Views: 970 Champion Picks and the Developing Meta
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Today, I would like to touch on a controversial subject, that is viewed differently by different people. There seems to be a common misunderstanding about champion picks in relation to the meta, and why you pick what champion when. This can lead to arguments, often in lower elo, about picking a certain champion versus another. You may even see very low rated players offering advice, so as to say something like,"What? Why would you pick lux against zed?" or "I always win lane as X champion vs Y champion."
Now, I am not going to specifically say that counter-picks don't exist or don't work across multiple tiers, but when theorycrafting a matchup, there are multiple things to consider. The most important thing to consider is that if a matchup works in your favor on paper, this assumes you are playing optimally and not making any mistakes. Most importantly, your own personal skill with certain champions, your ability to pull off different strategies, and how this relates to everyone else in the game, is what matters most. You could completely lose a certain matchup after a gank, without knowing it, and counter pick yourself that way. Knowing when a counter pick IS a counter pick, and when it's not, will save you a lot of heartache and ELO.
Scenario 1
Lets say I'm going to play a game of top lane. I usually "reverse-fill" in solo queue (meaning I take what's left even if I am second or third pick), although I sometimes pick what I want when I am first pick, and I never support unless I am forced into it. Now, the enemy team has already locked Nasus and a (probably) support champion in Lulu. This leaves multiple choices with their team composition. We are blue side, I am third in pick order and we already have an ad carry locked in Draven. Some things I want to consider when I am about to pick are:
"Will second pick take top, since he didn't say anything (and if so what else would I pick)?"
"What champions do I play well against Nasus top?"
"If I pick a counter to Nasus, will they send him jungle instead? Should I expect him to be top at all?"
The answer to all of these questions is that you just don't know. Second pick could instalock tryndamere with 4 seconds left to pick, leaving me confused and completely unprepared for my pick. You may see people dodging these types of games (which isn't a bad idea), but you may avoid this situation by being more analytical. I may have noticed, that I know the matchup of Jax vs. Nasus, and am also comfortable playing Jax against many compositions and lane opponents. I can safely pick him. Now, it's also useful to note that I can also play Jax as a jungler. That is not to say it's a good pick, but at the very least, if second pick locks a top laner at the last second (or maybe he wants to jungle Tryndamere) at least I have someone who is capable of doing both things, and I am comfortable with either one.
Scenario 2: Let's say I am 4th pick on purple side (with the intention of picking for top lane) and our last pick has called support. As we get to our picks, I may notice that they have a Nasus, a Khazix, and a Leblanc. Now this is not to say that they couldn't take Leblanc support, but 90% of the time, the lane assignements will be Leblanc mid, Nasus top and Khazix jungle. I know this because of my knowledge of the meta, current popular picks in what lanes, team compositions, and mostly because I have the experience of my previous games to aid me in my decisions, even in champ select. There is also the possibility that they will put Khazix top, but it may be worth it in this situation to go for a direct counter pick to Nasus (or more simply, the champion I do best with against Nasus).
I have decided upon picking Teemo. Now, I do understand that not every person is capable of playing against a Nasus top and Khazix jungle as Teemo, due to the amount of pressure Khazix may decide to put on top, but for me I am comfortable with this and pick it anyway. Some things I need to consider are Khazix's jungle route and that I am most vulnerable pre 6. I want to lane aggressively against Nasus to put him in a defensive pattern before Khazix is able to gank. If I let Nasus farm or lane safely at full health, I will 100% lose lane after a Khazix gank, if not feed them a kill and assist in the process. The correct play for me is to shove lane early and put as much auto attack harass unto Nasus as I can at lvl 1. Now, if Khazix tries to gank me, I can probably at least trade 1 for 1 and deny a mountain of cs to Nasus (but it probably will go to Khazix, which is bad for our team). I do know, however, that this has the highest likelihood of success out of my champion pool.
