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You don't need Meta to Climb. (With explanation)

ModCaptainMårvelous·12/4/2018, 7:16:06 AM·36 votes·11,982 views

Now, before you downvote, hear me out:

For the point to make more sense, let's consider climbing a mountain, with the peak being whatever rank you want. Be it Silver, Diamond or even the pro scene.

Now, when most people climb a mountain, they need the essential tools. Ice picks, hiking gear, ropes, maybe a guide. We'll call this the meta of mountain climbing. (And for league's sake, this is any meta, not just the one right now.)

Most people have to use the meta to climb mountains....and there's nothing wrong with that! It's the safest way, after all, and it gives you the best chance not to fall off the mountain and break your neck. However, for some people, the meta isn't necessary at all. Most often these are the gurus of mountain climbing and the absolute sickest people. These are the guys climbing with old, possibly unsafe gear (Off-meta champs), using their most reliable gear (The one-tricks who have mastered their champs) or the absolutely fucking bonkers madmen who are climbing the mountain shirtless with forks for fingernails (That one insane fucker who always hits diamond/challenger doing weird shit).

Using that climbing gear isn't necessary. However, to climb without the gear, you have to be a god at mountain climbing....and the fact is, a lot of us aren't. And yes, there will always be a good player who uses meta to climb to massive challenger gains. We'll refer to them as the villain of the 80's sports movie who has state-of-the-art gear that is climbing the mountain to close down the ski lodge so he can build a mega-mall where you and all your friends would hang out.

Ok this metaphor is off the rails.

Anyways, point is, you don't need meta to climb. However, meta is probably the "easiest" way to climb if you're comfortable using it. Some people won't be comfortable and make up the difference with their old mains/picks they mastered inside out. Others will insist their attack-speed-on-hit-Garen will get them to the top before tripping on their shoelaces. I think it's an important distinction to know that it's totally possible to climb without meta but you have to be good. And frankly, most of us just aren't good enough to make up that skill difference. But hey, nothing wrong with that.

39 Comments

SociaI Justice12/4/2018, 2:38:21 PM12 votes

Now show me a challenger volibear player.

Woodakoodashooda12/4/2018, 7:31:44 AM7 votes

TLDR: You don't NEED gear and equipment to climb a mountain, but you'll be in for a bad time if you don't use gear and equipment for the task. The gear and equipment being the meta and the mountain being the ranked ladder.

Just a clone bru12/4/2018, 8:20:46 AM5 votes

This man was on drugs or weed or he fused the two

SuicidePlank12/4/2018, 7:30:10 AM4 votes

That's rare, first time I encounter a fun-to-read post with a nice metaphor on the NA board.

Midg3t12/4/2018, 1:19:01 PM3 votes

You can repeat this all you want but if you dont make an example of yourself this post holds no value.

Janakin12/4/2018, 9:03:25 AM3 votes

if you're comfortable using it

Exactly. But the way the game looks now is no longer like mountain climbing, but more like formula racing.

Poske12/4/2018, 4:03:06 PM3 votes

Omegalul as high elo player this is innacurate

Despite peaking multiple times as #1 LB world I can no longer reach challenger with her because she is to weak since Revert

High elo adc mains are pretty much forced to play Kaisa / Xayah / Draven / MF

Now sure you can reach Diamond1 With any champion on any server (FK even master if you are NA) but you cant reach higher

There is a reason there are 0 XYZ mains of champions in certain elos

Asud12/4/2018, 12:24:26 PM2 votes

You are kinda wrong buddy. At first i liked your post, because you think in a good way, but i'll give you example now why this isn't totally correct. I consider myself to be a Syndra main. I bought her because i hated Heimerdinger so much, and never regretted it. At the start of season 8 Syndra was garbage. Pure garbage. Runes weren't good for her. Items weren't good for her. Meta wasn't good for her. No one played her, and if they did they lost. Faker or not, you just could not carry a game on that champ. It couldn't help that i knew matchups, it couldn't help that i played my main. I couldn't win games that i used to win before. Why? This is why: domination was bad for her as she could only utilize electrocute and even that had huge cooldown. Any other option was even worse. So she had no runes. Also she is snowball oriented as most mages outscale her lategame. now she could not snowball, as she had no damage and everyone had resolve secondary. Her second step is swift kill level 6 with ultimate, but if you want to set up a good ult, you need lost chapter so you dont go OOM after using 3 qs. But lost chapter now costed 1300 gold instead of 900 it used to cost, so now you couldn't even get it before lvl 6 unless you got some lucky kill. All the games i won were games where my team was at least decent. None because i carried. So my point here is, there are always some 10-20 forsaken champions that are pure troll picks for ranked. If you pick those you basically tell your team, hey guys imma lose this one for ya. Sad but true.

deadlychuck12/4/2018, 9:37:33 AM1 votes

And frankly, most of us just aren't good enough to make up that skill difference

And there's where riot fucked up. Riot smoothed the mountain face, added more overhangs, and <insert other mountain related difficulty here(... I live in florida Idk mountain climbing)>. I don't even think it was intentional, I think it was just that all of the players using these mountaineering tools yelled at riot to make the climb harder, but not to make it harder for them to climb, rather than imposing rules on themselves to make it harder. So when riot agreed and made the climb "harder" they also starting offering climbers better tools to scale the mountain with. Those who prefer the challenge got hit the hardest since the players using the tools as handicaps didn't suddenly stop relying on them. But without them, you feel the full brunt of the increases in "difficulty"... They increased that disparity in meta and off meta. Which had a substantially larger impact on the player mentality than the actual game balance, at least initially. They started trying to balance around the assumption of draft pick, which meant that normal blind pick became an unplayable shitshow of people taking advantage of the champions who require targeted bans/counterpicks, which meant that offmeta become unplayable against a team full of S tier champions. This was objectively a design error. If you balance blind pick, draft pick implicitly will be balanced too. This comes down to asymmetrical information access.

