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"New game" new meta.

Stillname·11/19/2015, 9:00:16 PM·38 votes·3,440 views

Why is the duo lane still bottom? There have been some pretty big changes this pre-season and I am starting to wonder if the old meta still comes out ahead.

Why isn't the duo lane going mid now? The advantages are pretty big. The biggest advantage being that with the duo mid you have easy access to both dragon AND the new rift Herald. If your duo has any advantage mid (or if the other team is doing solo mid) you can push out the mid lane and go 3 man Rift Herald easily with jungler (or 4 man with top) before the other team has a chance to respond. Then you use baron empowered minions in the midlane to take the tower, and since the new game is very snowbally you can quickly move your "mid duo" top or bottom to take another tower and win the game. This advantage will be even bigger once the winnions change hits in 5.23

The only disadvantage that I see for doing this is that your "mid-laner" suffers because he is easier to gank bottom and no longer has easy access to blue. But there are a lot of current mid-laners who have safe wave-clear and decent escape, and there is opportunity to "cross-map" now.

Whether or not this strategy actually is better then the current strategy of sending the duo bot it still brings up a big question. What would it take to change 5 years of players running the same meta with small changes to what champions go to which spots? Is there even a set of in-game changes that will alter lane assignments?

75 Comments

GetMariahCarried11/19/2015, 10:20:39 PM31 votes

Sorry, the only people who OFFICIALLY get to decide the meta are people in LCS matches. Until something new happens there, no one will consider SOMETHING NEW as a legitimate way of playing League. Any playstyle that requires actual thought is automatically shunned if it doesn't conform to what League players unquestioningly rely on from ancient League meta history.

Welcome to mobas.

RogueWill11/19/2015, 9:42:55 PM9 votes

Well because it opens a can of worms on why the duo lane is not mid. First of all assuming you send both support and adc mid then the friendly mage/assassin will be forced out of lane as easily as you can force the red mid out of lane. Assuming you get the Herald to push mid, the jungler can go both and do the same and push your bot (unless you have a friendly anivia on the red side of the map so she can access blue the waveclear needed to keep 3 enemies at bay from taking your turret is ridiculous). Also, adc are generally more vulnerable at mid due to the amount of possibilities to pull of a gank since pretty much everyone on the enemy team can do it (top, mid laner, jungler, supprt and adc, pick your poison), not only that take into consideration than to prevent the ganks from happening, warding takes twice as much effort since you have to cover more spaces with your wards.... is practically impossible for a support to cover that much area early game so unless you have your friendly jungler babysitting you as well you are going to get ganked a lot. The only reason mid can do it is either A. they have a dash or speedbust or B. They have heavy CC to prevent the gank or a combination of both. Poke supports will suffer in this scenario(since they will be the most vulnerable to ganks since they posses the less reliable escapes) and all in supports will also fall off meta since they won't be able to do anything during the laning phase to get ahead and don't become useless. The only supports that would trill would be disengage supports (such as alistar or janna and maybe lulu) and sustain supports ( such as soraka, the only real sustain support, and maybe nami; although nami is more of a poke support).

I can see it working on competitive play (were voice communication is a given) as a counter to mid picks with low waveclear similar of how was laning swap worked with top and bot lanes but I see it as such a lane swap, something situational that you are not supposed to do it every game.

disregardable11/19/2015, 9:01:15 PM5 votes

I just don't think it's really possible to send immobile waveclear mages anywhere that isn't the mid lane. They'll have to overextend and die in the other lanes.

delonix11/19/2015, 10:42:54 PM4 votes

People are just doing what they're used to. Let's say you want to try some new meta stuff, like duo mid. You go into draft mode and explain what you want to do during the bans. Even if you're willing to take support, it means convincing someone that they should try 1v2 bot lane probably and convincing whoever wanted mid/adc that you going mid with them as a support isn't trolling, it's a viable strategy. Even if you do it and it works great, how does that spill over to the rest of League's players?

