Reign of Gaming

Shakespeare once wrote, "there is a tide in the affairs of men." He might as well have been writing about League of Legends instead of Julius Caesar because it perfectly defines how the meta shifts the power structure of the competitive scene. Teams rise and fall based on what's strong at the current moment, and only the truly versatile can survive the shifts.

We've seen so many teams take hits due to the meta shifting away from the either stylistically or champion-wise. When turtling, slow-paced games were in full force in Season 2, EG was king. Curse dominated the beginning of Season 3 riding aggressive bruiser jungles. Right now, champions that can effectively use Manamune are dominating. Let's take a look at how meta shifts and champion pools affect the game and what teams can do to try and survive the ebb and flow.

Champion Pools

We all want to think we are much more versatile than we are at the game, but even the majority of pro players have very limited champion pools for a given patch and it hinders both themselves and their teams greatly. On any given patch 2-4 champions are extremely strong, and if no one on your team plays them it greatly hampers your pick/ban phase. Right now, teams that don't have the ability to play Jayce, Zac, and Twisted Fate allow other teams to focus ban out their niche champions. It's easy to see why a champion like Janna has come back into style with all the hard engage and AoE teams like running at the moment.

We take the picks/bans phase for granted far too much when so many games are decided before anyone's took a step on Summoner's Rift. Look at Curse right now, they are 3-9 since parting ways with Elementz and are looking for answers. Saintvicious was extremely strong on Jarvan and Xin Zhao at the beginning of the season when those champions were OP, but after nerfs their impact on the game declined as did his. His Nautilus still has promise, but he has never quite been able to get picks like Nasus or Zac to work well with the team. Voyboy is the same way and has suffered greatly after nerfs to Elise and Akali (not to mention the vast improvement of other NA top lanes). For whatever reason, he hasn't shown the ability to play things like Jayce, Kha'zix, or Zed at a high level in competitive play and those champion seem like they would suit him. 

That isn't to say Curse's only problems isn't that they don't play certain champions, but those problems start to cause others to arise. We have to face facts, and the fact is that certain champions are much better than others on certain patches. Picking certain champions already puts you at a relative disadvantage in power levels and relies on you heavily outplaying your opponent when skill levels are closer than ever. Players and teams aren't really able to simply "outplay" each other anymore so the little things become a bigger and bigger deal.

CLG suffered the same problem for so long. Their pick and ban phases were known as letting things through that continued to hurt them because they believed they could simply outplay their opponents when it wasn't always the case. Hotshot's champion pool became more and more outdated as time went on, and he put himself at a disadvantage by not being able to play more champions. It wasn't just Hotshot though, Doublelift basically only played Vayne, Caitlyn, and Ezreal at the start of this season with a bit of Urgot sprinkled in every now and then. His one hyper carry (Vayne) was the easiest to shut down, but now he has added Tristana to his repertoire and it makes CLG that much more dangerous.

Stylistic Changes

Style means everything, or so every fashion magazine would have us believe. Players and teams alike generally like to play a certain way. CLG and Vulcun prefer longer games. Curse likes to be aggressive and win early. TSM pushes towers and forces objectives. Gambit sees heroes and kills heroes. The style of a team can change and adapt, but rarely is it able to deviate very far from what makes them great in the first place. Since the game is always changing and heroes and items are constantly being tuned, it becomes easy to see why team's performances can differ so greatly.

Practice goes a long way to improving a team, but so can a patch that buffs someone's best champions or nerfs something they don't play. Teams that love running poke comps or split push love it when hard initiate is nerfed or disengage is buffed. Let's look at Cloud 9, the first place team in NA. They do their best to copy the Koreans, or so they say. Korean teams have always loved running AoE style compositions, and that's why Kennen has seen such a huge resurface over there, and has now trickled back into NA and EU. Start pairing Kennen with Zac and either Sona or Lulu and all of a sudden a team can lock up their opponents for an entire teamfight.

Teams realized this was a strong way to play, and Meteos just fit in the best with Zac and Cloud 9 start piling up the wins. No champion other than Nocturne can really initiate fights from as far away as Zac, and Zac's CC is much stronger while not letting the whole world know when you want to engage in the first place. Zac facilitates the rest of the AoE comps by starting the fight and keeping people locked up while more AoE comes in and devastates the team. This isn't all we'll see this season. Poke comps are always in style, and Tryndamere's split pushing has seen tremendous results in a small sample size. 

So what does all that mean? It means team's have to work out what comps they are good at in the first place, and play the champions that are strong at those skills at the time. Teams need to either broaden their champion pools, or if their players don't click with certain champions learn the comp that beats what you know your opponents will run. If you know a team likes running AoE comps, run a split-push heavy disengage team with something like Janna and Trundle while denying them stuff like Shen or Malphite. If players are going to continue to limit themselves in terms of champion pools, team's have to pick and ban that much more intelligently.

What do you think RoG'ers? How does the current patch affect a team? Is it a big deal, small deal, or no deal? What can players and teams do to try and combat their style being nerfed? Let us know in the comment section below and be sure to stay tuned to ReignofGaming for all your LoL-related needs

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