User blog comment:Alterrea/Adapting the meta/@comment-5686533-20130723101520/@comment-9245010-20130723114835

While comparing two similar games (in this case LoL and DotA), we have to consider the differences between them first. DotA has much higher numbers (Facelesss Void can lock down the entire enemy team for up to 6 sec (with Aghanim)) and randomness  (just think about Chaos Knight) in many aspects. Much more and stronger hard CC, all champs use mana, a somewhat faster and kill-oriented gameplay. Also, in DotA, many of the Lane Supports have really strong and impactful skills. (just think aout Sven or Skeleton King), and they can easily build semi-carry. DotA is much-more hard-carry dependant, while in LoL it is possible to shut down a fed carry. In LoL there are comebacks and turnarounds, while they are much less frequent in DotA.

Now about the meta in LoL:

Mid: usually and traditionally the mage/assassin goes mid. Why? Because they benefit more from levels than from items. Therfore they go mid cause "they want moar XP"

Jungle: the main difference between the two games' jungles is the lack of buffs in DotA. Red  is one of the most impactful things at early levels, so for ganking, having a jungle is way better than not. Also in LoL the jungles often babysit and gank, creating the lane options you were talking about, but with much more flexibility and ganking power. In LoL, jungling is always superior to non-jungling (also in LoL, Smite is required to secure global objectives, and Baron is more of a contest than Roshan).

Sidelanes: the jungler makes one of the lanes sololane (usually top, as dragon is more important early on, and the adc+sup kills it faster than the toplane) and the other is the hard carry+support. As the jungle may help anywhere, it may be 2-1-2 or 1-1-3 or even 1-2-2.

Laneswap: a fantastic think which usually takes place in LoL. As a supp+adc can shut down any sololaner easily, it may be really benefical to swap lanes. It also heavily depends on the team composition, as some champs are stronger for 1v2 than others. It allows much more team strategies to be viable, and can help early tower-killing a lot.

All in all, DotA's meta is great to get the carry fed, but in LoL you may wnt to win all lanes and have a team gold advantage, so with its extreme flexibility, the current meta in LoL is much more benefical for the team, and is better (at least in this game) than the metagame of the DotAs