How does the meta work

just like with any other game team composition is important. i dont care if it is call of duty or forza or mario. who you bring with you determines how limited your team's decisions are. in a game like league where the environment is ALWAYS THE SAME you dont have to change your composition as much. think basketball. Players have determined that the best composition is one that has all of the classes covered, a high amount of physical damage a high amount of magical damage a large amount of hp the ability to heal and ranged attacks. I.e. In most cases 1 tank 1 mage 1 assassin/fighter 1 marksman and 1 support. the 3 lanes are divided between 5 players that means that there have to be multiple players in at least 1 lane. The starting positions were determined by accounting for how quickly a player could wave clear and how important the lane was.

the reason for marksman and support being in the same lane is because of how fragile most marksmen are early game compared to the other roles. The marksman however has amazing late game wave clearing potential that can only be matched by a mage like karthus and requires little to no resources to achieve since a marksman relies solely on their basic attack. What that means is once a marksman reaches a certain point they will be able to level faster than anyone else. This is why they are referred to as a carry. It assumes that they will be the first out in front and will win the game through "snowballing" or rapidly progressing.

A support on the other hand is essentially 60% of the time useless as a single lane champ. Why? It's because supports have lower base stats. Their entire kits normally are meant for their teammates not themselves. A perfect example of that is braum. Also an important thing to note is that the "support items" such as auras and wards provide little to no stat boost to the actual player that buys them. That means as a support you only grow weaker as the game progresses.

Okay as another point why not pair a support with a tank? He has the lowest wave clear rate so wouldn't it make more sense to help him clear? The answer to that is that the tank has enough hp to endure attacks from another tank and live most of the time. A marksman doesn't. But the thing about having a support in your lane means that XP is slower to build. So a tank with low wave clear and a support with low wave clear means two champions are going to be slower at leveling unless they are able to get kills. Early game kills usually happen under the turret. Which means that as a tank you would have to withstand 3-4 turret shots to claim a kill. It's much easier for a marksman loaded with ranged skillshots to achieve an under the tower kill.

now on to the next part. Why the outer lanes versus the middle lane? Because it takes longer for the minions to show up. If you are a tank you will need time to clear a wave otherwise you'll lose a bunch of last hits. Tanks were put top because until late game baron didn't spawn and tanks are pretty much pointless until late game when they've managed to gather hp and defensive items. Look at if you need an example. Why were support and marksman put bottom? To assist with dragon. Marksmen can effectively kill dragon from range and if they're being supported by heals they can usually get out unharmed.

Why not put them mid? Mid is actually a lot more dangerous than it looks and actually doesn't provide much movement because of how short the lane is. Marksman will usually end up clearing an entire lane and be under their opponents turret taking shots from the turret and their opponent. As a squishy champion with low movement it's highly unfavorable even before you begin to account for the chance of getting blindsided from either side of the lane. Mages were determined to be a better fit because even though they have low movement speed as well they have powerful area damage that can usually clear a wave as it arrives and the short lane allows them to go back for mana when needed without having to walk as far.

So why were fighters/assassins put in the jungle? This is actually a tricky part to answer. Early on players saw the benefit of using the jungle to level because at first it actually gave more XP and gold than soloing mid lane. The problem was that because of how spread out the jungle is and how strong the monsters are you either needed someone with fast movement - assassins or you you needed a decent amount of sustainability and damage - fighter. The jungle used to be very limited and as such you only saw a few champions in it and they were always labeled as "OP" because lets face it a at level 10 while everyone else is 6 or 8 is scary especially when no one has gotten a kill.

Riot has tried their hardest to balance the jungle for a specific champion set in mind called "junglers" in the past - champs who benefit from nuetral camps like and , but that has long since been tossed out and now everyone is welcome in the jungle which sadly only grants about half of the XP and gold it used to.

The reason assassins keep showing up in mid is because they counter mages or at the very least will give them a run for their money. The fighter has no particular place anymore. It used to be the jungle. now they rotate in at jungle and top mostly while mid rotates out mages and assassins depending on what kind of support is being used.

With all of the new champs that combine different roles ( rework) and the weird champs that have a hard time fitting in ( ) there is no end all to everything. As the game changes "new plays" need to be adapted.

The reason why we don't see professional players deviating from the meta is the same reason why NFL superbowl teams don't change their game up. It's because they've made a career out of a game and they can't rely on chance. 90% of leagues community are not professional and shouldn't be treating it like they are. You're not going to go hungry if you lose your gold promotion or your platinum promotion. if you're really that serious about it then move to somewhere that hosts tournaments rent an apartment and go play as a professional. The rest of the casual players will thank you for it.[slayer-pantheon-thumbs] [slayer-jinx-unamused]