Tag: Tier List

We’ve seen a lot of movement with the Lorcana Best Decks in the last two weeks. The first three CCQs for the Season of Villainy have already taken place, but now all eyes are on the North America Championship and the LCQs! 

Last time we checked in RP and GP were just starting to make themselves known. Since then both of them have made a big impact and proved themselves to be true pillars of the format. The advantage from being on the play appears to be higher now than any other point in the game’s history. Despite that, GP managed to defeat GY Aggro on the draw on its path to winning one of the CCQs.

This Tier List update we’re looking at the 12 most relevant decks you might see at NAC.

Lorcana Best Decks by Tier

• S Tier

• A Tier

• B Tier

• C Tier

Closing thoughts

Lorcana Best Decks by Tier

S Tier 

YP continues to see high levels of play and high conversions to top cut. When a deck can remain the most popular and one of the most successful, it’s a textbook S tier deck. YP is sure to remain one of the Lorcana Best Decks for the foreseable future.

GP Retro has rapidly proved itself to be the best control deck in the format. With highly favourable matchups into YP and RP, GP has found itself in the role of the hunter, turning the tables on the most popular deck in the format.

GS has seen some evolution from the Touch Paradise combo towards the Darkwing Duck page and has maintained a strong performance. The deck can find itself in a hard place between every other deck in the meta, but has still seen fairly strong performance overall. 

A Tier

While still an incredibly strong deck and a major pillar of the format, other decks have shown that GY Aggro is not bullet proof and can be taken down, even OTD. Still, when you think GY you should expect Aggro first and foremost.

Putting this deck in A tier proved to be the correct call as it has justified that position across the last two weeks. By the conversion figures I would consider placing this deck into S tier, but its overall meta share leaves it a little short of being a true Lorcana Best Deck.

GY Book saw a huge jump in popularity and performance since its previous entry into C tier. This deck has a similar matchup spread to GP Retro, but with much more polarizing positive win rates into Amethyst decks at the cost of possibly the worst matchup of all time into GY Aggro. Get lucky and dodge it? This could be the deck to take it all. 

B Tier

The B tier now finds itself filled with the three decks which initially lead the format. People will probably still bring all three of these decks to the events. All three will probably manage to find at least one top cut spot here or there. And inevitable, all three will probably fail to convert anywhere near to 1:1 from their meta share to their top cut share.

C Tier

Similarly to our B tier decks, these are all familiar faces, but three have failed to find any top cut spots at major events in the last two weeks, and don’t even break 9% meta share between them. You might still see some people taking these decks, but I don’t think you need to worry about them.

Closing thoughts

I’ve rarely been surprised at how quickly the list of Lorcana Best Decks has changed as it has in the last two weeks. Players are showing a much quicker turnaround in adapting to the format week over week than they have historically. What will be the best deck for the North American Championship this weekend? It’s hard to say! But we’ve seen a bit of everything find success so far in this format. I’m not betting on any big surprises to appear next week, but you never know. Tune back in again next time where I’ll review the results of the North America and Asia Championships before the Europe and Brazil Championships finish off the set. 

Hey everyone! Justice here bringing you the inaugural edition of my Lorcana Best Decks tier list updates on the Rarehunters website. Going forward I’ll be responsible for updating the tier list section on the website. In order to explain, I’d like to take some time to outline the methodology I’ll be using!

What Are The Lorcana Best Decks? Tier List Methodology and Data

While this might come as a surprise, I believe that a good tier list is part art as well as science. This section will outline the general criteria I’ll be assessing when determining where to place a deck. Sometimes a deck might land a tier above or below where you would expect to see due to other considerations. When this happens I’ll provide some additional context on how I reached that decision. Over time these definitions might evolve to try and capture that nuance. 

The data used for determining tier placement will come from a combination of online and in person results, with a preference towards higher ranked matches (Rare or Super Rare and above) or events with significant attendance (64+ players). 

Beneath these definitions, I will include a table of meta share and win rate thresholds for each tier. I’ve broken the tier list up into the following categories:

S Tier

Decks in S tier define their formats, possessing both a suitably large share of the meta as well as an equally impressive win rate or conversion to top cuts. Ideally for a deck to be placed in S tier it should be independently strong, as opposed to situationally favoured into a specific shape of the meta. An S tier deck should be strong enough that nearly anyone could begin playing it and expect to see success. These are worthy of being called one of the Lorcana best decks.

