The Next MetaGame?

[Gustaran]

Lots of popular things, from the NFL and Olympic sports, to mainstream mystery or thriller novels, to lots of movies and almost all sequels, even to competitive Civ4 multiplayer are enjoyed by people even though the strategy is more or less predictable.

I disagree. Take a sport like soccer (check the Football Manager 2012 thread), where you can choose a vast number of different formations like a defensive 5-3-2 or an offensive 4-3-3 formation. Or something with different advantages and disadvantages like 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-2.

LOL on the other hand offers only one thing: 1-1-2-jungler and each position has to be filled by a very specific champion type.

That being said, after watching IEM Kiev, I am very happy that at least the boring 15-20 minute farmfest meta where people didn't leave their lane once seems to be pretty much dead.
I guess we will be seeing much more counterjungling and aggressive play especially concerning the jungle buffs.

[Tyrmith]

That being said, after watching IEM Kiev, I am very happy that at least the boring 15-20 minute farmfest meta where people didn't leave their lane once seems to be pretty much dead.
I guess we will be seeing much more counterjungling and aggressive play especially concerning the jungle buffs.

This makes me really excited as well, but it's going to be really comical in soloqueue watching people trying to implement it when people are in general terrible at working together.

[Deceptus]

That being said, after watching IEM Kiev, I am very happy that at least the boring 15-20 minute farmfest meta where people didn't leave their lane once seems to be pretty much dead.
I guess we will be seeing much more counterjungling and aggressive play especially concerning the jungle buffs.

What Tyrmith said, the successful counterjungling isn't just because Diamondprox is a jungle god (even though he is), it's because whole teams are in on it. The moment after the tournament I've been dealing with those derpy jungle Shyvanas who invade you no matter what even if you can beat them to death in a duel or stall them long enough to feed your mid laner double buffs.

And besides, there are obviously counters to M5's strategy. People will try to emulate their strat until counters are found to it and it no longer dominates every single game. Same thing happened with double AP which was all the rage at Dreamhack, and I'm sure I am forgetting a ton of other examples.

[uberfish]

Shyvana's a lot more difficult to play correctly than she looks if people just watched the tournament videos

[Speaker]

Varis and I tested out the "Atlas Lane" in one of the Tuesday Sullla Youtube games last night. I think I started something like 8-0 as Annie (Varis was Pantheon), even with the enemy lane being Caitlyn/Soraka with double summoner heal. It was a pretty funny game, starting with First Blood as soon as we hit level 2.

[Amelia]

The Atlas lane is putting two killers down lane to try and stop the AD right?

The biggest problem with that though is that if the 2 champs fail in their job, the AD is going to get free-farm, which you don't have your own AD free-farm champion to counter back anymore. How easy is it to get kills?

[Atlas]

The biggest problem with that though is that if the 2 champs fail in their job, the AD is going to get free-farm, which you don't have your own AD free-farm champion to counter back anymore. How easy is it to get kills?

Watch the video yourself

http://www.own3d.tv/Sullla#/watch/411754

I did come on to the stream and Teamspeak when the game was about 15 mintues in, so i got to watch most of what turned out to be a very LONG game

[VoiceOfUnreason]

I'm assuming that Speaker and Varis were coordinating on vent, but Sulla didn't have voice with Diffikult? That's a bummer right there.

Is Armor really the right starting build against that lane? Sulla never actually showed the death recap, but my assumption was that Annie's combo, rather than Pantheon's, was the bigger threat.

If that's right, I'd expect that buying early MR would be the right call. Worst case, you just sell it back to the shop after the AD has survived the initial vulnerable period?


Does Shyvana actually have tools to help that bottom lane?

[Atlas]

I'm assuming that Speaker and Varis were coordinating on vent, but Sulla didn't have voice with Diffikult? That's a bummer right there.

Of course that is certainly a disadvantage

Is Armor really the right starting build against that lane? Sulla never actually showed the death recap, but my assumption was that Annie's combo, rather than Pantheon's, was the bigger threat.

Hmm, interesting point. I think armor was probably the right buy, if offers better defense againist pantheon, annie auto attacks, and creeps. Plus, and more importantly, it allows you to buy more health pots, which you want in this situation. Even with Soraka you probably want those pots, againist a kill lane your goal needs to be to stay in lane and not get sent back to base.




The truth is that skill is most often the determinitive factor at our skill level in most of our games.

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Hmm, interesting point. I think armor was probably the right buy, if offers better defense againist pantheon, annie auto attacks, and creeps. Plus, and more importantly, it allows you to buy more health pots, which you want in this situation. Even with Soraka you probably want those pots, againist a kill lane your goal needs to be to stay in lane and not get sent back to base.

Does that mean you want even more health pots than armor allows (ala Dignitas Swain vs TSM Le Blanc)?