Meta breaking picks

Kanvell·8/26/2014, 8:41:40 PM·4 votes·1,392 views

Hello everyone, I'm relatively new to the forums so bear with me on this.

I'm going to discuss the current meta picks, and how new counter picks with off meta champs can make games a bit more fun.

We all know that with this meta many picks can get stale and annoying to deal with. For example how we see spikes in certain champs like KogMaw Lulu that do well in the LCS games. I'm not saying these champions are never fun, but it can get boring and annoying to play with and against these champs over and over again. I'm also not saying the LCS is the only factor people look at to decide their picks. But with the current meta, people often get smashed on by other players for trying to change things up like playing with a mage carry bottom and not an ADC.

So here are a few off meta champions that I've seen do well that also happen to be quite fun:

Sivir As a bruiser on top. I actually saw someone post something about this in another thread, but I can't remember where. She works like a Quinn top and she makes melee fighters without hard gap closers miserable. She also does very well against some of the mage tops that are often picked. The good thing about Sivir though is that she has less late game fall off than Quinn. As Sivir can keep pressure on multiple targets with her Q and W. She also helps with disengages and objective charges with her R.

The only problem with Sivir is that since she has so much split pushing power she is often targeted for repeated ganks, and her lane is almost never empty. This can be good though as you are keeping pressure off of your team's other lanes by distracting 2 enemies at once.

When I build on bruiser Sivir, I generally like to go this path: Start: item 1055 item 2003 item 3340 with item 3070 on first back Mid game: item 3254 item 1053 item 3086 item 3004 item 3155 For a mage top opponent item 3024 For an AD top opponent Late Game: item 3042 item 3072 item 3254 item 3087 item 3102 item 3110 or item 3025 if you want the extra kick on the Muramana and the spellblade. item 3087 can also be replaced with item 3035 if their tank is too stacked. I also feel item 3153 does not really work for Sivir top. I don't know why, it just seems like she can't get a lot of use from it, even from champs with loads of health.

Next is the bot dunk squad JarvanIV and Pantheon Although I haven't played this myself and I can't provide itemization, from what I've seen it's pretty fun. When I was in a game with these guys, they were very good at denying the enemy ADC creep kills in early/mid game. So when it came to late game, the ADC didn't have a full build.

Pantheon would stun the support or ADC while Jarvan would jump in and trap them. This duo seems very good at severely punishing positioning mistakes. And either of them could roam mid with their high mobility and get results if the jungler was busy.

Finally there is the mid dunk king Jayce although it is already a pick I sometimes see, people can really get more use out of a Jayce mid. He is very good at bullying the lane and escaping ganks with his E in both forms. With his ranged form he can easily farm without too much worry, and with his hammer form he can close in on the current meta squishy mids.

The best part is that he can pretty much keep the same items that do well on him when he goes top. His build stays item 3042 item 3111 with pretty much everything else he needs being situational.

He can deal a ton of damage with just a few items. And the real kicker is that he can cause the enemy mid laner to switch their build paths. Due to his high damage, the mid lanes will have to build armor or get dunked. Their problem will be that the only useful items for a mage in this situation will be item 3191 item 3024 item 3157 item 3025 The latter of these two take quite some time to reach, giving Jayce a good kill window. And since an enemy mid mage will have to waste their gold on these items, this leaves their builds to item 3128 item 3174 item 3089 item 3135 behind.

Assassin mids on the other hand can give Jayce some trouble. Zed Akali have good ways to escape a Jayce dunk or shock blast. And they can out duel him very easily. But they will have the same armor problems as the mages. But this time there are no hybrid damage/armor items to go against Jayce except for item 3005. So the assassins will have to sacrifice damage for armor if they want to survive Jayce's poke.

Sorry for the huge wall of text, I just want to help make League play more interesting and diverse than it is now. I may come back to add more later. I encourage you guys to come up with your own off meta picks that do well :)

9 Comments

MaknBacnPancakes8/26/2014, 8:59:05 PM3 votes

The thing about off meta picks. And off meta champions...

They have to be selected and played in normals.. Over and over until it is perfected. I believe that we as LOL players need not wait for the LCS pro's to show us a new way, or make it okay to play certain characters elsewhere. WE can break the meta... But it comes at a cost.

Now, with that being said..

  1. Off meta gets bashed when people have a <insert champion here> ONLY mindset, and try to force.. Say Varus as support, only for the sake that all other slots were taken and support was left

  2. Off meta gets bashed when people come up with this grand notion of "I am going to try Braum jungle this game" IN RANKED..

In a majority of games instances 1 & 2 above immediately start the team in a downward spiral. Many times it causes someone to dodge, others unfortunately do not dodge and that is where things get VERY ugly. The meta breaker BETTER know what they are doing and BETTER win lane.. Your teammates eyes are all on you, and should you die.. Even legitimately, the team turns toxic and you are immediately branded as feeder, noob, <insert name here>, and also run the risk of causing the team to quit on you and/or intentionally feed.

I am all for breaking the meta.. Be warned, it should not be taken lightly and must have practice put into it before bringing it into ranked.

MaknBacnPancakes8/26/2014, 10:06:19 PM2 votes

I like your logic.. Unfortunately you have to:

  1. run in groups of friends/people who know your prowess
  2. run the risk of getting flammed
  3. not getting as many games as you would like due to your pick
  4. wait for a pro to pick up your tactic and make it viable or OP to the community 😞