L2P Noob: An attempt at explaining the Meta-Game

Learn to Play: The Meta and You

The term 'meta' or 'meta-game' is thrown around a lot and a lot of summoners, whether new or experienced, don't seem to be sure of what exactly it means. In this article I'll attempt to explain the general meaning of the meta, what and why the current meta is, and where it may potentially go in the future.

Meta typically can be replaced with "about," "above," or "beyond". So for example, meta-thought is a thought about thought (don't you dare mention Inception). You're not simply thinking, you're thinking about the way you think. So in this sense, meta-game is the game about the game or rather, the concept of strategising or making decisions above or outside of the game. In League of Legends and similar games the term meta has become slightly abstracted to incorporate generalised strategies and specific objectives.

To elaborate, typical gameplay decisions are made in-game, for example "I'm going to farm now" or "I'm going to roam now." The metagame is a general set of player-defined psuedo-rules that effect the way they play. At its core you could define the basic LoL meta as "There must be four laners and one jungler." However, it can be expanded to say that there should typically be "...a caster mid, a bruiser top, a support and ranged Attack Damage carry bottom, and another bruiser jungler."

But why are things the way they are? Why do these roles and positions exist?

The Basic Meta

First, a lesson in absolute basics.

One of the first and most important lessons in League of Legends that a summoner learns is to keep the main goal of the game in mind, destroying the enemy nexus. Gold and experience, and therefore kills, are important yes, but you win the game by destroying the enemies nexus. But how to do it? There are enemy towers, minions, and most importantly, champions in your way.

You have to attack with a stronger force than the opposition has to defend. Whether you choose to empower yourself with numbers, items, or levels, the outcome is the same, you want to destroy your opposition's base, they don't want that. As such, a clash is inevitable.

Therefore, a player could take into account a sub-goal which is essentially synonymous with destroying the nexus, "obtain the strength to be able to defeat your opposition."

The main way to become stronger than your opponent is purchasing items. It's evident early on that if your opponent is the same level as you, and is playing the same character as you, what - for the most part - defines the outcome of any confrontation between the two of you is your items. If a Tristana with an Infinity Edge duels a Tristana with only a Doran's Blade, it is near-certain that the Infinity Edge Tristana will win.

Items are acquired through gold, which is in turn earned through diligent farming, objective taking, and kills. Minions are spawned continuously throughout play, but the first issue you encounter, even at low-level play, is that there aren't enough to go around. When you and another summoner fight over who is going to go to the top lane or bot lane you might end up with two characters in each lane who want to get minion kills (and the gold they provide).

If the opponent has only one character in their lane in comparison to your two (lane pressure/trading discounted for now) and all 3 players maintain immaculate cs, the enemy laner will be far more powerful than either one of your laners - though, the two of them together is questionable - and it is all because you have inefficiently utilised the potential gold at your disposal.

But that's not all, you have also sacrificed variability in your playstyle. Because of the enemy's jungler, your laners are constantly wary of ganks, lest they fall victim to an Amumu bandage, a Nautilus hook, an Alistar combo, or even just some Shyvanna harass. There's an unknown element in the game and that element is the jungler. Even if you try to respond by having a laner roam, it is far too easy for your opposition to realise that one of your laners is missing and communicate the fact to the rest of their team.

Having a jungler not only allows more potential gold to your laners but also introduces an unknown element for your opposition to react to. The rest is relatively simple, you send a solo or duo to each lane and attempt to out-lane your opposition either by accumulating more gold than them via either out-farming them or simply killing them, and utilising that gold effectively.

But why do we have specific roles in specific locations?

**Keep in mind that the following explanations of each role are generalisations! This is the ‘meta,’ a typical generalisation of what is played in each lane. Things can change and get mixed up if a certain team decides to play them that way. And not only that, but each role has some exceptions, which I will mention towards the end.**

AP Carry

Again, we have to go back to some basics, but this time, team composition.

A team will typically want to be comprised of a mix of both or Ability Power and Attack Damage along with the utility (and likely Crowd Control or Disable) to support it.

Magic users, or more commonly AP Champions, are mostly characterised by having abilities which mostly scale with AP (some exceptions include Ryze and Malphite), or in other words, become more powerful based on the amount of AP the user acquires. AP champions also have strong ability scaling, but weaker defensive scaling.

For example, when comparing Annie (an AP caster) and Jax (a bruiser): Annie starts with only 384 health and gains 76 each level whereas Jax starts with 463 health and gains 98 per level. Jax also has a 7.45 base hp5 in contrast with Annie's 4.5. So why the heck would you pick Annie?

