2012-04-22, 07:58 PM
So although the meta is bruiser top, ap mid, support + range ad bot, and usually tank/bruiser jungle, there are other options available. I have seen double jungle work before, but it's a rather gimmicky strategy that falls apart once you get to a certain level of teamwork. Against anyone with no coordination and people who like to push a ton, it's devastating, against anyone who plays reasonable safe and smart, probably not going to work so well. The reason being, the longer the game goes on, the worse having two underleveled champions start to be. It can already be hard enough with just a support who is underleveled, but to have both your jungler and what would be our support be undereleveled means you really have to rely on the other 3 people of your team to do all the heavy work in team fights. And come mid to late game, that's just not enough most of the time. It can work if you really make one of the hyper carries get a huge lead, or otherwise gimp the enemy team to an even greater extent than your team, but again, you're relying on them making mistakes rather than your own play, so it's not going to work all the time and you're also relying on the rest of your team to play pretty much flawlessly as it's more of a 3 v 5, or 3 v 4, than a 5 v 5.
Now that's not to say that the current meta is perfect as is, or that you can't change things up. Corki, Caitlyn, Vayne could go top. Ez, Ashe, Graves could do jungle. Karthus, Ziggs, Cass could go bot, though when you do that you generally want Soraka to go with them, so that's another gimmicky bot lane imo. Anyway, you can also do kill lanes bot, to some extent Graves + Taric does that, but you can do stuff like Jarvan + Leona, Pantheon + anyone else with a stun, or something like Lux + Garen. You could also go for a pure harass lane, something like Maokai + Zilean or Nidalee + Soraka or GP + Talon. Not all of those are optimal lanes, and if they don't win their lanes, it can be very bad for your team, but the important thing is that there are combinations that will work that don't follow the meta exactly. Still, it's hard to break out of the current meta because it's proven to be a very successful strategy. If you follow it, you generally ensure your range ad gets farmed, your ap gets the levels to do it's burst, and your bruisers are tanky enough to get to the enemy range ad, and that your jungler can influence the lanes via ganks. Unless the jungle or lanes change some more, I don't think we'll see any vast changes. Though, we might get to a point that people figure out specific combos against specific bot lane comps. Which could make things more interesting. After all, if you know w + x champion beats y + z champion, you're going to run that bot lane to destroy them. So then you move y champion to top or mid, and put your AP bot to beat that comp, but then maybe there's a counter to that AP Carry you can send bot, so then it has to jungle or top. And so on, to the point that picks and bans become that much more valuable, even though they already are very important.
Now that's not to say that the current meta is perfect as is, or that you can't change things up. Corki, Caitlyn, Vayne could go top. Ez, Ashe, Graves could do jungle. Karthus, Ziggs, Cass could go bot, though when you do that you generally want Soraka to go with them, so that's another gimmicky bot lane imo. Anyway, you can also do kill lanes bot, to some extent Graves + Taric does that, but you can do stuff like Jarvan + Leona, Pantheon + anyone else with a stun, or something like Lux + Garen. You could also go for a pure harass lane, something like Maokai + Zilean or Nidalee + Soraka or GP + Talon. Not all of those are optimal lanes, and if they don't win their lanes, it can be very bad for your team, but the important thing is that there are combinations that will work that don't follow the meta exactly. Still, it's hard to break out of the current meta because it's proven to be a very successful strategy. If you follow it, you generally ensure your range ad gets farmed, your ap gets the levels to do it's burst, and your bruisers are tanky enough to get to the enemy range ad, and that your jungler can influence the lanes via ganks. Unless the jungle or lanes change some more, I don't think we'll see any vast changes. Though, we might get to a point that people figure out specific combos against specific bot lane comps. Which could make things more interesting. After all, if you know w + x champion beats y + z champion, you're going to run that bot lane to destroy them. So then you move y champion to top or mid, and put your AP bot to beat that comp, but then maybe there's a counter to that AP Carry you can send bot, so then it has to jungle or top. And so on, to the point that picks and bans become that much more valuable, even though they already are very important.