The Myth of the Metagame (And How to Break It)
Every time we play a computer game, card game, or even a sport, we hear about the metagame.
People often describe it as the “right way” to play. The strongest strategies, the best characters, the items everyone rushes, the approaches the top teams lean on. Anything off-meta tends to be viewed as weaker, or something that only works in rare situations.
But is that actually true? Not really. And here’s why.
The meta is basically an invisible agreement between the strongest teams in a region, or sometimes the world, about what the best way of playing the game is at that moment. It includes champions, strategies, tactics, and even habits.
And it’s never still. The metagame is a living thing. In most games, the meta from two or three weeks ago can feel completely different, even when the patch hasn’t changed. As teams adapt, counterpicks and new ideas appear to challenge what’s popular, and the cycle continues. That’s why the meta keeps shifting.
Even in very stable or unbalanced metas, players eventually find ways to bend or break what seems “solved.”
But here’s an important point: every team is built differently. Different players, different coaches, different ways of thinking, different strengths, different weaknesses. Because of all this, no two teams can execute the same strategy at the same level. Even if they try to copy each other, they won’t get identical results.
Two things follow from that:
The meta is always changing, so no one has fully solved the current version.
Your team’s natural tendencies create your own path to that solution.
This is why I say the metagame is a myth. It’s a moving goalpost, and it looks slightly different for every team. When teams benchmark themselves only through the conclusions of others, they limit their growth. They stop discovering what they could actually become.
So how do you find the best way to approach the meta?
Most teams start by trying to play meta. They test what they can execute at a high level, and they slowly identify what they can’t. Then they accept their limitations and look for ways to hide or patch them.
I suggest the opposite. Start with your team’s identity and work from there. Build around what your players do best. Then take the pieces of the meta that fit you, not the other way around. That’s how you create something stronger, something more honest, and something opponents won’t be ready for.
Identity-Driven Teams vs Meta-Driven Teams
The mental and emotional advantage
Identity-driven teams create a mental load imbalance. You think less. They think more.
You’ve practiced your stuff into depth. You’ve run it into their meta champions and standard strategies, over and over.
They haven’t practiced their things into yours.
By experiencing more unusual situations, your team pushes more patterns into the subconscious. You don’t need to think as much to make the right call. Your opponents do. And the more they think, the slower and less confident they become.
Identity-driven teams also creat an emotional imbalance. You feel confident in your quirky approach. They usually don’t. They start by disrespecting you and end up feeling confused.
They think your picks or strategies are bad, so they feel overconfident. As soon as they notice things working for you, their mindset shifts. They go from “these guys are trolling” to “how is this even working?” That swing creates doubt and confusion.
The risks of playing off-meta
If it were only advantages, every team would play off-meta. But there are real risks on your side:
If someone in your team doesn’t fully believe the pick or strategy is legit, they’ll experience the same emotional swing your opponents do, from fake confidence to “I knew this was bad.”
If you show the strategy too often, teams gather information, adapt, and eventually punish it.
Off-meta ideas often rely on an information imbalance. When both teams understand the same thing, the off-meta option usually becomes weaker. If it were truly superior in all cases, it would simply become meta. The meta shifts toward strength.
That’s why time usually works against you. The more you run a non-meta approach, the easier it is for others to prepare and counter it.
This doesn’t mean you can only use it once or twice. It means it has to evolve. You need to anticipate how the meta will respond and stay ahead of that reaction. I wrote more about that in my article on self-exploitation.
When you’re wrong
Sometimes you’ll believe something is strong for your team, and it simply isn’t strong enough. That happens. It’s part of the process.
But here’s the thing: the same happens when you follow the meta.
Playing meta gives you a structure. It gives you a path most people agree is correct. Because most teams follow it, you’re less likely to make a massive structural mistake. And as a result, others won’t gain a huge edge over you by default.
Prioritizing identity gives you structure too, but it’s a different one. There’s a higher chance you make a bigger mistake, and at the same time, a higher chance you discover something that puts you ahead of everyone else. You’re exploring a path that fewer teams walk.
Many teams try to master the meta and still fail at it. It’s common. You think the meta is the strongest, but you later realize only a part of it fits your team. The rest doesn’t translate into high-quality gameplay.
So yes, you can be wrong when you choose something off-meta. And you can be wrong when you choose to follow the meta. There’s no guaranteed safe path.
The upside of playing meta is that it usually prevents a very low floor. You avoid catastrophic mistakes in drafts or strategy that come from misunderstanding the fundamentals. But if you know your team well, it’s less likely that prioritizing identity lowers your ceiling. It’s more likely that it protects the ceiling while slightly raising the floor in the long run, because the team is learning in a direction that matches who they are.
Trust and accountability
Playing off-meta also tests the trust players have in the coaching staff. When a team follows the meta and something doesn’t work, the blame usually falls on the players. “We just can’t play this champ.” “We misplayed the fight.” It’s rarely about the strategy itself.
But when you go off-meta and it fails, the blame shifts.
Now it’s the coach who “picked a bad champion” or “forced a weird idea.”
This is part of the job. Identity-driven teams need more trust and more shared commitment. When it works, it builds confidence. When it fails, it exposes cracks. The emotional risk is real, but so is the potential reward.
Are You Suited to Break the Meta?
Anyone can try, but some combinations of players and staff have a much higher chance of making it work. Off-meta play demands a certain mindset, and not every environment is ready for it.
1. Coaches’ belief
In the last article, we talked about the Belief–Action chain and how it caps a team. The same thing applies here.
