#The Meta ##-- it's a strategy decided based on what has found to work best at any given time within League of Legends.

Right now the "meta" consists of players using a Ranged AD Carry Champion with a "Support" Champion assisting them in the Bottom lane, a Jungler for vision Support; Crowd Control; and additional damage; a Mage / Assassin in the Middle lane, and a Bruiser / Fill Champion in the realm of the Top lane for team fighting and split pushing.

The current meta usually always dictates everything within the game as it's the method of playing which usually points to having a good amount of success in games. The meta has changed a bit since the beginning of times however generally has remained similar to what it currently is. Due to the fact that the meta brings in the most chances of success, it's naturally the #1 supported method of playing by the vast majority of players. Players in turn frown upon anything that goes against this as they would like the highest chance possible of winning their game. Of recent Riot has even taken a firm stand with the meta, despite their claims of not enforcing or support it, which has been exposed with the very controversial punishment of the Singed player who was heavily disliked for going against the current meta game.

Today however, let's take a look at the other side of "the meta". Let's consider other variations of the "meta" and various strategies which have been implemented both in solo games as well as competitive play. Let's talk real talk. What is truly possible within League of Legends? Let's open our minds beyond what we would normally. Is the current meta is truly the best method of play, or simply something used as a vague outline of how to play? The people are the meta, in a sense, and going against the meta means offending others. Does this mean Riot should really enforce the meta game? The Summoners Code is all about being a good teammate, so wouldn't enforcement make more sense? There are a great deal of things to consider and none of them really seem to have a distinct black and white answer. With that, now we go into our list of off-meta compositions.

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-- #Your TEAM Has Been Selected! Have Been Placed Into A....

#1.) Double Jungle Composition (Two Junglers)

>This comp revolves around each Jungler taking one side of the Jungle. They clear the Jungle faster than a solo Jungler, and can 'control' lanes much easier, as they have tons of free time to spend in a lane or investigating what the enemy Jungle is up to. This style of play has even been seen within professional tier play although has proven to have lower results due to higher amounts of communication at that level of play. Let's stop and think for a second though, could this off-meta composition not work in solo queue? Players are far more disorganized with random teammates than in a professional level match. With the modified Jungle in Season 7, this style of play also gains increased viability due to the increased sustain from Jungle Monsters. It's essentially like having two roaming Supports (one for top and another for bottom lane) both having a source of income.

#2.) Free Jungle Composition (Two Top Lanes / Two Bot Lanes)

> This composition doesn't really have a true name however it's the primitive style of League of Legends from the primeval days of LoL before you reached a high enough level to acquire Smite as a Summoner Spell. Realistically, this comp actually works very similarly to a double Jungle Composition with the exception that instead of having two Junglers, you have none. Players are able to take Jungle Monsters at their leisure with no dedicated player for taking all of them. This method of play has been used for 7 seasons straight now, and still dominates as the go to play meta for low level players. It's survived along-side the widely accepted meta for this long, what's so bad about it?

#3.) Reverse Composition (Two Top Lanes / One Bot Lane)

> A composition where the Top Lane player proves he / she is a true solo master and the Bottom Lane tries their best to not look bad in the process. Will the enemy Bottom Lane bully the Top Lane or will the solo top master be victorious? This "lane swap" strategy was the primary meta used throughout the entire 2015 season in competitive play. It became such a huge fun sapping problem that Riot had to directly step in and create a method to stop it. Let's go back to the drawing board however! If this were introduced into the meta as a valid play strategy in solo queue, how would that change the way in which players adapt to the game?

#4.) Middle Support Composition (Two Mid Lanes)

>This is likely the least implemented strategy in League of Legends. I've played in and seen several games with players who have done this and I've never been disappointed. In the current meta which uses squishy middle lane champions such as Mages and Assassins, it's a nightmare dealing with multiple enemies at the same time in the early game. Not only is it difficult to farm, but you also still have to worry about the threat of the enemy Jungler. This is essentially the same strategy as a 2v1 bottom lane (and you ADC's thought you were the only ones), except far worse due to most Mid lane champions having a much harder time farming in the early game.