Even if I have to leash red or blue buff for my jungler, it's important that I get to lane early and hit lvl 2 fast. It's likely that Khazix will do a jungle clear in order to gank top first (he may even decide to camp it because Nasus will outscale Teemo hard if he gets enough help).
With all of this in mind, I shove up early on (making it harder to gank me by controlling the minion wave and stacking my minions with which to fight upon), and keeping Nasus low and underleveled.
There is a distinct point in this matchup where I need to be careful, but I will try to not afford Nasus too much breathing room, because as Teemo, you need to play a high pressure lane in order to make an impact on the game. If you don't understand what high pressure laning is, it's basically when you are doing questionable things in order to force other people to come to your lane (like csing, pushing, overharassing or all of these at once). If noone comes to your lane, you win because you played like an idiot with no punishment. If people DO come to your lane, as long as you don't give up much and waste a lot of their time, you STILL win.
This reason is because the pressure I put on top lane frees up other lanes that may need some breathing room. This allows for overall better play across the team. Bot lane may notice the jungle has shown top and decides for an all in double kill. They push to tower, recall and snowball the lane with this information.
Quick Recap
What is our title? "Champion Picks and the Developing Meta"
What can we divulge from this title? We can easily see that the subject of this piece is: "to discuss in some way shape or form, individual champion picks as they relate to our ever changing meta." Now, with that in mind, we may notice two emerging patterns here. Understanding how this thought process effects multiple different things, may make you think twice about what you thought you know about this game. We have two wildly different situations that call upon the same skillset:
1.Decision Making in Champion Select (in relation to your team comp, their team comp, and what lane you expect to play versus).
2.Time Optimization for Junglers
"What lanes should I gank as the jungler, what do I farm, and when do I do that?"
Knowing what we know now, let us move on to Scenario 3:
Scenario 3: You are first pick on blue side. Your favorite champions are banned and noone is talking in champion select. What do you pick?
Well you may decide that picking your best champion is applicable here. This is probably true, regardless of potential counter picks, but it's important you know what those are, and how to play each matchup. In fact, it may be that you want to bait out a certain matchup because you know it so well, or maybe it's smarter to pick a champion that does well against most matchups here.
So now that we've talked about champion picks, how does this relate to the meta and our own individual choices as players? Well you see, it's all very interconnected. Not one thing is ever going to be unconditionally better than another. There are playstyles to consider, personal skill levels, teamwork/synergy between a random set of 5 people, and individual mastery of champions. The thing that can be said about meta though, is that there will always be a "perceived set of champions, that do their job extremely well, and will usually be a good pick for X and Y reasons." Now it doesn't matter what X and Y reasons are, as long as you understand what they are, and what implications they have upon each other. For instance, you may know that Leblanc is becoming a popular mid pick again (I hate that champion), but you are completely fine playing ap nidalee against that matchup most of the time. As long as you play passively, farm and ward the sides (so Leblanc can't roam, get kills and objectives, and outscale you), you WILL outscale her and provide a lot more teamfight utility than her in an even game. Obviously at some point, a team fight may break out and Leblanc gets a few kills, but you are a great nidalee and confident in your ability to do well. Even if some would consider this a counter pick (I'm not actually sure if it is, this is just an example), you know the matchup well enough to pick it, and that's reason enough to do it.
Another time I may "counterpick" myself is when I am playing against Caitlyn. Now, I know the matchups versus Caitlyn on almost every AD Carry, but I prefer to pick Vayne against her. At the very top level of play, I will get punished for this and probably have a few games where I'm completely useless due to the jungler camping, their support flash stunning me, and overall great early game play and tower pressure from Caitlyn. I also know, however, that I will win the matchup if I get a few good ganks or dragons, and I usually go even in farm against this lane. I can depend on my mechanical skill to carry me through the bad matchup. It may not be the smartest pick, but it works for me. If I don't give up kills, the matchup is in my favor. Conversely, Caitlyn is now forced to make plays and play aggressively in order to win, which will open her up to ganks.
