Breaking the Meta: Non-Standard LoL Comps That Win You More Games
Over the years, players have developed meta strategies that are now widely adopted—representing the 'wisdom of the crowd'. However, are these strategies actually win consistently?
• Meta strategies in games represent the 'wisdom of the crowd'.
• In League of Legends, the Top-Jungle-Mid-ADC-Support-composition is seen as the standard, but not necessarily provides the best chances of winning.
• Analyzing matches from over 5.8 million players, the results show that non-meta comps can provide a consistent chance of winning above 50%.
• The TTMAS and TTTAS comps stand out as the best in general, and against the standard, meta, comp.
📖 The Meta Comp and It's Chance of Winning
In League of Legends, a meta strategy has formed, which has stabilized to a team of a Top, Jungle, Mid, ADC, and Support role. However, this 'wisdom of the crowd' may err and not provide the average player (or even pros) with the best chance of winning.
The researchers collected data from the EUW and NA servers. In total, they analyzed matches from 5,857,903 unique players. Across these matches, 78.4% and 72.8% played ranked team matches, respectively. The win rate, interestingly, was above 50% on both servers. Solo queue matches were 73.1% on EUW, and 69.7% on NA, with win rates of 50.3% and 50.4%.
🪜 Sometimes, breaking the rules is the fastest way to climb the ladder
The table above shows the results. I comprised the table so it only shows the solo and team ranked matches. On the left side, you can see the team comps that were played: T = Top, J = Jungle, M = Mid, A = ADC, and S = Support. n% is the percentage of teams that played that specific comp. W% is the win percentage, and WM % is the win percentage against the meta comp.
As you can see, playing TTMAS (Top, Top, Mid, ADC, Support) and TTTAS (3 Top, ADC, Support) had the highest win percentage overall and against the meta comp. Second rank took JMMAS—but it wasn't even close.
"One general trend that seems apparent is that some non-meta compositions seem to become more viable in the Ranked Team mode... For example, compositions such as TTMAS, TMMAS, TTJSM, and JJMAS are all fairly uncommon, but seem to hold an advantage over the meta - winning more than 53% of the time." [1]
When looking at the other side of the coin, TTJAS comps underperformed, compared to the meta, with a win percentage of only 46% to 48%. Some imbalanced (in a negative sense) comps ended up winning less than 30% in many cases.
"[In total] we also identified 28 non-meta compositions that have a statistically significant win rate above 50%. Additionally, for the ranked queue modes, many of the non-meta builds show a small (but consistent) advantage over the meta teams." [1]
🥡 The Takeaways
First: Yes, the meta is the meta for a reason. Most likely because it provides the players with an easy understanding of what and where to play that is somewhat stable. However, the results of this study show that there is room to eke out an advantage over your opponents. BUT (here it comes), the same is true for the 'wrong' comps. As the results show, picking a comp that performs worse (even below 30%) is an easy way to stay in Elo Hell.
Second, trial and error. Video games are supposed to be fun, so act like it. There is always room for trying something sneaky because you feel like it. Pick something out of the meta and see how it goes.
Hope you enjoyed this episode. See you next week,
Christian 🙂
References
[1]
