the main ways the meta has changed since season 9 (6 years ago)

Since I asked this 2 weeks ago I'll now give my opinion in return after playing a few games.

I think the quick summary is it's not changed much at all and if you're thinking about playing again just go right into ranked and you'll pick it up. There's a YouTube channel that's easy enough to find that has 3 min guides which I found really good for loading screen just to see what the opposing champion was able to do which covers a lot of it.

My uneducated take on the main difference which is jungle changes in low elo is Elder/Baron are obviously still great buffs. It's hard to gauge the impact of dragons/Atakhan as I've found they get taken by a team with a huge lead anyway, take them when you can and ward dragon because it's often free kills when poor players force it when they're sat on a load of gold and low hp. The purple monster that spawns 2nd can be ok but most players waste it. Void grubs seem worthless to me, I take the petals if they're near but don't change my game for them. Overall I don't like what they've done with jungle, I feel like it's been changed to end games sooner, rather than improving the game. There's also the small things like not leashing which I do prefer and also there's multiple buffs now for the laners to share, which you've soon learn to start picking up.

Other than that it's the same game, initially I saw Atakhan and a load of new champions but it's easy to pick up if you already know the game. So now a load of rubbish you can ignore.

Some observations.

• The mechanics of players may have gotten slightly better, but I think the game sense has gotten drastically worse for one reason or another. In Silver/Gold a lot of the games are all over the place and a lot of people are just buying the items the shop shows them and don't understand itemisation, same with runes, lots of people not getting an auto in for simple electrocute procs, that's how I'm winning most lanes with basic poke.
• There's way less true leavers and 4v5's but still a lot of soft afks where someone is deliberately trying to sabotage after 5 mins because they got ganked even though the rest of their team is winning hard.
• I think there's a lot of players who also don't understand some old out of meta champions, talking gold players who don't understand how Heimerdinger works and gave me so many free kills and don't even realise they've counter picked me.
• Comps of Yi, Mundo, Yasuo, Swain etc. and people don't buy anti heal, lots of that sort of stuff. Full AP teams and nobody buys magic pen and the opposition side and stacking armour.
• I think bruisers who can pressure the map are best for carrying, something like a fed Hecarim, Tryndamere or Irelia.
• There are no good ADC's in the lower ranks, I know it's an unforgiving role and you have to lane with a stranger but if you can play it you should.
• I find mid laners are generally the better players on the team, junglers are really hit and miss, seen plenty of good ones, top lane is what I pick 2nd but it's a mystery to me strange people play top lane, I've seen some god like supports on Thresh and Pantheon lots of bots too. -Seeing way more 'off meta' picks that all have a zero percent win rate.

Ranty criticisms I have and why I'll probably not grind any more.

• The player base is angry, very angry! The most innocent of actions can set someone off at any moment and they will ruin the game from that point. A lot of the time the thing that made them explode never actually happened!
• I got placed in bronze and it took me 94 games to get gold, my kda is 4.17 but win rate is only 48%. At one point I had a 14 game loss streak over multiple sessions where maybe 2 of the games where winnable but the rest where auto loss.
• I'm not trying to say stats mean everything but the amount of games I'm 5-0 at 15 mins but the score is 5-20 and the enemy are about to take 3rd dragon and my top lane is still level 5. Maybe I'm just cursed but it's 1 in 5 games! Not just a bit behind, the other 4 players are miles behind and the win condition is 0% but it drags on for 30 mins.
• I've heard people say you auto win and lose 40/40 and the remaining 20 you can impact. I've found the game is way worse now for having someone throw by deliberately being an ass and doing the whole subtle losing on purpose thing, either by feeding a hypercarry horrendously when the other lanes have big leads or afk farming jungle and making the game 4v5 without actually leaving, or the split push into 3 for no reason even though they have vision and go from a score of 7-7, to 7-20 because someone politely asked them to group for an objective.
• As above, people really hate taking a free win, no idea why.
• My main frustration is I don't think ranks mean much at all, especially silver elo I'd go as far to say they're completely meaningless, I see lots of player ready to drop right into higher ranks but I also see people who would struggle against bots, I'm honestly not sure how they luck their way into not getting demoted. Probably a lot of players who can only play 1 role and 1 champion and when they get their 2nd they may as well not play at all and they've already decided the game outcome in champ select.
• I can grind to plat before season ends and I'm still the exact same player, playing the exact same way as the guy who was on a 14 game loss streak in bronze.
• I feel like the game is made to keep you engaged and grinding rather than be fair.