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The rise and fall of the meta

Pyrite Hank·11/20/2014, 2:27:29 AM·4 votes·1,621 views

As the seasons come and go, champions fall in and out of style, some enjoy constant play while others are swept quietly under the rug. With season 5 so close by and the season 4 meta still intact, i've decided to make some predictions on what will go in and out of style. Taric The Rise of Taric: With kalista so close by her unlimited mobility will render hooks and snares useless as they become impossible to hit, thus the very support meta will be destroyed and reborn, much like an anivia, our long underlooked buddy Taric will quickly jump into style as a point and click stun isn't dodgeable, thus rendering a kalista lane safe for your adc. Warwick Nunu Volibear The return of the sustain jungle: Once the jungle was populated by only those who could survive it, those who could stay in it without having to chug pots. Those who values sustain over ganks, those days may very well return with the absence of the hypersustain jungle items and the now stronger jungle, clear time and ganking won't matter if you can't survive the jungle. As champions like warwick or nunu have built in lifesteal or self heals, they excel at innate sustain, in a new jungle better suited for the likes of them, they might just be able to send the assassins packing.
Udyr Trick2g Fixed a bug where trick and his fans would solo turrets Removed all damage and tankiness from base turrets so a minion wave is all you need. item 2044 item 2043 item 3340 Wards will decrease in popularity in certain areas and periods of the game: With a possibly gank light jungle comes less a need for early game wards, as well as the wolf buff which eliminates all needs for wards in half of the jungle, we should still see active warding, but early game won't have as much and certain areas of the jungle won't either. Jinx Jinx will see a boom in high level play: With the new meta highly favoring seiging, champions like jinx who can clear turrets faster than most will be extremely effective at opening more oppurtunities for her team. Talon Zed Jax Splitpushers will lose some popularity: With the new inhibitor turret laser beam splitpushing will quickly die out as team have significantly more time to react and the pushers themselves will have extremely short windows to act. item 3157 Shorter games: With the shorter nexus turret regen and the siege meta, games will be much shorter as the new baron buff and more team oriented inner turrets will promote large scale pushing immediatly following an objective, turrets will fall faster, bases wrecked quicker, and nexuses much more vulnerable. DrMundo Maokai Shyvana The Death of tankiness. The huge power spike in damage from dragon and/or baron plus the complete removal of mr (maximum magic resist per item is now 35 btw) tanks have been seeing well, more squishiness, anyone can kill a tank in seconds now and they're only good for teamfights to bait out cds and survive a bit longer than squishies. summoner 11 Dragon controls games. With the gargantuan power spikes dragon gives, so far what i've seen is whoever maintains more dragon stacks automatically wins. That's all i can think of at the moment, i will add more as time goes on.

15 Comments

MrBuffington11/20/2014, 4:06:02 AM2 votes

Here's my take:

The Rise of Taric:

Potential; if we're talking targeted CC, supports like Fiddlesticks and Lulu might become more popular as well vs. Kalista. I'm not sure what to make of it right now; on one hand, I feel like a lot of people are really over exaggerating Kalista's mobility, on the other hand, her mobility is actually pretty absurd...

The return of the sustain jungle:

Watching a couple games, WW seems like a monster. Not sure about Nunu or Volibear, they weren't nearly as impressive. Warwick with the skirmisher's upgrade, while his clear speed sucks, does a ton of damage. Tacking on your later point, Udyr is also pretty strong, though not nearly as impressive as WW imo

Wards

Wards seem less necessary outside Dragon/Baron because of the crab, and vision/vision denial are much easier for junglers due to the Wolf and Raptor buffs. Not sure if this will lead to less warding, or more intense vision battles.

Jinx will see a boom in high level play:

I feel like Jinx is actually countered by Kalista, because Kalista can dodge her W, E, and R fairly readily. I feel like Caitlyn might come back as a counter to Kalista because her traps can really choke off mobility for Kalista in lane, given that Kalista's orbwalking is an all-or-nothing sort of thing (she can't take baby steps, therefore might dash into a trap if she risks moving and attacking, but if she doesn't move while attacking, she could find herself in very bad position. She'll probably have to dash backwards a lot; forwards and Caitlyn will just punish with her range advantage, and if she goes backwards, she's yielding the lane to Caitlyn, which is what Caitlyn wants). Caitlyn's Q is usually used for waveclear or to punish if someone gets caught in a trap, plus her ult is targeted, so it'll be easier to pin down Kalista. Caitlyn is also great at sieging and counter-sieging, because of her range and waveclear. Tristana is also really great at sieging and will likely outscale Kalista, not to mention her abilities are targeted and can't miss, so she's also a possibility, even though she was nerfed pretty hard recently.

Splitpushers will lose some popularity:

I think some splitpushers will lose some popularity, but looking at all the elixers, splitpushers have a lot of new toys. I think Kayle is actually going to be terrifyingly strong as a splitpusher; she was already powerful, but Elixer of Sorcery gives 25 AP plus mana plus 25 true damage on hit (with no cooldown on turrets).

Shorter games:

I think game times are going to shift, maybe not shorter, but not longer either. Overall stat buffs to champions means less deaths early and less snowballing, inner turret shields make it harder to siege up on inner turrets, not to mention the lasers in the base make it very, very scary to try aggressive dives. I think games will stall less in the late game because, as you said, because Baron is so great for closing out games, but I feel like the mid game is going to be longer due to healthier inner turrets and more neutral objectives to contest, in addition to Baron and Dragon being pretty scary to take (especially once Dragon starts stacking up, since it gets stronger against your team the more dragons you take)

EDIT: Re: Kalista; Just watched a two high level games, both were Sneaky/Lemon vs Doublelift/Aphromoo, Kalista vs Kog'Maw for both sides (both players played Kog into Kalista). In both games Kog beat out Kalista; take from that what you will, maybe pros just need time to learn her, but from what I can tell her damage output just doesn't hold up to hypercarries like Kog, not to mention it seems like Phage passive on Kog and Kalista's wind-up makes mobility less uneven than it might seem.

Bears Dont Care11/20/2014, 2:36:31 AM1 votes

People are busy going "muh win rate" when it comes to WW.

Worgslarg11/20/2014, 2:38:24 AM1 votes

Also add malzahar to your list of instant cc. I'm hoping that jinx doesn't ever, ever see high-level play. I don't want her yasuo'd

7ha7guy77711/20/2014, 6:17:36 AM1 votes

What about the rise of mages with AD ratios thanks to Dragon Buff? Will that be a thing or is the 8% insignificant until it triples?

C9 Scott Free 11/20/2014, 6:34:31 AM1 votes

I had to say no only because I don't think the games are going to be longer.

Destínum11/20/2014, 12:37:38 PM1 votes

Skarner

Kinky Rhydon11/20/2014, 2:30:05 AM1 votes

WW and taric never went away... WTF

Fury and Emperor11/20/2014, 1:37:46 PM1 votes

Jinx Jinx will see a boom in high level play

I see what you did there.