The Stupidest Metas That ACTUALLY Existed 

Just a reminder that double shield was definitely still meta at the end of OW1, but it had gone on for such a long time that people just stopped running it.

They totally failed to convey why Blitz was so strong. The patch made it so that he could run with his shield in front of him instead of on his side (how it was previously and still is for other shield operators). That combined with his actual gadget, a giant flashlight mounted to his shield, basically a reusable flashbang to which he himself is immune, and his insanely low ads time was what made him terrifying. The speed buff was only the cherry on top.

goats. thats the video

I remember when the revolver came out on CS:GO. That thing was beyond busted. totally expected it to be in this video.

surprised the R8 meta wasnt on here its been years and I still remember thinking holy sh*t this game is done for

bucky meta still haunts me

I'd also put Blackbeard Shield on this list. Going from completely indestructible to becoming a Paper Mache shield. While it didn't exactly define a meta since it was only one hero out of ten it definitely became a what were the developers thinking moment when you look at the then vs now.

Can't forget apex legends seer meta. Still meta but getting 10 damage, blinded, deafening noise, and canceled healing and abilities from 75 meters away was kinda insane.

One meta that’s still extremely stupid is happening in Apex Legends right now. That is the Catalyst-Seer meta and it ruins the entire tournament. Basically being in a small confined space and everyone starts summoning walls that players can shoot through, while simultaneously throwing a wall hack ultimate so you can shoot them easily but they have trouble shooting you. You never get to see your enemies, you’re stuck behind the walls or risk getting destroyed due to blindness and movement fatigue, and the game is set to a halt until the walls come down, in which chaos ensues.

They missed the essence of the ha ha hi hi meta. Sniper's 3 charges of shrapnel was good and all, but what really mattered was Monkey King Bar. The item is a natural fit for Sniper and Troll Warlord, having both mini bashes and true strike on these heroes is insane. So as soon as they fixed Troll's passive not working properly and (as mentioned) buffed Shrapnel, the game just flooded with ranged perma-bashing monstrosities.

About shotguns in valorant, that's kinda how strong shotguns are in real life, imagine an expensive shotgun that did that, could be interesting to test, and maybe have as a smaller part of the meta.

Operation Chimera was soul crushing. Lion + and sort of explosive or blitz or jackal was an instant kill and Finkas ability combined with the lmg was a laser beam

The *dirty bubble meta* in smite was insane. Build full tank on characters that had high base damage and sustain and become unkillable while dealing far too much damage. This strategy was particularly broken on two gods, Thanatos and Ah Puch. The most interesting thing about the build on Ah Puch was that he was usually a bottom 3 character in the game, but with the dirty bubble meta, he was SS tier due to being unkillable but still having enough sustain that you force a trade in your favour.

In the "Overwatch clone" Paladins there was a Karn Meta... Karn is a Tank with a medium sized shield. He had a Battle shout to heal himself and near by allies. He had a Dash which grabs enemy's if he hits them, stuns them and throws them over his shoulder. His Ultimate grabs and stuns an enemy and you can hold them for some time or throw them away until they hit a wall (that is a insta kill on most maps if you throw them of the ledge). This over all wasn't the bad point. He had a talent you could choose that buffed the Battle shout to heal a lot more AND give everyone in range CC immunity. In Paladins there are a lot of moves that inflict some kind of CC (especially ultimates) and as a Karn you could press a key with 5 sec or so cool down to nullify all CC you're team could be hit by. I don't recall any ranked match that I lost playing Karn (he was baned most of the time to be fair). You could be the player with most damage, most kills, most heals and most damage taken... That was just stupid

I will never not love the zooming Blitz META 😂 I have so many fond memories of carefully droning out the site only to look over and see a team mate just sprinting towards the site like a bat out of hell and somehow nearly acing every round. Terrible for sure, but so funny when you benefit from it XD

The valorant bucky is among the most realistic depictions of a shotgun in video games. These things have deceptively long range, with the trade-off being the smaller ammo capacity and more frequent need to drop defenses and reload.

