
To get good, go after the metagame - shadowsun7
https://commoncog.com/blog/to-get-good-go-after-the-metagame/
======
Proziam
Getting good in almost all games is based on understanding and mastering the
fundamentals to the extent that you can make consistently correct (or at least
a high degree of 'correctness') decisions based on them. This is true for all
esports titles, and probably all games in general.

Mastering the fundamentals will make you 'good' to a level that very few
people ever reach. It's not until you reach a level where _everyone_ around
you has a mastery of the fundamentals, that the meta comes into play.

source: coached and managed professional esports players, in multiple games,
who have competed in the world championship of their respective titles.

~~~
WhompingWindows
I disagree slightly. The metagame is relevant whenever you're facing opponents
of _similar_ skill. If you're way better than your opponent, you can use
highly sub-optimal, non-meta strategies and win through sheer experience and
skill. For instance, I could kill 50% of Starcraft opponents lower than me by
building only one unit and even announcing which unit I'll mass up.

However, if you're making a similar number of errors as your opponent, then
the meta does come into play. Regardless of the raw error rate, where pros
make few and amateurs make many, if this rate is similar to your opponent,
then it still matters if your opponent has a strategic/meta counter to your
strategy.

~~~
csallen
This is a good point. I played semi-high level StarCraft for a while (high
masters, low grandmasters), and strategic decisions based on the metagame
certainly won and lost me many games. That said, the GP has a point, too. I
probably would've been better served working on my mechanics and fundamentals
if I wanted to advance to the next level.

~~~
X6S1x6Okd1st
If you played against grandmasters your fundamentals were likely extremely
good relative to most players

~~~
__blockcipher__
> If you played against grandmasters your fundamentals were likely extremely
> good relative to most players

Relative to most players, no doubt. To be fair though, even someone in diamond
is "extremely good relative to most players".

I was a mid+ NA grandmaster zerg, and took games off players like EG demuslim.
And even at the level I was at, fundamentals were the most important thing.
And even at the level I was at, I could see the fundamental errors that I or
my opponents would make.

Certainly though, when facing off a player of a similar skill, knowing the
meta can be really helpful. Even more important is knowing that specific
player's playstyle.

When you practice with a certain partner consistently, you start doing things
that you would never do against an unknown player, to exploit quirks of their
playstyle. The best players had incredible game sense and thus were really
good at doing this. (My favorite player for a long time was Stephano, who
absolutely excelled at this)

\--

I'm not sure I had an actual point I was making :P

~~~
X6S1x6Okd1st
I was a masters NA Zerg, not quite at your level but we probably could have
met in the ladder at some point.

I totally agree, I just think it's not great advice to say "if you want to get
good go after the meta". Some gaming communities over emphasize the meta and
IMO StarCraft is one of them. Meta is just one aspect of ways to get an edge
and as you progress in your skill you need to take advantage of every edge you
can get.

Many StarCraft streamers will do challenges where they only go for a certain,
non dominate strategy to see how high they can rise, the one that stuck with
me the most was destiny going mass queen. I saw so many people asking "what
can counter mass queen" because they saw him winning over and over again. The
answer wasn't how should you change your strat to deal with someone going mass
queen, they aren't that good, the answer was to be better at macro than that
player.

~~~
__blockcipher__
I started in Gold and ended up in GM, so depending on timing, we might have
come across each other. I played under the name "sanddbox".

I used to be a huge Destiny fanboy. In fact, my measure of when I'd "made it"
was when I could beat Destiny on ladder. (He beat me many times as well, of
course).

Side note: Kind of sad that when I checked up him a couple months ago, he
mostly just seems to do weird political debate style stuff these days

------
scott_s
A saying I have related to this is "Rules make sports." The skills and
strategies that matter in a sport develop _around_ the rules. Change the rules
and you change the sport.

The judo example the author presented is actually one of my go-to examples as
well. Not only did disallowing grabbing the legs take out an entire suite of
offensive options, it took out _defensive_ options in judo. In judo, the main
way to win is to throw your opponent such that they land on their back.
Before, a judo player could grab their opponents legs as a way to counter a
throw. Now grabbing the legs is a penalty. But allowing yourself to be thrown
is going to at least result in your opponent getting a point, and has
potential for you to lose the match. So the solution is, in some situations,
judo players will just intentionally face-plant onto the mat to avoid the
throw. It looks silly, no one would do it in a self-defense situation, but
rules make sports.

Note that just about all combat and grappling sports have this quirk: because
they have rules, and are not just a free-form fight, you're going to encounter
situations where the optimal thing to do in the sport would be terrible to do
in a real fight.

~~~
_hardwaregeek
Fencing exhibits this phenomenon nicely. Fencing does not come even close to
mimicking a real sword fight. One reason for this is right of way, basically
the idea that the person who attacks first gets precedence and the onus is on
their opponent to defend against the attack before attacking themselves.
However what is defined as an "attack" in fencing is very different from what
a layperson would assume. Really, it's defined as forward movement without a
clear intention to take the blade. Which means that tactics such as advancing
with ones arm held back are rewarded.

A lot of people, upon hearing this, respond with something along the lines of
"fencing is stupid! We should make our own sword fighting system that
encourages real fighting!". HEMA is a nice example of this. Putting aside the
questionable logic of a martial art based around swords, what inevitably
happens is that as the system develops, people want to compete, to see who is
the better fighter. Since they clearly can't judge fights by, well, murder,
they need to come up with a rules and points system. Once this system
develops, someone starts to realize "hmm, if I do x action, I can win fairly
easily". Thus a meta develops. Once a meta develops, everybody starts using
the meta to win and the fighting becomes less mimicking killing people with a
sword and more competing in a sport.

Some argue that the way to prevent this is to not have competitions or rules.
But...then you have a bunch of people waving around swords with no clue as to
whether it's actually effective.

Side note, fencing has had a few of these major meta developments in its
history too. Johan Harmenberg famously pushed epee's meta to be a lot more
athletic and dynamic.