The point I am trying to make here, is that it is unconditionally better to pick what you are comfortable picking rather than trying to adhere to a certain meta. When the meta shifts, you can expect other people to pick up on this too and switch their champion pool around. I am the first to admit that I was ignoring Mundo until I saw how effective he is in season 4 top lane(even after the nerfs to sunfire and spirit visage). I don't always pick him up now, but he's in my top lane champion pool. You can expect similar levels of adoption of the meta by other players. Everyone kind of does their own thing, even if that thing is to blindly conform to every meta shift. For me, it's just easier to play around it and know why certain things are strong and learn how to play against and with that, as well as potentially playing it, myself, when it's up. Some may consider that adhering to the meta, but this is not the argument we are here to pursue.
Now, everyone is capable of doing this, but I can theorycraft matchups in my head. (I may consider things like who is stronger at lvl 2 and 3, or who is the better all in and at what level? Does he have ignite? etc.) I know that Mundo will be a decent pick against high health champions, even if he has a few hard matchups. Does this mean that I blindly pick him now every game because the meta says he's op? No, I probably won't pick him into Shyvana, because that would not fit my playstyle. I know Shyvana will outpressure me, and if I want to win my lane, I would do better to pick a champion that I know better, like Darius or Jax. That is not to say it's not possible for Mundo to win against Shyvana with no jungle help, I just know that it's not likely since he will out push me and roam for free all game. That's not something I am willing to pick into unless I know my team will be able to use a Mundo to our advantage (not a good assumption to make in solo queue). In fact, in competitive you see this matchup so much because of Mundo's propensity to deal with Shyvana and scale relatively well against the rest of the team (not necessarily how he scales versus Shyvana or how he does IN LANE versus Shyvana).
In summation: Hard counter picks don't exist. They exist only insofar as your ability to play that champion correctly, not make mistakes, and play a certain strategy against them. I do, however, believe in "soft" counter picking. Basically, I would consider it a soft counter to pick Lee Sin jungle against Vi jungle. If I invade on him early, I can outduel him. He probably outscales me at every other point in the game, but if I play correctly, I have a good chance to shut him down and make his impact much less than it would be. There is no "hard counter" to Vi. League of Legends is designed so any hero can beat any other hero. It may be true that Teemo beats Nasus in a straight up 1v1 most of the time, but that doesn't mean it's a hard counter (in my opinion), because I could get camped by the jungler, completely lose a 4v5 fight because of my lack of teleport, or more simply, I could die to him 1v1 3 times and instantly lose the game for my team. I am weakest as soon as I hit lvl 6, because both he and the jungler are likely around lvl 6 as well and I haven't had time to establish my "mushroom fortress."
So when you see people talking about counter picks, what lanes you need to gank, why you should do this or that, just remember that it all involves you. If you aren't comfortable doing something, then don't do it. Understand why you don't want to do it, what you would be more comfortable with, and analyze the effect this has on the team. Mechanics permitting, if you follow this thought process throughout the game and in champion select, you will see a marked improvement in your play as a result of analyzing the game.
Far few people know how to theorycraft correctly. Let us not think of things in terms of raw numbers and fancy calculations. Think of things in the practical sense. Does it really make a difference that Leblanc outbursts a Nidalee on paper, if you are never in range for him to double q without using W to close distance first? Of course it doesn't. You have a heal and an equally damaging set of tools at your disposal.
I hope this helped some of you. If you liked this blog post, feel free to look through my other blog posts here:
http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/blog/cloudcarry
I have also been streaming a lot more often on twitch. I got a new computer recently and stream right around 720p. I main AD Carry, but I also top lane and jungle a fair amount.
