Seraphine and Varus dominate Legends of Runeterra’s early access

Get ready for a wild week in LoR as players try to solve the meta.
Image via Riot Games

A new meta is emerging in Legends of Runeterra with the release of the second Darkin expansion, Domination, showcasing multiple Seraphine and Varus decks. 

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Riot Games dropped the second Darkin expansion on Oct. 12, containing a total of 69 cards and three new Legends of Runeterra champions. Seraphine and Varus received the most play during the Domination early access event on Oct. 11, pairing with champions like Viktor, Riven, Zoe, Master Yi, and Akshan. 

The three LoR champions from the Domination expansion were Vayne, Varus, and Seraphine. Vayne was the final champion revealed, potentially slotting into a Scout variation build. Most decks played during the early access event seemed clunky with Vayne, but that was likely due to her cards and support package getting released right before the event began.

Seraphine performed well with champions like Viktor and Zoe. Ferros Financer will get revived in the new LoR meta thanks to Seraphine. And the new spell Drum Solo is clearly a hit. Fanclub President worked well, along with units like Station Archivist and Acorn, the Hextechnician. 

Varus was mostly played with Akshan and Pantheon. He also works well with Riven who received Rune Squire as a new two-drop that Reforges upon getting summoned. And some players even tried Varus paired with champions like Kayne and Jax. 

Best Legends of Runeterra decks and cards to try at the Darkin Domination launch

With the Darkin Domination expansion launching on Oct. 12, it’s going to take around a week for players to test all the possible deck variations. Any champions with Spellshield are a hard counter to Seraphine decks. Players also shouldn’t sleep on existing champions like Viego, Ashe, and Ezreal. 

Several decks were posted by a Reddit user showcasing builds with Varus and Seraphine. And players were all too happy to share a wide variety of LoR builds on MajjinBae’s Twitter post that asked for the coolest decks to try. And Juxta posted on Twitter a neat-looking Vayne and Zed build.

Oct. 13 best LoR decks

Of the three new Domination champions, Vayne stood out from the crowd on launch day. Shifting a few cards from Juxta’s post, Jaws ran Vayne/Zed all the way to Masters on day one. Pairing Vayne with Kai’Sa, GrandpaRoji steamrolled his way to Diamond on day one, while Kacper Bllasiak and ItsOkToCry produced win-rate stats of 75 percent and above with Rumble and Vayne.

https://twitter.com/Drisoth/status/1580545988791451651

Hitting Master rank on day one was Micah “Drisoth” Lupa, running Vayne and Jax, along with Seraphine and Viktor. Pantheon saw some gameplay with AliDoeri, who hit Diamond. And Boulevard declared Red Gwen as his “best performer” deck on day one.

All best LoR decks will get updated each day following the launch of the Domination expansion on Oct. 12.

Update Oct. 13 9:30am CT: Multiple best LoR decks from day one of the Domination meta were added.


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Danny Forster
Lead Magic: The Gathering/Teamfight Tactics scribe and staff writer for Dot Esports. Danny is a gamer beach bum residing in Spacecoast Florida and has been a journalist for seven years, of which five have been at Dot Esports. Prior media outllets Danny wrote for were Screen Rant and TheGamer. You can typically catch Danny playing TCGs and a variety of strategic games. He also hangs out on Twitter @Dannyspacecoast.