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Since the full reveal of the Origins set at the end of July, we've seen more and more players take part in virtual tournaments such as Meta Weekly, giving us great insight on the game's current meta, and what to expect come its English release in October.
This last weekend marked the fifth Riftbound Meta Weekly tournament, a virtual tournament hosted by channel Riftbound Meta. Played on Tabletop Simulator and streamed live onto YouTube, the tournament had 88 players, and took place over two days with 5 rounds of Swiss on August 9th, and the top 16 cut to Finals on August 10th.
In this week's report, we'll be taking a look at the overall tournament metagame, including legend popularity and trends, and which legends made it to Day 2 of the tournament. We'll also be deep diving into the Top 8 decks of the tournament, and break down the specifics about their decks and matchups.
Tournament Metagame
Kai'Sa: 18 - 21.4%
Viktor: 9 - 10.7%
Teemo: 7 - 8.3%
Master Yi: 7 - 8.3%
Darius: 5 - 6.0%
Annie: 5 - 6.0%
Ahri: 5 - 6.0%
Sett: 4 - 4.8%
Jinx: 4 - 4.8%
Miss Fortune: 4 - 4.8%
Yasuo: 3 - 3.6%
Lux: 3 - 3.6%
Lee Sin: 3 - 3.6%
Leona: 3 - 3.6%
Volibear: 3 - 3.6%
Garen: 1 - 0.9%
This week, Kai'Sa continues to dominate the metagame, taking up almost a quarter of decks represented with a 21.4% meta rate. Viktor follows behind at a 10.7% rate, and Master Yi at 8.3%, both repeatedly proving themselves to be popular picks.
Interestingly, Teemo has a high representation in this tournament, taking up 8.3% of the meta; unlike Sett, who only saw a 4.8% meta rate, and no finishes within the Top 16, despite being a very popular pick into the current meta. There also seems to be a dip in Ahri popularity, and a lack of Volibear, despite being a surprisingly popular pick this week in other tournaments.
Before we discuss the Top 8 standings, I'd like to touch on the Top 16 standings; in which we saw Leona climb up to nearly her first Top 8 win, piloted as an Anti-Meta pick; alongside Jinx, Darius and Ahri, who all ended their run in Top 16.
Top 8
The standings for Top 8 for this week's tournament saw three Kai'Sas, two Viktors, a Master Yi, a Teemo, and a surprising entrance from Miss Fortune. You can read our tier list update to see how this tournament affected the wider metagame, but most notably there's a lack of Sett in the top 16 and Ahri in the top 8.
1st: Viktor by Freakz
This tournament gains another win for Viktor-nation, with player Freakz piloting the legend to a clean 9-0 result. This particular deck is dual-Domain, running a half-and-half split between Order and Mind rune cards, in comparison to the Mono-Order decks we saw before the Origins set's full reveal.
Some Mind-domain cards that have made their way into the deck are meta staples such as Smoke Screen and Thousand-Tailed Watcher to depleat the enemy's defenses, hard-hitting removal cards Falling Comet and Singularity to finish the job, and Sprite Mother (with Sprite Call in the sideboard) to create more unit tokens to overrun the battlefields alongside Viktor's Recruits.
Overall, Viktor is proving to be a very strong and consistent deck within the current Meta, and is sure to be a difficult deck to beat during the Origins metagame.
2nd: Master Yi by Presto
To read more about our thoughts and rankings of Master Yi and other Legends, check out our latest Meta Tier List Update.
In second place is player Presto with the devoted Master Yi, pushing his way up to the final match and finishing with a 7-2 record. Yi has crawled up and crashed many tournament results within the last few weeks, with a defensive Tempo-style deck that nicely contrasts Kai'Sa's aggro-Tempo.
Although Yi is able to put up a fight against many S-tier meta decks, he can quickly fall short with the wrong draw, as was seen in the finals match against Viktor where he was simply unable to keep up with the Herald's pace. Nonetheless, Master Yi is quickly becoming a popular deck within tournament metagames, and is close to pushing through to becoming an S-tier deck himself.
3-4th: Kai'Sa by Vendorty
In the semi-finalist bracket we see our first Kai'Sa deck, ran by Vendorty; a player who also top 8'ed and won the Riftlab Trials I tournament piloting Sett within the same weekend! With a 6-2 run losing out to Master Yi, this Kai'Sa held on for a fight, and was the highest placed deck in all of the tournaments this week.
This deck is very similar to the Kai'Sa Tempo Deck we covered recently, which you can check out to learn more about why this legend's dominating the metagame.
3-4th: Miss Fortune by Prismaticism
Also in the semi-finalist bracket is Prismaticism's Miss Fortune deck, the first Miss Fortune to appear in a Top 8 standing, with an impressive 6-2 record. Prismaticism also appeared in the Final against Vendorty in the Riftlab Trials I tournament this weekend!
As a Body/Chaos deck, this Miss Fortune deck saw it's way up to the top by playing low-cost spells in the early game to disrupt the opponent's flow with cards like Invert Timelines, whilst advancing your board state with cards like Catalyst of Aeons, followed by high-cost units made to cause trouble like Carnivorous Snapvine, ganking their way across battlefields with Miss Fortune's ability to cross the finish line.
This decklist is truly intriguing, as it's the first of it's kind to appear, and it will be fun to see if this deck makes any moves within the metagame next week, or if it was just a lucky fluke.
5-8th: Kai'Sa by Kedjius
Another solid Kai'Sa Tempo Deck, with a more unit orientated sideboard than the semi-finalist list (and a singular adorable Pouty Poro). Player Kedjius finished at a 6-1 record, being beaten to a pulp by the Wuju Bladesman.
5-8th: Viktor by 10kTurnips
This Viktor deck is a little more Order-domain focused than our winning deck, notably using cards like Grand Strategem and Siphon Power to buff it's units and dominate battlefields rather than directly disrupt and destroy the enemy. Player 10kTurnips lost out to Vendorty's Kai'Sa, at a 5-2 record.
5-8th: Teemo by smallchildlord
Sadly, this Teemo didn't get to play past their Top 8 placement, with player smallchildlord having to drop after Round 1 of the second day. However, their top 8 entrance is still a big win for such a small legend, being the first Teemo this month to enter Top 8 in a big tournament.
5-8th: Kai'Sa by Ganjalf
Our last Top 8 Kai'Sa deck also follows the Tempo, notably running a half-and-half split of runes due to running a few more Fury-domain cards; namely Thermo Beam within the sideboard.
Closing Time
Another week means another Riftbound Meta Weekly tournament, and a huge win for Viktor fans everywhere. Next week will be a little different, as there's only a 2v2 tournament happening in Riftbound Meta Weekly, but after that we've got an action packed wekeend with more Riftlabs and Riftbound Meta tournaments; so keep your eyes peeled.
If you want to read the best Riftbound content in the lead-up to Origins, keep an eye out on Riftbound.gg. We're here the whole way, with tons of content including tier lists, more tournament reports, and deck guides to keep you in the know until Origins releases in English this October.
In any case, thank you for your time, and we'll see you on the rift.