I am currently 14-9 with Platinum 5 0 LP.
http://www.twitch.tv/cloudcarry
Now, I am not going to specifically say that counter-picks don't exist or don't work across multiple tiers, but when theorycrafting a matchup, there are multiple things to consider. The most important thing to consider is that if a matchup works in your favor on paper, this assumes you are playing optimally and not making any mistakes. Most importantly, your own personal skill with certain champions, your ability to pull off different strategies, and how this relates to everyone else in the game, is what matters most. You could completely lose a certain matchup after a gank, without knowing it, and counter pick yourself that way. Knowing when a counter pick IS a counter pick, and when it's not, will save you a lot of heartache and ELO.
Scenario 1
Lets say I'm going to play a game of top lane. I usually "reverse-fill" in solo queue (meaning I take what's left even if I am second or third pick), although I sometimes pick what I want when I am first pick, and I never support unless I am forced into it. Now, the enemy team has already locked Nasus and a (probably) support champion in Lulu. This leaves multiple choices with their team composition. We are blue side, I am third in pick order and we already have an ad carry locked in Draven. Some things I want to consider when I am about to pick are:
"Will second pick take top, since he didn't say anything (and if so what else would I pick)?"
"What champions do I play well against Nasus top?"
"If I pick a counter to Nasus, will they send him jungle instead? Should I expect him to be top at all?"
The answer to all of these questions is that you just don't know. Second pick could instalock tryndamere with 4 seconds left to pick, leaving me confused and completely unprepared for my pick. You may see people dodging these types of games (which isn't a bad idea), but you may avoid this situation by being more analytical. I may have noticed, that I know the matchup of Jax vs. Nasus, and am also comfortable playing Jax against many compositions and lane opponents. I can safely pick him. Now, it's also useful to note that I can also play Jax as a jungler. That is not to say it's a good pick, but at the very least, if second pick locks a top laner at the last second (or maybe he wants to jungle Tryndamere) at least I have someone who is capable of doing both things, and I am comfortable with either one.
Scenario 2: Let's say I am 4th pick on purple side (with the intention of picking for top lane) and our last pick has called support. As we get to our picks, I may notice that they have a Nasus, a Khazix, and a Leblanc. Now this is not to say that they couldn't take Leblanc support, but 90% of the time, the lane assignements will be Leblanc mid, Nasus top and Khazix jungle. I know this because of my knowledge of the meta, current popular picks in what lanes, team compositions, and mostly because I have the experience of my previous games to aid me in my decisions, even in champ select. There is also the possibility that they will put Khazix top, but it may be worth it in this situation to go for a direct counter pick to Nasus (or more simply, the champion I do best with against Nasus).
I have decided upon picking Teemo. Now, I do understand that not every person is capable of playing against a Nasus top and Khazix jungle as Teemo, due to the amount of pressure Khazix may decide to put on top, but for me I am comfortable with this and pick it anyway. Some things I need to consider are Khazix's jungle route and that I am most vulnerable pre 6. I want to lane aggressively against Nasus to put him in a defensive pattern before Khazix is able to gank. If I let Nasus farm or lane safely at full health, I will 100% lose lane after a Khazix gank, if not feed them a kill and assist in the process. The correct play for me is to shove lane early and put as much auto attack harass unto Nasus as I can at lvl 1. Now, if Khazix tries to gank me, I can probably at least trade 1 for 1 and deny a mountain of cs to Nasus (but it probably will go to Khazix, which is bad for our team). I do know, however, that this has the highest likelihood of success out of my champion pool.
Even if I have to leash red or blue buff for my jungler, it's important that I get to lane early and hit lvl 2 fast. It's likely that Khazix will do a jungle clear in order to gank top first (he may even decide to camp it because Nasus will outscale Teemo hard if he gets enough help).
With all of this in mind, I shove up early on (making it harder to gank me by controlling the minion wave and stacking my minions with which to fight upon), and keeping Nasus low and underleveled.