~~~
PeterisP
Many martial-like sports have a fundamental problem caused by this. In
essence, there's a sequence:

1\. are certain techniques that are likely to cause injury even with proper
protective gear, that sucks in a sport;

2\. so we make rules to prohibit using such techniques;

3\. so the meta changes so that realistic tactics (which obviously need to
protect against the dangerous technique) become suboptimal, and the new meta
is 'unnatural' as it leaves the fighters vulnerable to something that's
prohibited but would be used in any real situation.

------
euix
There is also the ultimate version of the metagame i.e. your personal human
condition. Blindly pursuing your career or chasing money without understanding
the finite duration of your own physical existence, the scale of the universe,
where you want to be in terms of life goals and family.

~~~
joncrane
This is the meta I'm struggling to learn at the moment. I constantly gripe
that people making similar salaries in my organization don't produce nearly as
much as I do...but they seem happy and I'm constantly stressed out. Which begs
the question...who's winning?

~~~
athenot
The answer probably lies somewhere halfway between you and them. What you are
doing is probably good in terms of staying sharp with your skills. But _some_
detachment can help: I am assuming (correct me if I'm wrong) that you care
very much about what's going on at work and that causes stress.

But I think it's possible to continue to care while not letting the
organization's sluggishness affect you in a personal way. You care because you
believe it's the right thing to do and/or because it furthers your skills.
Good. The others are missing out; even if their pay is the same now, in 5-10
years you will be better positionned than them for whatever opportunities
come. At the same time—and this is where that balance comes in—if you're
slaving away with no enjoyment of life, it all seems pointless.

~~~
bluGill
You are missing an important meta. Those who don't produce as much might
produce something that is more valuable than you and thus be more valuable
than you despite not producing as much quantity.

I've seen a lot of people fall into that trap and then get bitter when the
"less productive" person was promoted.

Of course sometimes the meta is licking your bosses boots not something that
makes the company money...

------
bukson
The article is very good, but i dislike the word "meta" for this whole notion
as it is simple a Nash Equilibrium
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_equilibrium))
for some game. Changes of rules makes other equilibria, some equilibria are
probabilistic (that makes the game balanced I think) some are just pure
strategies (choose this hero if available). I think naming "meta" as "Nash
Equilibrium" would popularize game theory more and add some good tools for
balancing games.

It is also very interesting that you can sometimes find Equilibrium by
researching "counters" or using best response dynamic
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_response](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_response))

If someone is interested in this topic becuase of esports commitment or just
by curiosity there are some nice youtube videos and papers about using game
theory in games:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miu3ldl-
nY4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miu3ldl-nY4)

[https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/bitstream/h...](https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/bitstream/handle/1773/22797/Jaffe_washington_0250E_11528.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y)

I don't want to nitpick the word meta, just maybe someone will find more info
if he or she knew how to google it properly.

ps I created account specially to write this comment :)

------
hvasilev
Software development is a really funny example of this. The meta changes
constantly and as a result "the technology is changing all the time". The
thing is that the underlying principles and rules have barely changed in the
last few decades. This is why I've never understood people that are
enthusiastic about new programming languages and frameworks (among other
things). It is just exploring the potential of a different meta. It doesn't
necessarily make you a better programmer and probably your time is spent
better elsewhere.

I personally believe this is also the reason why in the last few decades we
are seeing less and less 'good' new programmers. Turns out it is quite counter
intuitive for a new player to understand why they should spent their time on
underlying principles and not on constantly chasing the shinny.

~~~
dblank9
It seems to me that ever-changing tech is the meta of software development.

When done right, new tools and frameworks make us more productive and enable
us to do more in less time. Because time to market is a crucial component of
startup success, picking the right tools can give you that edge.

As for the underlying principles of software development, that's the
"fundamentals" that everybody is talking about in this thread. OF COURSE you
need to master them. But once you do, the meta really is chasing new tech. The
problem is that folks with no knowledge of fundamentals are constantly chasing
the new thing - i.e. attempting to play the meta prematurely.

------
seniorsassycat
Donkeyspace is my favorite idea derived from metagames, but I can't find any
good descriptions online.

As any given meta becomes dominant, other playstyles become viable that would
not be viable in a game against players unaware of the meta, or in a different
meta. A counter-meta. Sometimes there's counter-counter-meta and then you're
really in Donkeyspace.

~~~
chrchang523
[http://gamedesignadvance.com/?p=2346](http://gamedesignadvance.com/?p=2346)

------
gorpomon
I am the worst (maybe best) person to play board games with because 5 minutes
after learning the rules I loudly proclaim what I perceive the meta to be, and
unashamedly telegraph my moves in regards to it. I lose almost all of the
time, but it makes the night much more memorable and I enjoy the mental
exercise of trying to quickly grok a meta. Sometimes for fun I loudly proclaim
"I'm going to Moneyball this!", and then often we end up discussing baseball
or movies for a fair bit too.

Here are a few games and what their meta is not:

The Climbers - Don't try and get as high as quickly as possible.

Munchkin - Don't try and become a mercenary for hire defending anyone who
needs it.