Like other people have commented in the thread, it will probably take a meta-shift on the competitive level to get people to start playing differently. If the teams in the LCS start doing duo mid or something else that represents a significant shift from the way lane resources are allocated now, people who pay attention to competitive LoL will try bringing into their games, and it might actually catch on.

Alternatively, if Riot feels like people should start exploring different meta strategies, there are a number of things they could do to encourage strategic diversity, from posting about different ways to allocate experience and gold and managing objectives to changing the new queue system to that you can queue for things like "mid support" or "roaming support" instead of just top/jungle/mid/adc/support/fill.

IcyPepper11/19/2015, 9:42:43 PM3 votes

I dunno, you're kind of saying that the support and ADC have to lane together.

I figured you'd be the guy to figure out that some ADC's can solo lane (Graves, for instance) and some mages are more item dependent than level dependent (I believe Azir may be one? He can certainly zone and take towers).

The only disadvantage that I see for doing this is that your "mid-laner" suffers because he is easier to gank bottom and no longer has easy access to blue. But there are a lot of current mid-laners who have safe wave-clear and decent escape, and there is opportunity to "cross-map" now.

Why not just send the support midlane and have a solo lane ADC bot lane? Obviously you wouldn't send Kog'Maw alone, but someone like Graves or Caitlyn might be able to handle it.

Or you can mix it up in other ways. A mage bot lane, the ADC top lane, and a bruiser+support midlane. The possibilities are endless if you consider ADC and support two separate roles rather than one singular unit.

Dukues11/19/2015, 9:38:10 PM2 votes

Me and my buddy been running TF & Anivia bot lane. Support with mage, double hard cc. Has worked pretty well so far. But that is also when you already have 3 ad assasins on your team.... don't really necessarily want an adc as well.

Although at the end of the season I did have a vayne who wanted to mid. And we said f it ok and we went Annie blitz bot.Worked out well.

Axests11/19/2015, 9:31:19 PM2 votes

most likely we'll have to wait until another big meta shift happens before we see anything like that. After all the laning meta hasn't changed much in a few years (outside of the pro scene that is).

Dukues11/19/2015, 9:40:21 PM2 votes

I feel like with the dynamic groups and the preseason changes might change things up a bit in some ranked games.I told my buddies that we're trying some weird shit this season if there is 3-4 of us willing to do it.

iainB8511/20/2015, 5:26:16 PM2 votes

I think duo mid would be pretty bad. You are putting one of your (theoretically) hardest to gank lanes in the shortest, safest lane on the map. Not to mention, it would be so easy to collapse on a mage type character solo bot.

I see a lot more advantage to swapping bot and top lanes (as is sometimes done in LCS), as Rift Herald offers much more immediate benefit than dragon, and games snowball out of control before 5th dragon is even obtainable 90% of the time now.

FluxBound11/20/2015, 11:56:32 PM1 votes

Usually, player distribution is the most resilient part of the meta. If the lanes are uneven, this is usually really bad. When a team plays a duo top and the supp goes with the bruiser, the adc is left alone bot. In the top lane, the solo top laner will most likely have more aoe, tankiness and cc to defend against the waves pushing on them. On the other hand, the lone adc is gonna be against a good lane pusher and support, while they will probably have subpar or expensive waveclear. Another thing with uneven games is exp difference. The solo laner will be much stronger than the duo, but the adc can't do too much with that size of an advantage yet, but the top laner can probably 2v1. Once there's a 2v1 for a few minutes, you can't change back. That makes everything worse. So games with different lane positions often end horribly so the meta can't change without everyone doing the same line up

qetzel11/19/2015, 9:42:44 PM1 votes

Have you considered that at the higher levels of play the duo lane could still get only one of the two objectives? If they move to the Rift Herald the opposing duo lane will be ready to take the Dragon, for example. Given the damage reduction on ranged AAs and the loss of the important shorter mid lane for other champions it probably isn't worth it.

That and people are quite stubborn...

gg git diff11/20/2015, 1:38:02 AM1 votes

Mid lane has the most roam potential of all lanes, and the ADC generally isn’t the person you want to have roaming early.