You can rank up with whatever you want, but riot, through their capitulation to increase both difficulty and tools, has cultivated such an over competitive and elitists mentality in the community that it's not considered socially acceptable to do so because of the disadvantage that you put your team at... the whole "well it's not fun for the other players in the game" argument. Even in normal draft you're fucked, because so much of the playerbase considers it to just be a practice mode for ranked and takes it just as seriously.

So all in all, blind pick is an unplayable imbalanced mess, and draft, both normals and ranked, are hostile to anything off meta because it either decreases their chance to win or they consider it to be worthless for practice experience.

The lowest win rate champion right now is Corki. But you will catch less heat for playing corki "properly", than you would if you were to be playing something like AP varus, even if your stats show a > 50% win rate. If riot doesn't endorse it, it doesn't matter riot cultivated a community that will flame you for it, and even then you can expect it to be neglected or outright targeted for removal if it's showing successful results. When riot reworks whatever champion that you might be playing something off meta with, you can be pretty sure that they're not likely to give a fuck about anything other than the intended and endorsed way to play the champion, because it's actively easier for them if they just remove any kind of player freedom in champion use.

TeCoolMage12/4/2018, 2:33:18 PM1 votes

keep in mind it's better to climb with old gear you know than new gear you don't. It's not like mountain climbing where the mechanisms are simplified, the functionality is improved, AND there are ethical/legal reasons not to recommend 'unsafe' gear. Many champions are statistically worse but not objectively so.

Zero Shingetsu12/4/2018, 8:15:39 AM1 votes

I hope everyone sees this, because it needs to be seen. My entire League life is off-meta builds and I get ripped for them every time. (Well, at least 92% of the time. Roughly.)

The Ićę Witch 2/2/2020, 7:08:47 PM1 votes

Most players follow the meta because everyone else is doing it. Truth is people like that are scared to think outside of the box.

Madsin2512/4/2018, 4:31:30 PM1 votes

IMO players don't understand what the meta even is most of the time.

IMO all champs are good just some have been put into the gutter on purpose so they avoid pro play,

BestPudgeNA12/4/2018, 4:33:23 PM1 votes

Got it i'm gonna work on become a professional Basketball player on a diet of cookies and milk for every meal.

Eleshakai12/4/2018, 9:48:24 PM1 votes

I think this is an exaggeration, honestly. But I like the thought.

The reality is that the meta only REALLY matters at high ranks. At Bronze, silver, or even gold - and possibly even plat... having something you're comfortable with will serve you way better than just 'playing what's good' the majority of the time.

I played enchanters/mages during one of the tank support metas back in the day because I was not much good at most tanks. And I climbed despite that. I don't think I'm good, or particularly adept at them... it's just that until you hit diamond, knowing the champion you're playing is FAR FAR more important than the champion 'being good'.

AirKingNeo12/4/2018, 10:53:30 PM1 votes

Is that why when Singed is nerfed, the Singed players fall out of Challenger? Same for Jax, same for pretty much every champion.

Tin of sardines12/4/2018, 11:08:18 AM1 votes

{quoted}

Now, before you downvote, hear me out:

For the point to make more sense, let's consider climbing a mountain, with the peak being whatever rank you want. Be it Silver, Diamond or even the pro scene.

Now, when most people climb a mountain, they need the essential tools. Ice picks, hiking gear, ropes, maybe a guide. We'll call this the meta of mountain climbing. (And for league's sake, this is any meta, not just the one right now.)

Most people have to use the meta to climb mountains....and there's nothing wrong with that! It's the safest way, after all, and it gives you the best chance not to fall off the mountain and break your neck. However, for some people, the meta isn't necessary at all. Most often these are the gurus of mountain climbing and the absolute sickest people. These are the guys climbing with old, possibly unsafe gear (Off-meta champs), using their most reliable gear (The one-tricks who have mastered their champs) or the absolutely fucking bonkers madmen who are climbing the mountain shirtless with forks for fingernails (That one insane fucker who always hits diamond/challenger doing weird shit).

Using that climbing gear isn't necessary. However, to climb without the gear, you have to be a god at mountain climbing....and the fact is, a lot of us aren't. And yes, there will always be a good player who uses meta to climb to massive challenger gains. We'll refer to them as the villain of the 80's sports movie who has state-of-the-art gear that is climbing the mountain to close down the ski lodge so he can build a mega-mall where you and all your friends would hang out.

Ok this metaphor is off the rails.

Anyways, point is, you don't need meta to climb. However, meta is probably the "easiest" way to climb if you're comfortable using it. Some people won't be comfortable and make up the difference with their old mains/picks they mastered inside out. Others will insist their attack-speed-on-hit-Garen will get them to the top before tripping on their shoelaces. I think it's an important distinction to know that it's totally possible to climb without meta but you have to be good. And frankly, most of us just aren't good enough to make up that skill difference. But hey, nothing wrong with that.

it's good that you soon realize that...

it's very clear, some get to the chopper and parachute into the top. while other try to climb a freezing mountain with bare hands and some supplies.

Other wise I would make your comparative fire against you, by the way, have my upvote.

CauseSCIENCE12/4/2018, 10:49:33 AM1 votes

Queue Edward Scissor-hand montage (Rocky's theme plays in the background)

Critical Strike Kled, in case you were wondering.