Ardent censer meta in League of Legends was a bigger problem and worse for the game than funneling I think. Literally every support had to rush this item and it ruined an entire Worlds meta iirc

Jankos thanking Riot so he doesn’t need to play Braum anymore was good 😂

Inting sion def should be on here. Having a person run it down 11 times while breaking every turret in the lane and solo winning the lane then becoming unkillable was alot of fun.

I gotta say, y'all missed the perfect opportunity to talk about Revtane in Apex Legends. Right around the time Revenant released, Octane ended up getting a buff to his jump pad, allowing for a second jump after launching and a 15% buff in distance or height depending on if you were sliding or standing. Then, Revenant got buffed because his pick-rate was among the lowest of new-release legends at the time. This buff allowed Revenant to have unlimited range on his ultimate, which gave you "Death Protection;" basically, you get 100 health to do whatever you want with and when someone kills you, you just get sent back to the totem with your previous shields and 50 health. Running someone like Bloodhound or Crypto who can scan as your third combined with the already egregious audio issues Apex is known for, and it became a nightmare to try to counter. Teams would full send you with their free push because there was no punishment. If you even heard it coming, you barely had enough time to reset to take the second fight. It was used somewhat amount the Octane meta (most teams ran Gibby to mitigate the silent pad issue) but really shined in ranked, so much so that they actually nerfed Revenant to mitigate the strategy. People also figured out that you could take Wraith portal with death protection to be there basically instantly with your second push as well. Needless to say, Revenant got his heirloom, then they choke-slammed Revenant into the ground, made up for it slightly with a buffed passive, and then haven't touched him since.

i wanna give a shoutout to Splatoon 2 for having not only some of the best and healthiest metas during a brief period of rock paper scissors between Dualies, Brellas, and Blasters, but for also having one of the WORST. Splatoon 3 had a sample of it, but like, the whole of splatoon 2 wasn't about if you were good with your main weapon, worked well in the team setting, or otherwise good at the game. it was about the global specials, the worst offender being Ink Armor due to it effectively eating up one hit of damage, which can be a lot if you use blasters or chargers. Sting Ray effectively made Tower Control unplayable once overtime was achieved. Temta Missiles were even worse in that it's a fire and forget "move or die" and only mitigated by mentioned ink armor. if you must touch Splatoon 2 nowadays, do so for the story mode and octo expansion.

Incineroar in Pokemon VGC (19 specifically), over 85% usage in all teams, more than any restricted Pokemon

Back in Dota 1 days, I knew someone who actually buys Lothars Edge for Rikimaru. I was laughing at the beginning and I was laughing even more when he won a game.

killjoy moaning after being killed 😭

Greatsword on release in Brawlhalla was easily the most broken thing I have ever played against in a videogame

respect for the SF4 nod. if you played the game during that era you know Street Fighter at the time was basically defined by Yun lol

Honorable mention: The Phlogistinator in TF2 The Negev in CSGO And Leroy Smith in Tekken 7 (Day 1)

the bucky meta sounds like The Valorant developers remembered how busted the model 1887 from MW2 from 09 was and thought "This is totally fine" and threw it into the game.

Surprised that the 3 support 3 tank meta in OW1 was not mentioned as that was what REALLY killed interest in OWL and ranked was insanely stagnant, even before Sigma and double shields came out.

I'm really surprised we don't have inting Sion with ZZ'rot portal and War Standart. He literally won games by running down one lane and there was no counter measure against him.

What did it for me was the Lion meta. Lion on release with Dokkaebi and Jackal didn't allow for any roaming. Your phone will be blasting while being pinged and having your silhouette in 4k. In a game where a headshot is a 1 shot - if you weren't on a Mute jammer you'd be fucked.

As bad as the Blitz meta was I still think the tracking meta was the worst. Jackal scan, Lion pulse, Dokkebi calls all at once were hell, plus that was 3 out of 5 attacker roles already spoken for with no hard breacher or anti gadget meaning team comp variety was at an all time low. A lot of attackers like Fuze, Capitao, or Sledge were considered complete throw picks just because picking them meant either not bringing an essential role or not matching the meta

"Sniper's Shrapnel ability was busted" shows Assassinate, doesn't even show Shrapnel.