~~~
roel_v
In law school, I had a 'how to negotiate' workshop once. We were given a
fictitious deal to negotiate (with some external circumstances hidden from
us), were paired up with a random person and then had 15 minutes to execute in
the hallway. The second I got my numbers, I started building some sort of game
theory model around the circumstances in my head, filling in some numbers and
scenarios, all while stalling the girl opposite to me so that I had more time
to work on my 'optimal strategy'. So then in the last 3 minutes or so, I
'executed' on my theory and we both got our negotiated numbers. The girl
looked rather bored and played a bit dumb, giving out the feeling of 'I'll let
you have this one, what do I care.'

Well the result is easy to predict - after the hidden circumstances and our
respective numbers were revealed, it turned out she had basically steamrolled
me and any smugness I might have had about my rational approach and winning
strategy was crushed. I stopped doing any formal analysis of real world
decision making after that.

------
alasdair_
“The metagame” in MTG was popularized by the game’s creator, Richard Garfield
after playing a lot of Cosmic Encounter and other games.

He wrote a great paper on it here:
[https://edt210gamestechsociety.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/2...](https://edt210gamestechsociety.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/2000-garfield-
metagame.pdf)

~~~
tdy_err
TL;DR: Magic became competitive and players influenced Magic by demanding
competitive rules.

------
asood123
One of my favorite books of all times: _The Art of Learning_ by Josh Waitzkin.
He was the chess prodigy written about in _Searching for Bobby Fisher_. He
quit chess shortly after and became a world champion in Tai Chi. The book is
about learning two very different skills and how they are the same.

Thesis that learning one thing deeply helps learn other (unrelated) things
makes total sense to me.

~~~
majos
If anyone reacts as I did and wonders how it's possible to compete in Tai Chi,
the competitive sport [1] is not the slow-movements-in-the-park activity I had
in mind.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pushing_hands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pushing_hands)

~~~
rasz
its pure bullshido
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-KX99T5r3A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-KX99T5r3A)

~~~
reddickulous
I agree and it's interesting that he also went on to become a black belt in
jiu jitsu which is mostly not bullshido.

~~~
kyuudou
Very true - even blue belts in BJJ are savage killers compared to similarly-
ranked adherents in other arts, TMA or not, much less the average drunk bully
in a bar.

Yet a lot of the same life lessons are passed on through the right, uh,
professor.

------
_pastel
Playing a game immediately after learning the rules is my favorite challenge -
especially when the other players are all new too.

At this stage, tactics are mostly about keeping all the rules in your head and
thinking hard before each move. But strategy is really interesting. Everyone
is guessing blindly, and you can often win by guessing slightly less blindly.

I have two meta-strategies:

(1) Game phases

While learning the rules, whenever possible, mentally categorize game
mechanics as opening-related or endgame-related. For example, a lot of board
games have some engine-building in the opening and some point maximization in
the end.

During the game, constantly estimate the distance to the end of the game. On
the first playthrough, most people transition to endgame too late.

(2) Mechanics comparison

Whenever a game has different types of mechanics or resources, search for
reference points that compare them. For example, in Dominion, you must choose
between buying treasure and action cards. So on the first playthrough, you
should deduce that 1 silver is similar to an action with (+2 treasure, +1
action).

The article talks about the metagame transition in Splendor, when players
realize that a strategy with minimal engine-building is viable. I deduced that
on the first playthrough by trying very hard to estimate the value of a 2-cost
card vs taking resources.

Of course, you need to continuously re-evaluate as you understand the game
better. By I have a very high winrate on first playthroughs relative to my
general ability.

Does anyone else have meta-strategies for this situation?

~~~
empath75
Interestingly I played splendor for the first time against some experienced
players a couple of weeks ago, and after they explained the rules and how the
best strategy is to slowly build up resources, I googled ‘how do you win at
splendor’ and everyone said to try and grab the most expensive cards first.

So I did that, then they said it was beginners luck after I won. Then I won
two more times, and they said ‘wow you just must be good at games’, and I said
no, I’m good at googling.

That’s my whole IT career in a nutshell.

~~~
ningen
This strategy is only viable if nobody is blocking you from the tier 2 and
especially tier 3 cards either by reserving what you're obviously going for,
or shorting the supply of a colour you clearly need - But it works great
otherwise.

Splendor has clever subtle player interaction here which I think is a real
strong part of its design.

~~~
banannaise
I've played a lot of four-player Splendor, and went two years and three
tournaments without losing a game. One of the lessons from that is this: Even
if three players are all jockeying for the expensive cards, it is still a
losing strategy for the fourth to try to build an engine.

Good players playing against other good players will often grab one or two
cheapies in the midgame to deal with resource scarcity. But you simply cannot
win by buying cheap cards, building an engine, and picking up nobles. It's
just that much slower.

The metagame in Splendor is more subtle, as you say. It's about clever play
interaction and depends heavily on the early-game tableau. Does the tableau
strongly favor a single color? Then your choice is to jockey for position on
that color, or avoid the resource scarcity and go for weaker and/or less-
coordinated cards. Does it have a lot of strong cards? Then it's about finding
one or two you can get without someone else tying up your resources. Does it
have a lot of weak cards? Then it's about finding ways to gain an upper hand
for when the stronger cards come out.

Are players holding a lot of chips? Then you need to avoid getting stuck with
a poor "hand" of chips - either a full hand that can't buy anything useful, or
an empty hand when the chip supply is weak. Are they hoarding the wilds?
That's much like the above, but with even more pitfalls.

Unfortunately, there's a skill ceiling to Splendor, and it's fairly low. Once
you approach it, improvement is asymptotic, and the luck element of the game
spikes tremendously. These days, I don't really like playing without the
expansion. But in good news, the expansion refreshes the game wonderfully.

