[INTRO] James "Statikk" Bach - Champion Update Design Lead

Greetings friends,

I’m James Bach, but you guys probably better know me by “Statikk.” I studied Neuroscience and Computer Science during college, both of which I probably don’t utilize nearly enough. Ever since graduating 5 and a half years ago, I’ve had the privilege to work here at Riot on League. I started out in QA, eventually found myself in Design, led the Live Gameplay team for several years, and now I’m getting the opportunity to lead the Champion Update team.

To me, gaming isn’t just a hobby, it’s a lifestyle. I prefer games that allow you to deeply invest into them, and that ultimately reward you with awesome, memorable experiences when you do so. Some people would also say I really just like games with “phat loot,” which I really can’t deny. Before joining Riot, I played Call of Duty 1 and 2 competitively, dueled countless others in Diablo 2, and placed in the top 10 during LoL’s beta before release.

Outside of games, I am big into music and hip hop dance. I am also infamously overly invested into KPop.

WHAT AM I DOING AT RIOT? WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT NEXT YEAR? This year, I focused on doing some of the larger-scale reworks including Gangplank, Darius, Miss Fortune, and Corki (I know some of you already have your pitchforks out - sorry!). Going into the next year, I’ll be stepping into a leadership role on the Champion Update team, helping set the vision for which champions we work on and helping guide the designers on the team to ensure that we consistently deliver faithful reworks that don’t just simply change a champion, but rather enhance who they are.

Outside of individual champions, the Champion Update team has also done a lot of work to better identify and categorize the classes of champions that actually exist in LoL. As League and our shared understand of the game has matured, the generic vocabulary and concepts we used have (until recently) somehow stayed exactly the same (“Fighter,” “Mage,” etc.). Terms like the “Juggernaut” originate from the team’s analysis across the entire roster of champions, and we’re looking to continue to expand upon these class definitions in the coming year.

WHAT AM I GOING TO TALK ABOUT? I will largely be focusing on each of the individual reworks we've recently released and the ones we plan to release in the coming year. Specifically, we want to continue to give you guys more insight into who we’re working on, why we’re working on them, and where we think we succeeded and failed on each project after they’ve had time to breathe on the live servers. You may also see posts from me talking a bit more in-depth about our updated perspectives on the champion classes as we continue to define and explore our roster.

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO HEAR FROM ME? This is definitely an open question that I’d be interested to know about. I’ve experienced a ton of League as it has evolved over its history, so I feel I can provide pretty broad insights about the game as a whole. Hopefully you guys give me easy questions, but you probably won't. =/