1-1-1-2 is meta.
AP top is a strategy of the 1-1-1-2 meta, but it's also a meta?

The question is how you define meta, but no, you're being too narrow.

And Volandum, I agree, there are definite rules to making a blind pick team comp, one of them is "Don't have a team completely countered by Jax"

A meta is a standard, the thing everyone does and the thing everyone expects you todo and expects todo themselfs. When you alter it its a shift in the meta, if that shift becomes the new standard then its a new meta in its own right as people don't do the only thing anymore. People are using alot of tanks in the jungle in rift atm, if it keeps up it'll be a new meta where only tanks goto jungle and other jungler types are no longer used.

Things become meta's when they become the new standard, not by being an option. Now let me sleep.

No, that's not what a meta is.

A meta is not prescriptive, it's descriptive. The LoL community looks the way it is because people don't realize this.

A meta is what you can expect to play, everything you can expect to play. And thus, what you should be ready for.
If you can only face 1-1-1-2, then that is the meta. If you might face 1-1-1-2 or 1-2-1-1, then both of them together are the meta.

A meta is how things are, everything that is, is part of the meta.
Sure, what you see once every 1k games is not part of the meta, but your definition of meta is prescriptive, and narrow.

this is a fantastic update!

No the Meta is the the part I bolded and that part only. The things that are the norm, the things that everyone does because it is what currently works, that is the meta. Anything that is not the norm is not the meta. This is where the term "breaking the meta" comes from, its from attempting to set a new standard of gameplay, to break the old gameplay and make it redundant, to break the meta.

My definition of the meta is the correct one, because the meta is narrow. Thats what a meta is, its a basic routine, a set of recommended game guidlines. Nothing more. Stop thinking that a meta is every single possible thing because it is not, if it was there would only be one meta ever because it would include everything.

If you still don't understand, just read the wiki.
Metagaming is not decision making. That is strategy. Metagaming is the pre-determined set of "rules" laid out before you that you are expected to obey. Rules can be broken, rules can be altered and rules can be remade. Hence a metagame is ever changing as people attempt to alter, break and create their own set of rules, a new standard of gaming for everyone else to follow.

I think you underestimate just how much out-of-game information there is about this game, and how much of that you think about. The wiki article you link gives examples (like watching specific players or more general strategic trends), and we can translate some into the context of lol:

Targeted bans in tournaments.
Predicting the enemy bot laner.
Likelihood of facing a kite comp.
What's probably happening if only one enemy shows up top.

These all vary based on information you don't have in the game itself, you use your experience, statistical data and what people tell you to decide. The metagame itself is not constant, and different people play in different metagames. My 1500 EUW account answers those questions very differently from your 2300 one.

In it's basic form Vol a metagame is not what you can do, its what you are expected to do or have done to you. It has nothing todo with any actual ingame decision making. Metagames are a pre-determined set of rules, a Metagame isn't a strategy. Noobs and pros have different standards hence different metagames, it doesn't mean however every game is going to be totally different. Both pros and noobs follow set patterns, they have their own rules that they create and follow.

There is no strategy or tatics behind it. It is just what is expected, without thinking. Metagames are trends, thats it. If 1 million people right now hastag #sexypancakes on twitter, it trends. If 1 million noobs go attackspeed solo top Veigar, then its part of their metagame because its the trend, it is their norm.

Metagaming is exactly that, it's playing the meta-game. It's making decisions based on what the metagame is.

Metagame is X, metagaming is the strategy made that takes X Metagame into account.
You're mostly right, metagaming doesn't affect what you do in game, it affects what you do pre-game. Metagame won't help you deal with Yorick, but it tells you you might want to pick a champion that can handle Yorick bot lane in blind pick. Metagaming does affect your champion selection, rune pages and mastery setups.

And with that, let's stop this discussion in this thread, and if you want to keep it up, start a new thread for it.

No it isn't. Metagame isn't a decision, its a guideline. There is no decisions behind it. That is the part you cannot seem to comprehend, read the wiki for more info. The only decision is do you follow it or not.

Metagaming is making decisions made in respect to rules that aren't written, or going beyond the rules of the game. Cheating is a form of metagaming, for example.

In League of Legends, every decision players make is more or less, metagaming. The game doesn't have many of it's own rules, players make them up. The only thing we know for sure about the goals league of legends is that players need to destroy the towers and eventually the nexus to win. How one can go about doing that is completely up to the players. Riot gave us pieces and a goal, how we use them is the metagame.

The term metagame does not necessarily relate to pre-written strategies (although with enough play by enough people, it certainly can). The term originates from Dungeons of Dragons. If you've ever had a guy go "I want to roll a d20 to determine whether or not I can jump over the chasm, pull out the knife no one knew I had, and cut the rope to save my team entire team and deal damage to the boss" you've had someone metagame. This example is metagaming because this guy is (attempting) to do more than is reasonable in a single turn, attempting to use mechanics and actions that don't necessarily exist in (or at least aren't defined by) the universe he's in.

In League of Legends, an simple and very common example might be where certain champions go for the purposes of laning. There's no reason Xerath and Katarina can't go bottom together, mechanically: this decision was made because of data the Xerath player has from external sources. This information is on a level above the game itself, thus the word: metagaming. The mistake people seem to make a lot is that this is the only definition for the word. There are plenty other examples of metagaming in League: items bought by certain champions, decisions about how to path through the jungle, when to go for objectives, and much more. None of these things are forced on you by the game itself, you make these decisions based on things you know (or think you know).

As you can see, the definition is very open-ended, and because of the multiple ways one can metagame, it's a tough word to actually define. I'm OK with having multiple micro-definitions for the word.