Why is the meta this way?

Wolf Queen·5/9/2015, 1:59:45 AM·2 votes·681 views

Ive been playing since season 3 and ive been wondering why is the meta the way it is? Why cant it be duo mid instead? Why not an apc bot instead of adc? Why not bruiser bot lane and both of them get relic? Why not duo jungle? Why do we stick to this 1 set meta why cant you try other things? Cant there be other metas that work? Like no jungle and duo top and both top take smite. Top lane smite already happens a lot. Why not duo top? Then they can zone there top and then roam into the enemy jungle

9 Comments

IcyPepper5/9/2015, 2:01:03 AM1 votes

Because when people like me actually practice and try new things, our friends won't allow it and strangers force us to play meta or they'll report us if we lose (even if I go 10090831280931/0/312890312 and they go 0/89032180931/0, so apparently it's my fault).

Pinker 105/9/2015, 2:05:19 AM1 votes

Because the current meta is better. I'm not saying I prefer it It's just better It exists because Riot liked it and decided to balance around it and it and make it better. It beats out every other strategy with consistency.

Deep Terror Nami5/9/2015, 2:10:27 AM1 votes

If you can make it work, go for it; just don't try random shit that interferes with what the rest of your team wants. "Meta" is just what is known to work best most of the time, not what is always best.

redniwediS5/9/2015, 2:12:48 AM1 votes

There are plenty of people, typically in premades, who play counter meta strategies. The thing to keep in mind is that the current meta is based off what the pros do, and the pros typically play things that are consistent. Stuff like duo mid or double jungle work quite often, however they are inconsistent.

To put it simply it's better to play a low risk team rather than a high risk team, and so the meta focuses on the most optimal low risk setup because the reward difference is not worth the high risk.

T RexHasTinyArms5/9/2015, 2:56:53 AM1 votes

There have been a few experiments with the meta over the years (originally the current meta didn't exist and it wasn't till EU crushed NA with it at the end of S1 that it became popular). However, for the most part they just aren't successful. Double jungle was a thing for a while, and like you mentioned you could run a second duo lane top.

The problem is that gets beat pretty consistently by the current meta when they see it coming and know what it is. Double jungle worked for a little while with a farm jungle and a more support cc/invade jungle, where the goal was to run 3 solo lanes, farm fast in the jungle, and invade the enemy jungle (if lane roams and yours does too then it's 3v2) duo gank bot which would be pushed usually since it was 2v1. This worked for a bit, but pretty quick you learn to ward for the invades, and freeze bot lane. If they invade top side, you go steal their bot side jungle where your support can help out if they contest. Their bot lane gets starved bc when you freeze you can't gank the pushed lane, and the harass 2v1 is too much for the solo bot to keep up usually , so the current meta would succeed and out scale the double jungle.

Current meta has a strong item scaling champ paired w/ a utility champ who can survive w/ low gold (although riot helped them out bc they used to be so much poorer and riot felt bad) and so they are able to scale well into late game while only depriving one other champion who has to give up strength to help them out.

Then mid you have a safe short lane, which gets exp faster than others due to minion waves hitting a little sooner and being a little safer so it's easier to stay in lane for exp. You could put something else there, but then you either have a champ that scales well w/ levels in a lane that is harder for them, or don't get to use a champ like that.

Top lane is pretty similar to mid in terms of what you get out of it but is generally tankier or more sustained bc it's a longer lane and more dangerous. You can put other stuff up there but if you ran the same champs as you did mid you'd probably be at a disadvantage bc enemies could camp you to shut you down if you couldn't escape or they could burst you down.

Double bruiser bot was a thing, and you can still do it, bu it puts pressure on team to win early or just be better than the enemies, bc mages get stronger w/ levels more than ADC so if you put ADC in another lane the mage can burst them and do more damage w/ levels and less items, while the ADC vs Bruisers just has to stay safe and get farm. If the Bruisers don't get kills fast enough and shut down the bot lane, then current meta will out scale easily. There's other examples, but that sort of covers it for the most part.

Some stuff makes it through bc it keeps up (ie smite top solo where you actually keep up (or usually out level) the enemy jungle, or lane swaps w/ double jungle early), but generally the meta is the meta bc it is strong, and it pushes out other stuff bc it wins.

Commit Sudoku5/9/2015, 3:47:42 AM1 votes

the meta used to be ADC mid no jungle double bruiser top, farm mage bot with support season 1

BluePolarizer5/9/2015, 3:49:00 AM1 votes

double jungle is played in pro games against lane swaps with a strong ADC/support lane and a weak top laner.

mid/top are flex picks. You can play most top laners mid as counterpicks, same as you can play most mids top lane. I've seen alot of Karthus, Morgana and Cassiopeia tops. Jungle is also a flex pick, with most junglers being able to be played top or support.

Hasztalan25/9/2015, 3:54:15 AM1 votes

Cuz rito consists from a bunch of idiots who are uncapable of balancing this game, so they enforce their one and only meta heavily nerfing everything else when something new pops up.

But you know they encourage diversity.......yeeeeeeee.......my ass.

Sohleks5/9/2015, 10:55:57 AM1 votes

Some mages sent bot can be very abusive to weaker AD lanes. It's not bad. The problem is if you lack an ADC your team likely suffers mid to late game. But you can run an ADC mid like Corki or Ezreal or even Caitlyn though. It's not a bad idea, but unless you premade you won't get teams that will be willing to try something new. The usual logic though is mages scale better with levels, so prefer a solo lane. They also want access to blue buff, which if bot blue side they won't have early game.

Duo mid can be done to deny the enemy mid laner. Problem with duo mid is the distance between mid lane towers is short compared to the curved side lanes. This makes it very hard to deny the enemy solo laner compared to bot lane. If you have a solo lane both bot and top that's extra vulnerability on your team to ganks because those lanes are long. Most likely your 1v2 player will get denied harder in the side lane compared to mid lane.

Not running a jungler is typically an awful idea. Thats free'ish exp and buffs in the jungle your team needs to secure. If you don't have a jungler you won't have anyone creating pressure on the entire map and decent players will abuse your lanes because of this. If your entire team lanes it's very easy to keep track of whose left their lane. Decent players will not feel pressured by ganks and can abuse this in lane.