A Tier

Decks in A tier are the strong contenders, but are not able to break into S tier for either having too small of a meta share to shape the format, or due to falling short in win rate or top cuts despite their meta share. This is also where powerful challenger decks would be placed, decks which are situationally well positioned into the most popular decks of the format, but potentially lacking in their own raw power. Oftentimes A tier decks can be some of the best positioned to win upcoming tournaments due to expected spread into some, but potentially not all, of the most popular decks.

B Tier

B tier decks are starting to show more significant cracks. A deck which can manage a couple of top cuts, but reliably struggles to convert or see higher meta share would sit here. Generally, In this tier most decks would not be expected to have a positive win rate into the field overall. They might be strong enough that you could perform well with high deck mastery, favourable matchups, or luck with the die roll.

C Tier

Decks in C tier are the worst performing decks that are seeing some level of play. Generally having just a few percent of the meta share and having a win rate well below par would be the defining criteria to land a deck in this tier. Even so, there is still a chance you might come across one of these decks. It’s worth knowing they exist and your gameplan into them, but you shouldn’t spend too much time on them.

R Tier

The bottom of the barrel, for the decks that have insignificant share of the meta and and/or have win rates that are completely indefensible. Decks in this tier either lack the tools necessary in order to compete with the rest, or have yet to have anyone find the right build to raise them into relevance. These are as far away from being the best decks as you can get.

Tier List Metric Thresholds

General tier metric thresholds are as follows:

Tier	Meta Share	Win Rate
S	Greater than 10%	Above 53%
A	Between 6-10%	Above 50%
B	Between 4-6%	Above 45%
C	Between 1-4%	Above 40%
R	Less than 1%	Below 40%

Lorcana Best Decks Ranked!

S Tier

Long live the Queen. GY Aggro is seeing the largest reported share from in person events while also having the best win rates, top cut share, and conversion across them. This is what one of Lorcana’s best decks looks like. No matter what list you play, how you deal with GY Aggro needs to be one of your top priorities, there’s no trying to dodge this.

Filling the power gap left by Blurple and replacing the list Sapphire ramp cards with Amber equivalents, YP Midrange looks like both a fan favourite and a pillar of the format.

Taking advantage of the format’s lack of Evasives, the Touch Paradise list looks to swarm the board and control it through a combination of Steel song removal and draw from the namesake Touch The Sky and Paradise Falls combo.

A Tier

Despite being one of the most played decks in the format, at higher rankings GY Circle is actually posting a win rate below 50%. The deck has converted well when played in person so far, but things appear to be getting worse for this deck, not better.

A strong choice for targeting GY Aggro and Touch Paradise, but one which unfortunately loses to the two decks more popular than they are, YP Midrange and GY Circle.

While it struggles into GY Circle and YP Midrange, this deck cleans up the rest of the format staples fairly handily and has found itself in a surprisingly strong spot.

B Tier

While the Lilo & Stitch Songs deck currently has excellent tools, it lines up very poorly into the meta right now. The Deck currently posts a win rate barely above 45% and is failing to reliably convert to top cuts in person.

Another early format leader which simply hasn’t been able to keep up as the rest of the meta has developed. There may be a point in the future where this deck is an excellent meta call, but that doesn’t look like the case right now.

Maleficent style PS lists seem to be performing similarly well to Droids, but are seeing a smaller meta share. Based purely on win rate, this deck could be placed in the A tier.

A new contender for the format. While the sample size is very small, this deck currently has a significantly higher win rate than anything else from the previous week. This should normalize in future weeks as more people explore the deck, but it appears to be headed for A tier.

C Tier

While explosive, this deck lacks the consistency and variety of tools to reliably perform in its current iteration.

Ducktectives seemed for just a moment like it might have been Blue/Steel’s chance to return, but has sadly flapped out.

Lacking both a notable meta share and a positive win rate, GP Evasives seems like a bad choice.

Finally, Lorcana has its first deck where you don’t need to play any characters to win. While this deck is fun and unique, it’s slow and unreliable.

R Tier

Seems like franchise decks will need to continue waiting to have a reliable meta contender.

While the pieces look good in isolation, this deck just doesn’t seem to be able to come together in a way that works. The GY Toys package might be condemned to being a secondary note in a more successful deck and not a main star.

Will BY ever become a playable deck? Outlook doesn’t seem great.

Lorcana Best Decks Closing Thoughts

I hope you’ve enjoyed this first of many future tier list updates to come. If you want to stay up to date with future updates you’ll be able to find all of them right here on the Rarehunters website. Want to learn more about any of these decks? Check out the guides section.