I mean, why should we all follow the meta, like you see in LCS and stuff?
I'm gold and my main champs are draven(adc), fiddle(jungle and mid) and mordekaiser(support or top). All of them with +60% win rate.
I like to play once in a while, like 2/3 games per week, but i watch lcs a lot more. Specially before bed.
We all see pros playing with reworked champs, banning champs with more win rate, instead of the champs that your opponent plays better. In LCS, they all know the preferred champs, either it is on the meta or not; why not ban them?
The league says that all champs are balanced, so in solo Q u have no idea who u playing against, so banning the most played champs seems wise. but not on LCS.. we see Corki's the whole time, the win rate is not that high, but yet they still play them. Are they forced/sponsored to play them?
Back to the question, why follow the meta? Before minions spawn am i already loosing?
oh, and please, comment the reason to downvote. Thank you all !
92 Answers
Before I can answer your question, I'll explain what a meta is.
Meta is a Greco-Latin word, which can be translated as "Above", "After" or "Beyond", among others. This comes in a metaphysics context, meaning "branch of speculation which deals with the first causes of things" (citation)
So, what does this mean for LoL? Nothing, yet. Before going into league, we need to cover RPGs. Roleplaying Games are, as the name indicates, games where you play on different roles. These roles are usually more enjoyable if you play as if you were your character, rather than being a player, since it sustains suspension of disbelief. If one person were to use out-of-character informations, he would be metagaming.
In other words, using information that the player has access to, but the character doesn't is considered metagaming, and thus, usually a big no-no in Roleplaying Games.
In MOBAs, such as league of legends, this isn't so much of an issue, as there's no real story going on, merely a PvP battle. However, the meaning is still there, using out of character information for my own benefit, metagaming (for example: Knowing Someone flashed, so he can only do that again in 5 minutes).
How is this relevant for picks/bans?
You know what certain champions can do, before you even know who you're going to face. Let's say you're proecifient in a champion who has short range, but insane late game such as vayne.
Vayne will want to farm because she's weaker early on. On the other hand, the enemy team knows that, and will want to stop her from being able to farm. One good way to do this is by picking Caitlyn who massively outranges her. Although, because it's already known that Caitlyn would be a real pain against Vayne, a solution could be pairing Vayne with a Thresh / Janna / Braum, who can keep her safe relatively easy. This is one of the reasons why Janna is pick or ban in high elo, because she's extremely good at keeping a good ADC alive.
Too Long / Didn't understand
Essentially, meta is the representation of what is popular, not necessarly for being strong, but for being strong against other things. Janna, for example, is strong against teams who want to all-in you, simply because she has an AoE knockback. According to this Jarvan IV had a 100% winrate on last year's Summer EU LCS. Was J4 overpowered? Not necessarly, he simply did extremely well against popular picks such as Kalista.
Kalista became meta due to her ability to constantly kite the enemy team. This was during a period where tanks were common and thus, being able to attack them without taking damage was necessary (assassins were extremely rare due to tanks being able to tank their burst). Kalista was considered the best ADC in the game, simply because against the meta (the champions who were popular) she was strong. However, Jarvan IV, easily stop Kalista because not only he's a strong fighter, but he's also capable of locking her down, or at least, being enough nuisance to stop her. Was Jarvan Overpowered? No. Neither Kalista.
The game is balanced around having inbalance. Certain Characters are good at doing X, which means they are bad at Y. Meanwhile there's a character who is an adept of Y, but bad at X.
Conclusion
Should you follow the meta? No, you shouldn't. However, that doesn't mean that you should go ahead and believe that Mordekaiser support is a good idea. As a support, Mordekaiser is incredibly weak. He provides next to no peel, while healing for a small ammount. He is however an absurdly good carry (note that there's a difference between being a Support and being in the botlane non-farmer role). You have to be sensible and understand that while a Rammus is a great pick against a team with Zed/Darius/ADC, he won't be nearly as useful as a Galio against a team with Morgana and LeBlanc.
That's pretty much it. No, you don't need to follow the meta. Why? Because the meta is constantly changing. If what's strong today is picked against you, you should pick what is strong against that. And believe me, usually, that tends to become the next meta (For example, last year tanks/bruisers became strong, so mages became played a lot, but due to mages being played a lot, now assassins are getting popular once again)
3The LCS is not considered the meta game. Professional LoL is NOT the same as solo queue.
The reason you don't see Morde support or Fiddle jungle is not because it doesn't work sometimes, it's because of a ton of different other reasons in professinoal play.
It's not a champion that the player plays. For instance, you won't see Yellowstar trying to make a Morde support work, you'll instead see him try to make his good supports better.
They don't work against the team comp they are playing against. The professional LoL scene uses in depth banning and picking based on opponents, teams, players and all kinds of other factors that solo queue does not.
You sometimes CAN be losing before the minions start. It's just known that some champion are stronger than others in certain roles. It comes down to the design of the champion and their skill set.
You don't have to follow the professional meta and sometimes you shouldn't. If you can carry yourself to a higher rank with your best champion in the jungle and top lane, pick them!
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