Why not 2 mid?

I've been thinking about this. Why is the basic strategy to have 2 in the sidelanes and only 1 in mid?

if the mid wants to gank a side-lane, it leaves the mid completely unguarded. If we ran a game with 2 mid, 1 left, 2 right, then whenever mid needs to leave to run a gank, it still leaves 1 in mid to defend.

Plus, it would speed up rotating in and out of team fights, since you have 2 gods always within striking distance of either lane. Currently, you may only have 1 god handy (the current mid). If things are going nuts in one side lane, you could rotate both mid gods over to either sidelane quickly.

How did the current 2-1-2 develop? Anyone tried a 1-2-2?

I would imagine that 2-1-2 is an idea that passed from previous MOBA's.

I've seen games where a team won because their team work was so great that they were switching lanes and ganking non-stop, even going 5v1 on mid within the first minute. Switching is a great strategy, but it requires a LOT of communication (which Skype can provide), and it will rarely be seen in random Conquest games.

Another thing that happened. Sometimes you get a little skank who refuses to released mid lane, which you might have called, so two people end up on mid. That is gank-central. We got ganked EVERY TWO MINUTES, and it was terrible. 1-2-2 or 2-2-1 is extremely difficult in that sense, that people will be more aware of what's going on and since you're in between two lanes, you're going to be ganked much more often.

This is why MIAs should be called. If you call them, then your midlane won't try to overextend. Unfortunately, this goes back to the communication issue, and in casual randoms, you won't always get people who communicate with you.

And yes, the 2-1-2 format is pretty much something that's been passed down since DotA, and hasn't really changed much. Although to be blunt, I see a logical fallacy in the idea of sending mages, who are the most fragile gods, down the solo mid lane. If it is so easy to gank, why place the squishiest gods there, sometimes ones who have no escape moves ( Ra, Ao Kuang, Anubis)? I believe the reason why mid gets ganked so much is not because it is easily accessible from other lanes, but because the common mid picks are so easy to kill! Think about it, if Loki goes about roaming and finds the mid is extended a bit, he's gonna kill the mid easily. Unless they built early armor, Loki would kill them in seconds by using his instagib combo.

I understand those mages have strong pushing power, but something else I've learned while playing SMITE is that almost any two gods can easily outpush one god, with a few exceptions (Vulcan and Ao Kuang come to mind). Furthermore, unlike LoL, players are actually punished with less gold+EXP when they're forced under a tower, which can easily kill any advantage one might've gotten by soloing the lane. For these reasons, I've always found the 1v1 mage mid meta to be highly questionable, and worth challenging.

Fallacy generally involves a verbal argument, but I see your point. The only mage I use on mid lane would be Poseidon, but when I mid I usually play Cupid. He has an escape and a self heal, plus his Ult can get him out of some pretty intense fights.

The 1v1 mage thing (I guess you could say ''Ad Populum'' and ''Appeal to Tradition'' fallacies work here) is certainly something that I've noticed doesn't always work. Sure, you get Gods like Agni who absolutely **** on mid lane, but you can also use Vamana, who for a tank can push exceedingly well. A mage doesn't need to go mid lane, the player just needs to have the skills necessary to keep the lane in check.

Loki is a horror for mid-lane, especially if he's NOT in mid-lane. A jungling Loki brings fear into the enemy because they don't know if he could gank, and the other lane might not know where he is. It allows for much easier pushing especially if Loki DOES gank. Now, if Loki is in middle lane, he'll most likely be sneaking off to another lane, in which case he can sneak up on his enemy in mid lane. Horrifying...

check out the games from BLG NA in the MyR monthly I casted this weekend.

They used this idea a couple of games very succesfuly

I played a game with a "jungling" Arachne earlier. They didn't exactly jungle, they instead pretty much duo'd mid lane grabbing a few buffs, so a tad extended mid laner. I assume this is what a duo mid would be like, always ganking and letting a good solo laner take control of the solo. I was soloing left as Sobek and almost outpushed the two, and whenever they overextended the Arachne was right on top of them with mid in very safe hands.

It could work. Plus, the fact that mid lane is the shorter lane, couldn't you get quicker tower kills, and earlier? More push added to the fact that it takes less push to get to the tower adds a bit.

But I suppose one of the main issues with this is that it makes it a 2v1 for the enemy and for you, so they could rotate to duo mid as well if it causes an issue, which means that you would be in an even worse position than duo side lanes due to mid being shorter than the rest as well. So if this idea gets wildly popular, it'll just be countered by the other team duo laning mid as well, which pretty much makes mid more of a stalemate than it normally is.