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Pro's only reinforce the meta they do not create its change

DropKick Slang·7/15/2014, 6:57:55 PM·18 votes·4,197 views

If you take a look at traditional NA sports, there is a stagnation in the development of changing strategies. Consider the length of time the NFL only had a run first oriented offense. For decades the risk of moving the ball forward due to pass seemed a poor choice. In addition, on the defensive side of the ball the 4-3 (4 down linemen 3 linebackers) was dominant for years until the 3-4 (3 down linemen 4 linebackers) came into favor and receded again. In the NBA the low post presence has dominated the game since its inception.

In these examples the drive to change comes at extreme economic cost. The value of consistently winning games is the highest priority for professional teams. The best strategy is to rely on consistent winning strategies with thousands of iterations of field testing. As a result the value of winning professional games comes at a secondary cost --- innovation.

The innovation in these sports or changes in the meta come from the amateur ranks, namely the college and high school ranks. In the college football scene there are a tremendous and wide variety of strategies and formations being used. From spread offenses, triple options, and ball control there is a wide variety of metas in play. In the college hoops scene there is a tremendous variety of zone defense, teams that emphasize motion offense, or guard dominated play. The variety of offensive and defensive present in the college game is too long to accurately list. In essence the innovation in strategy comes from the lower tiers of play, the upper tiers only sharpen the execution to a razor point.

So if you want to change the meta it’s up to the community to develop strategies to combat it. If the general player base knew the strengths of the current meta (i.e ability based champions going mid to take advantage of power spike) and why it is employed so exclusively it could help innovation.

30 Comments

RiotPWYFF7/15/2014, 7:55:42 PM19 votes

Succinct and to the point. I've long held the personal opinion that the weekly cadence of the LCS comes at the cost of consistent innovation (except between splits, etc) as teams don't have the time refine and sharpen strategies in between. It's often when we see brand new teams to the LCS that we see new champion picks (remember when ROCCAT first picked Pantheon jungle? Or when Link first started on CLG and picked Syndra?).

We talk about the pro scene as reinforcing optimal play, I'm unsure if it's optimal so much as safe. We can offer tools for players to experiment with but, like I spoke about before (re: perception shaping the game equal to objective balance), it's tough to get them to try it in the first place.

2000boxes7/16/2014, 1:15:38 AM3 votes

I read this and started thinking let's bring back mid assassins! mid lane assassins keep the game exciting it makes team fighting about who engages first with mage mids its all about who will be the one to get stunned first which kind of makes games get boring after 30 minutes

JohnnyNoxid7/15/2014, 10:43:36 PM1 votes

I don't mind "off-meta" picks, I hate pick that either don't fit the composition or are terrible vs the enemy team comp.

Matthias91197/16/2014, 4:46:25 AM1 votes

The innovation in these sports or changes in the meta come from the amateur ranks, namely the college and high school ranks. In the college football scene there are a tremendous and wide variety of strategies and formations being used. From spread offenses, triple options, and ball control there is a wide variety of metas in play.

I just want to point out that a fair amount of this is due to either:

Huge disparities in skill between college teams (and individual players on college teams)
The general inability of almost every college football team to play defense

While there's a big gap in quality between the best and worst NFL teams, there's a far bigger gap between Auburn/Alabama (or any team that's a powerhouse right now, like Miami in the late 90s) and <insert any unranked school here>. A lot of college teams can get away with plays that only work when your QB and/or RB are massively more athletic than the opposing defenders.

It's true that risk-taking is discouraged in the professional sports for a variety of reasons. But I also think that eSports teams are less constrained by this -- you can try a wildly different teamcomp/strategy without having to draft a whole new set of players.

MaknBacnPancakes7/16/2014, 5:34:55 AM1 votes

Someone has to be the one that goes out on a limb and tried something different. Unfortunately, unless it has been tested and battle proven, a pro pulling out new meta on the big stage (often) is not going to occur due to the chance of potential failure. The risk to reward for changing it up does not favor shaking up the safety of the pre-established meta at the time of given tournament.

