Chess "Metagames"?

Hey Team!

I play a lot of games that have "metagames". To see what I mean, consider two examples. One example is team-based shooters. Sometimes, the "metagame" refers to the current winningest composition of team characters, weapons, etc. (Maybe this "healer" is really prevalent because not a lot of people are playing characters that can easily counter him). Another example is competitive TCGS. Here, the "metagame" refers to which decks/cards are especially good given the other decks/cards that are seeing play in that environment.

So, if you want to pick a deck for a TCG or pick a team composition (a certain set of characters) for a TCG shooter, you make informed judgments based on the strategies that everyone else is employing in the competitive environment.

Is there a similar metagame in chess?

Ex: If you are prepping for a tournament, do you note that it seems like a lot of people in the tourney favor certain lines/openings/attacks/etc. and then spend time either trying to master those yourself or trying to figure out how to play around them?

Just curious!

Not in the same way, but the closest to metagames in chess is probably chess "mainline" openings. These are chess opening variations which have a lot of opening theory to study and usually have stood the test of time as many players have studied these lines enough to name the variation (and some of these mainlines are literally centuries old!). 

Most of these mainlines follow chess opening principles, so they are also usually good choices for beginners too: https://www.chess.com/blog/KeSetoKaiba/opening-principles-again 

On a similar topic, if you would like to see a collection of mainlines and how opening types are labeled in the name (with examples), then you can check out this 45-ish minute YouTube video I made. I recognize that 45 minutes is a bit long, but I've never seen anyone else try to identify opening types like this, so categorizing them in this way is sort of a new thing (although ECO codes similarly label opening variations, they do not include everything and they do not try to explain the opening "name" itself.

@1

"Is there a similar metagame in chess?"
++Yes, there is.
Scotch was almost never played until Kasparov played it and many followed.
Berlin was almost never played until Kramnik played it and many followed.
Sveshnikov and Catalan got a boost after Carlsen played them.

True, but I feel like you might be confusing "meta" like in TCG with "popularity" such as which chess openings are more common at a given point in time. 

Chess openings go through fads and fluctuations in popularity as certain players advocate specific lines and new refutations are discovered.

However, when @Shoebaccha refers to "meta" in the context of chess, I think they are referring to which openings are "top-tier" and which ones are the "best" to use competitively. 

In chess, there isn't really a "best" in practical play since many openings are solid and it then comes down to playstyle and what you've studied/are comfortable playing. However, chess mainline openings seem to be solid and stand the test of time and this is what I believe they are trying to get at. 

p.s. this is my interpretation of what they are asking, but perhaps I am mistaken; we'll just have to see what they say as they clarify what they meant to say

@4

"confusing meta like in TCG with popularity"
++ Say you are playing a 9 round over the board tournament, what can you expect? Assume you get 4 white and 5 black.
Before the last world championship match Carlsen-Nepomniachtchi: 0 Catalan. After: 1-2 Catalan.
There are also regional metagames: when the local top player plays e.g. the Nimzovich-Larsen opening 1 b3, then expect many to follow that example.
Also some publications have influence. Prior to some article about it no 1 e4 c6 2 d4 d5 3 Nc3 dxe4 4 Nxe4 Nf6 5 Nxf6+ exf6. After: at least 1.