Counterplay: is it a real thing?
This essay is listed in my "Master List of Essay Threads" under the title "On Counterplay"
Counterplay: When two or more opposing players interact in a way that leads to a more satisfying and skill based outcome than otherwise.
Does it exist?
The short answer is yes.
The long answer is that which options you have for counterplay at any time are both situational and skill dependent. That doesn't even get into the differences of opinion over what counts as 'counterplay'.
Let's start off simple with item builds.
Buying stats that make you stronger against specific enemy champions is a form of counterplay, but its such a very weak one that it only deserves mentioning because of how often people resort to talking about it. Buying items is almost completely noninteractive - I say almost because you're building against champions that someone else chose, based on how well they are doing gold wise, and using gold that you fought someone over to buy it. Outside of those factors, other players have no influence on what items you buy, so it makes for a very limited interaction between players.
With that out of the way, we move on to a gamelong overview of champion power curves and consider how that leaves room for counterplay.
For the sake of ease of argument, lets imagine a general world where, damage wise, mages scale linearly from weak to strong, fighters start average, get strong, then become average again, and marksman start weak and get super strong by the end of the game. Tanks and supports and assassins also exist, but for now lets forget about them.
Immediately you may start to point out some 'unfairness' here. Marksman and mages both start weak, but marksmen still end up stronger at full build - however there are other mitigating factors. Mages may deal less damage, but they can generally expend all of it almost instantly and erase a marksman before a marksman can do any damage at all. However if left unattended, a marksman will do more damage by far in a teamfight then a mage (at full build). Both end up doing much more damage than a fighter, however this is mitigated both by the fighter being far tankier then either other class, and by the fact that fighters have a much stronger mid game then mages and marksman. A fed fighter can close out a game before a marksman or mage has time to really get going with their full item builds.
Already you start to see how the power scalings of different types of champions allows for different windows of power. If a champion scales hard late but is weak early, take a champion that is string early-mid game and prevent them from reaching late game for as long as possible. It's your typical nasus counter strategy. Likewise if the enemy team is all early game strength, taking one or two late game champions and stalling the game out will surely end in your victory if you can withstand the early pressure.
But now we get into the meat of things, what most people talk about when they say 'counterplay' - laning phase, duels, and team fights. Specifically, the mechanics of each champion and what options you have for dealing with them.
On a scale of counterplay, you have things like instant long range targeted burst damage on one end, and melee range skillshots with a windup time and target indicator on the other. Basically, the more interaction points there are in a mechanic, the more counterplay that individual mechanic has.
Two champions both spamming targeted damage spells that have the same range, cooldown, damage, and cost at each other has less counterplay then two champions spamming skillshots with different ranges, damage, cooldowns, and costs. In the first case, barring outside interference and all else being equal, the winner will just be whoever started shooting first. In the second case, the outcome is much less clear and depends upon the ability of both players to read and react to their opponent as well as time windows of vulnerability and juke in and out of the enemies range.
That's a ranged example, but you can have counterplay in melee spells too.
Take fiora - her doing the majority of her damage requires her to perform a melee attack or a melee skilshot on an enemy from a specific relative position that both players are aware of. Fiora can move to try and get into position and her opponent can move to try and prevent that. They can put the vital against a wall to prevent it from being hit in an all in, and they can angle the opening towards fiora in order to try and bait her into a jungle gank that may or may not exist. The potential for mind games and mechanical outplay exists here where it otherwise wouldn't if fiora's passive instead said 'every .5 seconds, your next auto attack on a champion deals extra damage'.
The examples are endless but you get the idea. The idea of 'counterplay' is a valid one. Some champions may currently have more or less than others, but to pretend that it doesn't exist at all will only limit your own understanding of the game and potential to grow as a player.
A champion with four point and click long range spells lacks counterplay even if the spell all only do 10 damage. A champion with four skillshots has counterplay even if all four abilities do 10k damage. In both cases the situation is clearly not ideal for different reasons.
This is because counterplay and balance are different things.
In midlane for example, even if you are behind you can generally outplay your opponent and win a fight or a trade if you step up your focus and manage to land/avid more skillshots or make find an opening you can exploit.
Many champions have counterplay conditions on their skills such as khazix doing less damage if you aren't isolated or yasuo needing to knock you up to even have an ult in a duel. If you manage to play around these conditions well you can win a fight even with fewer raw stats and make a comeback in lane.
In a fight with one or two guys who are just balls of stats, the one with slightly more stats will win period unless something (like a jungle gank, or making a misplay and taking free tower shots) interferes. There's no coming back if you're behind and are a ball of stats unless the other player misplays hard. That's not ideal.
That's why, for example, darius q now has a delay and doesn't apply bleed on the inner circle, in exchange for his new 5 stack ad boost and heal on outer q hit. The ability changed from a stat check bullying tool into something that requires interaction from both players. Now a darius who is behind can come back or survive a lane as long as they are able to consistently land that outer q even with the delay, and also gets a huge ad boost if he manages to get 5 stacks, whereas before if he fell behind he was basically fucked.
Adding counterplay adds weaknesses, which in turn allows for champions to have a greater budget for strengths or 'fallback patterns' (what champs can do to change their strategy if they're behind).