There is a distinct point in this matchup where I need to be careful, but I will try to not afford Nasus too much breathing room, because as Teemo, you need to play a high pressure lane in order to make an impact on the game. If you don't understand what high pressure laning is, it's basically when you are doing questionable things in order to force other people to come to your lane (like csing, pushing, overharassing or all of these at once). If noone comes to your lane, you win because you played like an idiot with no punishment. If people DO come to your lane, as long as you don't give up much and waste a lot of their time, you STILL win.
This reason is because the pressure I put on top lane frees up other lanes that may need some breathing room. This allows for overall better play across the team. Bot lane may notice the jungle has shown top and decides for an all in double kill. They push to tower, recall and snowball the lane with this information.
Quick Recap
What is our title? "Champion Picks and the Developing Meta"
What can we divulge from this title? We can easily see that the subject of this piece is: "to discuss in some way shape or form, individual champion picks as they relate to our ever changing meta." Now, with that in mind, we may notice two emerging patterns here. Understanding how this thought process effects multiple different things, may make you think twice about what you thought you know about this game. We have two wildly different situations that call upon the same skillset:
1.Decision Making in Champion Select (in relation to your team comp, their team comp, and what lane you expect to play versus).
2.Time Optimization for Junglers
"What lanes should I gank as the jungler, what do I farm, and when do I do that?"
Knowing what we know now, let us move on to Scenario 3:
Scenario 3: You are first pick on blue side. Your favorite champions are banned and noone is talking in champion select. What do you pick?
Well you may decide that picking your best champion is applicable here. This is probably true, regardless of potential counter picks, but it's important you know what those are, and how to play each matchup. In fact, it may be that you want to bait out a certain matchup because you know it so well, or maybe it's smarter to pick a champion that does well against most matchups here.
So now that we've talked about champion picks, how does this relate to the meta and our own individual choices as players? Well you see, it's all very interconnected. Not one thing is ever going to be unconditionally better than another. There are playstyles to consider, personal skill levels, teamwork/synergy between a random set of 5 people, and individual mastery of champions. The thing that can be said about meta though, is that there will always be a "perceived set of champions, that do their job extremely well, and will usually be a good pick for X and Y reasons." Now it doesn't matter what X and Y reasons are, as long as you understand what they are, and what implications they have upon each other. For instance, you may know that Leblanc is becoming a popular mid pick again (I hate that champion), but you are completely fine playing ap nidalee against that matchup most of the time. As long as you play passively, farm and ward the sides (so Leblanc can't roam, get kills and objectives, and outscale you), you WILL outscale her and provide a lot more teamfight utility than her in an even game. Obviously at some point, a team fight may break out and Leblanc gets a few kills, but you are a great nidalee and confident in your ability to do well. Even if some would consider this a counter pick (I'm not actually sure if it is, this is just an example), you know the matchup well enough to pick it, and that's reason enough to do it.
Another time I may "counterpick" myself is when I am playing against Caitlyn. Now, I know the matchups versus Caitlyn on almost every AD Carry, but I prefer to pick Vayne against her. At the very top level of play, I will get punished for this and probably have a few games where I'm completely useless due to the jungler camping, their support flash stunning me, and overall great early game play and tower pressure from Caitlyn. I also know, however, that I will win the matchup if I get a few good ganks or dragons, and I usually go even in farm against this lane. I can depend on my mechanical skill to carry me through the bad matchup. It may not be the smartest pick, but it works for me. If I don't give up kills, the matchup is in my favor. Conversely, Caitlyn is now forced to make plays and play aggressively in order to win, which will open her up to ganks.
The point I am trying to make here, is that it is unconditionally better to pick what you are comfortable picking rather than trying to adhere to a certain meta. When the meta shifts, you can expect other people to pick up on this too and switch their champion pool around. I am the first to admit that I was ignoring Mundo until I saw how effective he is in season 4 top lane(even after the nerfs to sunfire and spirit visage). I don't always pick him up now, but he's in my top lane champion pool. You can expect similar levels of adoption of the meta by other players. Everyone kind of does their own thing, even if that thing is to blindly conform to every meta shift. For me, it's just easier to play around it and know why certain things are strong and learn how to play against and with that, as well as potentially playing it, myself, when it's up. Some may consider that adhering to the meta, but this is not the argument we are here to pursue.
