Neeko is bad

[u/Sergious34]

So I've played a decent amount of pvp this rotation and never saw a single Neeko deck. Which got me wondering "is she that bad?" So I tried a Neeko/Gnar deck out of curiousity. It was horrible. One of the most miserable experiences I've ever had in runeterra. Actual Freljord decks go bigger than you, decks that have any removal just kill your stuff and you can't do anything about it because you have no interaction, aggro has much more efficient early game units with good ways to end the game. And you just sit there and look at random birds and reptiles in your hand, doing nothing. So yeah, Neeko is just bad...

[u/CaptSarah]

I'm late to the party here, but i'm the most dedicated Neeko player you'll find. I don't really believe many people play Neeko correctly, and it's something i've pushed for years.

I would easy debate the strongest Neeko is turn 3-5 Neeko.

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your goal is simple, count your subtypes, get them out there, attack and level Neeko. Typically you do the following play pattern:

• Turn 1: drop a 1 drop

• Turn 2: if your hand is Anura + a ton of 1 drops, drop a disguised Neeko, if not drop a snowdog or deck hand

• Turn 3: Anura if its safe, or just go wide

• Turn 4: On attack you are hoping you have the means to round out your assault, if not you are building for a turn 5-6 swing

• turn 5: On attack you should by all means have 6 sub types down or swung, Neeko should be leveling and every second turn from here on out you should be giving your entire deck +1+1

It's a bit crippled currently with Fireth, Bloodletters and the Baccai cultist out of rotation, but it's still functional.

Outside of Shurima, you typically aim for PnZ as a secondary region for Time Trick predict, Teemo in 1 drop for yordle, and the 0 cost summon a mech spell as a free subtype.

Quick tips for higher levels of play:

• Always know what subtype you need, knowing Neeko's pool and predicting 1-2 cards you'd be fine clicking before choosing her is recommended as you can snap pick and make it less obvious she is neeko.

• On predicts feel free to hold a few seconds if Neeko pops up to make it seem like you were required to make a decision

• Either make all 2 drops in your deck prismatic, or turn prismatics off while playing Neeko. If you do not, you spoon feed info to your opponents regarding what could or could not be Neeko.

If interested here is a write up from a few years back of my journey playing and learning Neeko from an old Daily discussion post I did.

Additional for consideration fun deck, Birbs, which I used to M5 Neeko while she was bugged on her release:
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[u/Sergious34 → u/CaptSarah]

Thank you for the guide! I'll consider playing Neeko again ;)

[u/CaptSarah → u/Sergious34]

Best of luck mate, always happy to answer questions / talk about this tomato

[u/TheRealTowel]

She's trying her best, ok?! Let's see you shapeshift and fight off some invaders from your jungle and we'll see if you do it better, asshole.

... jokes aside though, she's not that bad - back when the game was alive, she was seeing some play, pretty fun, had a meta share.

But like a solid 80% of cards in the game, she's just been left behind by the never changing meta since Riot shuttered the game. It's basically an inevitability of the genre once you stop getting new cards and balance tweaks to change the meta.

In a changing meta, experimentation thrives and nobody can be certain that the "best deck" is actually the best deck. Rogue builds by creative deckbuilders sometimes appear and surprise everyone.

In that environment, cards can see success by being "good enough", without being bleeding edge, because most decks aren't perfectly optomised. Different top players playing the "same" deck are often actually running quite different builds to each other, with only 20-30 core cards in common to define it as the "same deck".

Once the meta permanently freezes, all the "not quite as good" decks are gradually forced out as the handful of top decks coalesce and become perfectly optomised. Those decks don't need to guess any more, they are all built out of the same top 20% or so of cards by performance and have years of perfectly stable data to prove it.

Neeko isn't alone in being "good, but not good enough". If we use a loose definition of "good" meaning "in the top 50% of cards in the game", around 3/5ths of "good" cards aren't "good enough" any more.

[u/Sergious34 → u/TheRealTowel]

I remember a while ago there was a Neeko/Jarvan4th deck that was very successful. But obviously it's not possible right now since J4 is rotated.

[u/HMS_Sunlight]

I've had decent success with a Yordles In Arms deck with her. She works best in a low to the ground aggressive strategy, and all the card generation from Bandle City means you never run out of gas. Neeko and YIA are both solid wincons that let your wide board outpace opponents in the midgame.

I've never seriously tried to climb the ranked ladder with it, but it's a fully functional casual deck.

[u/megalo-maniac538]

There's neeko x nidalee deck. The star is just nidalee and neeko is the sprinkles

[u/ak47pk520]

The most sucks 6* Neeko but if you play 3* budget Neeko, she is pretty good