What Determines the Meta
The meta in Smite is usually born out of the competitive scene, starting in scrims, then being shown in competitive games, and then generally trickling into the highest level of ranked down to the lower ranks. Meta can mean a few different things, but primarily comes down to a mix of "the best way to play the game" and "which characters are the best to play".
The god pick meta is also defined by a few other factors:
Who's the most over-tuned gods and what's the most overtuned items currently?
What counters those gods and items?
What synergizes with those gods, items, and their counters?
On top of those three things, especially in competitive play, role flexibility plays a large factor because it can make a draft unpredictable for the opponent.
We can generally determine which gods are "meta" early on in competitive from a mix of their pick rate, ban rate, win rate, and the eye test to determine why the pick/ban/win rates are what they are.
What is the best way to play the game?
If we're going to base our meta off of competitive play, most notably the Founders Series, 24/7 Open Tournament, and amateur tournaments like SmitePrime, the current best way to play is picking gods that are effective at fighting on and invading enemy camps with Sunder at the beginning of the game, going for early Queen Naga, Gold Fury, and Fire Giants, and trying to end the game before the team playing from behind can reach build and level parity.
Who's/What's Overtuned?
Currently, the most overtuned gods are generally believed to be Bacchus and Susano. We can see this in their 20% ban rates during the Founders Series, and in my experience casting games that weren't on the official broadcast, they were often banned or top picked. Both of these god's also have that aforementioned role flexibility as well, Bacchus being strong in both support and solo, and Susano being primarily strong in jungle but also viable in solo and mid.
A certain god that also had a 20% ban rate seems to be missing there... that would be Jing Wei. Jing Wei's strength doesn't necessarily come from her numbers being insanely over-tuned (however, they are a bit too high), but from her strength using Crit items, which are very strong in carry and mid right now. These items do lots of damage even to tanks, and are notably the fastest way to take down towers for their bounties and shredding those early Queen Nagas, Gold Furies, and Fire Giants. Behind Jing Wei, you have Sol who also utilizes crit very well on top of a hyper aggressive playstyle from Carry or Mid, and sometimes you will even see these two picks go to the Chaos teams top 2 picks to do that objective shred but also counter that top god in Bacchus, who can be weak to being shredded down by a team that's playing with two carries instead of a traditional mid-lane burst mage.
Speaking of traditional mid-lane burst mages, we can't talk about overtuned items without bringing up the combination of Transcendence and Book of Thoth (and usually Soul Reaver alongside them). We often saw Neith being played in mid (even moreso than Sol), and sometimes in Carry because she utilizes this build so well. Another god that utilizes this well saw lots of play in Carry when Jing Wei or Sol were banned, and that's Cernunnos. Specifically in mid, Kukulkan also likes the combo due to his passive gaining power from mana, which means he sees decent amounts of play and success.
Outside of those two roles, gods like Mordred, Loki , and Chaac utilize this build in both Jungle and Solo lane, however none of these were the top tier of gods in either role despite high play rate (Loki and Chaac) or high win rate (Mordred), falling behind the aforementioned Susano and Bacchus... and some other gods that has very good role flexibility and counters both of those top tier characters.
What Counters those?
Fenrir. If there was ever a god that said "I have role flexibility and I'm here to counter the top god", it's Fenrir. He's been a top pick in Support, Jungle, and Solo in Smite 2, and his playstyle is largely the same as it was in Smite 1: Either burn actives off of backliners (or carry them to their death if they don't have beads) or grab an enemy tank with ult, and make sure they die (that's you Bacchus). Remember Susano? He usually likes to go Blink as his relic, which means he has no CC immunity to escape from Ragnarok if Fenrir can catch him in the bite. This on top of having very respectable base stats made Fenrir a top pick and gave him the highest win rate during the first weekend of the Founder's Series (74.4%).
There's another thing that counters Susano as well... walls. A lot of Susano's strength comes in his ability to move around fights, either disengaging from fights and quickly making distance and engaging fights and quickly closing distance. Susano's issue is that his two movement abilities are a dash and a thrown teleport that doesn't go through walls unless he hits an enemy with it. This made two of the top frontliners Odin and Ymir, both legendary wall character, Odin with the cage on his AO4 and Ymir with the Ice Wall on his AO1. Both of these character also have very respectable CC and damage in their kits for frontliners, although Odin is a bit safer because of his shield and leap, making him less susceptible to that scary Fenrir Ragnarok. It's worth mentioning that these walls would normally be countered by Shell, but almost nobody is building that relic over Blink or Sunder, and when up against Blink, they are very strong at forcing it, which means those character's can't use it as an engage tool. These walls are also very good at locking down gods without leaps that are higher up in the meta like Sol and Cernunnos as well.
Ares deserves somewhat of an honorable mention here as well, as the cripple on his chains can counter a lot of these frontliners like Bacchus, Susano, Fenrir, Neith and Odin along with his No Escape ultimate being very prevalent due to the lack of Beads in most people's relic slots.