Shout out to the Hearthstone players that had to sit through the Shudderwock meta. My jaws that bite...

Good thing you mentioned lane swap meta right at the end. That was nearly as atrocious as funneling meta. Lane swap eventually evolved to 2v0 meta because for top laner it was more beneficial to just abandon lane and duo jungle. So we'd get like 10-15min tier 2 turret down.

"Basically the entire point of Gold Funneling is to interact with the enemy team as little as possible, and just put all of your resources into a champion than can hard carry. And I feel like it's not fun to watch, it's not fun to play and it's especially not fun to play against." Yuumi:

The Blitz speed meta in Siege and the Solar Crest meta in Dota 2 are the most ridiculous metas in gaming history I've ever seen. I remember that triple Solar Crest Huskar meta back in the day, he can fountain farm like it's nothing.

Who remembers the spaz + slug mod on BFBC2? That shit was a literal sniper

i still remember how good sniper's (from Team Fortress 2) secondary slot the "Darwin's Danger Shield" was before the revamp because of its bullet resistance and additional health like when you fight sniper as a sniper you can't 1 shot him with a headshot like sniper's normal health were like 125 but with the DDS its 150 + 15% (bullet resistance) and with a normal headshot is like 150 minimum like a quick headshot. also i cannot forget spy's primary which is a revolver named "Ambassador" where he can headshot like a sniper at whatever distance he's in, although it's only 109 or something it's still broken but now they nerfed it with something like he only do less damage the farther away he's at the enemy. (sorry for bad english)

csgo's aug week or pocket awp r8 or laser negev are some other examples you guys could have included

Wow, a list where Overwatch still can shine.

I would also argue that for overwatch, the 2020 playoffs comp zarya hog was the stupidest, just because both tanks should not work together at all, and yet they did, and dominated most traditional winston dva or brawl comps at the time

Dead hard, adrenalin, DS and Unbreakable.... Dbd was ruled by it for a loooooooonnnng time

Evan and Roy being the sources for the blitz buff is so funny to me

Thought for sure I'd hear tank/Cinderhulk meta for league

A meta that was not mentioned in the video was a CSGO, Krieg meta, it was literally a nightmare to play against that weapon on the other side, the AK's practically disappeared from the game, the awpers were deleted in a blink of an eye, the cts trembled just from hear the noise of this demon but they cried with happiness when they saw one of them on the ground, dark times, but I even became an expert with this demon, you have to enjoy it while you can, today it is dead again with a much slower shot and accuracy worsened.

I know im late but I would love to bring up the fact that Mega-Kangaskhan had all of VGC in a chokehold for all of Pokemon X and Y. Its ability to break sash, go plus 2, on one power up punch, and just do absurd damage. You know its bad when you have ti dedicate 1-2 slots of either a steel type of intimidate mon to have a chance. Even when running a steel type you still ran the risk of Kangaskhan running eq

Noob combo meta in Halo 2, particularly pre-patch. You used to be able to grab the plasma pistol through the back wall of the base on Beaver Creek while still inside, and they respawned SO fast. MLG switched to a No Duals weapon set largely to mitigate the Combo meta.

Smite’s meta at the time of uploading could totally have made this list. Despite being a MOBA, it had Overwatch-level ttk, where you’d either die in half a second or take ages to go down, with ZERO in between.

Overwatch also had a meta which made the game change entirely into the 2-2-2 comp in OW1. Goats. 4 tanks and 2 healers, this comp aimed to force 6 vs 1 fights and just snowball into winning most fights that happen. Rein, Dva, Zarya, Roadhog, Brig and Lucio. This was probably the worst meta I've seen in OW when I was playing

when the SG and aug got buffed into the sky during that one patch in CS:GO and everyone was just using them over AK/M4. hated that shit

Ironically, that pre-nerf Bucky was likely closer to how far real shotguns could remain absolutely deadly.

