The Shifting of the Meta

My mind was kinda wandering earlier, and I got onto how the meta shifts in this game, and I really thought of about 3 ways the meta can shift: Organic, Led, and Forced.

Organic shifting is when, without any notable changes in the game itself from Riot, The meta shifts from one thing to another, typically from some new strategy being stumbled upon. Most of these are not huge shifts, but are notable nonetheless. A good example of this is the smite top idea. Outside of the smite top of 4.20 (god help us, I'll get to this later), There wasn't any smite top for a while after S5 hit. there weren't that many changes, it just took a while for people to figure it out. And before you guys say , it was done before that, mostly for the .

Led shifting is when something is changed in the game, like the addition of that leads people to do different things as new strats or champs are now available or stronger. For example, again, Cinderhulk is a good example of a led shift, as this broke the assassin meta now that tanks could get much tankier and clear better. People began playing jungle tanks again, and things actually got incredibly balanced for a while, up to and including now.

The last kind of Forced shifting, which Riot typically doesn't do, but a lot of you guys, on the boards would like. I can't think of any good examples of where this has happened in the past, but Imagine this: Back in the Assassin meta, Riot gets sick of this so they break out the ol' nerf bat and beat the ever loving shit out of all the assassins until they're nonviable, thus forcing an end to the assassin meta. But this isn't a good way to shift the meta, as nothing has risen up as stronger, it's just that whatever was leading was beaten to shreds so thoroughly that they can't do anything anymore, thus meaning whatever wasn't hit is now strong by comparison. This is not a good thing, as many players would lose their champs due to them now being worthless, and Riot does like to keep as many champs viable as possible (they're not perfect, game balance is hard).

I'm just venting some stuff that popped into my head, and hoping to get some interesting conversation going. Thanks for reading, and if you didn't read... Well Thanks for nothing.