------
mangoman
Interesting. I'm familiar with the meta as it relates to gaming (I follow SC2
pretty closely, though I basically never play anymore). I am curious to
explore what the meta is as it relates to building web apps, or building
software systems. I guess in web apps, the meta has evolved away from stateful
and towards stateless applications, rigid to ephemeral infrastructure, and
away from big kitchen sink frameworks towards smaller tools built for specific
purposes (here I'm thinking like netlify, react-cli / vue-cli, serverless and
aws lambda compatible frameworks and languages). In database land, I think
there's a bit of reversal towards a happy medium between Relational and No SQL
with the whole NewSQL trend (though I think most people just end up using
whatever they're comfortable with).

I think the concept of 'covered ground' is especially fascinating when it
comes to thinking about the meta of building web apps. Do you really
appreciate the trade offs between MySQL and MongoDB, if you haven't ran into
the scaling issues between the two? I don't think "running a bad migration" is
covering enough ground to appreciate the differences. Is struggling to wrangle
a bug in an Angular 1 directive enough 'covered ground' to understand the meta
in building frontend applications?

And I wonder if the meta is moving towards low code and no code frameworks.
Dark Lang looks pretty cool, though I've never really used it. Retool proved
really valuable for internal dashboards for managing customer support at my
last company.

You could explore the meta at a more fine grained level than just 'web apps',
or zoom out to software in general and try to understand the meta (just like
you could analyze why certain units in SC2 are just broken, or understand why
the economies of the different races mean different opportunities for timing
attacks for each race)

~~~
streb-lo
You're using 'meta' as a synonym for popular.

Metagame is the 'game outside the game' ie in rock paper scissors the game is
trivial the metagame involves guessing what the opponent will pick.

Meta-software-engineering would be things outside of your software stack that
affect the overall process. People, sleep patterns, office layouts, commute
time, corporate culture etc.

~~~
floatrock
There's the classic "startup engineer" metagame: hop from startup to startup
to build up an options portfolio. Stay until the 1-year cliff, exercise
whatever options you get, and move on to the next one so you've hedged your
bet over as many promising companies as possible.

~~~
streb-lo
Yes that's a good one.

------
WhompingWindows
The metagame is PARAMOUNT in Starcraft Brood War, which has had no patches in
nearly 20 years. The only thing that's changed is the map pool and the
players' skill/knowledge (finding some bugs, mapping out defense to rushes,
etc.). Thus, players have years and thousands of hour to grind "standard" or
"optimal" strategies, and someone who is less creative but more mechanically
gifted can advance just by copying cookie-cutter strategies but executing them
5% better.

However, the Brood War leagues know this tendency, so they often add crazy
maps to the mix. This season, ASL added Inner Coven, which is a really bizarre
island-ish map, and has created a totally new meta. Check out this TvT, it's
one of the weirdest games I've seen in years, all due to a map prodding the
meta game.

[https://youtu.be/yF6GczAXpJI?t=3185](https://youtu.be/yF6GczAXpJI?t=3185)

------
sergioro
A somehow related quote from Paul Halmos
([https://youtu.be/LwMcz1Yh8tc?t=1506](https://youtu.be/LwMcz1Yh8tc?t=1506)):
"I would choose depth over breath of knowledge every time. I think if you know
something very well and keep try to know it better, then you will expand to
other subjects, and the deeper down you go the broader the near by becomes."

------
colonCapitalDee
I see a lot of debate over what "meta" means, and I'd like to throw my own hat
in the ring.

I would argue that a playing a game at the base level (i.e. playing without
meta) consists of (a) finding different strategies to use, (b) figuring when
is appropriate to use each strategy, and (c) executing strategies optimally.
When the game is first being played, most strategies haven't been discovered.
At this stage strategic play consists of (without loss of generality) player A
using a strategy they think is effective, player B devising and using a
strategy that will be effective against the strategy used by player A, Player
A adapting in response, and so on. This is strategic play, but it isn't a
meta-game. The meta-game arrises when players A and B are both experienced
enough at the game that they can debate which strategy is the objective best.
The meta then becomes the agreed upon dominant strategy (or set of
strategies). In the base game (i.e before the meta develops) strategies exist
mostly independent of each other, while the meta-game consists of fitting
strategies into a framework.

The meta can change because of external or internal forces. An external force
is a change to the base game, which is common to e-sports, and less common in
actual sports. In e-sports, most games will tweak how the game is played
(change the cooldown of abilities, change the size of a characters health
pool, etc) every month or so. This will change which strategies are best, and
therefore change the meta.

Internal changes arise from the changing skill level of players. As players
get better at the game, hard to execute strategies will become more viable,
while easy to execute strategies will remain at about the same level of
viability.

This article shows a great example of what the pro Overwatch meta (the game
I'm most familiar with) looks like and how it evolves, and it's (mostly)
accessible to non-Overwatch players: [https://overwatchleague.com/en-
us/news/23053244/the-meta-rep...](https://overwatchleague.com/en-
us/news/23053244/the-meta-report-stage-3) (WARNING: autoplay video).