Well, at level 1 Annie's Q 'Disintegrate' does 85 base damage, 15 points higher than Jax's Q 'Leap Strike', and it only has a 4 second cooldown, a solid 6 seconds less than Jax's Q. As she levels it up it costs more mana but her base mana and scaling are also higher than Jax's. She also has the advantage of being ranged and at level 6 she can (without any AP and assuming you have level 3 Q, level 2 W and level 1 R) she can deal 495 damage to a single target with 330 damage hitting in a small AoE and potentially stunning. Jax on the other hand can deal a possible 330 single target damage with 50 of that damage being AoE and stunning, this combo also relies on him jumping into melee range of his target.

Because of her attributes, Annie is suited to the mid lane. Mid lane is the shortest lane and least prone to ganks because of this. In addition to Annie's range as well as her stun, in many situations she will be able to escape a gank and retreat to her tower quickly, as opposed to the top or bot lane where a jungler would most likely take advantage of Annie's low health and resistances along with the length of the lane and focus on her.

Her range and burst damage (damage that is caused quickly over a matter of 1-2 seconds rather than sustained damage) also make her a good ganker. At mid lane she is in the centre of the map and has more gank opportunities with the possibility of roaming towards either the top lane or the bot lane, whereas at the top lane she would only have mid as an efficient gank option and as has been mentioned, mid is the hardest lane to gank.

Mid lane also gives her proximity to all of the oppositions map objectives as well as both Baron and more importantly, Dragon, which she can easily roam down to during laning phase if her team wishes to either take or contest it.

In mid lane, assuming the opponent is also a caster, neither will have high resistances and both will be weary of losing health because of this, as such their play will most likely be characterised by short, sharp engagements where one caster will try to burst the other one and escape before they can retaliate. In addition the mid laner will try to farm well so that they can further increase their relatively early dominance in comparison to the other roles and may even take the jungler's wraith camps to complement their gold supply.

So this should explain why an AP Mid or AP Carry is necessary, but why is Jax, or any other bruiser, in the top lane (or possibly the jungle)?

Bruiser Top:

We're going to talk about Riven (just to make this explanation simpler), assuming she is in the top lane, is likely there simply to be away from the rest of the map, and (should things go accordingly) play a solo lane against another solo top. Her high defense stats (especially health regen) mean that out of the lanes, this is the one she is most suited to. Should a jungler gank she has the durability to survive the run back to his own turret (assuming he isn't pushed ridiculously far) and he also has enough innate sustain to manage the lane without a support Champion.

Her melee range puts him at a disadvantage against ranged champions but as with many other bruisers she has a gap-closer ability in her arsenal (multiple, in fact) which she can use to close in on any weaker ranged champion with less risk of being under the turret or allowing her opposition to escape in comparison to mid. Her AD scaling means that the item "Wriggle's Lantern," a popular bruiser/top-lane item, is a beneficial pickup on her (though this certainly doesn't mean AP bruisers are inexistent), though not entirely necessary.

Bruisers are important as the effective 'tanks' of LoL. LoL is PvP so you don't have any real 'agro drawing' abilities (like you might find in a PvE game) aside from Rammus and Shen's taunt. So what you need is something that has a lot of defensive stats but also either does damage or provides a lot of disruption or CC. For example Cho'Gath is really tanky and doesn't typically do huge amounts of damage (compared to either an AP or AD carry) but if you leave him alone in a fight he's going to do a lot of AoE damage, he's going to knock up parts of your team and silence parts of your team and he's going to try to eat one of your team, if you have a choice between trying to chase something and you're not particularly succeeding, and hitting the Cho'Gath, you're much more likely to be better off hitting the Cho'Gath.

AD Carry:

So why don't we put a ranged AD carry top? They're ranged so they don't need a gap closer and they can escape relatively easily, and they scale with AD, meaning they're suited to the solo-farming notion of top-lane.

Well let’s take another look at the stats. (Back to Jax for this)

Remember how we said he had 463 health and gained 98 per level? Well an AD Carry, in this case Vayne, only has 359 and only gains 85 per level. Her base armour and magic resist, along with their respective scaling, is far below that of Jax or any other bruiser. Her abilities also have terrible base damage, her high-burst base damage ability is her e which only does 185! (conditionally Vayne's condemn can do more but meeting those conditions against a good top laner is unlikely)

So what the hell is the point of such a character?

Her range and AD scaling! In a fight involving both teams Jax will have to wade through a lot of damage to get to Vayne because he is a melee champion and she is not. Because of this it is far more likely that he will resort to jumping on either the AP carry or another bruiser, allowing Vayne to attack freely.

