What does meta mean in gaming and especially in DOTA?

[76561199075191274]

I keep reading a lot from player talkin bout that this patch's meta is good or bad or whatever? I am not a hardcore player and recently started playing multiplayer games such as dota. So what does this meta mean would really help me

[St3gm4]

meta = most effective tactics available

[[SC]KotlOfTheLight]

Periodically when updates affect the flow of the game, like item changes, hero buff/nerfs, etc, this causes a shuffle in the theoretical list of "which hero is the 'best' in a particular role". Picking the heroes amongst the top of these lists would be considered meta.

[76561199075191274]

Can someone just provide me a link or some kinda info to these gaming vocabulary. I dont even know the meaning of buffs or nerfs

[Girlgamer87]

nerf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaHBG2nzk60

buff

https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/178294/how-did-the-term-buff-originate

the rest

https://www.google.com/

[LFA]

Meta basically means the current strategy used bu most players.
it can fluctuate over time without the game itself actually changing.

Random exemple, say people use poison atribute a lot in a game because there's a cool early weapon associated with it early game and it becomes the most popular attribute, eventually people might get equiped with anti poison gear to counter it, and poison will fall out of the meta and even when people end up giving up their anti poison gear, it may come back to some extent, but without being as popular as it used to, even though nothing related to it changed in terms of game mechanics.

Now of course in games like dota the meta is often going to revolve around the most effective strats and the way to counter them.

[Zockolade]

.. meta in Dota 2 means the one with the "most effective tatics available" will alter the database tables of your account and then you play in herald 1 till you quit this game ..