What is the current meta?

I haven't had time to watch pro games or really think about it a ton lately, so I was wondering if you guys could help me out. What would you consider the current meta to be? Oh, and please distinguish whether you're talking about the pub scene or the pro scene.

I really have no complaints about this patch so far, in my games there seems to be a fair amount of diversity. The only thing I think I've noticed is that in most of my games there seems to be a trend of one team winning the early game, then the other team makes some headway mid game, but it just isn't enough and the team that got ahead early wins. Is that just me or is that reflective of the pub meta as a whole?

Thanks in advance!

The competitive meta is probably loosely described as a brawling meta.

Like, it's rarely full on deathball, but you get some of the characteristics of deathball, and but mixed in with a lot more fighting, varying between skirmishes to big 5v5 team-fights.

It's also a very aggresive meta, you see a lot of heroes that can be very active early, and none of this; farm quietly for 20 minutes before ripping towers to shreds or lots of late games like you saw in the 6.83 meta (I still disagree that 6.83 was a ricing patch, it was still an extremely aggresive patch, it just had relatively large periods of downtime between these periods of aggresion). You'll see a lot of movement early on, and then a lot of action that can be pretty persistent.

However it is worth saying that there is a lot of room for flexability. You can justify just about any strategy to work in this patch, and about 90% of the hero pool is pickable (Well okay, that's just a figure I'm pulling from nowhere, but a much larger portion of the hero pool is pickable than is not pickable or not playable).

Other things worth noting; Lots of Dual lanes. Like, you see a large number of surprisingly aggressive dual lanes. But given aggresive heroes are in, that's not entirely surprising. And also a lot of focus on versatile heroes who don't set themselves to a given lane or position at initial pick.

Heroes that are really high priority;
Cores; Clockwerk, Queen of Pain, Shadow Fiend, Phantom Lancer, Lina, Leshrac
Supports; Lion, Dazzle, Winter Wyvern
Heroes that can do both; Earthshaker, Undying, Tusk, Naga Siren (Heroes getting a lot of love at high levels of play, mostly support but some core).

^^ BH

Pubs: BH / Gyro / SF (+ stompers like Bloodseeker, Pudge, Phantom Assassin )
Pro: QOP / Clock / SF / Lesh / Shaker / WW / Lion / Viper / Rubick

Pub scene:

strong lanes and strong "fighty" mids i dont include lower level of pubs in this because down there its always FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT DAVAI DAVAI
im talking high or very high. its all about out laning your opponent and gaining a quick advantage before solidifying it and breaking base.

basically. win lane. kill towers. farm. big push for rax.

Pro scene:

the "drafting" patch.

with everyone being so bloody amazing. your only going to see losses happen based purely upon the draft. the draft is EVERYTHING this patch more so then the other patches. deathball was more who ever got the early game advantage abused it. ricing was just make sure carry is fatter then the other one. teamfight was more make sure you have bigger ultimates then they do.

this is all about picking a draft that has strong lanes strong mid game potential strong late game strong push strong this.

you could even say this is the "strength" patch elejiggle!

Pretty much agreed with sanvitch, but I'd add bloodseeker into that. He's actually getting picked way more now.

What exactly is "meta"? I see a lot of threads about it, but don't really know what it means.

Is it just to do with which heroes are being picked in professional games a lot at the time?