Five China City Challenges: Irelia takes two, Kennen none
The first full weekend after the September 18 ban list produced five Chinese City Challenges on the same day, 354 entrants between them. The scoreboard is blunt: Irelia, Blade Dancer won two of them, LeBlanc, Jayce and Lucian one each, and Kennen lifted nothing. The decklists were gathered on the riftdecks.com database and flagged on r/riftboundtcg by u/i92segoa, who put it plainly: "looks like the bans actually did their job this week".
The numbersFive events, four different Legends on top
All five ran on September 26 in five different cities, with store-sized fields rather than Regional-sized ones: Chongqing was the biggest at 95 entrants, Zhengzhou the smallest at 46. Together they add up to 354 lists — a small sample next to the two thousand players at the Los Angeles Regional Qualifier warm-up, but one collected entirely after the bans, in a region where the format tends to move on its own.
| Event | Entrants | Winning Legend |
|---|---|---|
| S4 Chongqing City Challenge | 95 | LeBlanc, Deceiver |
| S4 Shenyang City Challenge | 87 | Irelia, Blade Dancer |
| S4 Beijing City Challenge | 74 | Irelia, Blade Dancer |
| S4 Zhongshan City Challenge | 52 | Jayce, Defender of Tomorrow |
| S4 Zhengzhou City Challenge | 46 | Lucian, Purifier |
The listsThe two Irelia decks are near twins
The winning lists posted in the thread can be compared card by card, and that is the most telling part of the day. Beijing and Shenyang share almost everything: a Calm and Chaos base, Scuttle Crab, Tideturner, Pyke, Stellacorn Herder and Astral Heron among the units, three copies each of Zhonya's Hourglass and Defiant Dance, then Boots of Swiftness, Edge of Night, Defy, Discipline, Rebuke and Ride the Wind.
The differences live at the edges. Beijing adds Charm, Find Your Center and Star-Crossed; Shenyang prefers Vex, Adaptatron, Flash and Switcheroo, and shifts one rune from the Calm side to the Chaos side. Two builds winning on the same day, a thousand kilometres apart, off the same skeleton: that is a settled archetype, not an experiment.
The gapKennen is missing from every top spot
The ban list that took effect on September 18 removed two cards from Standard, Ekko, Recurrent and Stacked Deck. In its announcement Riot explained that Stacked Deck, paired with Lightning Rush, let Kennen dig through the deck a little too efficiently. Across five Chinese finals, Kennen simply is not there.
The usual caution applies. Five tournaments are not a statistical verdict, and what we have here are winners, not play rates across the whole field. At the Los Angeles warm-up event, played in the same days, Kennen was still the third most chosen Legend at 9.3%. A Legend can stay popular and stop winning — those are two different things, and so far we only know the second one.
354 lists
The combined field of the five Chinese events on September 26, all played after the bans.
2 of 5 to Irelia
Beijing and Shenyang. The other three go to LeBlanc, Jayce and Lucian.
In EuropeSame weekend, Bristol and Malmö
Two European Showdown Series are running over the same weekend. In his regular round-up on r/riftboundtcg, u/nic_bolas puts Rengar on top of the Bristol registrations at 5% and Irelia on top at Malmö with 6.7%: these are entry shares recorded at the start, not results, and both fields are far more fragmented than the one in Los Angeles. For players in Italy these are the two to watch, because they are the European thermometer for the same format.
Why it matters to us. There is only one Standard: the September 18 ban list applies in Italian stores exactly as it does in Beijing, and the decks winning in China are legal at your local Nexus Night and at the next European Regional. The practical lesson of the day is that Irelia came through the bans untouched and remains the deck to beat, while Kennen lost its digging engine. If you are building right now, plan for the Irelia mirror — and keep an eye on this weekend's two European Showdown Series to see whether the picture holds on this side of the world.
The short version
- Five City Challenges in China on September 26, 354 entrants in total: Chongqing 95, Shenyang 87, Beijing 74, Zhongshan 52, Zhengzhou 46.
- Irelia won Beijing and Shenyang with near-identical lists; the other titles went to LeBlanc, Jayce and Lucian.
- No Kennen win after the Stacked Deck ban, but winners are not play rates: five events remain a small sample.
Source: r/riftboundtcg, lists gathered on riftdecks.com. Images: Riot Games.
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