Eight of the best Legends of Runeterra players in Europe competed within the Principles of Strength community tournament today for bragging rights and to hype up a $2,000 main event taking place at the end of May and early June.
The community tournament was the first major event since the official launch of LoR and the release of the Rising Tides expansion. Despite a number of complaints on Twitter regarding Aggro decks dominating the meta ladder, a majority of decks played today were either Midrange or Control builds.
- Pokrovac: Viemerdinger (Vi and Heimerdinger)
- Presto: Viemerdinger (Vi and Heimerdinger)
- ManuS: Zed Freljord Elusives
- FirstPinkBeaver: Viemerdinger (Vi and Heimerdinger)
- Alanzq: Viemerdinger (Vi and Heimerdinger)
- Szychu: Lux/Karma
- FreshLobster: Mono-Demacia
- Zezetel: Corina Control
The lack of Aggro decks was somewhat surprising. Even though three players brought Viemerdinger builds, the victory went to Szychu and his Lux/Karma deck.
Players only brought one deck to the invitational and were allowed to use a 15-card closed sideboard in between games. The round robin and semifinal rounds were best-of-three and the final was best-of-five. Two pools fed into the semifinals, with Szychu battling against FirstPinkBeaver and Zezetle vs. Presto.
Szychu and Zezetel advanced to the final, with Corina Control taking on Lux/Karma. Corina dominated the numerous Viemer builds but Szychu’s Lux/Karma deck had plenty of its own strengths, as seen in game three of the semifinals with the deck’s inclusion of Grizzled Ranger.
Another advantage Szychu included in his Lux/Karma list was the new Demacia Rising Tides spell, Unyielding Spirit. In conjunction with Lux’s laser blasts, Unyielding Spirit pulled its weight during the finals, especially since Zezetel was playing Shadow Isles and P&Z—two LoR regions that don’t have an answer to the detrimental Burst spell.
Zezetel put up a solid fight against Szychu in the finals. But between Karma pulling double-Deny, Unyielding Pursuit, Lux’s lasers, and Rally from Scout and Karma pulls, Szychu won the LoR Principles of Strength EU community tournament.