You need to believe that prioritizing identity over the meta is not only valid but sometimes superior. That belief shifts your perception. What once looked like a “cheese strategy” starts looking like “a weird idea with potential.” And once that shift happens, you naturally begin applying your knowledge through that lens. You practice the strategy, refine it, and turn it into something real.
2. Players’ belief (and actions)
Your players need to believe too, and you can usually see it in how they behave.
Do they pick strange champions in SoloQ?
Do they play in ways that aren’t standard?
Are they creative in how they solve problems or approach the game?
If they do these things and get good results, they often get labeled as “great players.” If they don’t get good results, people say their playstyle is bad or that the champions don’t work.
Sometimes that’s true, but sometimes it’s because the team doesn’t understand how to support those ideas, or the player is using them in the wrong situations.
If you see the willingness to deviate from the standard, don’t treat it as a problem. Treat it as a feature. There’s real potential there waiting to be shaped.
3. Skillsets
Players with very strong strengths and very clear weaknesses are usually better suited for off-meta. They struggle to adapt to the meta, but they shine when the strategy bends toward their strengths.
More flexible players with fewer weaknesses adapt well to the meta, but they don’t gain as much from breaking it.
Mentally volatile teams struggle with the “bad decision” moments that come with experimentation. Only genuine belief keeps them steady when the early versions fail.
Weak staff leadership makes off-meta almost impossible. Without strong guidance, the team won’t buy in, and playing meta becomes safer simply because it avoids internal conflict.
Should you go for it?
A quick checklist to help you judge whether your team is built to innovate or better off staying within the meta.
Where can you break the meta?
Most people think breaking the meta is only about champion picks, but it goes far beyond that. You can break it through strategies, tactics, and even the rhythm of how you play.
Some examples for LoL:
In champion select: off-meta picks, flexing champions into unusual lanes, role-swapped champions, forgotten picks, or old counters that still work.
In playstyle: lane swaps, different ways of transitioning lane pressure, being aggressive in a control-oriented patch, split pushing in a teamfight meta, or using tempo trades when most teams prefer grouping.
The real value shows up when you start combining these ideas. Because every game is played with incomplete information, a little bit of weirdness in multiple areas shifts how opponents read the map. They hesitate, second-guess, or simply lose track of what’s happening.
As a simple rule of thumb: break the meta where your natural strengths give you leverage. Look for the places where a small adjustment gives you a big return, and where your team can get ahead without forcing something unnatural.
The Process of Creating Your Own Meta
You need four steps.
1. Beliefs
As mentioned earlier, nothing works without belief.
Believe that new strategies exist beyond the current meta. Believe that identity matters more than imitation. Believe that your roster can innovate if you give them space and direction.
2. Player-driven discovery
During your weekly preparation meeting, ask players about their comfort picks, any weird champions they’re enjoying, and anything unusual they’ve seen popping off in SoloQ or in other regions.
Agree on which ones are worth testing, and add a few games with those champions as individual work.
Each morning, check whether they played those champions. If they did, ask for their impressions. See if the pick is getting closer to being scrim-ready. If they didn’t test it, nudge them.
3. Staff-driven discovery
As staff, you also have homework. Look at other regions for off-meta picks and strategies. SoloQ can provide ideas too, even outside the highest elo.
Studying top one-tricks helps as well. They often do things pros ignore. If you stay open-minded, you’ll find hidden gems.
Focus on champions that fit your players’ strengths, and bring those options to them consistently.
4. Testing ladder
Every off-meta pick or tactic should follow a simple ladder: SoloQ → Scrim → Stage.
You can test almost anything in SoloQ. The numbers vary depending on the champion, but as a baseline, aim for a minimum of 10 SoloQ games before bringing it into scrims, and roughly 10 scrims before it’s ready for stage play.
Some picks change how the entire composition works, and those take longer. You might spend weeks preparing them. That doesn’t mean testing them every day; it means sprinkling tests across different scrims while doing the theory work outside of them.
For tactics, SoloQ often isn’t a realistic environment. In that case, test them with comfort picks. Don’t combine new tactics and new champions at the same time.
Remember, never test:
multiple off-meta champions at once
off-meta comps and new champions simultaneously
radically new archetypes without proper preparation (VOD review, strategy meetings, rehearsals, etc.)
The Cherry on Top: Aggression
Combine off-meta picks and tactics with aggressive gameplay to push the cognitive load even higher for your opponents.
They already need extra mental energy to deal with champions or strategies they don’t fully understand. When you add consistent aggression on top of that, you shorten their decision windows. You give them less time to think, and that naturally increases the chances they make mistakes.
Yes, playing aggressively increases your own mistakes too. But the impact is smaller for you because the windows your opponents can punish are fewer and less obvious. You’ve practiced your identity more than they’ve practiced playing against it. You know the patterns. They don’t.
The more you lean into your identity and the more reps you get, the more advantages you create in those rare, messy situations that decide games. And when those moments start going your way, the effect snowballs.
Closing Thoughts
Creating your own meta (and eventually breaking it) is about building a style that reflects who you are as a team and committing to it long enough for others to struggle against it. The meta will always shift, but your strengths and how well you understand them can become stable anchors.
Most teams follow the meta because it feels safe. It creates a sense of certainty. But the teams that grow the most are the ones willing to question the default answers, test new ideas, and trust their identity even when it looks unusual from the outside.
If you stay curious, test deliberately, and stay honest about who you are as a team, you will shape the meta. And once you’re the one defining the game, your opponents start the match a step behind.