~~~
jimduk
A build on this, is as a soft-core participant in a game, often it is more
enjoyable to participate in a game where the meta is not known, and everyone
is in the 'finding different strategies' mode - bit like early days starcraft.
Now the Internet exists, everyone jumps to semi-optimal strategies by copying,
not putting in their own thinking time. While I admire high level play, at
mid/low level it is more fun if the meta is not nailed down, also
philosophically I think life is more 'hidden' than people think, and the idea
there is a best-move/ common optimising strategy without thinking yourself is
detrimental. I personally would like games which are more random, or where
optimising is harder and less discoverable and not shareable.

~~~
colonCapitalDee
Totally agree! Overwatch is often criticized for the pro meta "infecting"
regular play, because low/mid level players will find themselves pressured by
their teammates to play heroes that are meta at the pro level, even though pro
strategies are only meta when they're being executed at the highest level of
play.

------
Aardwolf
> Judo — the sport that I am most familiar with — has a metagame that is
> shaped by rule changes from the International Judo Federation. A few years
> after I stopped competing, the IJF banned leg grabs, outlawing a whole class
> of throws that were part of classical Judo canon

It also has the metagame of carefully crafting your weight to optimally fit in
your preferred weight class

~~~
bena
I think that's true of every sport with a weight class. You want to be the
heaviest guy in your classification.

I don't think that's metagaming so much as just simple min-maxing.

~~~
UnFleshedOne
I wonder why sports with weight categories don't implement floating weight
windows? If there is 10kg spread in a given category, place every participant
in the center of their own category so they always fight somebody at most 5 kg
different from them in either direction and adjust points being earned
appropriately (based on weight difference and an impact factor of weight in
given sport).

Then points will be normalized and you can compare skill of underfed ballerina
and a sumo fighter directly if they compete in the same sport.

~~~
kyuudou
This is a constant point of contention. The workaround (at least in BJJ that I
know of) generally is to have "open weight" fights in addition to weight-class
restricted ones. Everyone's happy usually. Now if they have open sex fights
then we can see the underfed ballerina vs. a sumo fighter!

It's not as common in MMA, I think. BJJ is often thought to favor the smaller,
weaker player but with the less strict ruleset in MMA, open fights aren't as
"fair", I think. Physics, basically. Skill level equal, a larger and more
muscular and well-conditioned athlete will usually win.

An enjoyable exception to this is the classic BJJ vs. wrestling contest in the
early UFCs between Royce Gracie, a 6'1" 180lb guy vs. a seeming bear of a man
with proven wrestling skills in 6'2' 250lb Dan Severn. If you're not a fight
geek (if you are, you surely already know about these 2) it may be kind of
boring to watch and more interesting to read or watch a well-informed analysis
with pictures and clips, sort of like a "Gracie Breakdown".

------
zeveb
Interesting point that one has to master the game first, before mastering the
metagame. I am reminded that Warren Buffet & Bill Gates are reputed to enjoy
the game of bridge, which comprises at least three games: the trick-taking
game; the bidding game which is about how many tricks one thinks one can win;
and the communication game which runs over the bids themselves. One could
argue that outa-of-band communication is a third, cheating, game. One might
also consider multi-table play to be a metagame, although it is a fairly
simple one.

------
pretendscholar
When did meta come to mean strategy? It can't really be 'meta' if its about
one specific game or implementation.

~~~
screye
MetaGame is not strategy. The metagame is often the behind-the-scene variables
that enable a certain set of strategies to flourish.

For example, in Dota, changes to armor or magic resistance scaling can change
the metagame to be magic or physical focused, but the strategies and trends
themselves develop in ways that take the meta-game into account.

During one meta game, it is common to see various different strategies
flourish. IMO, as it is one level of abstraction higher, it is fair to call it
meta-strategy and by extension the meta-game.

~~~
echelon
To further expound upon this, the vast majority of a game is encoded in the
engine or ruleset. Core strategy is in dealing with these these ground truth
fundamentals. This is the realm of beginners and casual players.

Small tweaks to the rules or weights (simple numeric multipliers!) can
dramatically change how the game is played amongst those who are incredibly
skilled at the game's fundamentals.

Metagame is truly emergent phenomena.

------
gbasin
I love this concept. I've been thinking about ways of "traversing skill trees"
and identifying meta-games for some time. Collecting ideas here:
[https://garybasin.com/thinking-toys/](https://garybasin.com/thinking-toys/)

I think this can be done systematically...

~~~
juliend2
The "skill tree" image seem like a good mental model[1] for learning.

[1] [https://fs.blog/mental-models/](https://fs.blog/mental-models/)

------
tylerjwilk00
If you find metagame strategies interesting, you may enjoy Richard Dawkins
book The Selfish Gene [1] and specifically Evolutionarily Stable Strategy
(ESS)[2]. Of course ESS takes place over a much longer timeline. Summary of
ESS in this video by Veritasium [3].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionarily_stable_strategy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionarily_stable_strategy)

[3] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUxt--
mMjwA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUxt--mMjwA)

------
runawaybottle
The meta game is a high level arena for people that hammered through the
proven advantageous strategies. Once you beat everyone unwilling to do that,
you are now in an arena with people that used your exact same strategy.

A short example of this is a fighting game where the majority of people want
to play the characters they enjoy playing. Unfortunately, like life, there is
no perfect balance, and picking some specific characters will give you an
advantage (even if you hate playing them). So long story short, play the
character with the advantage, ride it to the top, everyone at the top got
there doing the same shit you did —- and voila, the meta game, how do we all
with the same strategy compete against each other.

------
ipython
I may be simplifying but wouldn’t the ultimate “meta” move be to adapt the
concepts behind John Boyd’s OODA (observe, orient, decide, act) loop[1] in
your thinking? Basically you need to always adapt to changes in the game and
get inside your opponents own loop.

If you’re able to run your own OODA process faster than your opponent, you’re
already acting before they have even realized the game has changed.

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop)

~~~
falcor84
But then the question becomes on which level of OODA loop you should spend
your focus, right?

