My personal response to the question stated in the extremely cleverly worded title: Fun.

I haven't played League of Legends very long. It has been only 1.5 years (just estimating) since I started playing. And I realized that the first reason why I ever started playing League of Legends and gave up DotA was that it was simply more fun. Now, I know what you must be thinking (if you are still reading this), wtf does this have to do with the Meta? Well my point is embedded in my personal experience.

In DotA there are only so many viable ways in which you could build certain champions. There was no way in which your casters could ever do more dmg based upon what items they have, no AP (who woulda thunk i ever played this game). And also the laning in dota is pretty solid, or it was when I played. Always 2 mid, and 1v2 on top and bot, solo staying close to the tower on their side of the map. This was the standard.

When I came to League of Legends, that whole idea was completely destroyed in season 1. It was crazy that there were actually items that made your champion's (aka heroes in DotA) abilities hit harder, meaning that for the first time in my life if the game goes long enough my awesome caster beasting it up early game doesnt have to subside into a support character just there to cheer on your late game agility heroes.

It was crazy that so many characters could simply start in the jungle. It was crazy that so many of the champions of League of Legends were actually used. It was crazy that your normal AD carry could also build ap items and suddenly have huge burst instead of high dps. The flexibility of the game made this game so captivating for me, and I think this was also the reason many of us got hooked on League as well.

So back to my answer to my proposed question. Fun is better than the meta. Meta is like a disease to this game. I believe it is starting to kill the joy of trying something you just thought of, or trying to pull off some crazy lane combos. Or honestly, there is no place anymore even in Normal, non-Ranked games, to simply have fun and see how many tiamats one can build, or see whether you will get 20 stacks on all 3 stacking items before your friend and still somehow manage to win the game. There is no place anymore for trying anything wild or creative that might make you lose the game but if it works it would be epic, without at least someone on your team call you a noob and go afk cus you went mid support to double team mid instead of going bottom as you "should".

I remember when everyone was just down to do w/e the heck anyone wanted to do. It was a great time in the community to play with people u don't know, and have to work together to figure out a way to get your 5 ap carries to beat a well balanced team. I think the game was more fun back then. I think there were so many more "OMG HOW DID THAT HAPPEN" moments back then, and times when i actually had to stop playing cus i was laughing so hard.

Anyone else besides me feel they had more of these moments in season 1?

As a disclaimer, I don't mean that pure trolling and pissing people off is good. OR that one cant have a serious game. But in regards to the latter, there is the Ranked queue for a reason. As my buddy said "Normal is for experimentation". (or he said something like that...)

Just wanted to share this with you all as my first post.

Good luck, Have fun guys,
-AoKazeRyu