LETS GOOO Bafael is amazing at explaining fighting games in deep

The Valorant Bucky thing is funny because its realistic. A 12 gauge shotgun firing 00 buckshot is doing the exact same thing as firing 10 rounds from a .38 revolver simultaneously and throwing them downfield in slowly expanding cone. The kill power on them does not start to drop once you exit 15 meters like most video games. If you manage to hit with them, you're gonna kill someone, the most capable defenses against them are projectile drop from being too far away and luck of the cone expanding too far and managing to miss you. So really, being over 100 yards away is your best chance of survival, an even that is a gamble. Then again, video games consider 50 yards to be "medium range" combat and 150 yards to be a "Sniper" so the scales are all screwed up to begin with.

How could you not mention the CS:GO’s R8 on release? I guess since it was only OP for like 2 days before the nerf, but still. Regardless, great video!

as someone who played a lot of shield tanks in overwatch like sigma and orisa as my 2 best tanks (albeit poorly played generally though bc i was like, silver to gold at best xD), i can say double shield was kinda crazy sometimes.

You also could've added the Sheeva stomp meta in MK11. There was an extended period of time in 2020 or so where Sheeva was an absolute menace of a character to play against. And you only needed to use the same 2 buttons over and over again to make 95% of the playerbase's lives HELL. It completely disregarded all skill and just destroyed basically everyone. It had little to no counterplay and someone who has never even touched a controller could have wrecked players with over 1000 hours on the game. They eventually nerfed it when the degeneracy was displayed on Twitch Rivals where thousands of people who didn't even play MK11 saw how busted that shit was.

This needs to be talked about more tbh 😂

I’m surprised that Black Beard’s shield, the super 90, or Warzone’s NZ41 weren’t on the list.

Paladins had a lot of hated metas. Before they reworked the card system, a lot of champions were broken. One example is Inara, who is supposed to be the tankest character in the game. Her primary fire was a staff that launched 3 stones. The legendary card, Wrath of Stagella, allowed her to one shot anything if she hit all 3. There was also pocket metas. Jenos's healing ability gave the targeted Ally a mark that heals over time. His talent, Luminary, made anyone with a mark deal 15% more weapon damage. Oh yeah, he also heals through walls. This got worse when Corvus was released. He could Mark 2 people indefinitely and give them movement speed and lifesteal. They also give them some healing when he heals someone no matter where they are. Also Corvus's dps is high at close range. Eventually they nerfed Luminary to 10%, which killed Jenos. They reworked it to an actual healing talent the next patch. Then there is Io. She had the unique mechanic of having a fox spirit named Luna a deployable that can cap the point and push. Goddess' Blessing also allowed her to give allies she heals 25% damage reduction (its single target heal). The goal of any team with Io was to win the point fight, put Luna on point in a position where the payload will spawn under her, and 5v5 the other team at their spawn until Luna pushed the payload. This lasted a long time because they didn't want to remove her unique mechanic, they instead nerfed Goddess' Blessing by 10%, and Luna's health several times, until they gave up balancing it, removed Luna cap, and reverted most of the nerfs. Shield metas in Paladins are rare because of an item that makes you deal more damage to them. Then Makoa got a card rework, that lowered the cooldown of his shield the more damage it took. It lead to an infinite shield meta. Makoa's is the most annoying, since its the only dome shield in the game. When he deployed it, your team would have to wait it out, since contesting them would put you at a disadvantage. A lot of Paladins players would not learn, and keep shooting the shield. This only became a big issue after the card was buffed. As soon as it did though, their feedback channel in the official Discord was filled with complaints about it. They nerfed it in the next patch. Right now, we are dealing with 2 supports being meta. One of them has been meta for at least 2 years now. First it was because of his healing and the CC with the talent, Deep Roots. He could Root 3 people with it. His ultimate has the strongest healing in the game and makes him CC immune. They killed deep roots, but they also made his ult cancelable, allowing him to only use 40% of his ultimate and get full value. With Morale Boost (item that increases your ult charge rate) it makes it feel like it's a cooldown with the power of an ultimate. We are still dealing with this. Idk if anyone will read this comment though after I spent 30 minutes typing it. Oh well.

