Non meta teams are not by definition sub par, they do have a smaller range of succesful matchups, but some of those non meta teams can have specific matchups with meta teams where they can be very succesful. All in all, non meta teams are better in an offense role to win specific matchups, where as meta teams are stronger in a defense setting as they can ward off more asailants. This is also why you "see" more meta teams in space time in a defensive role, they also are better in "blind" matchups like arena and matsuri because of their wider range of positive matchups. An example would be in arena where you would queue up versus several Tenten/mabui teams, the correct response would be to use a team with things like Han, Masked man and Kisame, to disrupt the team's pattern. Chances are the Tenten/Mabui players will requeue and your non meta team will beat them quite handily.