What is the metagame?

Hello everybody,

I'm quite new to the game and the forums.
I've heard the expression metagame used a lot, especially in build discussions.

But what exactly IS the metagame?

Thanks in advance,
Kupferfaus

The metagame in Guildwars is that whoever farms the most and gets the most gold & rarest gear, wins.

Or so I've come to believe.

Metagame means "the game outside the game". To paraphrase wikipedia, it is the decisions you make based on your knowledge of how your opponent plays.

To give a GW example: if you know most teams in your section of the GvG ladder run 3 warriors, then you bring more warrior-hate in your build so you win more often. It's also used to identify builds based on the classes you see.

The metagame is the "game above the game" so to speak.

For example, the "game" is roleplaying and creating a balanced team and just going out to try to win a GvG. The "metagame" is when you try to predict what build the other team will have and create a team to counter it.

EDIT: Bah Snowduck ya beat me to it!

Hmmmm...interesting thought. I know that "metacognition" is the brain thinking about itself, so assumed that the metagame was "the game within the game"...i.e. he/she with the best build/strategy wins.

edit: doh...are we all typing at once? ^^

Not only the classes you see, but knowledge of what is hot at the moment.
When I played magic online, the metagame was whatever current tournament decks were around, or whatever top winning deck was popular.

In GW an equivilent would be that IWAY was the metagame for a long time.

Thank you all very much