------
F_J_H
Re: playing the meta game, a great article on coyotes being "too clever by
half" and missing the meta game to their detriment came up on HN awhile ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17079369](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17079369)

Basic idea - you can be too clever for your own good, and as a result, fail
miserably at the meta game, which less clever people don't do.

------
shinryuu
First time I ever understood what "the meta" refers to. Though I've definitely
participated in the metagame without realizing it before.

~~~
richk449
The definition of meta used in the piece doesn't match my understanding. Take
his final example where he says that adjusting tactics in response to your
opponent in ultimate frisbee is meta. No, that just strategy.

Same goes for most of the examples he gives.

Looks like I'm getting old, and the word has been redefined from out under me:

 _In video games, however, the metagame has its own meaning—and depending on
which game you play, the context differs. In short, the metagame in video
gaming means using characters or items that are the most powerful at the time
to try and find the best and quickest means to victory._

[https://dotesports.com/general/news/what-is-the-meta-
meaning...](https://dotesports.com/general/news/what-is-the-meta-
meaning-24834)

~~~
na85
>Take his final example where he says that adjusting tactics in response to
your opponent in ultimate frisbee is meta. No, that just strategy.

Choice of strategy can be "meta", though. It depends on the context. For
example in ultimate frisbee the current meta is to play Vertical offense, and
so you see a lot of teams training for how to run it and how to defend against
it.

Back in 2004 ish, the dominant teams played Horizontal offense, and we only
saw Vert for set plays after a foul or other play stoppage.

The meta has changed because the dominant strategies have changed.

Then you can get even more meta, because perhaps your team is playing "long
ball" and you know that if you start calling lots of travels, the other team
will reciprocate. And you know that because even a contested travel causes a
return to the thrower, it will hurt you more than hurting them.

All of that is both strategy _and_ meta.

~~~
richk449
Eh, it’s all semantics. What you are calling meta has been called strategy for
thousands of years.

No big deal - words change. I’ll get used to it.

~~~
fenomas
The article's usage seems to drift around somewhat, but in esports I follow
"meta" refers specifically to the _consensus_ about which strategies are good
or bad, not to strategies themselves or to anything someone does in a given
game.

E.g. saying "foo is meta right now" means most players consider foo to be
stronger than the alternatives, and if a player uses a strategy other than foo
one might say they were playing off-meta, etc. But the term is wholly distinct
from strategy itself.

~~~
james_s_tayler
You're literally trying to game the game.

------
mc3
Yes there is a general trend that a new "market place" opens up. It could be
adwords, or it could be udemy. There is then a race to the top/bottom where
the marketplace becomes popular and crowded out. The "crowd" progressively
gets a worse deal (except for the winners of the crowd) and the owner makes
more money.

For example adwords:

1\. Crowd gets worse deal: average bidder pays more for ads, hard to make a
profit, might break even if you are lucky. Might be OK in a new niche if
lucky.

2\. Winners: people with sharp marketing teams who can bid on the right
keywords and have an excellent sales funnel to take advantage. They can outbid
the crowd and make a profit.

3\. Owner: Google makes a tonne of money from ads of course:

Udemy:

1\. Crowd gets worse deal: I saw a 80 hour course for $20 on there. Most are
20-30 hours course for $20. Course maker gets a fraction of that. 100's of
similar course means the platform doesn't necessarily give you much traffic.

2\. Winners: Some people sells thousands of units of their course on these
platforms. Again those with good funnels to get them to buy off the platform
probably win (I am guessing).

3\. Owner: Udemy does well.

Same applies to the app stores!

------
navane
The meta game is like the bike shed. Everyone has an opinion about it. It is
abstracted, full of analogies and therefore easy to talk about. It is the only
way the experts can talk to the novices about the topic at hand. Note that the
novice can't really talk back because they won't know when the analogies end.

How do you distinguish one meta opinion about the other? By looking at the
merits of the person behind the opinion, looking at other data that
distinguishes the expert from the novice.

If you then use the meta as a vehicle to find out which fundamentals are
important, you better skip the meta all together and see what fundamentals the
expert has.

------
takinola
Poker is a great example where players can be playing very different "meta"
levels. You can play the math ("given my cards, what is the probability I have
the best hand on the table?"), play your cash ("are the other players willing
to lose the equivalent of a month's income if they are wrong?") or play the
other players ("I will let you win a couple low stakes games in order to build
your confidence and then clean you out once you start to bet bigger?")

------
Balanceinfinity
He writes "There seems to be something in getting good at a skill tree that
helps in latter life. I’d like to think it is a function of exposure: once you
see the competitive meta at the top of one skill tree, you begin looking for
it everywhere else."

Two things explain this phenom: 1) you learn how to learn - and if you pay
attention you become better at learning, more efficient; 2) you develop the
confidence that your time invested will pay off with expertise, so you don't
begrudge the investment

------
plinkplonk
Does the author actually define "metagame" anywhere? He seems to use the term
throughout the article to mean multiple subtly different things.

~~~
nonanonymous
The author's usage of "meta" doesn't match up with how I've seen it used
elsewhere. He refers to the "metagame" when really he's just talking about the
game itself.

~~~
Tyr42
He defines it when talking about Magic, where there's the two games. The match
"game", once you sit down with your decks and draw 7. And the metagame, where
you choose which decks to bring, what sideboard to pick, etc.

If there's a really popular rush deck, do you drop some cards which shut down
blue control and put in some anti rush cards? That will help when you match
against the rush deck, but if everyone does it, then when you reach the finals
you might be against the control deck.

That's the metagame, at least how it's used in those circles.

