Picking Players After Draft Phase.

Hello Boyz and Girlz.

With the recent benching and swapping out of players in the LCS, mainly the swap of Bwipo and Rekkles I was thinking it is maybe a good idea to make some changes to the LCS rules. Beware that this is my own opinion. I would also like to hear your thoughts and opinions on it.

I thought it might be cool and better for the game to swap in and out players after the champions are selected. This will allow, in the example of Rekkles and Bwipo, that Rekkles would play when they have a Marksman in the teamcomp and that Bwipo would play when they use a bruiser Botlane.

This could also work in other lanes,-

One of the Midlaners from a team could be better at playing assassins and the other could be better at playing mages.

Or maybe you swap a Midlaner to support because he is better at playing mage supports.

Or you swap a tank player to the Midlane to play a tank mid for example, we have seen Sion mid before which could maybe be played better by a tank player.

Another example is in the jungle,-

you can have a player for tanks, a player for AD (assassins) champions and u could even have one for the AP Junglers.

Hell, it could even lead to having players on a team who are good on specific champions. For example, what we saw with Huni, he is then the one playing when Taliyah jungle is locked in.

So instead of having players based on lanes u will have players based on roles or champions.

Of course, if riot want to implement this change it is important to look at what are the advantages but also take a look at what problems might arise. Below is a summary of pros and cons:

Pros

-These new rules will bring more strategy and tactic to the draft phase: Right now, I hear that draft phase is boring and that always the same champions are being played. This rule change will hopefully spice things up a bit because you can then pick players based on the champions instead of the other way around.

-It will give more players the chance to play on lcs stage: I find it sad that substitute players aren’t used that much, while some of them are very good players. If you implement this new rule it will probably be more beneficial to swap out players allowing them also a change to play on the big stage.

-It will probably make fans of a team happier: Again, with the example of Rekkles. Now before the game you already know that he isn’t going to play, but now he is maybe going to play based on what champions get picked in the draft phase.

-one-tricks: like I said before maybe it can be beneficial to hire a one-trick player because a champion is so strong during current meta that hiring a one-trick is maybe worth it.

This is also job creation in a way. Good for economics and for making the eSports scene bigger and more reachable for players.

Problems that could possibly arise:

-The draft phase is probably going to take more time: it is going to take some time for teams to determine which players are going to play after they locked in the champions. But I think this is also going to create some hype. The viewers will speculate who is going to play based on the champions they see and be hyped to maybe see someone new play.

-The player names on the screen: Joining champion select you of course see the summoner names of the players accounts that joined champion select. And of course, players want to play under their own summoner name. This is also something that could arise during scrims when players are swapping, and then the enemy team doesn’t really know who they are even playing against. This is a more technical problem which I don’t know how to fix but I hope that some technical minds at riot could fix this issue.

-Teams get too big: What could happen is if you have enough money (paid by Steve) that teams would have a player for every champion. This is probably not going to be fun for the players and for the fans, but I think this is easily fixable by just putting a max number of players that are allowed to be substituted before going in to champ select. The organisations could then have more players but could only start a match with let’s say maybe 10 players (so 5 substitutes standby).

-Some players may not like it: Being able to play a lot of different champions is then maybe not a good attribute anymore. If riot implements this new rule, it is probably better for players to specialise more. But I think this is also a benefit for players because, they probably have to learn less champions per players which is probably a lot easier for them. And I think if the players specialise in less champions they will probably become more skilled in those champions which will create overall better gameplay for the viewers to watch.

I got this idea by looking at the FIFA World Cup and noticing that substitutes can be used very effective. And thinking that in League of Legends they don’t make great use of substitutes.

So, what do you guys think? Do you guys like it or dislike it? And why so? What do you guys think are other pros and cons?

Some other ideas that I thought of during the making of this post.

Also, by the way, what do you guys think about swapping players during the game, just like in other sports? Of course, this would need rules like: how many players can u swap? U of course need to pause the game to make the swap, do viewers like that? Do the players like that? Also the problems mentioned above would probably arise.

The coach would be the one deciding to swap in players. So, are the coach and substitute players allowed to watch the game backstage from both own team and enemy teams sides? Or only their own side? Probably only their own side now that I think of it. Which is also pretty cool cause this would allow for 2 different coaches one backstage and one during the game.

Oh, damn that is also pretty cool now that I think of it. What if 1 of the coaches is allowed to talk with the players during the game? He will of course see only their side of the game and then be allowed to make substitutes if he wants and also give tips on maybe item builds. The coach (or maybe one of the subs) could be the one keeping track of summoners spells and other timers which is also pretty cool, but it also leads to less skill being required by the players who are playing since they then don't need to keep that much track on timers anymore.

But maybe it is a cool thing to tryout. Maybe it is just a new skill that the coach or the subs should learn and of course when a main player is subbed out he also needs to have this skill.

Okay, now I am just rambling and typing my thoughts down which maybe is something for another time. It is probably better that if riot wants to implement one of these ideas, that they will do so 1 at the time and maybe go from there. Maybe then I can make a new reddit post with pros and cons for the other ideas I just mentioned in a more detailed post.

To conclude and TLDR.

I think it would be cool and better for the game if players are picked after the draft phase. Players are then in a team based on what roles or champions they play and not based on what lane they play.

This is my first big reddit post and English is not my main language, so I hope it was readable.

I look forward to reading your reactions,

Mace