The post-ban meta: Reddit can only talk about Astral Heron

by Riccardo Emanuele Eustor·Riftbound Zone

With Stacked Deck and Ekko, Recurrent leaving the format on September 18, r/riftboundtcg has started guessing at the new deck to beat. The thread “Welcome to heron meta!”, opened on September 15 by u/Gorillaz951, picked up more than twenty comments in a matter of hours: according to the poster, three of the four most recent Regional Qualifier winners were playing lists built around Astral Heron. It is not official and Riot has published nothing on it, but it is the first post-ban read genuinely circulating. The comments already look further ahead: the next problem, they say, is Dazzling Aurora.

The cardSeven energy to stop paying for anything

If you do not follow the competitive format, you have probably never put it on the board. Astral Heron is an epic Vendetta unit, Calm, 7 energy and 7 might: a heavy investment that also asks you to reach a battlefield first. The text pays you back. When you play your first card each turn, if the heron is at a battlefield, your next card costs two energy and two runes less.

In practice, every turn from then on is worth close to double. It never wins a game on its own, but it closes one out if the board holds — exactly the plan Stacked Deck made unattractive. Until this week, consistency came from a one-energy spell, not a seven-energy unit.

The threadA meme, a number and a question about price

The post itself is barely more than an image: the old “friendship ended” meme, with Stacked Deck crossed out and the heron taking its place. The comments are what make it worth reading. Asked to explain, u/Gorillaz951 supplies the number that has been going around for two days: three of the four most recent Regional Qualifier winners were reportedly on heron lists, two with Akali and one with Irelia.

The second reply, from u/KwanAcademy, is the most practical one there: “Is this why the price keeps going up on this thing”. Players holding a single copy are working out whether to buy more now or wait.

The counter-argumentWhat if the real winner is Jayce?

The best part of the thread is the disagreement. For u/jodon the strongest deck after September 18 will be Jayce with Dazzling Aurora, because Kennen was what kept it honest, and heron lists are close to an automatic loss against Aurora. u/Gorillaz951 counters that gear hate exists and will come back to main decks; u/No-Horror927 replies that you cannot find enough of it in time across a Bo3, and that past a certain point the game is decided: you win before they have it, or you scoop.

From there the thread moves to the next ban and splits in two. One camp would remove Aurora, because it turns half of every sideboard into gear removal. The other would take Elder Dragon first, arguing that without the dragon, Aurora is a card you can play around. In the background sits u/HorsNoises’ one-liner: “Heron isn’t the problem, Stellacorn is”. None of it is a forecast — it is day three of a format nobody has played in a tournament yet.

Source: r/riftboundtcg. Prices: Cardmarket via Riftbound Zone. Images: Riot Games, meme from the original thread.