Noun

Metastrategy ‎(plural metastrategies)

An overarching strategy determining which other strategies to use in a given situation.
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In the history of AH, the metastrategy was determined by two different playstyles, which I'll be referencing quite a bit.

High-G Strategy: Mashing the High-G button into a way that forces your opponent to back off, or drags them in to counter.

This strategy was very strong because you didn't need a lot of armor to use it, and it was very effective. Flares would be used to mitigate the first missile shot, then by the time the 2nd missile shot was aligned and ready, you would be countering on the opponent by then.

This strategy takes advantage of the DFM system and the way it handles the "DFM String" during combat, to where the two rules to countering an enemy would be bent, or even broken. Due to the way the game handles latency and client-side lag, a counter is possible even if the enemy is nowhere near the correct position they need to be in.

Missile damage was a top priority of this meta, as trying to kill people before they countered and baiting out flares became more apparent, the next strategy started to appear as the top level of players were finding out how to counter it, and a lot of theory crafting was done. The result was the next metastrategy.
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High-Speed Strategy/CircleJerking: Rather than using the decleration button/key, using the acceleration and massive top speeds attainable by certain planes to evade missiles and gunfire in a near-infinite loop.

This strategy was found after the High-G strategy was found due to a difference in playstyles, and because the missile guidance mechanics could be abusable if you flew a certain path.

By taking advantage of the massive speed generated by the F-22 Raptor, players found out how to evade gunfire and missiles by flying in certain paths and weaving a certain way that would throw off the missile tracking systems, with a combination of movements and raw speed.

This meta was found out, then used for an extremely long time by quite a few players, making them notorious for being nigh invincible to players that haven't honed their offensive capabilities.

It was eventually countered by the next meta I'll be covering, but the skillsets generated by this playstyle empasized heavy gunpower and much less reliance on missile splashing, as the missiles would very rarely hit.

Recently Circlejerking is seeing a very harsh decline, with a new strategy evolving because of it not working as well.

The top meta strategy revolves around top speed evasion, with counter pop-up surprising, making it very difficult to stay close and land damage.

As a player starts building up speed, missiles are easily able to catch them, but with the minimum missile evasion speed being 2400km/h, and some planes able to reach upwards of 3200km/h+! Players were able to find an even more effective strategy to work into their top speed maneuvering.

Via tricking your opponent into getting close at an opportune moment, you can lock them out of a counter-counter by abusing the DFM system and lag to counter off of their current screen, making it impossible to land any damage. The current strategy revolves around these counters, and landing counter-counter damage. Missiles will not work due to the maximum speed being over the minimum needed to evade. Guns will not work due to the opponent realizing you are getting close, or predicting so and pulling a locked-out counter counter.

The only way to land reliable damage is to have the opponent mess up their counter, or back off at the appropriate moment, which usually you can never guess, with lag and client-sided counters being a possibility.

Pop-up speed counter lockouts are the new metastrategy, which means gundamage is the highest priority of any high level player. With the lockout meta changes, you don't necessarily even need to run three or even two turn stacks, because you literally do not need them. You can stack even more armor and gunpower in order to completely shred opponents.

The High-G meta is making a comeback, but unfortunately with veterans being so hardened and seeing their opponent brake, it's very difficult for anything to counter the current meta.