I’ve seen a lot of people talk about how fortunate T1 is that this ranged bot lane meta is happening right when they are making their worlds run. I’ve also seen people argue that T1 is the one that redefined the meta and that without Keria, everyone would still be prioritizing Xayah/Kai’sa. On one hand, it’s hardly like ranged supports were absent in the Swiss stage and quarters with champs like Renata, Milio, and a few others being picked a decent amount. On the other hand, it’s also true that following T1 vs LNG, bot lane priority has completely shifted with melee supports basically disappearing on both sides of the bracket. Which side do you lean towards?
A lot of people in the comments are talking about “the meta” as if there’s a true meta or best comp. The reality is there are gonna be some S tier champs, and the meta is dictated by those champs and how other champs work around it. How these S tier champs are determined is not by some “meta” but by patch strength and item strength.
Some obvious S tier champs: Oriana, Rakan, Rumble, neeko (to some extent). The good mid lane champs basically revovle around being able to make multi champ cc+damage plays. So the other picks have to adapt to this. You cannot play tank top hyper carry adc because it’s a big chance your carries will get caught in a cc along with you or your enchanter. So you must play an ad that can somewhat self peel (xayah, kaisa).
Because engage mids are strong, engage supports+junglers are synergistic pick. You see times where a champ was cc chained into death. So you cannot play carry junglers as you will likely lose. Now since you cannot assuredly protect your carries, top tanks become far less valuable. Best top laners become one’s that can easily clean up a weakened team (jax aatrox ksante renekton) and rumble who can do so at range. Now because there are less tank tops, top disparity actually matters. A behind sion does not matter but a behind jax is awful. So there is a tendency to tend towards top focus to set up a winning lane.
Now that all the previous pieces are set up we come to bot lane. Xayah and kaisa are great picks, not because they do more damage, they just help the team win more. Before, teams would try and play the same style. Try to pick the adc in teamfights by diving with engage supports and a slippery adc. However, perma banning both rakan and xayah is such a pain to do when you need to ban so much more. So teams have figured if we beat the xayah/kaisa in lane so much that their power becomes neutered when it comes to fighting, we don’t have to worry about those bans. I am getting info from costreamers saying kaisa/xayah without an engage support is not a playable lane. So it’s not like playing double adc with xayah is possible. I can only take their word for it.
This has been a long way to say but TLDR engage mids strong, domino effect of selecting playstyles for the rest of the roles. Leading to bruiser/fighter top, engage jungle, high burst mobile adc, engage support. Long range adc + ranged damage supports beat that lane and was introduced as a countermeta. This has become the meta.
I will add that long range but immobile botlane gets countered by the engage mid and junglers. This means the team with the bot lane has to execute really well to wield the advantage. This means controlling the engages so you are effectively engaging on them and they are not on you.