Questions about Pre-Meta and Post-meta

Wasabo·Sep 4, 2014·3 votes·433 views

How was it like before the meta was created? Could any champion go in any lane? Did they still build normally and according to their scaling? Who created it? What was an example team comp before the meta? or was it always random? I'm a pretty young summoner as I became one only a little over a year ago in S3 so I'm not sure of this all

5 Comments

Serpents EmbraceSep 4, 20143 votes

I think you're having some misconceptions about meta-game as a concept.

There's no pre-meta. There was a Season 1 meta of ADC mid, there was a tank jungle meta before the assassin/bruiser one there is now. There's never a "before time" unless you count the actual beta period of the game when things were still being pieced together because no one had prior knowledge of anything.

There will always be a meta-game. The only reason that the top/mid/jungle/adc+support set up is as popular as it is is because it's the most efficient gold and experience distribution. Duo lanes tend to go bot because of proximity to dragon, but that's not as necessary as shown by a lot of LCS lane swaps.

OmnipheriousSep 4, 20143 votes

Key Event - 2011 Season 1 World Championship It was at this event that the modern laning meta (I'll refer to it as the MLM from now on) was first visibly popularized (not created). This was the worlds at the time, no where near the scale. The final was aAa vs Fnatic, look it up.

What is the MLM? 1-1-2 lanes + 1 jungler, where the only duo lane consists of a ranged AD + supporting champion

Where did it originate? Europe.

What was it like before the MLM? NA did whatever the fuck they wanted or thought was OP. Shit like Garen + Taric lane (yes, this was a thing... there are interviews were pros described this combo as 'hella OP dude'). These were the days of ghetto spectator mode, of Doublelift and Dyrus being on the same team, of stacking Sunfire Capes and Evelynn stunning you from stealth.

Shit was a mess and NA didn't give two fucks about playing optimally because everybody was more concerned with celebrity status. Thankfully NA got owned by the MLM and tried to get their shit together by Season 1 Championships, but it wasn't enough. NA didn't make it past semi-finals.

Which champions went where? Indeed, there was more freedom back then but we typically saw an AP mid or ranged AD depending on the team's playstyle/preference.

Context - We saw AD mids because Assassins and Dashes in general were not as common as they are now, Fighter/Bruisers were in their infancy.

What did people build? People built according to scaling for the most part, there was some cheese here and there but items were very different back then.

One common thing to do at the time was to stack gold generation items. All the gold items granted +5g/10 and this passive wasn't unique so you could stack 4 of these + boots and basically wait for gold. I believe the game I linked has an example of that at some point.

Team comps It depends on the team playstyle/preference.

AoE teamfight comps like Curse of the Sad Bullet Time was popular at some point. Suppression comps like Wick + Malz + Urgot.

Basically, you could pick something and just roll with it. You could get 5 AD melees in a Solo Queue game and nobody would bat an eye. But like I said, NA didn't take to kindly to getting owned by the MLM so that changed in a hurry.

Miscellaneous If you want examples of the comps people used to do, look up NA qualifiers for Season 1. By the time you got to the Season 1 Championships, pretty much everybody was using the MLM because that was the only way you were going to stand a chance.

PryotraSep 4, 20142 votes

I think you mean before the stalest meta of 1-1-2-jungler? I mean, there was a different meta back then, but it was a meta none the less.

Well, for starters ADC went mid. Usually had either 2 duo lanes, unless you had a jungle champion who was played by a summoner with jungle runes (yeah, S1 jungle was that beast. No little boys, if you survived the jungle to gank a lane with even half an HP bar, your team loved you.).

The duo lanes varied, but usually you would either find a tank/bruiser and a Mage/assassin. Some combination of Damage and CC. If it was a solo lane, they either A) had to be capable of soloing vs 2 people, or B)waited it out under tower until they could out level their lane opponents.

Jungle was brutal, only a select few could even do it, and you needed the right runes and masteries to survive. You completed your lap around the jungle, and the best junglers would be safer picks that didn't take a year in the jungle. Warwick was actually a top pick, beleive it or not.

Mid lane ADC was interesting, as the top picks were Ashe, for her safety from ganks, and Tristana, for her huge leap to safety or to ensure a successful gank. Kogmaw came in third, as his range was long enough to compete. Never been a lot of picks for ADC, but at that time the pool was exceptionally tiny. TF, Urgot, and Teemo were considered ADC's back then as well.

As far as any other differences, Warding was no where near as prevalent except at the highest tiers of the game. The community was way more lax, and since the tribunal hadn't happened yet, the language was not rated PG-13. That said, it was much more fun, as you could say and do alot of harmless but funny things that would get you banned nowadays. Everyone had thicker skin, as for a report to do anything, you had to manually put it through player support. While it may sound like I'm moping, the fact of the matter is that the Tribunal needed to happen, so even if the community pushed for a cleaner game to a little excess, it's still better than MS Rammus/Yi running down mid every game you found a 2 year old who didn't get the role he wanted.

As for team comps, the favored comp was Heal/poke comps, over all-ins. As a result, Taric and Janna were exceptionally popular in terms of support (back then, Taric's ult was a toggled AoE heal for his team, that gobbled his mana bar within seconds.) Mages that had good poke were usually favored, however AP gragas still hadn't really been recognized fully, so more along the lines of Heimer (oh god was he OP back then, Nades affected towers yo, and if you have problem with his turrets now imagine 7 with no lazars but double the damage loaded into autos. Oh, and the turrets were fairly tanky, and had better range, and evolved to have extra onhit effects.), Nidalee, and other such pokey and sustainy champs.