Now, everyone is capable of doing this, but I can theorycraft matchups in my head. (I may consider things like who is stronger at lvl 2 and 3, or who is the better all in and at what level? Does he have ignite? etc.) I know that Mundo will be a decent pick against high health champions, even if he has a few hard matchups. Does this mean that I blindly pick him now every game because the meta says he's op? No, I probably won't pick him into Shyvana, because that would not fit my playstyle. I know Shyvana will outpressure me, and if I want to win my lane, I would do better to pick a champion that I know better, like Darius or Jax. That is not to say it's not possible for Mundo to win against Shyvana with no jungle help, I just know that it's not likely since he will out push me and roam for free all game. That's not something I am willing to pick into unless I know my team will be able to use a Mundo to our advantage (not a good assumption to make in solo queue). In fact, in competitive you see this matchup so much because of Mundo's propensity to deal with Shyvana and scale relatively well against the rest of the team (not necessarily how he scales versus Shyvana or how he does IN LANE versus Shyvana).
In summation: Hard counter picks don't exist. They exist only insofar as your ability to play that champion correctly, not make mistakes, and play a certain strategy against them. I do, however, believe in "soft" counter picking. Basically, I would consider it a soft counter to pick Lee Sin jungle against Vi jungle. If I invade on him early, I can outduel him. He probably outscales me at every other point in the game, but if I play correctly, I have a good chance to shut him down and make his impact much less than it would be. There is no "hard counter" to Vi. League of Legends is designed so any hero can beat any other hero. It may be true that Teemo beats Nasus in a straight up 1v1 most of the time, but that doesn't mean it's a hard counter (in my opinion), because I could get camped by the jungler, completely lose a 4v5 fight because of my lack of teleport, or more simply, I could die to him 1v1 3 times and instantly lose the game for my team. I am weakest as soon as I hit lvl 6, because both he and the jungler are likely around lvl 6 as well and I haven't had time to establish my "mushroom fortress."
So when you see people talking about counter picks, what lanes you need to gank, why you should do this or that, just remember that it all involves you. If you aren't comfortable doing something, then don't do it. Understand why you don't want to do it, what you would be more comfortable with, and analyze the effect this has on the team. Mechanics permitting, if you follow this thought process throughout the game and in champion select, you will see a marked improvement in your play as a result of analyzing the game.
Far few people know how to theorycraft correctly. Let us not think of things in terms of raw numbers and fancy calculations. Think of things in the practical sense. Does it really make a difference that Leblanc outbursts a Nidalee on paper, if you are never in range for him to double q without using W to close distance first? Of course it doesn't. You have a heal and an equally damaging set of tools at your disposal.
I hope this helped some of you. If you liked this blog post, feel free to look through my other blog posts here:
http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/blog/cloudcarry
I have also been streaming a lot more often on twitch. I got a new computer recently and stream right around 720p. I main AD Carry, but I also top lane and jungle a fair amount.
I am currently 14-9 with Platinum 5 0 LP.
http://www.twitch.tv/cloudcarry
I always understood pressure as = forcing the enemy to do certain things that either benefit your team/you, or force the enemy to choose between 2 bads. Not necessarily playing like and idiot, more like, taking risks and making plays - quite the contrary.
Pure first hand experience is a great tool in dealing with "counterpicks". People say
Aaaand I'm pretty sure
Agreed. I guess I could have worded that a little better.
Pure first hand experience is a great tool in dealing with "counterpicks". People say
Aaaand I'm pretty sure
Can someone tl;dr this for me?
Thanks
Basically put, the concept of countering isn't exactly something one should too heavily consider. There are many factors in champion choosing beyond that, such as your actual skill with that champion. Really, people should be able to read long, heavy text. It's a skill people are no longer applying :A:
Thanks