Volibear: 12 - 2.4%
Annie: 11 - 2.2%
Leona: 8 - 1.6%
Jinx: 7 - 1.4%
Yasuo: 6 - 1.2%
Lux: 4 - 0.8%
Garen: 2 - 0.4%
Darius: 1 - 0.2%
Across all four Chinese Regionals Tournaments, we’ve seen two legends dominate the metagame; Kai’Sa and Master Yi. This tournament is no exception, with both legends taking up over 55% of the metagame share. It’ll be interesting to see how the metagame develops after this wave of Regionals Tournaments; whether we’ll be seeing more of Kai’Sa and Master Yi, or if other legends will rise their way to the top.
Throughout the remaining 45% of the metagame, we see returning challengers Viktor and Miss Fortune at the top, with Teemo and Sett not far behind. These legends have been popular throughout the Chinese Regionals, and have consistently made their way into the Top 64 of the metagame. We’ll be keeping a close eye on these legends moving forward; if Riot takes action against either Kai’Sa or Master Yi’s decklists, these legends will likely be the ones to rise up in their absence.
An interesting note about this metagame breakdown is the popularity of Lee Sin; a legend who hasn’t performed particularly well in recent tournaments, despite sharing the same card pool as Master Yi. Another interesting thing to note is the absence of Darius, with only 1 player piloting this A-Tier legend into this tournament, despite his recent popularity and successful Top 64 conversion rate. Both of these are interesting choices, and we’re intrigued to see how these legends perform in future paper tournament play.
Top 64:
Master Yi: 28 - 43.8%
Kai’Sa: 23 - 35.9%
Sett: 5 - 7.8%
Miss Fortune: 4 - 6.3%
Teemo: 1 - 1.6%
Ahri: 1 - 1.6%
Leona: 1 - 1.6%
Viktor: 1 - 1.6%
On Day 2 of the tournament, only the Top 64 players made their way through. Out of these 64 players, roughly 80% of the metagame is exclusively Master Yi and Kai’Sa, with surprisingly more Master Yi entries than Kai’Sa. Could this be due to the rise of the alternative Master Yi decklist we’ve seen develop over the last few weeks, or could Kai’Sa be under-performing?
The last 20% is primarily taken up by Sett and Miss Fortune. As a decklist, Sett has underperformed recently, despite being a Kai’Sa Destroyer in past online tournaments. Meanwhile, Miss Fortune hasn’t seen much Top 8 play, yet could also become an anti-Meta pick into Kai’Sa with the right decklist tweaks. Given the chance, these decklists could thrive into a Kai’Sa based metagame; yet currently Master Yi stands in their way.
Teemo, Ahri, Leona and Viktor each have one entry into this tournament’s Top 64. For Ahri and Leona, one entry is expected, with both decks still finding their footing in the current metagame, but looking to be promising moving forward. Meanwhile for Teemo and Viktor, this entry is valuable to their place in the metagame, but a disappointing result overall for our A-Tier legends.
Top 8
Out of our Top 64, 8 players soldiered their way through to the top. Within this, the 8 legends represented are 4 Master Yi, 2 Sett, 1 Ahri and 1 Kai’Sa. Only 1 Kai’Sa entry is very surprising, considering her domination over the other 3 Chinese Regionals Tournaments we’ve covered so far. However, this is the First Sett and Ahri Top 8 result of the entire Chinese Regionals league, and the first high result we've seen from both legends in a while.
Within the Quarter-finals bracket, each Master Yi player faced a non-Master Yi player, which explains the sudden downfall of our other 3 legends. Sett and Ahri both traditionally struggle into Master Yi, and it seems the new Master Yi decklist variations are working as intended into Kai’Sa; which is bound to shake up the state of the Origins metagame for a long while.
1st: Master Yi by 小牛
After spending the last 3 weeks in second place, Master Yi has finally broke through into the winning spot, with player 小牛 piloting the Wuju Bladesman to his first official tournament win. This decklist is quite different to ones we’ve seen recently, with a Ramp-based strategy rather than the Tempo decklist we know so well.
In the Master Yi Ramp decklist, the aim is to get resources such as runes or cards in hand as quickly as possible; many spells in the decklist such as Find Your Center or Catalyst of Aeons allow you to do both of those very quickly and efficiently. This rapid rune channeling is then used to play Dazzling Aurora; as the decklist is only running high-value units, Dazzling Aurora is guaranteed to strike gold, playing Whiteflame Protector or Deadbloom Predator out with ease.
