an overview of the latest developments in the meta of modern marathon discourse

helloo, maraclowns, steamchuds, blasthavers, shitposters and everyone else who may call this community their home! 👋☺️

today, i want to talk about the latest developments in the meta of marathon discourse. 🐸

due to the *"current situation"* over on the steam charts, hating on marathon is clearly the most op and common strategy out there right now, while simultaneously being very easy to pilot. as a result, we're not going to focus on it today. you'll be fine, haters 😌

but don't worry, maracucks and copium-breathers! you don't have to give up! 🗣️

new strategies have emerged lately and some old ones have resurfaced, so there's a lot to talk about. let's take a look! 👀

here they are, presented in order of overall recommendations, from highest to lowest:

**"THE SEASON 3 COPE"**

this is the big one. bleeding edge technology is still being developed at this very moment. it has a ton of room for creativity and greatly rewards the free thinkers. the goal is to argue that season 3 will fix everything, *somehow*. go nuts! 🤪

the most effective branch we've seen of this one so far has been *"vault breaker was an experiment"*, where you run defence and offense simultaneously, by arguing that Bungie never *intended* for the "experiment" to reel in players, but rather to *improve season 3.* 😂

moving on, we have:

**"MARATHON IS THE VICTIM OF A HATE CAMPAIGN"**

a classic. we all know and love it. there's a reason why it hasn't ever really left the top of the meta, but it has a big (often overlooked) problem. it's lacking in offense; there's no cope for the future built into it. 🫪

therefore, using this one on its own is the same as giving up; it's an insta-loss. on the other hand, it can commpletely cover your defence on its own and be a super effective tool, if paired with something that can complement it! 🛐

**"IT'S A NICHE, HARCORE GAME"**

this one is essentially saying *"everything's fine"*. it's extremely hard to pull off, mainly becuase you're going to have to deal with the 250 million number somehow (most commonly done by skirting around it) 😶

often, you're also going to run into comparisons to the player counts of other niche, hardcore games, which is also a *big* problem. you're going to have to get creative, use other techniques or dodge it completely 😐

if you can manage all of that, somehow, it can be decent, but it doesn't really stand on its own legs. it's a high risk, low reward technique. 😬

**in conclusion**

those seem to be the main, somewhat useable techniques for the copemaxxers at the moment (damn, it's getting rough out there). i have some more honorable mentions, but this shit is getting long and i have places to be (Tau Ceti IV) 😉

let's keep an eye on the meta! i'll probably do a follow-up when (if) season 3 hits 🕴️

take care, gamers! i'll see you around! 🐸

*(all of these techniques have been seen and analyzed in action, out in the wild. in other words, they're tried and true and they won't let you down, if you just stick to the game plan! 🛐)*