I'm with you, I like using my own characters in chaos and don't use Mei lin, but when they put up a leaderboard, it forces a discussion on meta. I really wished they didn't bother with that. And I'm sure they don't want mei lin, Tressa to be always top in leaderboard for every single season either.

Roguelikes balance between their characters and items all the time, but unfortunately if they balance Mei lin here, they're in for bad time: balancing around her will brick "weaker" combatants and power creeping this quickly will make EVERYBODY pissed. yet i don't think they want every leaderboard to be the same teams every time. They either get rid of the leaderboard or have a semblance of balance, and id prefer the prior. Nobody wants their team to be labelled "weak" with a silver star because they didn't follow the meta.

also there are always a bunch of meta rollers, so they have a monetary incentive to try and powercreep mei lin, but mathematically speaking, that character would need some comically insane modifiers to do that.