League of learning #4 – M-M-M-Meta Breaker!

The Meta-Game is a pre-established set of rules that helps players make choices on champions and builds, it allows for a mechanical status quo. The Meta-Game doesn’t just happen, it is created by theory crafting over long periods of time to see what the most effective way to use the games mechanics are. There are Meta-Rules that are universal, and there are Meta-Rules that are character/situation specific. I want to look at some common Meta rules, why they exist and when is it good to break them!

Probably the most common standard picks you’ll see will be the AD carry / 0CS support bot. This lane is designed entirely around keeping your carry safe and creating a monster for the mid to late game. This usually involves allowing your carry to farm without issue and zoning your enemy carry out of efficient farming. The antithesis to this is sending either one very, very tanky champion bot and sending two top instead, allowing you to have a very powerful solo laner bot while completely shutting down top lane with a ranged AD.

Alternatively you put two very early game aggressive champions bot and orient your lane around killing your opponents outright. Both of these alternatives work because people don’t like breaking from the norm, flexibility is not something that people regularly need to apply in league of legends, exploiting this can give you a win. The problem with both of these is that they require appropriate character knowledge, you need to know what their top can do and you need to know exactly where the jungler is, also if you run a solo bot you have to rely on mid for dragon control, that can be ill-advised.

Kill lanes rely on kills, any strategy that relies on kills is a High risk – High reward tactic. If you don’t get kills you are missing creep, you are positioning yourself to get ganked and you will eventually fall behind to someone who just safely farms.

Another example of a Meta rule is the compulsion to run to your tower when you see you are getting ganked, often you will see people dart to the tower when really there is very little chance of escape. You will be surprised how many ganks you can dodge by judging the safest route away from the attackers, as opposed to your turret.

Your attackers will always want to get between you and your tower, so run to the river to your mid/top/bot laners. If you are blocked don’t just stick with pre-established reactions and run headfirst into the enemy attempting to get to the tower, when there’s escape routes into your jungle open and ready. These reactions and viable escape routes can only be learned by practicing this type of thinking so don’t be discouraged.

As I stated before, flexibility is not something people have to commonly practice in league of legends, it was theorised that part of the reason M5 have had such incredible success is because they force teams to adapt to them, which sometimes even pro players have trouble with.

People will learn how to deal with common strategies (Kill lanes are a direct response to passive farm lanes that became the norm) but rarely do people do something so strange or unique that the only way to deal with it is to play differently. These sorts of strategies usually require far more than farming correctly and in general carry a higher risk, but personally I see no reason not to break the meta whenever it will give you that advantage or push the enemy team into trying something they haven’t practiced!

Thanks for reading, thanks to the wonderful Team Dignitas for hosting my articles and good luck breaking that Meta!

Neonhowl - EUW