League of Legends is a patch-based game where the
meta can shift drastically within the span of just a few weeks, and we're gonna talk about some of
the worst metas that the pro scene has ever seen, starting with one of the earliest metas in the
game's history, Season 2's Black Cleaver meta. Sometimes referred to as "League of Cleavers",
it's hard to identify exactly *why* Black Cleaver meta would rear its head, but looking back, most
players can agree it was due to the stackable nature of items during the earlier seasons.
Items could be bought multiple times without any reduction in stats or effectiveness, leading
to bruisers stacking and abusing Black Cleaver, which could give upwards of 3,000 health, 40%
maximum cooldown reduction, 300 attack damage, 80 flat armor penetration on top of percent
armor penetration. Bruisers were walking around with 4,000 HP, 500-600 AD, and all of the armor
pen they could ever dream of. In a meta where many community members previously considered
building armor items to be quite powerful, there was no room for other classes to be picked,
as Black Cleaver was the only item that was needed for players to find success. Even support and
mage champions ended up giving into the Black Cleaver hysteria, with champions like Janna
teching Black Cleaver into their build and tier lists being created with physical damage
dealers with Black Cleaver on top, mages with Black Cleaver in the middle, and champions who
didn't build Black Cleaver on the bottom.
This meta was eventually phased out fairly quickly
with the introduction of unique passives, but it took Riot a much longer time to phase out one of
the most memorable metas to date, the Worlds 2017 Ardent Censer meta. On its release, Ardent Censer
wasn't anything special, being just another buff item for the enchanter class to use to give their
ADCs a bit of extra power. The item was good, but it was overshadowed by more powerful support
items at the time, like Locket of the Iron Solari and Sightstone. This all changed on patch 7.2 when
Riot would buff Ardent Censer, nearly doubling the stats that it provides on a healed or shielded
target, unlocking an entirely new playstyle, and shifting the meta completely to something
nobody would have expected. The effect on the meta that this change would have would become painfully
evident during Worlds 2017. Team comps were built entirely around bot lane hyper carries like Varus,
Xayah, and Twitch, and who could enable their ADC more through bulky frontlines, control mages,
and enchanters who could build Ardent Censer like Janna and Lulu. Games were played around
and decided by a single champion on each team, and no other role mattered except for the AD
carries. Through a combination of community outrage and the glaringly stale and broken meta
that these changes would bring, the conclusion of Worlds 2017 meant that Riot would finally nerf
Ardent Censer and put an end to one of the most infamous and PTSD-inducing metas to date.
While it took Riot a whole 15 patches to even touch Ardent Censer, everybody was excited
for Season 2023 to finally shake things up, but what we ended up with was months and months
of the same stale, grueling meta. Zeri-Lulu, Lucian-Nami. These two bot lane duos dominated
the meta in what pro players, casters, analysts, and co-streamers would call one of the most boring
metas League of Legends has ever seen. The lack of change and innovation in the season 13 preseason
meant that not a lot changed between the previous world championship and patch 13.1, leading pro
players to collectively agree that this is how the game should be played and optimized. Pro play
had become both teams handshaking these two bot lane duos alongside tank junglers like Maokai and
Vi and control mages in the mid lane such as Azir, Ahri, and Viktor. It would be months and months
of the same 15 champions being recycled and redrafted before innovation by top players
T1 Keria and Gumayusi would eventually shake up the meta single-handedly with picks like
Ashe, Caitlyn, and even Draven support.
This innovation would last well into season
13, but it would take a lot more to shift the meta away from the gold funneling meta that we saw
back in season 8. The term "gold funneling" refers to teams trying to give all of their gold to one
player on the team, usually the jungler, in hopes that they become strong enough to take over the
game on their own. Instead of traditional mage or assassin mid laners, teams would draft an
additional support champion in the mid lane like Taric, Braum, or Nunu and a hyper carry jungler
like Master Yi, Kai'sa, or Karthus. Junglers would initially start the game normally, clearing jungle
camps as fast as possible so that they could walk mid lane and pick up additional waves to skyrocket
their gold income far above other champions in the game. Due to the discrepancy in gold and EXP,
opposing junglers would have to sit there in silence, watching as the enemy counterpart takes
over the game. What started out as a solo queue elo-boosting strategy would later bleed into pro
play, with even the best team in the world at the time, SKT T1, breaking out a Taric-Master Yi
combo in their games against Gen. G and Kingzone DragonX utilizing Xayah-Rakan Jungle-Mid
duo against SKT T1 in LCK Summer 2018.
Changes to jungler items later caused gold income
to be reduced if a jungler had killed too many lane minions, leading to this strategy becoming
an obsolete shell of its former self, much like the horrendous mistake that was the roaming
support top lane strategy of season 12. One of the common complaints about top lane in season
12 was the lack of impact that the role had on the game. With repeated nerfs to teleport and a heavy
jungle and bot-lane centric meta, top laners were left feeling neglected. Heres where the the smite
support top strategy of early season 12 comes into play. Top laners would begin picking champions
like Janna or Lulu with Smite and roam around the map the entire game. Starting from level 1,
the smite support top strategy involved invading the enemy jungler, smiting their camps away from
them, ganking endlessly, and doing anything they could do to get their team ahead EXCEPT for going
top lane. With the lack of impact top laners had during this time, the lost gold and EXP from
being down a solo laner was felt much less than the impact that constant gank pressure and
jungle invades gave the team. This strategy was initially deemed troll, but later, it would catch
on even at the highest tiers of play, working its way through tier 2 leagues and eventually
even seeing action in the LCS, LCK, and LEC.
It wasn't until Riot finally implemented
further gold income changes for support items and restricted smite usage that this strategy
finally died down, but one strategy that seems to never die is the dreaded Tank meta that rears its
head every season or two. Tank meta has occurred numerous times throughout the history of League
of Legends, but what we'll be focusing on is the tank meta that occurred in the middle seasons
throughout 2015-2017. Throughout this period, tanks were undisputedly one of the strongest
classes in the game, with items like the newly introduced jungle item Cinderhulk, Sunfire Cape,
Frozen Heart, Frozen Gauntlet, and Spirit Visage all being core Tank items at the time. While these
items were quite strong, it wasn't until preseason 6 that Riot would introduce a new mastery system
to Summoner's Rift, giving tanks access to the keystone Grasp of the Undying, allowing tanks to
fully itemize into health and durability stats while also being able to keep up in damage due to
this new keystone, which both healed for 1.5% of a champion's maximum HP while also dealing 3% of
their health in pure damage. With just two items, most commonly Sunfire Cape and Spirit Visage,
tanks would have access to nearly 200 armor and magic resist, 3,000 health, loads of cooldown
reduction, and scaling damage on their auto attacks thanks to Grasp of the Undying. Even
champions that were commonly built as assassins, like Fizz and Ekko, would eventually start specing
into Tank items and finding more success than ever before. Combined with the fact that tank-busting
items weren't in a great spot at the time, this lead to hilariously long tank duels and unkillable
raid boss moments, where tanks would survive multiple spell rotations from fed enemy carries
and eventually win out in a war of attrition due to their sustain and overall durability.
As strong as tanks were during this time, it was the eventual release of
Ornn, perhaps the strongest tank in the history of League of Legends, that
was the eventual downfall of tank meta, as tanks would receive numerous nerfs across the
board while other classes like mages, marksman, and assassins would receive plenty of new buffs,
items, and updates. While currently, tanks are in a much healthier state than in earlier seasons,
few things are as inevitable as an upcoming tank meta, and it's only a matter of time before we'll
all be having the same conversations as before.