One of my least favorites of recent is the Retribution Paladin meta in Warcraft. They can press a button that makes you completely immune, then press their forehead on the keyboard and 100-0 every single enemy in 40 yards on top of dispelling every buff they had at the exact same time. There was something like 79% Retribution Paladins only on the ladder in every bracket of content PvP wise- you'd think Blizzard would address it early but no. It took almost a month of that.

I am amazed no one call it the "the blitzkrieg meta". Seeing as he is German and fallow the idea of what a blitzkrieg is, plus the his name being blitz.

Boltstaff meta in Vermintide 1. A homing missile that hits & kills 5 enemies per shot, uses health as ammo and has a chance to heal you per kill. Yeah. Shit was busted.

I honestly kinda miss the right click Bucky. I’m not saying it didn’t need a nerf, they just nerfed it to the point of being useless in every situation. Even left click feeling like a coin toss in close range, so for eco rounds I just get a shorty and the results a basically the same. Felt like they kinda killed what made the Bucky unique. I’d like to see it not so broken but not so useless.

there are at least 3 other choices I can think of off the top of my head for more busted Dota 2 metas than sniper lol also sniper is rarely actually considered a strong hero, he is lately but that isn't historically the case.

the prometheus lens in destiny and the OG charge rifle in apex were absolute laser shows.

Heres some from other games: Modded brecci in bo3. Enough said. Proteus shotgun sniper in IW: literally gave the user aimbot. MW2019: Akimbo snakeshots. CSGO: Revolver pre patch, SG meta, AUG meta, that like 3 days where the deagle had scout jumpshot accuracy.

I remember the game Divekick but I guess I never really looked into what caused it to come into being

League with all its Bugs, and Meta, it could make a 10 hour Video.

which makes double shield even more stupid, is that they could've fixed it without going 5v5, but they didnt, because they wanted to keep the tanks, like they are but in Ow2 they went for 5v5 and changed some tanks like Orisa.

oh, the dive kick dominance of SF4 was a good one. But in SFV there was a period where v-triggers that won the round of a single interaction where top dog. So players would simply poke and wait for their comeback factor wincon. Urien Aegis reflector setups so rediculous he looked like a glitched character/Balrog chaining unscaling dash punches that were always safe/Ibuki obscuring the screen with 50 mixups and 100% stun combos/akuma instantly winning neutral for free with a red fireball and activation leaving him mega buffed with an advancing forcefield of hits the opponent just has to deal with. they nerfed all activation combos by 20% next patch, and then went to town on some of the characters in particular. Akuma lost the ability to activate off a fireball, ibuki's bombs no longer let her juggle combo with normal buttons like they used to/ uriens reflector only became active on frame 5(it was frame 1 originally). It was a season dominated by insane v-trigger comebacks that made beating some characters counter productive, as hurting them gave them their wincon.

I'm surprised ardent censer meta never made it in

I def remember the bucky meta But bro that short Ares meta RUINED the game. Accuracy broken, it already does enough damage, fire rate is killer, it was just such a fricken broken gun! My entire 5 stack used it in 3 games and we won all of them EVEN getting a 13-0. Glad that got removed in like 3 days!

Wait chamber meta from valorant isn't included ? It was 1 year of hell and up until recent nerfs even pro teams were just forced to play chamber on every single map if they wanted to have a winning chance

as a Dota 2 Player i have to say that Sniper isn't the hero that we think about when we think about broken Meta. Most of the older players will think about Monkey King, he was so unbelievable busted at release that it was absolutely impossible to win against this hero. Recently there have been a lot of more bullshit broken stuff, much worse than Sniper back then. Primal Beast release and Lina Meta were super nasty and just super stupid.

It's not esports per say but the worst meta I've played in was the Catchmoon meta in Warframe. Like Catchmoon alone was bad enough but just the fact that your primary weapon slot was functionally useless because of just how good secondary mods were in comparison and coupled with how absolutely busted Catchmoon was meant every single mission was just massive walls of particle effects. I guess a close second would be release patch gravimag; people essentially weren't running ANY weapons and just rolling with like a couple meta archguns that would out-dps everything in the game with virtually no downside.

omg the spitfire meta in Apex in 2020. You literally just pointed at someone and they died. No recoil and with heavy rounds it was a nightmare.