~~~
plinkplonk
yes, the author seems to use "metagame" to mean a combination of pre-game
strategizing (including creation opponent specific strategy) and post game
review (+ absorbing lessons learned into the pre game strategizing for the
next game).

------
205guy
I see what you did there:

"for content marketing [...] now we do longer, more comprehensive guides, and
we cross-launch those to Product Hunt and Hacker News"

------
Paddywack
Would I be correct in the following examples of Meta-game:

US Politics: \- Stacking the supreme court Vs the court case strategy itself
\- Gerrymandering Vs Winning votes on merit \- How you play the Caucus
nominations Vs policy

Business (internal to large companies): \- Gaming how funding flows vs Getting
funding on merits

Business (external market) \- Finding the grey area in policy (e.g. Uber/
Airbnb) \- Lobbying

Would this be a correct understanding?

~~~
smogcutter
Meta gaming isn’t the same thing as cheating (or exploiting a rules grey
area). It’s not gaming the system vs playing it honestly.

As far as I understand, the metagame is understanding how the rules reward
certain strategies and over others, and how those strategies interact with
each other. The reason the idea has so much currency in video games is that
rules are constantly evolving as the game is updated and patched.

So like for gerrymandering, the metagame aspect is understanding that under
the current rules, gerrymandering is a winning strategy. Actually executing
that strategy and gerrymandering a district is the playing the game-game part,
not the meta-game.

------
ph0rque
This is a really great article, and something I've been slowly realizing over
the last few months.

I only wish he would explore the concept of playing your own meta in order to
reach goals that are important to you (and maybe no-one else): hacking the
system, so to speak. FIRE (financial independence/retire early) is an
increasingly popular meta that does this.

------
K0SM0S
I think the author is basically describing the "meta" as what is
mathematically sort of a _conformal space_ to the _game space_ — loosely the
idea that a conformal description of the game space lets you operate
transformations on said space; and understand why it has the shape it has).

I've personally always focused on the meta indeed; I'm the kinda guy who goes
for the map first in dungeons, because I'm more about coordinates than
superstition ( _I 'll take a matrix over an oracle, thank you very much_).
That works when, in the meta, finding the map is an expected player move by
the developers (it even becomes part of the storytelling of exploration; think
Zelda or Bioshock).

But in the real world, the developer's program is kinda like _(maths \wedge
physics)^chaos_ , so the meta is very much NOT clear-cut — there's no jury of
life to rule that _" this year, we'll outlaw dick moves in office politics"_,
or that retribution for many comes next in the form of a _#metoo_. The players
are anti-Shakespearian, they're chronically fuzzy and chaotic and non-trivial.

There are thus, from our "game space" standpoint (unable to grasp the higher-
dimensionality of our conformal space), an infinity of possible meta-games,
possible descriptions of what's conformal to us. There are religious
descriptions and beliefs about that, there are theoretical social-science
accounts, there are witnesses in the thousands or millions even who gave their
truth in some book or other long form, there's what your neighbor says, what
your best friend says, etc. You, the player, get to make your own meaning.

So we kinda perform "loops", from our game space and back, passing by the
meta: we try to grasp at it, understand the "higher" or "deeper" mechanisms.
_How can I get this...?_ , _Why is it that...?_ , _" What is this...?"_ By
trial and error, we manage to get our bearings, have a "feel of" or "sense
for" this field / domain / situation / locality we're in. We kinda "know the
ways" to think outside this box, after enough time contemplating it.

A truly "superior intelligence" (like we're superior to ants) would probably
solve our "meta" like it's basic dominos — but again it's not magic, nor
categorial, but really just _more of the same_ : computing power and
specialized features devoted to analyzing patterns up to some order.

------
artur_makly
And for tennis.. I highly recommend the 'inner game'
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QEKR9TVQXk&t=13595s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QEKR9TVQXk&t=13595s)

you can apply this zen mastery to basically any physical game and always 'win'

------
m3kw9
So in the investing game the actual game is buying and selling and the Meta
game is to do good diligence. I would say for most things the meta game is
obvious. For programming, meta game is learn the API and different patterns as
the language evolve.

------
mobjack
The current meta strategy for getting a software engineering job is practicing
leetcode.

------
cjmb
Good article and a nice read :)

You can apply the same analysis to the study of how "entire societies /
nations generate Wealth" and get an interesting picture of the international
econo-political metagame throughout history...

------
zrkrlc
How much would people pay for an expertise development app? Been coding one as
a side project for some time now and I'm thinking I have to put it in front of
actual users as soon as possible.

------
jonas21
So, is learning to identify and excel at metagames is the meta-metagame?

------
IndexPointer
I'm not sure I understand what he means by meta game.

Is it adapting to rule changes? Or simply focusing on abusing the rules
instead of just being good at the fundamentals of the game?

------
netvarun
[off-topic] Kinda late to the party, but always a pleasant surprise to see an
article written by a former schoolmate you've lost touched with trending on HN
:)

Hi shadowsun7!

------
z3t4
It's interesting that in the early days of Google Adsense it did cost 100x
less to advertise, and publishers got 100x more. I'm not that good at math,
but does that mean Google takes a 99.99% cut!? Or more likely they rigged the
market in the beginning in order to gain publishers and advertisers, eg. they
subsidized advertisers and over-compensated publishers. Making the market
explode with advertisers and people looking to monetize web content...

------
mark_l_watson
For me, the good part of the article started in the section “The Meta in Real
Life.”

I think President Obama played a meta game using technology to win election.
President Trump played a meta game using skills developed as a TV host to win
election.

I think, in a way, that Peter Thiel’s thesis in the book “Zero to One” is also
about playing a meta game to develop monopoly type businesses.

I have always loved using Lisp languages and in a sense continually extending
a language to “meet the problem to be solved” is another form of meta game.
Rise above the fray, look at things from high altitude, be a good generalist,
and win.

Good article.

------
minusSeven
I wonder if this applies to a game of Chess or Go? What would be meta for
that?

------
aliswe
Is management perhaps the "meta" of software development?