Because of this, Vayne simply does far more damage. Her range allows her the luxury of building pure Damage enhancing items, whereas Jax simply has to build some defense or it's likely that before he gets to his target he will have taken too much damage simply because he is a melee champion, gap-closer aside. If that's not enough, AD carries are typically equipped with some sort of steroid (innate ability that improves their basic attack damage) that is % based and therefore most useful when paired lots of items.

For example, Tristana (another AD carry) has an ability which at level 5 can increase her attack speed by 80%! But early on there is next to no point to this, she will only have 70 AD so she's only hitting faster with 70AD. But assuming that she manages to farm well and picks up an infinity edge, a bloodthirster, a last whisper, phantom dancer, bezerker's greaves and maybe another phantom dancer (or guardian angel/cleanser) she will be hitting 80% faster on top of the bonuses from her items. A character like Annie might be able to do 1500-2000 damage in a second, but over two to three seconds Tristana might be able to do the same with basic attacks alone, and keep going, a feat that Annie cannot imitate.

As such, to put simplify it greatly, an AP carry scales better with levels than an AD carry would, but an AD carry scales better with items than an AP carry does. This is essentially because in comparison to AP damage, AD damage has far more resources to scale from: Attack Damage, Attack Speed, Armor Penetration, and Critical Strike Damage/Chance.

As an example, a level 18 Annie will do more damage than a level 18 Tristana. But a level 18 Tristana with 6 items will do far more damage than a level 18 Annie with full items. That's not to say that in a duel Annie would lose, the contrary is quite possible, but rather that if allowed to continuously do damage, a Tristana (or an AD carry) will far outclass an Annie (or an AP carry) in most situations.

As they do not overly rely on levels, an AD carry is suited to a duo-lane which is typically the bottom lane due to its proximity to dragon in contrast to top lane (if you wish to contest dragon, it's preferable to have 4 people - Mid, Jungler and Duo Bot - in comparison to 3 - Mid, Jungler and Solo Bot - ).

So why do we have a duo bot lane? It's simply because it allows teams to more effectively contest dragon during the laning phase by having more numbers near the objective. In fact even in lane swaps you will often see the swapped team(s) moving their duo back to the bot lane from the 7-12 minute mark to prevent any early dragon plays.

The Support:

But you can't put two AD carries in the bottom lane because they are both farm dependent (moreso than any other champions!) as well as both squishy and very weak early in the game, something an opposing team would easily take advantage of.

So what sort of champion can you put bottom? They mustn’t be farm dependent because the carry will need the farm to be effective in the late game, and they must provide some form of utility, whether offensive or defensive. As such, support characters typically have high utility abilities, which will often have little or even no scaling at all. Supports will also lend themselves to one of three styles: kill, poke, and survive/sustain, though in theory they can be played in all three styles depending on the player.

Kill lanes often involve supports who have no way of defending or healing the AD carry. Kill lane playstyle revolves around attempting to combo your AD carry and your support’s damage onto your opponent and take them from relatively high health to death. Kill lanes typically counter sustain/survive lanes because a kill lane can typically output more damage than a sustain lane can protect.

Poke lanes revolve around the notion of chipping at the opposition until kill potential arises, or until the opposition is forced to either miss cs for the sake of safety or simply return to base to heal. Poke lanes typically counter kill lanes because kill lanes are unlikely to have the sustain to reply to aggressive poke strategies.

Sustains are typically the most passive of lanes where the laners will typically just try to stay in the lane and attempt to out-farm their opponent by reducing reliance on the base fountain. Sustain lanes are most commonly used to protect hyper late game oriented AD carries like Kog’maw or Vayne, or potentially champions/players who feel that they would be of greater use saving their aggression for the mid game. In theory sustain negates poke.

Sona is a typical support, she has 3 abilities which also act as auras, empowering her teammates with either speed, damage or defensive stats, and upon activating these abilities she either speeds her allies, damages her enemies or heals her teammates. Her ultimate is an AoE disable. Sona’s base values are quite high, but she has terrible scaling with only 3 of her skills scaling with AP to a total scale value of1.75.

As such, trying to give Sona a lot of gold is unnecessary as she doesn’t particularly need AP or AD. Instead she fits the role of the support well in that she will still be able to affect the game utilising her abilities without AP as well as aura and activatable items like Shurelia’s Reverie (which provides a momentary speed boost to surrounding teammates) or Locket of the Iron Solari (which grants nearby allies a small shield). 

Supports will typically try to pick up the gold generating components of these items first, like the Philosopher’s Stone which grants health and mana regeneration alongside (more importantly) 5 gold every 10 seconds. These ‘investment’ style items are crucial for supports gold income in a position where they optimally take no farm at all.

The Jungler:

It may be important to note that essentially any champion can ‘jungle’ in a sense. Simply by going into the jungle and clearing camps. The term ‘jungler’ refers to a champion who can do this efficiently whether through fast clear times or strong ganking ability.

