User blog comment:Fistful of Force/Why ELO and Meta is god at low to mid elo/@comment-4881935-20120606031310

its funny you talk about the meta like this. But I'm just going to throw out what i think about the meta.

The meta is what is created at the highest level of players who discover a certain style of playing that offers the best reward/risk ratio. I say the highest only because they are the one who actually tries this out with a whole bunch of different situations until they craft a style that doesn't have many drawbacks.

Meaning, even if the one team knows the other team comp, there is little to actually hard counter. I am not saying there is no counter to a meta, but it's just that those style of game play tend to be counter harder if the other teams knows it is coming.

Therefore, I don't complain when people follow the meta. It's reasonable as it's the highest chance to win and has been proven to work. Also, it's hard to create a plan with people you don't know, so the meta creates a foundation for people to form around.

To say that the meta gives the advantage against other teams that isn't playing to the meta seems rather wrong because the meta can only change when new styles are introduce and proved to be better then the current meta. That is how most meta works.... unless riot just nerfs the heck of the current meta to make a different one better.

The downside to this 'meta' is what you stated above. Someone getting the blame because they didn't follow the meta. It's sad when something like this happens, and it is always bound to happen on a team base game. I don't like it, but to blame someone for not following the 'meta' is rather a poor excuse, but what can you do, people always want to blame something else before blaming themselves.