#5.) Kill Lane Composition (Two AD Carry)

>This composition is built around players who really hate playing support. Many players think that the other person is just trolling and that this type of composition can never work but, does it really have to? League of Legends is all about competition, proving yourself. A kill lane might mean fighting your teammate for kills and cs, but the one thing it doesn't do is remove teamwork from the equation. I feel that this comp actually does its job extremely well. It forces both you and your teammate to learn how to cs better. It's a composition based around teammate synergy. Kill lanes are my favorite style of play in all of League of Legends. It makes your ADC hate you, but also at the same time respect you, because when done well you are doing what he himself wishes he was doing.

These five methods are the largest implemented varieties of "going against the meta". They put a bad taste in everyone's mouth (for the most part) and are commonly deemed as 'trolling' when done by another player. Interestingly enough, 3 out of the 5 have been done in professional tier play and one of them has remained just as popular as the meta itself for 6 years now (with Kill Lane being somewhere in between?)

With these thoughts in mind, why do they put such a bad impression in people's heads? Why do you consider these unique styles of playing to be such a huge problem in League of Legends? Voice your concerns! Tell the world how you feel because all of us are in this game together and we need to know!

Is That A [Insert Troll Champion Here] ADC?!!!

On to the next topic!

With the domination of AD Carries for years now it's looked upon poorly if your team does not have one. Are Marksman_ really_ that important however? Let's delve deeper into the reason(s) why you very well could be overacting to not having one.

To begin this topic, we will start by analyzing the heated controversy of the Singed support's invade strategy. Singed's poison is very powerful in the early game, even more so with Ability Power runes. The Singed support player utilizes this advantage by invading his enemy's Jungle while the enemy is clearing his second buff. While clearing this buff the enemy Jungler will be at his weakest point in the entire game. The enemy Jungle's team cannot easily assist him without losing gold and experience and he is low health in most scenarios, from having been clearing his Jungle. Strategically, this is a mastermind strategy for a Singed support as he won't gain anything at all standing around doing nothing in lane with another champion and his whole team reaps the benefits from Singed putting the enemy Jungle behind. Singed comes back to lane either 1.) with double buffs & wasted much of the enemy Jungle's time from him dying or 2.) wasted the enemy Jungle's time and if he was stopped, also wasted enemy laner's time causing them to miss both experience and gold. Both of the previous scenarios work out as a win-win situation overall.

This is where we turn around and look at the other side -- that lonely marksman in the bottom lane. The whole time Singed is running around monkeying in the enemies Jungle his Marksman is suffering the oppression of the enemies Bottom lane.

He is probably thinking, "this isn't my fault, why is this Singed trolling? What did I do to deserve this!"

This is where the real question comes into the discussion -- Just how valuable are AD Carries? Pretend you are in champion select with this Singed support main. You see him pick Singed. After this person auto-locks his Singed, he copy / pastes his strategy in the chat. Instantly you realize that now for the first 5 minutes of the game you are going to need to be all alone bottom lane. You know as an Marksman champion that you are going to have a very difficult time in a 1v2 and yet, you lock a Marksman anyways. Why did you pick a Marksman? Was it because that's the meta?

After locking this marksman you then in turn struggle in game, the entire time blaming Singed. Was it Singed's fault that you decided to choose a Marksman, despite what he explained to you in champion select? The real problem behind this lies one single thing -- The Meta. You picked an AD Carry because that is what the meta taught you to do. Let's take a moment to move our minds outside of the current meta. It's not Singed's fault that you picked a Marksman, there are tons of champions that can handle 1v2 situations in the early game. Champions like Riven, Jarvan, Volibear, Cho'Gath, Kayle, Nasus, and many more are very capable of surviving and even doing well in this same situation. How important was it to pick a marksman? Was Singed really being unreasonable? Or was it perhaps that you just didn't want to adapt and play outside of your comfortable zone within the meta?

Strangely, the same applies to not just Support players, but also AD Carry champions. Many people frown upon what others choose for AD Carry. Few players are happy when they see Yasuo, Riven, Aatrox, Irelia, Master Yi, Nasus, Mordekaiser, and other such champions as their AD Carry. Are these champions not capable of taking towers just like normal AD Carry champions? It is very truthful to say that these champions may not be quite as safe as their ranged counterparts however they do the same job (of taking towers) just as well, if not better in most cases. Once again, it goes back to how willing are you to adapt. If you knew that your AD Carry in the bot lane wasn't ranged, why didn't you adapt and cover for your team's weak point like the Summoners Code teaches? It's most definitely not the melee AD Carry player's fault that you as a player are unwilling to switch up your play style. Even if they are unwilling to change theirs, two wrongs do not make a right.. correct?