Valorant Stinger, Astra, Chamber and Bucky metas were hell

Pretty sure in NRS games like Injustice 2 or MKX, it was Black Adam and Alien respectively. Mk11 was Liu at one point, where the top 3 at a specific tournament was just Liu Kang.

Started playing valo recently. I've started preferring shotguns over rifles as they are more fun to play and the rage you get when you get one shotted when fully shielded is off the charts, on the recieving end as well.

Yo gold funneling wasn’t nearly as boring as the warmogs meta back in the day. Nothing better than watching you favorite mid rush warmogs on an assassin

I never minded double shields just because I like playing tanks particularly ones with barriers it fun playing defensively thou yeah it could drag on especially for the dps and healers but I rather have that then what we got bow

The David Mitchell portrait in the back is awesome

I think its not the shrapnel for sniper its the headshoots that does not allow you to hit him due to knock back ang miss chances

I want to add that in smash, the worst meta was early 2000s melee because they still had items on, shiek was too tier because of the lack of game knowledge (not knowing how to l cancel or di) and sheik was top tier because her already comparably basic kit was even more basic, and the stage list was jank, so people tried to find ways to cheese as hard as possible

Tank meta en league was the worst thing ever with assassin's that would 1 shot everyone and never die

For the league funnel strat: while kai'sa funnel was definitely a menace in proplay, this video def downplays how obnoxious master yi funnel was in solo queue. Yeah obviously if you ask a random player to funnel for you they'll tell you to piss off, but pretty much every smurf/booster duo abused the taric/yi start so hard. Not only did taric's ult synergize perfectly with yi, his e ability used to guarantee land on whoever yi alpha striked on. And the only way riot was able to stop this strat was with a bandaid fix that still is being used today (junglers get reduced gold from minions if they farm too much of them in the early game).

The "Sultai Oko Food" Deck from Magic the Gathering... One card doing absolutely everything for three mana

That double shield nonsense with the bastion had me beyond pissed

wow I’m honestly surprised it’s not another “top ten times players cheated” video

Bit of misinformation. Sniper is so rarely meta in Dota 2 xD He's usually considered one of the weaker heroes in competitive play and has had pretty atrocious winrates for almost as long as I can remember. He's just easy to win with against very inexperienced players. The hoho haha patch was one of the rare times he actually became a problem and he was far from the only problem hero in that patch.

Ah yes the double shield + bastion + damage buff mercy meta

Honorable mention: The game Paladins. They made a character especially designed to have auto-aim. It made an already dying game die 5 times as easy as it should.

You guys didn't explain why the "Sniper" meta was so annoying, all you said was that shrapnel was buffed, no mention of how it was used, no mention of Mask of Madness being busted, no mention of the at the time relatively recently introduced come back mechanics playing into Sniper's great high ground defense. You also didn't mention that Troll Warlord was as much if not even more obnoxious to play against IN THE SAME PATCH.

Beastmaster aghanim meta for 0 sec cd on his axe was something so fucked up that he got patch so hard now his axe barely deals damage.

if this channel even covers TCG games meta, its gonna be a loooooooong list.

Those bucky clips just triggered some PTSD.

I remember when i started playing pokemon tcg Pokemon catcher was like roar, but you chose what to bring in as active. They literally changed it to a coinflip and the ENTIRE meta changed. 😅😂😂

Goats should definitely be on this list, did any of these other games have to rework their entire queuing system and essentially rework the game, partly contributing to them needing to make a sequel in order to fix the problem? Yea, I didn't think so...

The problem with the SF4AE wasn't that Yun was dominate, it was that is was boring. A little thing that Befael gets too that you didn't.... this wasn't even new. If you got through his points, you start to notice how similar it was to Third Strike Yun. Many of the reasons for his dominance in SF4AE are very similar to SF3TS, and yes, that was a deliberate move. Still it made watching players go through the motions of Yun to win was boring. It was the same things over and over again. Outside of Genei Jin juggles, the crowds mostly tuned out. I know that half the time anyone chose Yun, the cheering was for the characters lost more than anything.