Current state of the low tier meta

I got autofilled for half my placement games. I rolled with it because it happens. Got placed in Bronze 3, but since I only climbed to silver 3 before dropping to silver 4 at the finish last year, I thought... that's about right. This gives me somewhere to climb up to and it's certainly better than where I started last year (Bronze 5).

Then I started grinding. And I got to placement pretty fast. Lost 2 of 3. Ok, no big deal. Got there again a couple games later. Free win, lost both games. Each loss thus far were either someone who trolled or played like crap because of autofill. A bit put out, but still fine. I got to placements again. Lost two straight. Maybe I need to stop playing a tanky jungler who can't carry (Amumu is my preferred jungler). Played normals for a few days to practice.

Now with 7.1, I have played two ranked games. EACH ONE had some weird freaking lane choices on the enemy team. My team FEEDS.

First game - I'm playing Rek'Sai jungle. We have a MF/Sion bot lane. Mid is Zyra. Top played by Darius. Their team is a top Jayce. Bot is a Jinx/Karma. That's pretty normal. Mid is Gangplank (who gets first blood on an invade but Zyra just starts to stomp). Jungle Malphite - weird, but fine. Bot and top lose horrifically. In spectacularly bad fashion - to the point that I am not sure how you can play LoL and be this awful. But those games happen.

Second game - Rek'Sai Jungle again. Jinx/Sona bot and an Aurelion Sol mid. Master Yi top - which is weird, but it's bronze so whatever. Their team - Yasuo Top - fine. Malphite mid - weird but fine. Ziggs/Taric bot - becoming meta because ADC is a shit role in the lower tiers and why even bother playing one? and then a Wukong jungle - also fine. This team just destroyed us. Yi fed 5 kills before 7 minutes to yasuo then tried to split push his lane while yasuo roamed and destroyed everything. We had inhibs down before 20 minutes. We got NONE of their towers. It was a train wreck. They taunted and killed us for fun instead of finishing and basically started a screaming match in all chat with my losing bot lane and the Yi.

The point to all of this is simple - I understand the balance changes are to help with competitive play and the pros. Sure that makes sense.

As of 6.24, League of graphs breaks down the rank distribution as follows for Solo Queue: Challenger 0.04% Master 0.04% Diamond 1.10% Platinum 5.46% Gold 12.99% Silver 35.68% Bronze 44.68%

Autofill is clearly not needed below Platinum. maybe even gold. And the current meta is such that the games in bronze and silver aren't even remotely close to anything resembling the professional scene or the higher divisions. When 80.36% of your player population (and likely the bulk of your consumer base when it comes to RP) is in a chaotic acid trip that is the current meta, what are you hoping to accomplish? I barely paid attention to the pro circuit this last season. I played ranked more seriously than I had in the past and enjoyed getting better. I'm not going to be challenger (already over 30), but the game is fun and I enjoy playing. Or I did. I have no idea what to call this now. I started watching some of the people on my friends lists that are playing ranked. It's the same BS everywhere. Either an all tank team with decent damage ratios that just stomps cause they can't be killed, or an overwhelming abundance of mages in odd roles. ADC champions are garbage unless they steamroll their lane. Even then they immediately die 5 seconds into a team fight late game. If the goal of the current season was to do away with ADC champs altogether, I would say that Riot succeeded. But it's made ranked in the lower divisions (where MOST of the player base plays) a complete fucking disaster. There is simply no other way to describe it. Strategy doesn't even help any more. In my mind, it's like telling a person who likes to play chess, "we wanted to make the game more fun for the professional players, so we changed all the rules and how the pieces move. Now if you throw your queen at the opponents face and flip the table, you automatically win" (that's not what they did, but that's kind of what the Bronze and silver games look like - and how quickly they end). You don't need strategy to win at the lower divisions anymore. Some players may say you never really did, but I saw that strategic play more as I climbed into silver. And I was happy, because that is what you see when better players and pros play. That's completely gone now with no return in sight. And I'm sad because I loved LoL for years. I don't mind new innovations, but when the changes are only good for less than 20% of you population?? Less than 6.65% if you include Gold players? And this state just makes the players even more toxic than before.

I hope driving away your player base that actually enjoyed the strategy of your game was your goal, Riot. If so, Mission Accomplished.