i think winrate in soloQ is a better indicator of how strong champions are than win/pick/ban/dyrusdicksucking-rate in lcs, even tho it also is pretty negligible.
if you look at how the meta evolves and how little it sometimes has to do with patches and ALSO (and this is the truly important thing) how much it has to do with "better pros" being copied by "worse pros".
like, even this season there are some really REALLY funny examples. i got three of them for you:
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varus mid. faker played it first on a pro level (surely not first in the world i assume) and now its "meta" and every dickbrain is copying it. to a certain success i'd say, because varus mid is actually pretty safe, so even "noobs" can do it.
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master yi mid. faker did it ONE GAME ONLY and it was INSTANTLY copied i think 3 or 4 times in the NA/EU lcs and they all lost with it and did super bad. why exactly? is master yi just not good enough in the midlane? i would say, he has his place but since its very situational and/or very much more skill-reliant than varus or any of those meta-cancer champs mid, really only faker can do it right now.
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nocturne jungle. he was played exactly twice. once in korea and then in either NA or EU, i dont remember which one because for me, LCK is the "good" league, LPL is the "funny" league and LCS is the "look at these guys, they are pros" version of solo.
so, in korea they built him warriors + botrk and carried big time. he probably was a situational/surprise pick but they practiced that and it worked out. the LCS he was being played with cinderhulk i think randuins or some other useless tank item to "catch" people and i would say that pick lost them the game solo and was entirely useless and even detrimental.
this is not just a very sweet example of how the "meta" comes to be, its actually a basic attribute of human psychology. humans tend to copy the ones who do good because that increases your own chance of survival. there are only a few humans who "go their own way". some of them fail and some of them come out big because it works even better than the "usual" way. now if you copy, you will never surpass the original but you will be rather safe, statistically. tho if you go your own way, it could bear huge success or tremendous failure. if you are not afraight of this failure, you open yourself up to success.
in the "meta" this is reflected by one guy doing something and it works and everyone else copying it. if it then fails for everyone, they leave it be but if it works, its instantly "meta" in the entire pro scene but not because it is "overpowered" or "so good" or "the best pick possible in this situation" but its solely because their psychology works that way.
and because humans mostly work that way, soloQ meta is LCS meta even tho its not even the same game. people are just too much like plants, in a way. literally no brain, but at least collect some sunlight from those who shine.
this means, if you really, truly want to find the strongest champions and the most OP-shit, you would not have to look at the "Meta" but you would have to look at what would beat the meta sky high and also not get beaten by anything else. there are some champions like that, but they are not being played in the LCS nor have they very high pick or winrates in soloQ.
