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Welcome to the last Riftbound Meta Tier List Update of August 2025! It’s the 28th of August, which means it’s been almost a whole month since Origins’s Chinese release. In this time, we’ve seen plenty of development throughout the game’s meta within the online scene, but have yet to see how this information all shapes up to in-person and official tournament play.
We missed last week’s report as not much had happened in the competitive scene, but with the first official Riftbound Tournament in Guangzhou this weekend, alongside other notable online tournaments, there is plenty of information about the metagame to discuss.
In today’s update, we’ll go over everything that has happened in the last two weeks of Riftbound, and how the metagame is looking a whole month into its existence. We’ll discuss how our tier list has changed and take a look at which legends have excelled, as well as the few that have failed to do so.
Riftbound Metagame Tier List - 26th August 2025
| Tier | Champions |
|---|---|
| 1 | |
| 2 | |
| 3 | |
| 4 |
General Information
In this update, we’ll be covering three major tournaments: the Guangzhou Regionals in China, the Luxury Riftbound Championship Series 1K which took place last weekend, and the Riftlab Clash I & II events, the smaller qualifiers for the Riftlab Trials event we covered a few weeks ago. Keep an eye out for all of our tournament reports!
Unlike the other two, the Riftlab Clashes were a series of mini-tournaments held over two days, with groups of 16 players in pods battling until one was undefeated. Although the tournament itself saw over 100 players compete, we’ll mainly be using results from the other two tournaments due to the much smaller testing pool of each pod.
Meanwhile, the Guangzhou Regional was the largest tournament we’ve seen held so far, with over 500 people competing in-person across two days. This has given us amazing insight into how the CN meta is shaping up to be after a whole month of Origins, and how it compares to the online metagame we’ve seen developing over the last two months.
We also expected to see a lot more online tournament play this weekend, however due to recent discoveries and discussions about Tabletop Simulator’s integrity, many organizers sadly had to cancel or postpone their events.
As we see more in-person tournaments take place across China and within the West closer to the game’s release in October, we’ll be able to see exactly how our information from online play has translated into the paper experience, and adjust our tier list accordingly. However at the moment, we’ve made some adjustments to represent not just legend win-rate and strength, but popularity and overall discussions and breakthroughs within the Riftbound scene.
S Tier
Master Yi 🔼
Finally pushing his way out of the A Tier and into the S Tier ranking is the Master Yi, after a soaring increase in popularity and winning results over the last two weeks.
As players grow familiar with the decklist, we’ve seen more consistent matchups, winrates, and high ranking results from Master Yi, with two Top 8 entrances in the LCRS 1K, and being the single most popular legend in the entire Guangzhou Regionals, with two more Top 8 entrances and a 2nd place spot.
It seems this legend has climbed his way up to the top, with no intention of leaving anytime soon. Although, with mostly average matchups into a lot of the metagame decks, and with a lot of time and dedication needed to master the Master, there’s a chance this deck could fall behind once more as the meta evolves. We’ll simply have to wait and see.
Kai’Sa
The Daughter of the Void has done it again; easily being one of, if not the most powerful deck in the format, Kai’Sa absolutely dominated the charts this weekend, with one Top 8 in the LRCS 1K, 5 out of 9 of the Riftlab Clash 4-0 decks, 4 entries into the Guangzhou Regionals Top 8, and even going on to win the entire tournament.
This Tempo deck is certainly one to look out for in the Riftbound metagame, both in-person and online. In the near future, we may see a rise in decks piloted specifically to take her down, such as Sett, but for now, this legend continues with her win streak.
Sett
Weirdly, Sett saw next to no tournament play over this past weekend, not appearing once in the Top 64 of Guangzhou Regionals, and had under 5% of players representing him; however last weekend, and before this, Sett absolutely popped off, with three Top 8 (one 2nd place) slots in the LCRS 1K.
Sett is a strangely meta-defining hero. Sometimes he’ll turn up and crash the entire event, taking over the leaderboards by storm. Or sometimes he’ll sit quietly in the background, not making a single sound. Regardless, when he does show up, you’ll be aware of it; making this legend one of our definitive S Tiers.
A Tier
Viktor 🔽
Sadly for Viktor Nation, this legend hasn’t been performing well in the last couple of weeks, with his only Top 8 entrance in the Guangzhou Regionals, and not progressing past the quarter-finals.
Although he’s still a very popular pick, with great matchups into Sett and Darius, this legend has seen fewer and fewer high results since the growing popularity of Master Yi; at first, the matchup was pretty 50/50, but as the Yi players grow stronger, in strength and strategy, the worse it looks for the Herald of the Arcane.
On top of this, Viktor was mainly good into Ahri, who seems to have completely fallen off of the map. With this, it feels as though he has no good matchups other than the Sett matchup, and the sheer popularity of Kai'Sa means that Viktor feels like a non-starter anyway due to how skewed that matchup is into Kai'Sa's favour.
Paired with the high amount of board-rush hate in many sideboards, it seems Viktor’s domination in the metagame is over, for now. It’s very possible that he could comeback in the future, but for now, we’ve dropped this legend to A Tier.
