Will Season 3 see a change in the ADC meta?

Hello everyone, it's Theorie! Today we're going to dig into the current ADC meta, how it's changed already, and how it could possibly change more in the near future.

 

Where We Are
Now that we're a couple weeks into the Pre-Season 3 patch, the dust has settled. Of course there will continue to be new things discovered as the professional scene progresses, but right now we have a pretty decent idea of how things are going to turn out. This article will not focus on items so much as individual champions, as I feel the new items did not change the build order of too many popular ADCs.

Professional's Opinion
In a recent AMA on Reddit, Peter 'Doublelift' Peng made a surprising statement.

"The time where low range low base stat champions like Vayne can carry have passed."

Confused? I was. How could VAYNE, one of the most played ADCs behind the "holy trinity" of ADCs in season 2, not be able to carry anymore? Let's take a look.

 

A Closer Look
In particular we'll be focusing on Vayne, as she is the specific champion Doublelift mentioned. Vayne's starting stats aren't particularly horrid. Comparing her to Ezreal, some are even better than his. After seeing this, you might even ask why we have Vayne in the spotlight in the first place. The key to this question, is combining her kit with her stats.

Ezreal and Vayne have the same auto attack range, sure, but Ezreal has something she doesn't, strong poke on an extremely short cooldown AND a second flash. These two factors combined outweigh the downside of his auto attack range. The same could be said for Corki, and to a smaller extent Graves, as all 3 of these champions have an escape and a poke.

Vayne on the other hand, does not have any poke in her kit. Her "escape" isn't so much of an escape as it is a quick displacement, and is usually used to dodge skill-shots. Shifting our focus to yet another ADC, we see that Caitlyn has a far greater auto attack range than any of the previous champions, 650. On top of that, she has a very long poke and an escape. What does this mean? Doublelift had something to say about her as well.

"Range has always been the most important and valuable stat in the game, since you can buy damage and defense but you can't buy range."

He goes on to say that he wishes Riot would re-work current ADC champions and "fix" their range instead of making new ADCs. One could induce that he thinks a lot of the current underused ADCs have good kits but cannot be played at a competitive level because of their limited range.

 

Why Has This Not Been a Problem Before?
What caused this to change all of a sudden? There are probably more factors to add into the equation, but my personal opinion is that the professional scene is just continuing to steadily change. Day by day new strategies are being thought of. If they're good, they'll be adopted by most of the community, and if they're bad, the opposite.

 

Conclusion
For the moment, Doublelift thinks shorter ranged ADCs should be benched from top tier play until a work-around is thought up to bring them back up to speed. Only time will show us how things turn out. This trend might be here to stay, it might not. As previously stated, new strategies are being thought up all the time. We'll just have to wait and see if the other professionals agree with this thought process.

Thank you for reading, and I wish you all a happy holidays!