Orinne7/16/2014, 7:39:10 AM1 votes

While I can agree that innovation in the pro scene will always be difficult due to the need to win, I feel that champion design is something that can't be overlooked and plays a large part in why innovation is either stifled or what I feel is an even bigger problem, that innovation is controlled completely by the balance and champion design teams, not the players themselves. When looking at recent champion releases and some older ones that remain relevant, this only becomes more clear.

Look at supports for example, specifically Lulu, Thresh, Braum, and Nami. Thresh and Braum dominated the lineups almost immediately on release, largely because they've got great kits that do a lot, offer unique mechanics, and don't sacrifice anything. Lulu's been a relevant force that comes and goes, but has always had success in other lanes, and is currently tied for 2nd most picked in the NA LCS alongside Elise and Lee Sin. Her kit offers arguably more relevant utility than any other ranged supports. Nami's only started to become picked up after being left behind for so long, but she's still far behind Morgana who flew into popularity the minute the Spellthief's Edge line became a reliable source of early game gold, and stayed in popularity as a decent check to Thresh and later Braum.

Reworks such as Sona's, while they will make her a more relevant pick, only continue to build on the problem that a champion can't be relevant unless their kit does everything and then some. In the proposed rework, Sona will have her auras replaced for an AoE on-next-hit buff, AoE shield, and AoE haste with extra effect for Sona. She'll pretty much become a more consistent Karma who doesn't have to sacrifice an ultimate to boost only one of her abilities. Yes, Karma wasn't picked much anyways and she offers some bigger numbers, but just the idea that Sona will just beat her out on arrival and probably appear as at least a 2nd tier support in the pro scene, after having always been 1st or 2nd in the past before her current decline highlights the issues of balance for me. Is it something that will take time to fix? Sure. It just baffles me that this problem seems to have persisted long enough to reach a point where the pool of champions actually feels stagnant, when it's never done that before the end of Season 2, and wasn't as big of an issue in Season 3.

I've only detailed how the support line-up currently runs, but this problem exists in other roles as well.

KSHarrison7/17/2014, 9:33:52 AM1 votes

Mm the "passing meta" of football was opened up by Hank Stram from the Kansas City Chiefs. He invented all kinds of things including the moving pocket. The West Coast Offense began with Don Coryell who was a coach for the St. Louis Cardinals. Pro beginnings either way.

At the same time pros reinforce the meta, they also create the meta itself. For example, when a pro player picks jungle Wukong or support Annie, they make that champion viable in the eyes of the public. It's a cycle of Pros create meta -> introduce new champions -> Meta evolves slowly -> prevents new changes -> patch changes / experimenting -> pros create meta ->....

It depends on where your analysis begins on the cycle for how much pros create or hinder diversity in a meta. Without a pro scene, there is no meta and the top solo queue stomper becomes the favorite picks. I'm not convinced it would be much different.

In the end, I would say champion imbalances hurt diversity more than anything else. There's only 5 different roles in the game and 6 bans available. If even 3 champions are too strong in each role, that's a total of 15 champions which means players will be cycling in between them. Champion balance is very unforgiving in how slight an advantage can tip the scales.

The best Riot can do is try to give each champion defined strengths and weaknesses to open up more ways of expression than just "good at everything they do." This is what they are exploring now but it will take time. I feel there is some incoherency between different designers at Riot for why this has been such a difficult area to make strides in. I suspect community expectations take their toll and complicate the process. But that's all pure conjecture from me.

Gorbache7/17/2014, 2:19:03 PM1 votes

You have a good point there regarding the meta. And as Riot Pwyff said during the season it's rare that you will see new strategies emerge since the players are busy learning their opponent and perfecting the game play.

This is why you have a lot more "meta" changes in Korea since most of the team have a large staff behind them that basically their job is to innovate (you will see a lot of one-off or two times wonky comps during the season when teams try new strategy during "easier games").

The fact that Riot will potentially add new teams to the LCS will contribute largely to that. More teams will more more strategy and since there should be a greater disparity between the first place and last place, that will leave more room for teams to try new strategies.

The Scyphozoa7/15/2014, 9:49:21 PM1 votes

English-speaking pro's only reinforce the meta they do not create its change

ftfy