Legends of Runeterra: Rising Tides has officially dropped, featuring an entirely new region with over 60 new cards and exciting champions. Each new champion seeks to enable different strategies or provide interesting and unique effects to fit into new decks.
This list seeks to rank LoR‘s newest champions on their potential impact they can have on the meta, how many decks they could fit into, and just their overall strength and effectiveness as cards.
5) Twisted Fate
Effective decks: Heavy Cycle Cheap Spell
Effective pair-up regions: Ionia
The Card Master is the most interesting champion to evaluate on this list. Looking at Twisted Fate’s 2/2 base stats and Quick Attack alone would tell you that he’s one of the worst units in the game. But his main effectiveness is his Destiny Cards and how often they can activate. Level one Twisted Fate can only use one Destiny Card when he’s played, and his level two form can use them up to three times in one turn.
The main question then becomes how easy is it to level up Twisted Fate. The answer is disappointing, since drawing eight cards while keeping a 2/2 alive in the early game is a tall task, even with all of the drawing support that is coming out in this expansion set.
4) Gangplank
Effective decks: Midrange, Aggro
Effective pair-up regions: Noxus, Freljord, Piltover and Zaun
The Saltwater Scourge of Bilgewater can devastate boards as soon as he levels up, and compared to Twisted Fate, Gangplank’s Level Up is much easier. In aggressive strategies, you’ll be wanting to hit the enemy nexus anyways, and if you can deal damage through effects on rounds where you don’t have the attack token, you can have Gangplank potentially leveled up as soon as turn five or six.
Every turn a leveled-up Gangplank attacks the opponent is a turn where they’re going to take massive damage, since weak units will be unable to defend against his two damage AoE (with Powder Kegs) and Overwhelm.
3) Nautilus
Effective decks: Maokai Toss, Sea Monsters Control Toss.
Effective pair-up regions: Shadow Isle, Ionia
The Titan of the Depths lets players wield the Sea Monsters lurking in the deep more easily. While Nautilus’ success comes down to how effective the power level of Toss is, Nautilus can put opponents on a clock once he hits the field due to how his Level Up works. A 13/13 that can’t be chump-blocked by weak units is something every enemy will need a plan to deal with once your deck nears the 15-or-less threshold.
Just watch out for Rimefang Wolves before Nautilus goes deep.
2) Miss Fortune
Effective decks: Aggro, Midrange
Effective pair-up regions: Shadow Isle, Noxus, Piltover and Zaun, Demacia, Ionia
The Bounty Hunter herself is an explosive unit that can take down any unprepared foe on her own but works better with a crew behind her. Any strategies that summon multiple tokens that can help swing with her lets you achieve her leveled-up form much easier. While leveling up Miss Fortune should be anyone’s goal, however, her level one form is fine on its own. She can clear up any weak defending units, while helping trigger Plunder for your other cards.
1) Fizz
Effective decks: Aggro
Effective pair-up regions: Demacia, Ionia, Noxus
The Tidal Trickster continues to annoy players in any game he appears in. This cheap one-cost unit can quickly snowball a game into the user’s favor if you can get any amount of buff cards on him in quick succession. Stand Alone, Rush, Radiant Strike, and Brother’s Bond are just a few examples of cards to be mindful of when playing against Fizz.
Once Fizz gets snowballing though, a plethora of problems will open up for the opponent, since he starts giving easy access to Plunder triggers and raw damage that can’t be overdone. Games afterwards can turn into Go Fish matches to see if your opponent has more removal than you have spells due to Fizz’s slippery nature.
Fear the Fizz player that goes first.
All of these Bilgewater champs are yours to command now that LoR: Rising Tides is live on PC and Mobile.