Darius
After finally breaking out of the 2nd place curse last weekend, Darius has been performing extremely well lately, with great results in all three tournaments. Darius won the LRCS 1K tournament, 3 out of under 20 Darius players saw themselves in Top 64 of the Guangzhou Regionals, and lastly two 4-0 results were achieved in the Riftlab Clash league, both achieved by the same Darius player.
It’s safe to say the new Baited Hook decklist is definitely making moves in the metagame, placing Darius as a true underdog in the big league.
Teemo
Teemo hadn’t made any big moves for a little while, however this last weekend in Guangzhou he made it into the Top 6 most represented decks, with 3 players into the Top 64 and one player progressing into the Top 8. Once again, Teemo seems to be one of the more skill intensive decks in the format, and so seeing players excel on him is definitely a good sign.
For such a large pool of players, this ranking is very impressive, and I believe Teemo is still one of the strongest decklists within the game right now. With a little more player representation, and a wider card-pool, I expect to see this little scout within the top meta ranks for quite some time.
B Tier
Leona 🔼
After her Top 16 win in the last Riftbound Meta Weekly, this anti-meta Leona decklist has been sparking up a storm within the community, and with her dedicated playerbase hard at work building, playing, and experimenting, Leona has reaped the rewards, placing 4-0 in the Riftlab Clash.
Although this is a relatively small win, I see true potential in this decklist, and for that reason I don't really consider it on the same tier as Garen or Yasuo. For this, Leona moves up to our B Tier.
Miss Fortune
Miss Fortune was one of the most popular entrants in the Guangzhou Regionals, and had three entrants into the Top 64, which is a pretty good record into this dominative meta.
No Miss Fortune players entered the Top 8, and none got far in the LRCS 1K either, but 3 players in a pool of 500 making their way to day 2 is a pretty big deal, and proves there’s more tricks up this legend’s sleeve than we first expected a few weeks ago.
Volibear
There isn’t much Volibear news to report on as of this week, with not much notable data in any of the three tournaments. With his sudden popularity and results in our last tournament, I think he may have space to push his way back into the top ranks, but for now we’ll have to wait and see.
Ahri
After her amazing start in the metagame last month, we’ve seen less and less Ahri as the weeks go on. One player got her into the Top 64 of the Guangzhou Regionals, but she wasn’t able to push her way through to the Top 8.
It seems she's still doing reasonably well in smaller play pools, but in those larger spaces and tournaments, she keeps falling short. I do believe she has potential to rise up in the future, as the control-oriented cardpool of her domains increases. But, for now, she just doesn't have the tools to consistently deal with the power that the top tier decks are presenting.
Annie
Other than a single Top 64 entry into the Guangzhou Regionals, Annie hasn’t done much over the last two weeks. Similar to Ahri, it seems Annie has a better chance of success in smaller pools rather than larger, but that single Top 64 out of 500+ entrants is impressive enough to convince me she has enough power to remain in the B Tier.
Jinx
Despite being one of the most popular entries into the Guangzhou Regional, not a single Jinx converted into the Top 64.
Due to her popularity in CN, and her plenty of past Top 8 results, it still feels as though she has a chance to shine. But, with middling results, she still remains within the B tier.
C Tier
Lux 🔽
After seeing no top tournament play since the MaxTapera tournament over a month ago, it seems Lux’s short time as a metagame contender is over. The control cardpool just isn't there, and with the level of power that the top tier is presenting, the lack of control tools to deal with those threats and a middling legend ability means that Lux just cannot compete, at least without some major upgrades.
Lee Sin
Since the rising popularity of Master Yi, many dedicated Lee Sin players have been pushing hard to get this legend back into the metagame, and their work is beginning to pay off. With one 4-0 result in the Riftlab Clash, the first high-ranked win for the Blind Monk since the MaxTapera tournament, Lee Sin’s comeback may be just around the corner.
However, is there enough room for two Body-Calm legends in this meta? We’ll have to find out over the next week. We’ll be keeping a close eye on Lee Sin moving forward, and we may see him move back up into the B tier if his plan succeeds.
Yasuo
With nothing of note to report on, it seems there’s not much hope for Yasuo in our current meta. Maybe we’ll see some cards in Spiritforged that will give him some juice, but for now, there’s nothing much to say on this legend.
Garen
Once again, there is nothing to report on for Garen, having seen 0 notable play across all three tournaments discussed. Ouch.
Closing Time
In the past two weeks, we've seen quite a few shifts in the metagame, with Master Yi making his way to the top of the metagame and rogue decks like Leona becoming more dominant. With this, the online metagame and the paper metagames seem to be aligning as one, with heroes like Kai'Sa taking dominance in both.
It's going to be interesting as we head towards the worldwide Origins release, so make sure that you keep yourself informed. Riftbound.gg will have everything you need to know, from metagame updates, to tournament reports, and everything in between. We've got you covered, and will be there the whole way; and beyond.
In any case, thank you for your time, and I'll see you on the rift.
