Meta. A word uttered or heard by any competitive gamer at some point in time. What is it? And why is it so prevalent? Meta by definition is the overall determined heroes, legends, champions, agents, etc that are the most optimal to play at a certain time. This is determined by the pro-competitive scene for each game title for one particular reason. These players want to win and thus will always strive to find and play the best compositions that they can play. Yes, you have the odd teams and players who play off-meta, but it is called off-meta for that reason. It is not the norm. As a result of this meta will always exist in competitive games. Two of the games that represent the meta quite clearly are Overwatch and Valorant. There are of course other games that have a clearly defined meta, but these are the two that I feel represent meta really well. Another thing to add is that whenever major patches come out in games there is always this big rush and craze surrounding it with teams and players trying to figure out where everything fits in. The craze around it often feels quite similar to that of the craze surrounding Christmas, where everyone awaits the 25th of December, and in this case, the day the patch is released.

Overwatch is a perfect example of how meta driven competitive play is and most importantly its pro scene. Since its release, we have seen multiple metas such as dive meta with heroes like Winston, D.Va, Tracer, Genji, Ana, and Lucio. The GOATS meta which revolved around Reinhardt, D.Va, Zarya, Lucio, Brigitte, and Zenyatta. And finally, the double shield meta that had Orisa and Sigma as tanks, with either the brawl style of Doomfist or Mei, Reaper, Moira, and Lucio or the spam style with Hanzo, Mei, Baptiste, and Zenyatta.

Now with hero pools being added to the game which means one tank, two DPS, and one support being banned for a week at a time, the meta comps have changed week to week. These meta comps have all derived from the three main composition types in Overwatch; dive, brawl, and spam. Looking at the three prevalent metas prior each type appears. All of these are centered around the main tank, whether it be Winston (dive), Reinhardt (brawl), or Orisa (spam). In saying this it is not necessarily the main tanks themselves that determine the compositions that are played but they will determine how you approach the composition overall. There is also the addition of hybrid compositions that mesh together at least two of these composition types but that is far more intricate.

As Jonn Spector, the Vice President of the Overwatch League said on Plat Chat, an unofficial Overwatch podcast done by some of the talent for the Overwatch League, “The entire point of hero pools was to try and get teams out of ‘this is the meta, this is what we have to play’. But, no matter what you do, it’s what they go back to as they spend all week trying to find the best six heroes”. This is clear evidence of how important meta is to pro players and teams as even when they are given more license to play different heroes they still try to find the best six.

Finally, regarding Valorant, the game has not been out for long and we are already seeing a meta start to develop in pro play. Agents like Brimstone, Breach, Cypher, Jett, and Sage seeing a lot of playtime in these early stages, it is clear that even in the early stages of games, meta will still be prevalent. So far none of the agents in Valorant are unfun for players to play, however, there are agents that are generally seen as the most fun to play. The duelists, most specifically Raze and Reyna are two of the top agents in terms of actual fun when playing them, do not even see that much playtime at the pro level meaning the agents picked are for their strength as opposed to which ones are fun to play.

Even when I first started thinking about how agents would be picked, I was thinking more towards we would see two duelists, one controller, one sentinel, and an initiator. My thinking like this shows how entrenched meta is in my own thoughts that for a game which I am only playing casually I would even think about what would be best to play together.

Ultimately, there is a lot more to talk about regarding meta and how it influences games, but this is enough to show that meta does exist in competitive games no matter what. Whether it be through the constant of Overwatch pro players and teams going to the six strongest heroes in a week or Valorant already having a meta in its early stages, it is evident.