So, are AD Carries really that important? The simple answer, no. Think back to when Mordekaiser dominated the LCS scene after his rework. While very debatable, I myself am fairly certain that any melee Top Lane or Jungle champion could have been played in the Bottom lane during that period before Mordekaiser received nurfs. Melee AD laners were becoming strong. The LCS never caught on and kept using Ranged Marksman for AD Carry. in turn the result, of course, was for Riot to end the Mordekaiser domination in the Bottom lane by removing some of his strength. When professional players are incapable of coming up with the answer, Riot has to step in and make balance adjustments. The flaw behind this naturally is that despite being mechanically better than everyone, professional and high tier players are not always better at "play testing" so to speak. You win against others consistently with previously learned knowledge, not experimental play making.

#Riot Does NOT Have To Enforce The Meta!

Right now, Riot does enforce the meta.

I honestly cannot tell you if it's an intentional thing or not. When you look at how the new Ranked & Draft Pick Systems are designed you can see that they removed the ability to create custom team compositions. Custom team comps were terrible and usually everyone just avoided Team Builder because of it. The reason it turned out so poorly however wasn't really because the compositions created weren't decent but instead seemed more because nobody really understood what the other 4 randoms they got paired up with were doing. When I join a lobby with 3 guys mid and they don't explain to me what's going on, there's not much chance that I'm sticking around in the lobby for much longer to find out. The constant dodge battle made queue times so insanely long that there really wasn't much hope at all for ever finding a decent team composition worth executing on and playing with.

So, back to the header, if Team Builder sucked so much how does Riot stop enforcing the meta and still create a solution that can work for everyone? -- It's fairly simple actually.

Go back to the top where I listed the five most used non-meta strategies. Basically, instead of assigning the usual "meta style" every single game you shuffle between all 6 of these proven strategies in Draft Mode & Solo Queue. This works because of two different reasons -- the first, is that the enemy team will never really know which composition you got matched into and you have no idea what theirs is either. Due to this fact, it will be much more difficult for the enemy team to fully understand your champion selections. The second reason it works is due to the fact that players are much more willing to adjust back to a normal situation than they are to deviate from it. Each game teams would get matched into a different meta play style however, when they do not feel comfortable teams of randoms would be much more willing to accept and go back to the "default" meta as a standard.

As a whole, implementing this into the game safely promotes other meta play allowing players to deviate from the normal without tons of backlash from their teammates. When you look at how things work right now, when someone wants to try something new they incur the wrath of 4 other players. By changing switching things up, you promote healthy exploration of different meta styles while removing that toxic element from the game and replacing it with this unspoken ability to "default" back to what is now the current meta. This is the best idea that I can come up with at least ^^

#How Do YOU Feel?

What are your thoughts on this matter?

To me this is likely one of the biggest things that needs attention as it's always been a blurred area in not only Riot's enforcement, but also the community as a whole. The Tribunal was often equally as punishing on non-meta selections and play styles as Riot has shown to be at times. If Riot doesn't approve of "third party strategies" in games with randoms, I really believe that they should finally stand up and let the community understand that it's NOT okay to go against the meta. There is absolutely no line between "working with your teammates" and "going against the meta" and this is something that I believe Riot doesn't fully understand. The meta is created by the community. WE MADE IT. If someone is going against the meta, they aren't working with their team (in most cases at least. Most people simply won't be okay with that unless pre-made). If this is considered wrong, Riot, you need to stand up and put that black line down so everyone understands.

On the contrary, if we as a community honestly feel that going against the meta isn't wrong, I believe something should be done to implement that more into the game to promote a healthy way of playing different styles and strategies in game. Currently the only available composition is "the meta" and it creates that nasty urge for us to shun anything that deviates from that. By implementing something that will force us to adapt we will learn to accept other styles of play -- and who knows, maybe it could be the thing that helps evolve League into the future.

-- If you got down this far without skipping all of it, thanks you are a real trooper. I really hope you guys can provide some real feedback and ideas for the betterment of us all. :)

[slayer-jinx-catface]