Junglers are, for the most part, quite similar to top lane characters, and in many situations a champion may either go into the jungle or the top lane. This is simply because the jungle typically relies on a level of sustain, tankiness, or both, which are qualities that are also useful for top laners.

As mentioned, junglers are picked either for their jungle clearing or ganking ability.

Fast clearers, if farming the jungle optimally, can achieve gold levels comparable to that of a laner as well as potentially take the oppositions jungle farm and therefore put them behind. Fast clearers often have AoE abilities which allow them to clear through jungle camps at a high speed but it often requires some form of mobility too to ensure safe counter-jungling.

Ganker junglers typically have strong gap closers and CC which allow them to gain gold through kills or assists or simply pressure a lane so that the laner gains an advantage over their enemies.

Junglers also carry the smite summoner spell to aid with jungle clearing and neutral objectives. Smite does a flat amount of instant true damage to a minion or creep based on the jungler’s current level, as such, the winner of a battle over an objective can come down to the level of the jungler!

All in all junglers, like supports, are often under-appreciated but can truly carry a strong presence in the game.

Exceptions!

There are, of course, exceptions to all of these ‘rules,’ not every champion in the game can easily be pigeon-holed into one of these classifications, if it were that way the game would probably be a lot more boring and the meta would be a lot more stagnant!

There are some AP bruisers who can manage top lane, there are potential double-bruiser combination which can work at bot lane, there are AP characters who are also bruisres and there are AD characters who can work well in the mid lane. And there are probably a myriad of things that can be adjusted to affect different results on a team’s play-style and strategy.

That ‘Other’ Meta (or something):

In the context of League of Legends, the term ‘meta’ can be used to describe general champions, playstyles or compositions which are the current ‘flavour’ and become so widespread and commonly used or adapted that they become part of the ‘meta.’

For example around the time of IPL Kiev, and in the months before and after, US teams got their first taste of a new competitive Russian team, Moscow 5 (M5, now M5 BenQ). M5 introduced a play-style which revolved around heavy aggression early game and a very heavily counter-jungling based strategy wherein they utilised underplayed champions like Dr. Mundo and Shyvana to quickly clear not only their own jungle but their opponents. Their bot lane also introduced a lane-dominance oriented strategy where they would typically run Wriggles Lantern on their AD carry to crush their opponents as well as an aggressive support style with Sona being the most common first pick.

As teams adjusted to counter these strategies and employ their own versions of them, they quickly gained prevalence and counter-jungling returned to the ‘meta’ and became one of the criterion upon which junglers were assessed. Sona’s healing was soon reduced and Riot made the move to nerf bot lane sustain in general which again changed what was the ‘typical’ bot lane play-style. Bot lane became more about a sort of ‘dance’ between both the AD’s and Supports in an attempt to apply or reduce pressure, passive farm lanes became less common, though still relevant.

Some pro players theorised that eventually the snowball based meta would take over and games would be decided by 20 minutes, though this was eventually proved wrong as many teams found that with their own strategies and play-style they could resist the early game pressure and play for the later game. And for a moment the community stood in confusion as they observed the dichotomy of these ‘snowball’ and ‘stall’ compositions.

Eventually both disappeared and there was simply the meta, as it always had been, with some changes and some more compositions, ideas, and strategies to try.

The Future?

Recently, Korea has come strongly into the League of Legends scene with not only the strong mechanics that were predicted but also newer, different strategies. In a recent MLG tournament a lone Korean team, Azubu Blaze, showcased only one of their newer strategies and used it to dominate one of the strongest North American teams in the current scene, TSM.

The Koreans ended laning phase earlier by pushing down towers and using the diminished map control to force more and more objectives, increasing their lead twofold. The idea of this being a new ‘meta’ has been denied and it has been labelled as yet another new strategy for teams to adapt and adapt to.

Prior to the Korean influence, the junglers presence also changed its focus, with NA and EU teams starting to focus jungler presence on the top lane to force wins even in unfavourable matchups as top is arguably the lane which can snowball the hardest.

Recently, there has also been an increased focus on the bot-lane with the 'protect' comp becoming more and more popular, which has resulted in some teams focusing ganks at the bot lane. As the League of Legends scene becomes more and more of a global affair it will arguably become less and less about each country or event ushering a new ‘flavour’ but rather a new strategy, a new idea to consider.

It’s my hope that the League of Legends meta will develop into something more fluid and interchangeable, with multiple champions, items and compositions to consider.

As the game matures it will not only be a teams skill, teamplay, and/or decision making that decides the outcome of a game, but also their ingenuity and adaptability.