~~~
Schwolop
There are many games and many meta-games in this field. Here are two.

For SWEs, one base game is to earn the most money. The play-space appears to
be one's current company, so working hard on company-beneficial projects and
doing well should lead to promotions and pay-rises.

A meta-game for SWEs is realising that there are many companies that might
hire you, so working on projects that benefit your current company may not be
the best strategy. Instead, some SWEs attempt to work on projects that make
their CV look more attractive to other companies.

A base game for Managers is trying to get the most output out of the team of
SWEs available, by shuffling work around, training people, putting experienced
and inexperience people on the same project to spread knowledge, etc. There's
a lot of strategy and tactics in this; trading-off short term losses for long
term gains, and the like.

A meta-game for Managers is being aware that some of those SWEs may be playing
their own meta-game. Do you help that SWE to go up and out to replace them
with a different SWE, perhaps with a more useful skillset? Do you cynically
restrict them from working on CV-positive projects in an attempt (likely to
fail and definitely unethical!) to keep them around? Do you find ways to pay
or reward them more pre-emptively so that they're less interested in their
meta-game?

Sometimes these meta-games are "too clever by half" and you may well be better
off ignoring them and focussing on the base game itself. The important point
is to be aware that such meta-games exist, and that even when people appear to
be playing the same game, they may in fact be playing to lose in order to win
a meta-game instead.

------
dillonmckay
So any Tetris 99 training suggestions?

------
hi5eyes
metagame with opponents within similar elo is the most important

------
jason46
Git gud, is the correct term.

------
nr1throwaway
I was #1 in a highly competitive game (with _a lot_ of players). I was a top
player (top 10, easily) in another game (highly competitive, but lower player
count)

I was #1 in another field for a short period of time (related to computers,
but not games) and then I was top in a third field (nothing to do with
computers).

The third field has nothing to do with the first two.

The approach is the same. There is no magic, and I don't even believe in
"talent".

You have to work, work hard and work concentrated and fix your weakest points.
Everybody does the same and once you get sufficient mastery, you can see it
for yourself. It's like lifting a veil. No magic, no geniuses, no special
talents, only brute hard work with a lot of mistakes. If you are lucky, nobody
will know you made them. If you are highly intelligent, you'll learn from the
mistakes of others, so on average you'll stop making mistakes faster. That's
the best you can hope for.

I'll talk a little bit about esports, since I am most familiar with that.
Being #1 is not easy at all. I would compare it to regular sports and say it's
very close, in terms of competitiveness.

Most people involved are objectively dumb, though, so I can't compare it to
chess or something like math olympiad or math/physics PhD at a stacked
university. So it's very similar to sports, where people are also generally
dumb. So high intelligence is not a prerequisite for this thing.

I've also met dumb people in chess and math, so it's not a guarantee. But they
can't be dumb _and_ top in chess/math/physics in the same time. That I haven't
met yet.

The approach to become #1 is the same for everyone in every field.

Fix the areas you are weak at, re-evaluate where you are weak, keep working at
it, don't repeat mistakes, try to learn from other people's mistakes. Work
focused, don't waste time, be honest. I see people putting thousands of hours
into games, for example, and still end up being newbies. That's time wasted,
that's not productive at all.

tldr once you become truly good, among the top, in _any_ field, you will know
the "secret" in how to become good/top in any other field. There are no
special fields or even special people. People that are truly good in certain
fields can become good in any other field, given enough time and assuming it
makes sense for them (1.60m playing basketball will never be among the elite,
that's just due to the nature of the game).

If someone is #1 (or top 10 or whatever) in any field, I want to hear your
thoughts anonymously, since apparently you cant say this out loud.

------
KaoruAoiShiho
This article is really the same thing as Elon Musk's "think from first
principles", except Musk's formulation is much better imo.

~~~
libertine
In my opinion the byproduct of first principles thinking is precisely the
opposite of meta : you wouldn't get a meta, but several metas for the same
game, since you built your conceptualization from the fundamentals which are
established truths.

Metas seem to be built around constrains, limitations, exploits, or other
forms of disruption that are introduced in the game in a cyclical fashion (new
rules, new laws, new markets, new medium, new tools, etc).

~~~
KaoruAoiShiho
Totally disagree. First principle thinking is a clearer formulation of what
the author wanted to achieve with the meta concept. For example in the
marketing example where the meta dictates movement from adsense to xyz
platforms you can also get there by first principles, which is finding the
most cost effective way to reach the audience.

When you're thinking from first principles you are not disregarding the
current conditions, including constraints, you are just not allowing yourself
to be a lazy and are constantly reevaluating the situation from base. Many
people love to talk meta but they end up with a hazy understanding of
fundamentals and end up behind the curve, very detrimental. First principle
thinking just avoids these issues.

BTW. Games are not perfectly analogous to IRL. Games can sometimes be (imo
poorly) designed to function completely based on a fluctuating rps system that
forces a meta, where if everyone goes rock you'll have the highest percentages
going paper. IRL doesn't really work that way. Pikemen beats cavalry, cavalry
beats swordsmen and swordsmen beats pikemen, but guns beat all 3 and it's
completely OP.