This is an interesting take on the Master Yi decklist, and with its success during this tournament, expect it to become the more popular decklist variation as we move forward into the metagame.
2nd: Master Yi by RXD.Aipotu
In second place is our second Master Yi player, with player RXD.Aipotu also running a variant of the Ramp decklist. We saw a decklist very similar to this one in last week’s tournament in Beijing, which we identified as Midrange-Tempo; now, this decklist is undoubtedly Ramp in both playstyle and card identity.
Player 小牛’s decklist resolves around Dazzling Aurora, and generating resources to play it out quickly to play out their units. Whereas this decklist by RXD.Aipotu is still loosely following the Tempo plan of holding both battlefields early and buffing their units; but is still running quick resource generation like Find Your Center and Tasty Faefolk, with the intention of playing out larger units like Whiteflame Protector and Deadbloom Predator quickly from hand.
Overall, there is still more testing to be done between the two variations of the decklist, but Master Yi Ramp is looking to be the staple variant of the decklist moving forward.
3-4th: Master Yi by RXD.Ai.Rico1997
In the semi-finals we have our third Master Yi player, RXD.Ai.Rico1997, playing the same Ramp deck he pioneered in the Chongqing Regionals two weeks ago; starting the Master Yi Ramp takeover.
This decklist is very similar to RXD.Aipotu’s decklist, likely due to both being in the same group. Overall, if you're looking to play the non-Aurora variant of Master Yi Ramp, this is looking to be the standard decklist moving forward.
3-4th: Master Yi by 福州晖宸~蠢萌光
Our final Master Yi player also falls in the semi-finals, with player 福州晖宸~蠢萌光 running a Dazzling Aurora based gameplan similar to our winning decklist. This decklist is running a few different units and spells in comparison to the winning list such as Tasty Faefolk and Mobilize, but both decks are following the same Ramp premise in using Dazzling Aurora to speed up their boardstate and overrun the battlefield.
5-8th: Sett by GOAT-版本t0
Sett has finally made his long-awaited appearance into the tournament metagame, with two Top 8 entries in today’s Regionals Tournament. Player GOAT-版本t0 is playing a newer variant of the Sett Midrange decklist, with the inclusion of a few higher-value units and Sett Kingpin, the second Sett Champion unit.
5-8th: Sett by BTM.少侠SNnnnn
Our Second Sett player also falls in the quarter-finals, with player BTM.少侠SNnnnn running their own take on the Midrange decklist. As it stands, Sett is a very strong decklist into a majority of the metagame, and can even take down Kai’Sa quite efficiently; however with a less than average winrate into Tempo Master Yi, and now 2 losses to Ramp Master Yi, it may be much harder for The Boss to rise back up to the power he once had in the metagame.
5-8th: Ahri by Liz
Also in the Quarter-finals lies Ahri, with her first Top 8 appearance in a large tournament in over a month. This decklist has changed quite a bit since our Control Ahri guide, instead opting for a more Ramp based gameplan, using similar cards from both Master Yi Ramp and Kai’Sa Tempo cardpool such as Tasty Faefolk and Time Warp. In the future metagame, we’ll be keeping an eye on how Ahri performs, and how her new decklist comes to fruition.
5-8th: Kai’Sa by 白龙万丈
Our final player of the Top 8 is our only Kai’Sa to make it through, which is a surprising sight after her recent domination over the paper metagame. This decklist is looking to be the standard Kai’Sa Tempo list moving forward, with Time Warp and Dr. Mundo Expert both becoming mainstays in the deck.
Closing Time
The four Chinese Regionals tournaments over this last month have given us a valuable insight into the Origins metagame, and the Hangzhou Regionals has set the pace for the Origins metagame moving forward into the Western release. Now that the Riftbound Open Regionals tournaments are over in China, we’ll be looking forward to the next official tournaments, such as the large Shanghai tournament in November.
If you want to read more Riftbound content in the meantime, check out Riftbound.gg. We’ll be updating with the latest news and trends, from Tournaments to Deck Analysis, making sure you have everything you need to know about Origins and the wider world of Riftbound.
In any case, thank you for your time, and I’ll see you on the rift.
