I think many of you experienced how it feels to be forced to play around a bad pick, such as Pyke jungle, which clearly won't work. Overwatch started to weed out players, who intentionally hindered their team with bad picks, LoL should it too.
The meta is a matter of opinion and their success as their off meta pick will highly depend on the team cooperation.
As one prime example, most people expect a tank top laner, but if the top laner wants to go Teemo it’s not their fault when the team has no tank.
You don’t get to decide what is or is not meta, because there will never be a universal meta everyone agrees on.
Except... it's subjective and prone to a multitude of variables. I could be of the mind that Brand mid was not a viable choice given your opponents and current state of the game. But if you are incredibly proficient on him, have been playing him for a long time, etc. you could still do well and even carry. At the end of the day there is too much speculation and too many opinions to inforce this, especially with how many champions can do multiple different roles.
Guess we will never improvise and try new things then. Cause we can't know if they are good or bad until we do it.
Aye we can't have that, they may end up going 0/9.... like you did on a "standard" top laner. I'm not sure we should be concerned about "off meta" picks when one can't get standard picks correct.
This from the guy who once played Pantheon in the bot/adc position? I did not know that Pantheon is meta and a good pick for bot/adc position.
sooo.....Pantheon in bot/adc position....punishable or no?
G2 played pyke JG and won .. who says non-META picks can't work? You just have to play the game in a different style.
You are handicapping the community, where is your punishment? Not even pro players can predict what pick will/wont work with 100% accuracy, not to mention normal players. Also, if that Pyke jungle 2/5 deserves punishment, than a 2/15 Yasuo should also deserve one. Picking an off-meta champion can lose you a game, sure. Same with facechecking bushes near baron at 30th minute with no enemies visible. Same with diving 1v3 as an assassin with 1k bounty. Same with chasing splitpusher Tryndamere after killing his 4 teammates instead of getting objectives. If we start punishing people for everything they do wrong, there will be 0 unpunished players
I would highlight the "if you are handicapping your team". And there is a difference between anti-meta and off-meta. Off-meta pick is technically any champion, which are sub-optimal on that role, but with skill it can work. Anti-meta pick is technically the same except it is so fundamentally flawed that with any minor game knowledge you know it is not going to work and would put the team into an inherent disadvantage.
Why is Pyke and e.g Soraka an awful jungle pick and is considered trolling, whereas Aatrox is just off-meta? Simple answer:
Even when Pyke jungle was a thing, it was really really off-meta, but it was technically eliminated a year and half ago. Why would even one consider it still a legit pick in Ranked Solo Q? The Pyke jgl I had was struggling at the Krugs while the enemy Amumu had already twice as much farm, and when Pyke could finally commit himself to ganking, all lanes were lost, because Amumu kept ganking all of them. So his stupid pick cost 4 others the game. Is it okay? I don't care what a professional team did, because Solo Q Ranked =/= pro-scene
You also amuse me that you defend such players, yet you same people come here to tell Riot that their matchmaking is bad, because you got such players in some matches. You get such players, because you don't want stricter rules. Also Ranked is played, because players would prefer more serious matches, not to play with players, who want to try out idiotic, fundamentally broken picks. That's what Normal is for or play Ranked Flex with 4 others in a premade, who is going to tolerate such. If you don't aim to win, then play Blind Pick, but personally I enjoy the more serious toned matches where the aim is to win. I don't like playing matches with people, who don't even try from the beginning.
I 100% agree, getting these troll picks in ranked is fustration as HELL. going soraka jungle in ranked or support kennan should be a straight warning or a 1 day ban if detected. cant tell you how many times these griefers greif me because they are "autofilled"
if off meta becomes punishable then so too will meta. one cannot exist without the other.
There are two fundamental components to this issue. First, why is the player choosing that champion? Second, what does their team think of it?
If the player knows it's bad and is doing it because it's bad, so that they can increase their chances of losing in a way that's harder to detect than straight up inting (which often goes unpunished anyway; I dunno why people try to hide it, but anyway), that is considered griefing and is punishable with a 14-day suspension. I sometimes see the argument that a punished player was trying to win because they bought appropriate items, warded, called MIAs, etc., but they forget that they already stopped trying to win when they picked roaming Teemo support because making teammates rage with an unviable strategy is hilarious. When a player is "trying to win" except for all the things they did to try to lose, that's not actually trying to win. And they're not punished for the things they did right. They're punished for the things they did wrong.
If the player's teammates are firmly against trying an off-meta strategy and make it clear that they're not happy it, ignoring the team's request and doing whatever one wants is considered griefing and is punishable with a 14-day suspension.
If the player is acting in good faith and making that pick to win with an unexpected but viable strategy, and their teammates are okay with it, then everything is fine.
I hope they enforce a meta just out of boredom and curiosity. I wonder what will be allowed. Will I be able to bot lane anivia still? (And no im not doing it to troll people. It works and its fun)
I've done Bard jungle, and it worked VERY well. i was able to counter jungle/invade regularly, secure jung objs and make great ganks. I also have a teemo sup pocket pick for auto focused adcs like draven/cait and have M6 from support only. Meta doesnt mean jack and riot has stated this over an over again. META IS MADE TO BE BROKEN. Thats how brand support became a regular occurrence.