So what are we missing?
Hecate. She's one of the top mid-laners right now and doesn't utilize either OP build path (Crit or the Transcendence/Book of Thoth combo). She also doesn't necessarily hard counter any of the current meta gods either like Fenrir or Odin. She doesn't seem to have severely overtuned numbers currently either. Hecate seems to have the potential of holding the meta hostage similar to Smite 1's Yemoja. Her high skill-level utility through most of her abilities, and especially her AO4 are going to be extremely difficult to balance the game around. An important thing to note though: Taking up that mid lane spot in Smite 1 with her more utility based kit would mean giving up secure on objectives, but the prevalence and strength of Sunder in Smite 2 largely removes that drawback.
Thanatos has seen very mixed success in competitive so far. I think this god fits a similar role that he did in Smite 1, where if he really gets rolling, he can hypercarry the game from the Jungle. Top level hypercarries on top level teams such as Adapting and Dzoni will perform very well with this god, but lower level junglers or lower level teams will struggle to find the same success.
Zeus has seen decent success with a few... interesting builds, but sample size so far is too small on any one role or playstyle to make an accurate assessment. He is very strong around objective play with Lightning Storm (AO4), but is still weak to all in dive, which the top meta gods like Susano, Bacchus, and Fenrir like to do, and to walls, from gods like Odin or Ymir.
Anhur would seem strong in a meta so focused on early pressure and objective play, but's just outshined by Sol in carry early game and by Cernunnos and Jing Wei late game. Not to mention the top support starter, Selflessness, really hampers his Impale combo damage.
Athena: The speed at which teams are grouping up (sometimes before the beginning of the match, and oftentimes definitely by 5 minutes), and the existence of teleporters has really hampered the effectiveness of Athena's ultimate (AO4). Athena is also strong when she can set up for large mage abilities like Kukulkan with her Taunt (AO2), but the current meta mid-laners are not those style of gods. She's soft-countered to a degree by the prevalence of walls in the game (Odin and Ymir) and her damage is also fairly lackluster compared to other supports such as Ares, Bacchus, and Ymir.
Hades, Anubis: These gods struggle to find a role they're good at despite being somewhat flexible. They take too long to scale when coming out of the jungle. Neither are good mid-laners because their early clear is quite dangerous, and it's always a distinct possibility that a high burst assassin is waiting by mid-lane at level 1, and neither of these gods can play from behind. And when it comes to solo, the Intelligence/defense hybrid options are somewhat limited, not to mention how easily accessible anti-heal is to be built and both are hard-countered by Odin cage's antiheal. Hades has seen some success in solo because of how oppressive his early pressure and sustain can be in the lane, while Anubis has not seen that type of playstyle work in the same way.
Bellona just struggles with itemization currently, and the disarm doesn't counter the double-AA comps well enough to make up for it. It's seen some success in solo, but that was usually down to a major skill difference between the teams that were playing early on in tournaments.
The Morrigan is very strong in ranked currently due to a bug with her passive proccing crits at an absurd rate, allowing her to melt objectives, but building crit on her is currently banned in competitive. She's also rarely seen play at the competitive level, so I don't actually have any idea where she would fall into this meta.
TLDR
The meta is currently defined by the sunder relic, early invading, quick grouping, and super early objective pulls. On top of that, there are a few gods and/or item combos who's numbers are overtuned, dragging them to the top of the meta, and the counters to those gods right along with them. Competitive teams often like to prioritize gods with high role flexibility near the top of their drafts.
Top Tier (bans or first picks)
Bacchus - overtuned, role flexibility
Susano - overtuned, role flexibility
Fenrir - role flexibility, counterplay
Jing Wei - overtuned, itemization
Secondary Tier (first pick potential, likely top 2 on Chaos side)
Sol - itemization, role flexibility
Neith - itemization, role flexibility
Hecate - utility, downsides minimized due to Sunder prevelance
Odin - counterplay, role flexibility
Tertiary Tier (played in a lot of games... or should be)
Ymir - counterplay, role flexibility
Cernunnos - itemization, role flexibility
Mordred - itemization, role flexibility
Picks that are either outshined or are niche (definitely see play, but maybe shouldn't sometimes Loki)
Ares - counterplay but lower prio than Ymir or Odin
Chaac - itemization is good, but is countered a bit by Odin who can be seen in most games
Thanatos - hyper-carry potential
Loki - itemization is good late, but jungle needs to be early aggressive
Kukulkan - itemization is good but isn't Hecate or Neith
Zeus - can be really good but is countered by a lot of the higher tier picks
Outshined (Don't see a lot of play and deservedly so)
Anhur - outshined by too many other characters in the same role
Hades - struggles due to counterplay
Bellona - itemization is poor
Athena - undertuned damage, doesn't fit the current playstyle great
Just plain bad (Do not play this)
Unlisted (Just not enough data)
As you can see, despite the small god pool currently available, there's quite an in-depth logic and strategy behind each pick and ban that teams are currently using in the meta right now.
