Here is a question, how much does everyone believe that the limited hero pool that your account allows you to play in ranked affect the ability to win lanes or games? This might not be very articulately explained but work with me on making sure I'm asking the right question.
With leagues static meta of top/jungle/mid/adc+sup it leads to a very strong emphasis on the notion of counter picking because more or less lanes will be matched up against a mirrored top/mid/bot duo/jungle player who's objectives are identical as their direct opponent in lane. The only difference between top and bottom in league is their relative proximity to which color of their sides golem buffs and then of course dragon/baron. The lanes are symmetrical by distance from tower to tower. I don't play league enough personally to really answer this because I just don't enjoy it as much as dota 2, but my friends who play a metric fuckton of league always prattle on about counter picking when I play a few games with them. Since League and dota are close relatives I was curious what the board experts think on this subject.
The only example that I personally know is Teemo to counter a champ like Darius top. But what happens when you don't own Teemo or another relative counter? What happens when Darius is your only top laner and that's the role you end up with in the pick phase and the opponent counter picks you. The LCS is obviously not limited in this manner, teams are allowed to pick any champion they want from first to last pick as long as it hasn't been banned or picked by the opponent first.
This obviously plays some impact on the ability of any given account to climb in ranks, raw skill at a position or mechanics can obviously overcome the notion of counter picking or coordination from the rest of your team to limit the damage. But if all variables are the same; player skill, rune pages, champion pool does the counter pick more often than not tend to dictate the outcome of the early game in any given lane?
A more specific question. If you gave the two best top laners in league Teemo / Darius (or some other agreed upon example by people in this thread) Does one champions skill set just automatically win the lane given no mistakes by either player?
The corollary of this question is then when you're required to fill a certain role in the pick phase due to called requests, pick order, bans, opponent picks. In the chance you end up in a lane or role where you don't own the counter pick is that game more likely to be lost as opposed to a game where you do own the counter pick.
In specific contrast to dota, the hero pool isn't locked, and the lanes aren't symmetrical. The equivalent of leagues ADC's don't necessarily lane directly against one another, especially in pub dota, and even at lower skill levels the banned draft gameplay allows for all heroes and bans to be chosen in all pick positions asthe LCS professional games run for league.
