Metagame
From Guild Wars Wiki
Metagame as a technical term refers to the strategies and reasoning used by players in a multiplayer game in response to strategies and reasoning used by other players. In the context of Guild Wars, it refers to the landscape of builds and skills that are being used in PvP.
As the game evolves and changes over time, and especially as new campaigns are released, different builds and tactics come to dominate the metagame. For example, if the spell Tainted Flesh is being used often, other teams may decide to carry it as well (as it counters itself). Soon, carrying Tainted Flesh on a team becomes commonplace. At this point, the metagame will be condition-heavy, so anti-condition-spamming skills such as Restore Condition or Extinguish will become a key strategic element. Eventually condition countering will become so common that carrying Tainted Flesh will be a waste, so teams will replace this skill with other skills that exploit the opponents' over-preparedness for condition spamming. For example, if teams bring an additional condition removal skill at the expense of a hex-removal skill, they will be underequipped for hex-pressure. If enough teams start to replace Tainted Flesh with hexes, then both Tainted Flesh and condition countering will exit the metagame, which will shift to being hex-heavy.
Reading the metagame is a key ability of a successful PvP player. This can be done in a combination of ways: playing matches, observing matches, communicating with others in-game in PvP outposts or off-game in PvP-centric forums. Successful PvP players therefore tend to have good awareness and presence in the PvP community.
A major aspect of the metagame is the Flavor of the Month (FotM) builds. A FotM is typically a gimmick build for which strong counters are not yet known, so these builds often dominate the metagame quickly. However, once teams begin to figure out how to defeat a given FotM, it will quickly go out of favor, or mutate. A great example of a mutating FotM is IWAY, that has gone through several generations of development, but somehow manages to persist despite several game updates that drastically altered early versions of this build.
Drastic changes in the metagame are rare. They happen after large game updates (such as the release of campaigns), or when a new viable FotM build is discovered.
